[Spoilers] Biggus Decius and the Sucking Vampires (Bobchillingworth / Calabim)

[DaveV]

I thought the spell was just a one-time bonus for all existent units, though? And that it doesn't wear off

5% chance per turn to wear off. And yes, it does apply only to units that are alive when the spell is cast. All the more reason to make him use it before he's ready.

I think it's probably a good idea to go to war against Iskender before he declares war on us. That city he's about to plant is in a pretty agressive spot, and looks an awful lot like a forward staging point. His whole tone reminds me of some movie gangster - ostensibly polite, but with threats lurking behind, and completely fixated on his own agenda. Maybe if you can bloody his nose he'll back off.

[DaveV]

TI can't spam too many troops though, as I'm already paying a lot of military support and that's with most guys still within my borders. I'm slotting in a few markets into my build ques to help make up for it.

It's better to crash your economy than lose the war. You should be able to raise some cash via pillaging (putting your Raiders trait to use!), but it would be catastrophic to have your army wiped out because you skimped on units.

[Bobchillingworth]

Time to make another update in preparation for the civ hand-off & war.


The following screenshots are slightly outdated (from turns 107 and 108, game is on 110 right now), but not a lot has changed.



Here's my projected attack path:




And a couple turns-old screen capture of the Hippus garrison (he hasn't added anything since I took it):





He keeps moving the adventurer out of the city and then back in- I think he's worried about my trying to snipe it with the scout I have roaming outside his territory (a very well-founded fear). The attack plan is pretty basic- advance a big stack of bloodpets to the city by the quickest possible route, attack the city, and then raze or keep it depending on conditions on the ground (surviving troops, Hippus / our reinforcements, etc.) Three out of our four cities can build a bloodpet a turn, so keeping a steady supply of troops headed to the front shouldn't be an issue. Don't worry too much about him having a couple of shock warriors on the defense- we have two CI, Shock bloodpets of our own, along with one who is CIII, Shock and another that's CIII, Shock II. Plus ours all have copper weapons


Important: Make sure you take two workers with the bloodpets to road into Hippus lands as we attack, so that our subsequent waves can make best use of the commando promotion. Also I'd have at least one scout joining each bloodpet stack- they're useless vs. cities, but they can snipe workers, kill distant wounded units, and they force Iskender to always keep at least a token garrison in his backline cities.


Construction arrives in eight turns, as of today. After the first Hippus city is taken / razed, you'll probably want to advance in order to choke / pillage, but will likely require some catapults to make any further real progress. Also, can Horsemen flank away siege? Since the Hippus palace always provides horses, Iskender will be able to produce these until his civ is destroyed. Something to watch out for, although bloodpets can kill them at even odds in the field and are more hammer-efficient.



Some more images, of demographics and the power charts:








Again, a few turns out of date, but not much has changed besides our steady power increase. Both PB and Selrahc are doing quite well right now, aided in part due to them both having free golden ages (that's why PB's demographics are so scary in the screen cap).

Since FFH doesn't have a win condition for technological progress I'm really not terribly worried. The Kuriotates are the worst civ ever for military, since they can only have four units produced at most a turn (and that would entail them cutting off all economic production), and I think PB can be easily crippled before he gets to a culture win. If his defenses are somehow impenetrable, just encourage Sareln to summon Hyborem, switch over to playing the Infernals, use the Infernal Grimore to get Malevolent designs for free, and Whisper away whatever PB's best culture city is.

As for the Illians, Selrahc's land is pretty mediocre and I think we're pretty low on each other's target lists, being the two most militarily powerful teams with little to gain to destroying our armies against each other.



One more picture, of Eel the Hero Scout, who avoided Many Bears to reach PB, and now founds himself sadly Trapped:




I've half-jokingly asked PB a couple times now if I could get temporary OB to escape through his land, but he has thus far refused. I'm sorely tempted to just declare war on him and explore that dungeon before he kills my scout, but I guess that might make him angry and I don't want to stick you with two wars. If you actually want to do it though, you have my full approval & blessings =)


Speaking of which- Dave, since you'll end up having to be the one who declares war and personally moves the troops (I'll try to be around to assist in tactics / advice / diplo, but you'll obviously have the main burden), you can still back out of the Hippus War if you want to. I personally would strongly recommend against peace right now though. I think we're very well positioned to do a lot of damage to the Hippus, if not outright eliminate him. In even the worst case I think we can at least cripple his growth and force him to waste that worldspell. We have a tech advantage over him, a production advantage, and an ally advantage. I feel that the Hippus are simply too dangerous to allow to grow and tech unmolested, especially with that damned hero unit.


If you want to offer Iskender an "out" after we declare but before any bloodshed occurs, I think the minimum conditions need to be that he gifts us his latest city, promises to never use that adventurer (or whatever he upgrades it to) against us in any offensive war, signs an NAP, and agrees to trade us that air mana (which he really doesn't need anyway).


Good luck!

[Bobchillingworth]

Chatted briefly with PB. He's being nice and allowing my scout to leave via his lands if I follow certain steps, listed as follows:


[Each number represents a turn, starting with T110]

1) S-S
2) SW-SE
3)SE (hill)
4)S (desert)
5)SE-SE


I might get through a couple of the these myself depending on how many turns I get from Cull before I move, I doubt more than two.

[DaveV]

Bob - nice scouting, and good information . A couple more questions that weren't covered: how many cities does Iskender have, and what are his civics?

Also, can Horsemen flank away siege?

No. I was pretty sure they can't, and I just double-checked the XML to confirm.

If you want to offer Iskender an "out" after we declare but before any bloodshed occurs, I think the minimum conditions need to be that he gifts us his latest city, promises to never use that adventurer (or whatever he upgrades it to) against us in any offensive war, signs an NAP, and agrees to trade us that air mana (which he really doesn't need anyway).

I had been thinking along similar lines. It's probably better just to aim for elimination, though: I don't think I'd ever really trust him.

[DaveV]

... and it seems to me that you're telegraphing your attack by roading a tile outside your borders. Is Iskender roading the tile to the 9 of Feiss Mabdon? Did you guys agree to connect a road for trading purposes?

[Bobchillingworth]

I believe that Iskender has the same number of cities as I do, counting his latest.


He... he can't actually see those workers, right? Ugh, as my play in PBEM 3 has no doubt amply demonstrated, I have no idea how the vision rules work. Ah well, I think he's probably on alert from my scout buzzing his land anyway, just withdraw the workers next turn. The attack should be launched in a couple more turns, so he can't really do anything about it even if he knows now.

[Dantski]

vision for tiles in your cultural borders assumes you have a unit on that tile

[DaveV]

First off, here's the info page from the foreign advisor:



Some interesting stuff there. Selrahc is in Pacifism, so he must be trying to generate great people. Iskender is running aristograriansm, so I probably won't find any cottages to pillage .

On to the game:



Iskender has several scouts prowling our borders. Once he pops his worldspell, these become 3-move, 3 strength units that can threaten our workers. They can't pillage, though, and are worthless for attacking cities, so I think he could have spent his shields better. By the way, the tile marked "staging tile" would be visible to his scout if he moves it to the east.

The workers were kind of stranded. I didn't want to move them forward and expose them to capture, so I chopped the forest for a whopping 4 hammers. Next turn, both stacks move forward; the following turn, the workers can road, then all the bloodpets can move adjacent to the city. If he has a bunch of defenders, I'll just keep roading and pillage his core. It's probably an advantage to leave his cities and units in place, so his economy crashes and his units go on strike that much sooner.

[Square Leg]

So how many bloodpets are there?