Burning Down the House [Mr. Cairo Spoilers]

[Mr. Cairo]

Some clarifications (I think) on the spells you listed:
- I think Nature 2 only gives the "Poisoned Blade" promotion to Recon units, not to everything.
- Light 2 theoretically freezes units for two turns, but in an MP game of EitB, I think it's de facto one turn:  The counter ticks down at the beginning of the victim's player's turn (if I remember correctly...) so if I'm right, first you cast it and it shows "2 turns" then their turn starts and it says "1 turn" and the unit(s) can't move.  Then it's your turn and it shows "1 turn" but it ticks down to zero again before their turn starts, so they get to move again.
- You are correct that fireballs can kill but can't take cities.  Also they can't capture workers or settlers (merely killing them).

Thanks for the great reporting lately!

Ah, thanks for the info. Poisoned Blade isn't very useful therefore, I'm not planning on building a bunch of Hunters any time soon. That's too bad about Light 2, but it's still pretty effective, and ideally it can be cast the next turn. If I have 2 or 3 Witches casting it it should still freeze most of the stack. Letting my PZs hit it

I'll start bombarding with Fireballs next turn, now that I've got enough that can take Fire 2 and can give Mobility to some of my PZs so I don't leave the city too vulnerable to counterattack by all his 2+ movers. Although, a bunch (~24) of the Warriors that were sitting there have gone, and I haven't been looking too closely, but I think it's all the ones with Mobility. Still leaves a bunch more, but I won't be able to know what's happening over there until my sacrificial scouts turns up and can run into his territory.

He's also gotten to Way of the Forests, and has build a couple of Temple of Leaves in his cities. Fawns would be annoying, but they're so expensive, I can't imagine him getting enough of them to make a difference.

Also, I've just realised something. Right now, if you look at the most recent screenshot I posted, there's a desert on the diagonal from my city towards Dave's cap. It's really annoying in preventing me from getting deep into Dave's territory from that city. But, some of my Witches have Water 1. Which gives a spell called Spring. Which can turn a desert into a plains. With that I can get a stack of 2-move units (via Mobility on the PZs and Haste on everything else, including Elephants) deeper into his territory than he thinks I might, and use Sun 2 to keep them all in place while I demolish them.



This is going to be fun, I hope. It all depends on where he's keeping his units, which I should be able to find out next turn with a scout. If they're close enough to my territory, I'll soon be able to get in there and cripple Dave's army. At that point I might well think about taking his cities, not just burning them. Although my economy is doing terribly again.

[Mr. Cairo]

Mack, couldn't you have waited 1 more turn for me to attack Dave? I was about to go in.

Oh well, very impressive by mack. I had no idea it was even possible, I'm continuously getting surprised in this mad, it's so much fun. 5-Move commando shadowriders taking all my cities and Devouts killing my PZs with the Life 2 spell, and to top it off, Bob fires his WS (a turn too late if you ask me) and my few surviving Witches can't do anything. Most of my stack was killed or frozen. That must have been a very fun turn to play for mack.

Me saying I concede means very little since I'm about to die anyway, but yeah, if Bob wants to fight it out while his WS is active, good luck to him.

GG WP mackoti.

[Mr. Cairo]

Takeaways from this, my third EitB PBEM.

1: Toroidal maintenance is absolutely brutal if not taken care of early (ie: with City-States or not building a huge army)
2: If you're going to rush, try to actually be close enough to your neighbors to rush.
3: Magic is a lot of fun, let's try and do more of it next game.

[mackoti]

Takeaways from this, my third EitB PBEM.

1: Toroidal maintenance is absolutely brutal if not taken care of early (ie: with City-States or not building a huge army)
2: If you're going to rush, try to actually be close enough to your neighbors to rush.
3: Magic is a lot of fun, let's try and do more of it next game.

Yes everithing beside CS is wrong,and getting military state was a must.
I think me getting org was huge as the savings make the diference for me to can tech.

I realy like how you developed your land but i think not going for miliatry state was a huge mistake. I bet you payed over 100 gold for units ...

[DaveV]

I was wrong, or Dave was lucky, or both.

After the game, when you read this Dave, perhaps you could tell me if you did get lucky wins. My testing, although far from perfect, suggested I should have survived quite a few more attacks from unpromoted Warriors. Perhaps I underestimated how much effect being damaged had. In fact, I think that's almost certainly where I went wrong.

I had some lucky rolls, winning a couple 30% attacks. I also lost a few, so it evens out.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yes everithing beside CS is wrong,and getting military state was a must.
I think me getting org was huge as the savings make the diference for me to can tech.

I realy like how you developed your land but i think not going for miliatry state was a huge mistake. I bet you payed over 100 gold for units ...

My biggest mistake was obstinately sticking with Aristocracy and not realizing early on I needed to be laying cottages and running CS. I'd have attacked you with Wizards back when Auro was still alive if I had actually been able to afford upgrading my pile of 30 or so Adepts.

[Mr. Cairo]

Hmm, I hadn't thought of Military State. I could have gotten to it before you attacked, but it was too late by then. My economy crashed so hard when I first attacked Dave there was no way I was going to recover. I needed to take his cap the first time, even though I knew I couldn't hold it, just for capture gold to keep my units from going on strike, it was that bad.