After the massacre at Bupsy we retreated to Loop and regrouped. Reports of Lanun pirates menacing our shores persisted but for the moment it seemed the Amurite Fiddle was safe, for the first time in years. But Govannon did not want to rest, he wanted to take the fight into the Lanun homeland itself. I held some reservations about this. Our enemies have been at our throat for decades and each time we have barely survived. All that is left to garrison our cities is the bodies of our fallen comrades. And who knows what terrors yet await in the dread city of Ozymandias? However, while I am the nominal commander of our defence, I have little real power. Govannon says we are to march at first light, and I will follow.
We spend our final evening in preparation. Govannon leads the troops through the forms one last time, the blizzard he called at Rethink a halo above him. We distribute weapons, a new set of prized crossbows arriving with the reinforcements from Incensed.
However unwise I think this action, I look forward to the morrow. Either way, I may finally know some rest.
Look at that top guy, C5, magic resist, stigmata, god knows how many first strikes and what looks like cold and fire resist too! Well there's nothing for it, it's time for the amurite spell spam. First up we cast dispel. Then:
13 fireballs in all bring the city down to 0% defence. I believe I read somewhere that cultural defences affect spell resistance, so I wanted to get that out of the way. Spell spam no.2:
I've never played a game where I needed so many maelstroms before. Note also that my dispel stonewarden was still taking damage as well. Stoneskin's 50% resist should be handy vs ritualists too. I let him get hit btw, just to keep the option of aborting. The storms smashed against the Eidolon, and eventually he succumbed to the elements:
Snowfall!
The Eidolon must indeed have had cold resist because snowfall had no effect on him. Here's what the demons look like after I cast all my rusts too:
Couldn't get rid of his mithril weapons either.
Finally, I was saving 2 destroy undead casters, I only needed 1:
So, we still have a monster of an eidolon to finish. What odds do our stoneskin crossbows get?
Die, 8.8 health. I assume this is the first strikes kicking in keeping his hp.
Lose, onto no. 3, we still don't have odds:
But the crossbow wins!
I throw in some pitbeasts to help clean up the rest:
This guy actually wins. I managed to lose my 3rd crossbow in an 80% battle against the next top eidolon. Then it's all 99% battles and xp gathering before we burn!
I don't want to waste troops holding cities here, let's just get rid of the Lanun. I didn't attack with any stoneskin firebows or stonewardens btw, to defend the stack. I also took some other countermeasures.
Half of this stack got slowed:
And you might remember the one destroy undead wizard I had spare. What could I do with him? Well, I had a promo spare so I gave him summon spectre, broke his staff and summoned two.
You can see one in the bottom of this picture, who captured and deleted two workers. The other one pillaged the city ruins and road. The scout you see deleted two more workers, so that he doesn't have the numbers I think to rebuild the road next to my stack.
That's my turnset done! With any luck Ref will continue the crusade and I won't have another. Here's what we look like:
City size has barely changed since I took over.
Go slavery! Who needs to build workers?
Ref might want to switch us to growth mode next turn.
The Lanun on the other hand have grown. Our only chance is to burn this pop to the ground quickly.
I would play this save just to keep it moving but I sort of spoiled myself during the long break. Maybe I could come back in 30t when the situation has changed sufficiently. Anyway I'd go ahead and play it if you want Kredom or Bob, would hate to see it get stuck again.
I'm around, I'm unspoiled, and I've downloaded the save. Real Life[tm] is complicated right now, and it will probably take me a while to figure out what's going on in the game, but I should be able to get a start by mid-weekend at least.
[EDIT: That said, Kredom, if you want to play the turns and can get at them sooner, you'd be very welcome to do so!]
[EDIT: This is just the quick assessment I wrote as soon as I sent off the turn. Detailed reports with pictures etc. have now been added below.]
Meta-Assessment: Part-way through playing the turn, I realized that given the state my team is in, someone needs to win this game during my turn-set -- and, given my upcoming schedule, the sooner the better. As far as I can see, the only way this can possibly happen is by concession, so I've decided to make a proper climax of this and throw caution more or less to the four winds.
Executive Summary: I razed two cities, including the Esus holy site, burning Nox Noctis to the ground. Doing so left a good chunk of my army exposed to possible counter-attack, so I went ahead and exposed even more of it in an attempt to press on even deeper into Lanun territory. Also I sunk a boat. No casualties so far among my living units, but that may well change in spades during the Lanun turn. I did take precautions to limit their counter-attack, but there's no telling what they've got up their sleeves.
So, easy part first: Here's what I wrote to help me get a grip on what was actually going on after the passage of multiple months and dozens of turns. Proper turn report to follow once I write it.
I don't even know where to begin.
It ... wait, no, let's just take it from the top, and let's see if you can make any more sense of this than I can.
So ... I mean, I won't turn down 50 gold. No idea why it's being offered, but it does suggest we're still sort of teamed up against the Lanun. Probably I could learn something from the city lists and civics options and things but ... later. First, let's have a look at the empire.
Orrrrr...
Yeah, so we can give up a source of copper (no idea how many sources we have right now) and a critical hammer tile at our key border city of Loop (well ... it was a key border city 35 turns ago, and the cultural borders make it look like it still may be) ... to pull in some more gold and commerce. Oh, at an immediate cost of 42 gold. This is the wrong city to do this, and this late in the game, I doubt if commerce is going to make the slightest difference, so, yeah, no.
So right. The empire. Let's start with Loop and Ozy and the DMZ, where ... uh ... ummmmmmmmmm...
Nothing beside remains. 'Round the decay
of that collosal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level snows stretch far away.
So, how much can you tell from this single screenshot?
Our forces seem to be deep in what used to be the DMZ, but there's something important missing! Somebody not only razed Ozymandius but put some effort into stripping the city ruins and underlying road to establish a new DMZ ... of sorts. Based on the locations of those worker/slaves and our troops, I'm guessing all of this happened pretty recently too. Particularly considering the giant glaciar surrounding our forces. That means Snowfall, which means an Archmage, which under the circumstances means we actually managed to build Govannon. And the brown "Yummy yummy!" sign over our troops means ... it means ... wait, is it possible we're allied to QVC?! The score chart and the minimap seem to confirm it (unless we're their vassal or something?) so ... uh ... okay.
Also of note in this screenie: Our Perp's insanity kicked in at least once since I was away, and our new traits are Spi/Fin/Arc. Fin is of ... uh ... questionable utility right now, but the other two are nice for any adepts and priests (or whatever) we manage to throw together, and I may be able to choose some new civics if I don't like our current set. There's some more here too, but those seem to be the main points. I could have a look at our stack while I'm here, but let's get the overview first.
Yeah, we've done some fighting apparently. But you knew that. Some interesting things though:
1) Pretty much the whole army I got to use during my turns has been destroyed. (I checked those Firebows, and none of them have as many XP as my previous favorites - not even the Crossbow, who was upgraded). Both of our Faith Heroes are gone, and worst of all, none of my named arcane units survived! (Only three of our Wizards have names: Storm Son, Storm Daughter, and Storm Lord. Their promotions are about what you'd expect.)
2) We somehow also managed to lose virtually our entire workforce. (In addition to our lone Worker, we do have a handfull of Slaves off the top of the screen.)
3) That's a pretty ridiculous number of Skeletons.
4) Apparently someone put my Evil Plan for Instant Wizards into effect. Not shown: All four Adepts can be promoted to Wizards right away as well.
5) We've got some Stonewardens finally!
6) I was right about Govannon.
And last but very, very definitely not least...
7) We don't have anything even remotely resembling enough units to actually take on the Lanun.
To further illustrate that last point:
Have a look at Ron Popeil's power down near the bottom of the graph, absolutely flatlined. QVC is at war with the Lanun, just as we are, but presumably they can't do much except repel invasions or try to sink Lanun ships that come too close to their shores.
Not shown on the graph: Nearly every Amurite and QVC coastal city has been razed by the marauding Lanun pirates. Obviously this includes the city of Li(ability) and our aptly-named city of Hurl, once the seat of our Heroic Epic and the Mines of Gal-Dur. Thankfully, the Lanun settled for razing them; there's a good chance they could have razed Fiddle and our holy city of Incensed with Commandos if they had been really clever, dedicated, and serious. Ozymandius is insufficient compensation, frankly.
Here's what we've got left:
Notice that none of them are above size 7, and precious few above size 6. TBS was obviously slaving and/or drafting heavily to put together our new Ozymandius army. Also obviously, the attack on Ozy wasn't what cost us the coastal cities. Those were lost because they were coastal cities in a war with the Lanun. My point above is just that we've (probably?) lost more than we gained in this war overall. On the other hand, it might still have been the right strategic choice. The Lanun have also clearly lost more than they gained. (Also, it might not have been our strategic choice in the first place. I think the event log said we declared on them way back when, but it might have been a pre-emptive strike on an obvious attack force like mine on my first turn with the save.)
Okay, so that's sort of where we stand. Let's look at our civics, and see when we'll have a chance to change them.
Well, they're subject to change right away, so hopefully I'll remember to review them in more depth by the end of my turn. Some of the current set-up makes a lot of sense, but some of it may need some adapting to the current situation....
Note that we now have all the same techs as Ron Popeil, being allies and all. The difference in tech direction between "our team" and the Lanun is probably very interesting. If you have time to figure out the details or even to know which tech is which based on those pictures, good for you! Pat yourself on the back or something!
One interesting thing: We're currently teching Strength of Will, the prerequisite for the Tower of Mastery. Just a couple problems: We Amurites have neither the production nor the GEs (I guess we have some forests around junk cities in the northwest, but those don't help with no workers....) to produce any towers. QVC doesn't have enough mana nodes, can't trade for our mana while the Lanun blanket-blockade the seas, and as far as I can tell, (reason number 354,982,633 why FfH Dwarves are terrible) can never get a unit with Metamagic II to change their nodes around. Anyway, if we were going for that kind of victory, I assume we would be teching something else since we might as well OracleTower-of-Divination Strength of Will, given we have to build all the lesser Towers before we start on the big one anyway.
All of which means we're either teching at random (yeah, probably; it's what I was doing) or we're aiming for four more Amurite Archmages. Or ... something. Search me. Anyway, that's not going to happen during my turnset. We're dozens of turns away if the game is to be believed. Honestly, in spite of suppositions in the tech thread that we're reaching the game's climax, I see no end in sight. FfH's endgame is just ... wait, no, don't take my word for it. Let me show you.
Notice the tiny thumb near the bottom of the scroll bar? (This is obviously while the event log is still expanding "below" the screen.) Notice how many screens of spells and spell resistances and attacks and fireball bombardments and Kilmorph-knows-what-else I had to scroll past to get this far?
That's one turn.
Now, granted, Ozymandius fell last turn, and it was a particularly eventful one for that reason. But seriously ... ONE TURN?
With dozens more before we could possibly manage a Tower victory, and no other victory in sight ... this is going to take a while. The only hope I can see is in the power graph I showed above. If Lanun power really is ahead of ours by as much as it seems, they should be able to crush our empire sometime moderately soon. Between Haste, Water Walking, Commando units, Queens of the Line, and undisputed ownership of the seas, they certainly should have us outmaneuvered. So maybe they can actually win a Conquest victory (or hit us hard enough that we concede). I doubt it though. If they're ready to wipe the floor with us, how come we just razed Ozymandius? I see some other victories over the past several turns too. If Lanun power is somehow mostly tied up in techs, ships, and buildings (I have no idea how any of these are valued in FfH) and ours is under-rated because our Wizards are better than they seem, then I guess it'll be up to us! We might be able to hit them hard enough on land to ... to ... uhhhhh.......
Here's the thing: They own the seas, and that's not changing. We can't built ships to match theirs because we don't have any port cities because every time we build one it gets razed because (remember?) they own the seas. So the best we could do would be to conquer our continent, even if their defense is much worse than I'm anticipating. They have a bunch of holdings on another continent though: One on which no one else has any units. So we're not winning by conquest. Domination -- IF we can do it in combination with our allies -- would require first kicking them off our continent, then somehow defending its endless coastlines from their sea attacks while spamming so many Settlers the net cost is probably similar to the Tower of Mastery. I honestly don't even know if there's enough land on our continent and QVC's to do it. (You would think...)
Still, that's way more exciting than trying to build a bunch of Towers, plus Settlers at least can be built with food and whipped. Thanes can be whipped too for instant border pops, so ... I guess I should check on the number of tiles, but let's keep this war rolling, shall we?
Jubilation filled the air as the Amurite armed forces cheered their glorious victory. The slaves that followed behind them listened and eyed each other with silent fear. True, before the Fall of Ozymandius, Govannon had treated them with kindness, even teaching him the lores and spells he shared with all the army, but even Govannon must bow to the terrible Fiddler Perp in his distant palace, and whispers abroad spoke of a terrible change. It was said that the Fiddler had taken down the great black sword that had lately hung beside the throne as a symbol of might and courage, and of nigh-unequaled skill ... and replaced it with a picture of some kind of crazed-looking orange bird-thing with glowing eyes. Change was in the air, and for a slave - especially a slave who was well-treated - the only change that ever could bode well would be an end to slavery.
Without warning, an image of the Perp Himself appeared among them, scattering many of their number with sheer surprise and terror even before its voice could reach them: Calm yourselves and have no fears!
Dry your eyes and shed no tears!
You are to be my eyes and ears!
Or, well, that's open to debate.
But you're an eye at any rate!
A handful of the slaves, too slow to leave the scene and dive beneath their straw-pile beds, piles of tools, and anything else that came handy, were at once declared volunteers for a dangerous mission into the lands of the dread Lanun themselves. They could have cast the spell that Govannon had taught them from their morning camp, certainly, but the new Perp insisted on a report from the farthest reaches they could ... err ... reach, to provide a true sense for the nature of the battlefield. The slaves shook with terror only barely softened by a promise that if all went as the Fiddler Perp suspected, they would be freed and dispersed into the countryside. They had heard promises before. (It didn't help that they had heard the Perp mutter under his breath, after the first five lines he sang at them:
Plus maybe you'll be good for bait.
The poor slaves collectively soiled their trousers as they gazed upon the endless-seeming Lanun garrison in Libertatia. Between Brigid, a brace of Phalanxes, three Ritualists, a pair of Adepts, and endless monsters more powerful than anything the Amurites could field apart from a single injured Crossbow, the prospect of any invasion looked ... rather unpromising.
Fortunately for the Amurites, the spell had also revealed softer targets. Unfortunately for the Amurites, the Fiddler's new personality had not yet come to realize what he actually wanted to do ... but at least the initial fireworks looked impressive!
Still more slaves were dispatched to pave the way for Amurite forces on approach to the Lanun coastal fortress of Empire Reborn. As their work was finished, a series of fireballs flashed in to wreck the city's defenses, whirling maelstroms of thunderbolts struck its garrison - a single Eidolon - and summoned beasts threw themselves against it in suicide runs. Then at last, one of Govannon's brave Warriors had an opportunity to prove his worth at the gates of the Lanun coastal fortress of Empire Reborn.
Only after the victorious warrior burned the city to the ground did the Wise and All-Knowing Fiddler decide to target the Queen of the Line south of the now-ruined city too. Asked by an advisor why he didn't position his Maelstrom wizards to hit both targets at once and then retreat to (presumably) safety, the Perp muttered something even less inteligible than usual, too embarassed even to have the advisor summarily eaten by carnivorous hyacinths. The fact was that the plan for attacking the QotL didn't even occur to him until he'd already started his attack on Empire Reborn.
The mistake couldn't save the Queen of the Line of course - a series of fireballs would burn it to the waterline when its crew failed to withdraw toward the ocean in time - but it would have dramatic consequences later on. Moreover, to the Fiddler's chagrine, checking the "Killed" list in his Enchanted Mirror of Statistical Info seemed to indicate that instead of the nine seasoned troops he had hoped would be aboard, only a single Adept went down with the ship.
* * *
The Storm Lord scowled at his orders. "What's this? Another change in plans?" He clenched a fist, and sparks crackled as they danced between his fingers. "Wasn't it enough that my children were issued redundant orders? Has the Fiddler no shame?" He no longer even bothered to complain about the premature use of Haste that might have removed certain tactical possibilities. "Here Govannon sits atop his home-made glaciar, teaching the use of the arcane arts to warriors and slaves, and we are expected to go in piecemeal, as new plans occur to the Fiddler, with no coordination?! It's almost as if he's giving orders only in fits and starts, distracted by considerations unrelated to this war and this world, whenever he happens to be able to fit them in!"
With a grin, a carefully anonymous Wizard asked, "So do something about it. Shove a lightning bolt up..."
The Storm Lord silenced him with a snarl and unclenched his fist. "I'll follow orders. Of course I will. Whatever chaos this new face of our Perp may cause, it is nothing to the destruction we shall face if we turn upon ourselves. The best I can do is take this out on the Lanun."
So he did.
Thunder and lightning cracked the sky; balls of flame leapt out, pursued by hideous beasts from the battle-pits of Camulos, and even by a gaunt specter sent forth at the command of some spellcaster who knew no better trick to try. Yet against the odds, the defenders of Club Mate held on and on and on, forcing Firebow after Firebow to advance to the city gates and unleash beast after beast, even joined by a swift-moving Scout, before at last the city fell.
On examination, Club Mate proved a greater prize than it at first had seemed: In addition to intriguing infrastructure, it contained the Shrine of Esus itself! The shrine would likely have been of greater use to the Amurites than to the Lanun, but with the city thoroughly exposed to counter-attack, and (worst of all) right on the coast, there was never any question about what to do with the place. The last Pit Beast torched the city after pillaging all its wealth - 177 pieces of pirate gold to add to the 218 already looted from the smoldering remains of Empire Reborn. The Lanun had lost as many civillians in the battles for those two cities as the Amurites still had in their four most populous cities combined - and yet the Lanun still possessed more cities, larger and more productive, and the Amurite forces were horribly out of position, sitting ducks for the Sea Perp's forces.
Two brave, nameless warriors did what they could to stem the tide of doom, hoping to hamstring the Lanun counter-attack ... or at least to slow it down.
The top unit in Libertatia there is still a Phalanx; it's just that their images changed when they lost the shrine of Esus.
The vast majority of Libertatia's forces were affected, many even apparently frozen in place by the force of the spells ... but countermeasures would be possible if the Lanun had the right mages and adepts in the right places, or loaded transport ships ready to strike. Even without them, there was havoc enough the Lanun would be able to wreak on their invaders; the Amurites would just have to hope they could weather the storm.
A questionable combination of ill-conceived plans and misconstrued orders [Read: sloppy tactical play aggravated by poor combat outcomes at the wrong moment, plus a silly misclick] had resulted in a scattered collection of Amurite forces in total disarray. Taking Club Mate had been an over-reach, and many Amurite combat units would surely pay. Though Govannon, the few Wizards who still retained their spell staves, and a few other key units still held back in seeming safety, the majority of the Amurite attack force stood exposed deep in Lanun territory, either foolishly baiting Lanun units in the vain hope of leaving Libertatia vulnerable, or just struggling to hold up their pants in the wake of their attacks, praying silently that the Lanun would be so far out of position that they couldn't break through the Slowing.
Grinning and rubbing his hands, the Fiddler Perp ignored the dangers, and instead ordered military units whipped on the principle of "Inefficiently-completed troops now beat efficiently-produced ones after it's too late," and prepared his plans for the next attack ... just in case the Lanun counter-attack somehow just went pfffft. He tried very hard not to look at the enchanted Info mirrors that showed Lanun military power still exceeding his own by more than 60%.
He meant to have a war, and much as he wished and hoped to win, what really mattered most to him was making it interesting!
On the one hand, I definitely should not be up playing civ at this hour. On the other hand, imagine what this particular endgame must be like to keep me involved all the way up through this hour!
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Note also that my dispel stonewarden was still taking damage as well. Stoneskin's 50% resist should be handy vs ritualists too. I let him get hit btw, just to keep the option of aborting. The storms smashed against the Eidolon, and eventually he succumbed to the elements:![[Image: ROZXFAM.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/ROZXFAM.jpg)
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