Fires of Bhall. Some orcs just want to watch the world burn. [SPOILERS]

[Lewwyn]

less people = faster turns

[Ellimist]

Turn 111 and 112 are in. There isn't really anything exciting to report. The turns right now are mostly about managing blight, and I'm losing a few population to it each turn.

I went ahead and founded OO, which landed in Sanguine. I might build some cultists eventually, but OO temples are worth building in some cities even if I never adopt it.

Veezara was blessed by the god of murder.

Ichabod built Heron Throne, and I collect a 324 gold bonus:

He asked to borrow marble for it a bit back, so I knew it was coming.

It looks like Mafro is reinforcing Miracle, but the target to move in is still turn 114 or 115. It's hard to say for sure how things will shake out, but RoF and Rust should make most of the defenders irrelevant.

[Ellimist]

Turn 113 is done.

I expect to advance toward Miracle next turn. Hopefully, Mafro won't run away and I'll have the opportunity to destroy the 5 units he has in Miracle.

Attackers (with exp):

• 10 Wolf Riders (30/22/19/17/15/10/9/9/6/2)
  
• 9 Paramanders (12/8/8/7/6/2/2/2/2)
  
• 5 Warriors (2/2/2/2/2)
  
• 4 Shamans (1 haste, 3 rust)
  
• 4 Ritualists (5/4/4/3)
  
• 3 Stonewardens (10/8/7)
  
• 1 Rosier the Fallen (5)
  
• 1 Assassin (25, Aeron's)
  
• 1 Lizard (9) + 1 grimoire wielding hawk
  
• 1 Archer (6)

Defenders:

• 2 Longbows(infernal, iron weapons)
  
• 2 Champions(infernal, iron weapons)
  
• 1 Hyborem(infernal, iron weapons)
  
• 5 Stonewardens(C4+shock/C3+Form/C3+CG/CG+GU/C1+GU)
  
• 1 Soldier of Kilmorph(C1, bronze weapons)
  
• 9 Warriors(all bronze, C1+GU+shock/C1+GU/C2/GU/GU/C1/3 unpromoted)
  
• 2 Lightbringers(C2/unpromoted)
  
• Plus anything else he can produce, reinforce, or upgrade. A lightbringer and hunter in Owabi are only one turn away.
  

Battle plan:
1) Haste the stack and hit the city with 4x Ring of Fire and 1-3x Rust.
2) Read the Grimoire next to the city and see what happens.
3) If the odds are good enough, attack with some of the fastest units: Rosier, Veezara, wolf riders.
4) Move all the other units in.

Zenithar will only keep one warrior, and Dibella only has one archer. If Weezel or Mafro moves toward either one, I can easily intercept their stack before it arrives.


There's also a 3% chance the forest will burn down and I can hit with all the units next turn.

[Ellimist]

The food situation is now under control:


Meridia and Azura are the only two cities still at risk for losing population, and I can use their shared farms to reduce the damage.

Three beasts of agares will finish soon, but I'm not sure where to build the fourth. Only three cities currently have veil temples, and the population loss from the first beast will impair their ability to build another.

I finally have some workers getting a road built between the two parts of my empire. They should be connected within the next ten turns. Hopefully, the Malakim and Infernals will also be eliminated by then. Once I get to that point, I'd like to expand like crazy. I have 31 workers right now, and I can probably settle about two cities per turn for a long time.

Divination should finish next turn. I'll try to get a life node built before hell terrain reaches the floodplains at Dibella. After that, I'll have to decide whether I want to build any towers, probably Necromancy or Divination. I could probably use the ToD to take Mithril Working around T140-150. In the meantime, any law nodes I build will save me about 12 gpt in maintenance.

[Ellimist]

Mafro's current power rating is 1156.

I know that he has 1036 from buildings:
1x Infernals Palace (1000)
4x Mage Guild (6)
4x Forge (2)
4x Demonic citizens (1)

I have visibility on the following units, worth 100:
1x Imp at Dis (6)
1x Hyborem at Miracle (28)
2x Longbowmen at Miracle (15)
2x Champions at Miracle (18)

That leaves him only 20 power TOTAL for population, technology, and (possibly) any units I can't see. He's probably undefended at home.

Once I've killed his units at Miracle, he'll be reduced to one imp and a not-immortal Hyborem, and four relatively small cities. That's the sort of thing I can blitz without waiting for support troops to catch up. It would be a bit tougher if I had to bring my shamans and ritualists over to his cities, or if he was actually producing units.

[Ellimist]

T114:

I moved in vs Miracle. Four rings of fire put every defender at 60 HP:


Strangely, this did not cause war with Mafro. You can see in the screenshot that I had to manually declare after the rings of fire.

After I rusted the metal weapons away from the defenders, the Infernal longbows were the top defenders. I killed both of them at decent odds with some of my best wolf riders. After that, the Stonewardens were the top defenders, but Rosier was able to target a champion due to his bonus vs disciples. Veezara, the Aeron's assassin, killed a lightbringer.

End of turn:


Three of the five Infernals units have been killed, and I didn't lose any units in the process. Mafro's units aren't that scary after the debuffs; he may decide to retreat with Hyborem and his other champion.

The stonewardens are decently promoted and my wolf riders didn't have good odds against them, but my best paramander is showing 94.8%. I should be able to take both Malakim cities on either T115 or T116. (As soon as Miracle's culture is gone, Owabi is only 3 movement away.) The Infernal cities shouldn't take long either, I hope to eliminate both Mafro and Weezel by turn 119, or 123 at the latest.

[Ellimist]

Turn 115 saw the demise of the Malakim.

First, there was the retreat of the Infernals:



The odds were actually better than anticipated. I did use a few fodder warriors, but not as many as expected. Nearly all of the battles were at least 90%, and the majority were at 95% or better.




The Paramanders had no difficulties with the first three stonewardens. I only used rust twice this turn, however, so some bronze warriors were up before the last two stonewardens.

My stonewardens had excellent odds:




And then the other two stonewardens went down:


After those, my ritualists had good odds.




And then the wolf riders went to work:


I cleaned up the rest of his fodder units and the city was mine:


The grimoire gave me a spectre this turn, so I used it to grab a worker:


And then a ritualist and two wolf riders visited his other city, and the Malakim were defeated:


I kept Owabi because of the existing infrastructure:


Mafro's three units were also doomed. This turn, I was able to kill his retreating champion and Hyborem, as well as a ritualist on the same tile. Now my units are in range of Golden Leane and Dis, and it looks like the only defenders are Hyborem and an imp.

Event log:




Next turn, I'll be able to put a hawk in Owabi and get visibility on Mafro's northern city. The grimoire hawk will be moved close enough to spot his southern city. I also want to keep an eye on the spread of hell terrain, and get some life I shamans on the board to control it. I'm not sure who to target after the Infernals are gone. I'll probably focus on expansion for 10-20 turns while teching Iron Working for Ogres and Eidolons.

It also seems that HidingKneel is silently rejecting my map trades. I've located his city of Helion, and sent a few map trade offers, but do not have visibility on it.

[Ellimist]

The Infernals have now lost the rest of their units and 3 of their 4 cities.

I started turn 116 by razing the undefended Golden Leane, then moving on to Dis.




I razed both cities because neither one had any buildings and I didn't like their positions. Strangely, this did not give Mafro any manes in his other cities.

On turn 117, I moved on to Zbolub:


I think Bareke is the engineer you can get from an event. Too bad they can't be captured.


This time, the city came with some nice buildings:


Despero is currently undefended, and I have two wolf riders able to attack it next turn.

[Ellimist]

Right now, I'm moving into a sort of transition phase. I have various priorities that I'm going to try to get done while I'm still NAPped with the Ljosalfar and Hippus. I have at least 13.5 turns of NAP peace with HidingKneel, and at 22 turns of NAP peace with Ichabod(until turn 140.) If Tholal attacks, hawks will give me enough time to counter him.

• Establish a road connection between the two halves of the empire. I expect to accomplish this on turn 123:
  
  
  
• Build Nox Noctis at Sithis (T122) and settle some cities around it to provide additional defense. If possible, I'll settle multiple chokepoints between the city and the Hippus.
  
  
  
• Repair and resettle the Malakim and Infernal areas. Establish some sort of secure northern border with the Ljosalfar. Build the Winter Palace in Zenithar to reduce the maintenance costs.
• Expand, expand, expand. I can probably average at least one new city per turn for a long time. I currently have 27 cities. I'm aiming to have at least 40 by turn 140.
  There are several key regions I need to settle.
  The first is the Ljosalfar border region (south). There are four sites I would like to settle for defensive purposes, but HK has a settler in the area that may take the western one
  
  
  My main border with the Hippus should be secured a bit better to provide defense in depth. After that, I'll work on backfill.
  
  
  There's also a lot of decent land in the region northeast of my core cities. I only dotmapped the western portion of the screenshot, but I'd like to settle it all. There's also the mirror of this region, of course.
  
  
  
• Improve my defensive position considerably. I believe I have plenty of time to accumulate multiple layers of defense backed up by Nox Noctis. My science rate is improving, but I am at risk of trying to go up too many parts of the tech tree, so I probably won't get to do all of these.
  • Research Iron Working for iron weapons and ogres.
  • Research Sorcery and get some mages. Maybe build savants and upgrade them.
  • Build more ritualists. Build more stonewardens. Build some cultists. Upgrade some units to Eidolon. Take advantage of decent religious units from multiple religions.
  • Research Honor and spread Emyprean to enough cities that I can easily draft 4 radiant guard units per turn for 5 turns. Build a few Ratha while I'm running the religion.
  • Research Engineering and build the Guild of Hammers.
  • Build Tower of Divination and use it to get Mithril Working(requires iron working and engineering).

If I can accomplish some or all of these goals, I'll be ready to move on to my next target. I'm not sure who that will be right now, but the elves are the most difficult target. The Hippus have the potential to be a real pain with their mobility, mounted mercenaries, and worldspell.

[Ellimist]

Reserved for T118 (Infernals end) post.