Hiding Doctor Yellow Mist: 4 heads, one body

[Yell0w]

I'll play my turns if I must, though I don't have a lot of fun with this game anymore. If you still have fun and would like to play I'd bow out at this point.

[HidingKneel]

Turn 201 (next one is my last; somebody get ready to take turn 203):

The stack we have left in Luchuirp territory isn't going to cut it anymore. I've retreated it onto a ship which I'll send in the direction of the mainland. Our Eidolon has enough xp to get Birgit for us, if the next Perpentach thinks of that.

One of my three raiding parties conquered two Amurite cities this turn. Razed one, kept the other. The other raiding parties I needed to pull back, because the Avatar of Wrath showed up on our border this turn with 4 Iras. Meshabber is the only unit we have that stands a chance, so I'm rushing him to the scene. I could only get 4 defenders in that city (and even there, I needed to cash-rush a swordsman), so it might fall between turns.

Bambur died between turns. The Amurites are looking mighty weak right now. I'll do a proper update with pictures next turn.

[HidingKneel]

Alright! I'm done, next turn is someone else.

I will say that Mardoc was right, this turnset was very fun. Also: it was like that when I got here. Honest .

Turn 202:

New traits!



Industrious is useless at this point (we already have Forges everywhere thanks to the Guild of Hammers, and all the good wonders have already been built). Arcane is so-so. Raiders is awesome: great time to rebuild an army, say.

So, the Avatar and his Ira minions attacked last turn and did us a bit of damage, but our city held:



The Avatar took enough damage that we don't even need Meshabber to handle him. But I sent him in anyway:



Was hoping that killing the Avatar of Wrath would be worth a lot of xp, but he only got 3. Oh well; it's worth another promotion, at least.

Took another Amurite city with a Commando Eidolon:



Not sure if it'll hold; there's an Amurite Crossbowman in range, who could possibly take it back (also: Amurite Crossbowman = cheese. Permanent alliance means that the Amurites got all Luchuirp techs.)

Here's an overview of what we're building:



Mostly infrastructure everywhere while we regrow. Do we really need that? Probably not, and I imagine either Ellimist or Yell0w will be more aggressive in the next set.

Finally, the demos:



Our GNP isn't great, but we've got massive production compared to anyone else. Also a massive food advantage that isn't even figuring in Sacrifice the Weak. All we need to do is regrow a little more, generate a huge army, and steamroll everything.
And the "army" part might not even be necessary, now that we've got Meshabber .

[Ellimist]

First Impressions:

Wow.

[Ellimist]

Turn 203:

Okay... Well I'm sure my teammates have kept everyone well informed, but things have changed quite a bit since I last saw the save.

My Luchuirp armada seems to be scattered, with most of the land units gone as well as almost all of their coastal cities. Razing all of those cities must have brought about Armageddon, and the Amurite defenses are in disarray. There are hellfire and demonic champions everywhere, and I can see that we possess the weapons of Stephanos, Buboes, and Ars Moriendi(and also managed to kill the Avatar of Wrath.) Meshabber of Dis has also been recruited, but for some reason he didn't get the raiders promotion despite us having that trait again.

It's certainly a lot to take in and I don't have pictures at the moment, but here are the highlights.

We had arcane barges near all of the remaining Amurite coastal cities, but for some reason had not implemented a blockade to cut them off from the dwarves, so I went ahead and did that. I'm moving additional ships toward the remaining Luchuirp coastal cities to protect against them reconnecting, but it will be a few turns before they can reach.

Meshabber moved toward the nearest Amurite city and saw Yersinia, who he killed without taking any damage at all. He already had the Staff of Souls, and now has her Athame, so it seems appropriate to bring him the other two Apocalypse weapons as well. I'm stacking an entourage with him and giving him combat promotions so that he can get Commando.

For some reason, one of the only units to survive our Luchuirp invasion is an Eidolon with TONS of experience. Enough to recruit Bright, even... Yeah that definitely seems like the thing to do.

Enraged Boarding Parties apparently walk deep into enemy territory without attacking anyone, looking for ... something? I'm not sure. There are stacks of them wandering around the Amurite core waiting to be fireballed to death. Enraged workers, on the other hand? Well, they might be ticked off but they do what they're told and they do it better than ever.

Several cities are defended only with diseased corpses, which don't help the citizens feel safe for some reason. I went ahead and built warriors in most of those cities for cheap happiness. Mardoc and HidingKneel must have also totally ignored the Sanctify adepts I left for them, because hell terrain has spread far enough to destroy some lumbermills.

I'm not 100% sure what the best course of action is to do next. The Amurites just built Govannon, and they seem to be regrouping, so the current invasion window appears to be narrowing. I may try to push deeper into their territory, or maybe retreat a bit to consolidate and rebuild the armies into something they can't deal with at all.

Either way, it's been(and will continue to be) a wild ride for the Lanun empire!

[Mardoc]

I guess I'm next? How many turns before I have to watch for the save? Hopefully not til after Monday, I've got houseguests this weekend.

[Ellimist]

Okay...

So... trading technologies is banned, but trading every technology is just fine. Got it.

The blockade failed, because apparently the other two civs are on the same team now. As a result, Govannon was not prevented from learning ice spells, and now all of our best troops are dead including Meshabber.

I honestly have no idea how we have any chance at all at this point. We've failed to make any tangible progress with every single attempt at offensive action that I am aware of, and our latest one was with probably the most favorable circumstances possible.

[Ellimist]

Yep. It's literally impossible for us to win, now.

I offered peace, which was rejected. If either team had accepted I would have proposed a permanent alliance.

Meshabber was our last shot at military victory, and the two mages that were killed with him were our only way to beat Govannon's skeletons. So now they can kill our units and we can't kill any of theirs. Game over.

Have fun, Mardoc. I tried.