[SPOILERS] Emissaries from the blighted lands; Mardoc and Jkaen take on the world!

[Mist]

And...I'm only mostly sure of this, it probably deserves a worldbuilder test (or Mist popping in to explain), but I think we can improve those Fields of Perdition/Obsidian plains tiles. For instance to turn them into 6 food tiles by farming them . Or shortly to plant a cottage on them and turn them into commerce monsters.

Yes, they can be improved exactly the same way floodplains can. So farming, cottaging, whatever. Take your pick. You just can't sanctify/vitalise them And they don't give bonus commerce to Malakim.

[Mardoc]

Yes, they can be improved exactly the same way floodplains can. So farming, cottaging, whatever. Take your pick. You just can't sanctify/vitalise them And they don't give bonus commerce to Malakim.

Thanks!

So, Jkaen, we should definitely improve these as a priority!

[Mardoc]

Really nothing happened T10. Which is good, because that's one step closer to all our goals without seen any Clan yet . I'm debating between a 4th Bloodpet and starting on something longer term, like my Breeding Pit. Right now, I'm coming down on the side of the Breeding Pit, mostly because I know I can manage 2T Bloodpets now, so can react to an emergency at a decent rate.

I'll probably plant Bloodpet #3 in your city, since that's where we're most exposed.

[Jkaen]

Probably a good idea, I am a bit off building any troops atm

[Jkaen]

Well, I was about to post that nothing interesting happened this turn, then borders popped at the end of the turn



Think you need to keep churning out troops, we may be in trouble here!

[Mardoc]

Well, I was about to post that nothing interesting happened this turn, then borders popped at the end of the turn

Think you need to keep churning out troops, we may be in trouble here!

Is that one or two? I will definitely plan on churning out bloodpets, but I think you should probably swap from the Hunting lodge and add in some warriors as well. If it's only one archer, I expect we can swarm it under without too much trouble; if it's a stack of two it'll be a lot harder.

[Jkaen]

Sorry, I should have higlighted them, its 2 archers. Will switch production, but only saw them after hitting end turn

[Mardoc]

Ok, had a chat with Jkaen, here's the highlights.

• No more diversion for Hunting Lodge/Breeding Pit, it'll be warriors/bloodpets all the way.
  
• We need approximately 5 warriors per archer to have good odds of killing not wounding, assuming it's a Str 6, combat I, on 25% defensive terrain, 1 first strike. We don't want to attack with less, not when promotions are so valuable.
  
• If we were to try to do it with Hunters, we'd need ~3 Hunters/archer, which ends up costing us a lot more hammers
  
• They probably can't seriously threaten us though, with only Str 4 on offense.
  
• However, the choke will be nasty. I'll be moving at least one bloodpet to guard Arwen'el, but other than that we may have to accept lower production.
  
• I don't think it's worth swapping research again for Bronze, we ought to be able to resolve this before we get there, and hooking up Bronze with archers around will be a pain in any event.
  

Also something not discussed, that occurs to me now. The turn order is Jkaen-Darrell (clan) - Me. Therefore when it's time to attack, I should lead the way, so that Jkaen can finish off anything I leave alive before Darrell has a chance to promote.

[Jkaen]

Interesting timing, darrel (clan) is on holiday, alas cant see this making much difference to their approach

[Mardoc]

Well, there's bits and pieces of good news. The first is that darrell has a sense of humor:


And, importantly to go with it, something I had forgotten - Jonas is *not* Aggressive. These archers haven't had a chance to kill anything yet, either. If we can keep it that way, we've got much better odds for chasing them away or killing them.

That said - not only do you need to swap to a warrior next turn, you really ought to go max hammers as well. A single archer has poor odds against a single warrior (about 25%), but he would wound him enough to probably let archer 2 clean up. I don't want to play this alone! My Bloodpet can't reach Ying before the archers, either.

But, you can make it to a 2nd warrior, enough to likely prevent them from risking it, if you work both mines; that would give you 6 hammers/turn until the archer stands on the grass mine, then still at least 4 per turn to finish the second warrior.

The second piece of good news is that these archers are clearly a drag on the Clan economy, although it appears the Khazad are doing fine.



And the third, vital piece of good news: I found a hut!
I'm debating - if the bear stays put, do I pop it anyway?