Losing is Fun: Kandros Fir Dwarf Fortress [Khazad Spoiler Thread]

[Ichabod]

Signed a sort of NAP with Selrahc (we need to warn about attacking each other 10t before doing it).

Fired the GA as soon as Warfare was teched. Next tech is Arete (for Bambur) in 5t. Revolted to RoK and the military civics trio. Capital is making 1t trebs and Hindenburg 1t axes. Attack on Sciz is near.

I'll post some pictures later, but I'm very busy at work these days. Very busy weekend too, since I'll be participating in a theatre play competition. Wish me luck, everyone!

[Mardoc]

Signed a sort of NAP with Selrahc (we need to warn about attacking each other 10t before doing it).

In that case...I think you're probably now the favorite to win this.

[Ichabod]

Sorry for the lack of delays, but I have been pretty busy.

I'll attack Sciz in 1/2 turns. My first stack has like 8 axemen (with some crazy good promotions), 2 warriors and 6 trebs. My second stack has a hunter, 5 axemen, an elephant, a gripphon, 2 trebs and Bambur (a bit late to the party).

Sciz has less than 10 no copper warriors, 2 adepts and a catapult. His last techs were KotE (he's springing his land for me to capture) and Sanitation. I bet he's teching hunting now.

The idea is to conquer Sciz with decisive victories and then change to peaceful civics. That is, going for agristocracy. Sciz land is heavily famed and 3/0/4 tiles are good enough for this map. Maybe I'll go for consumption too. Does anyonme know the formula for anarchy turns/number of civic switches?

Tech will probably go writing (teching now for a library in the capital - maybe even the Great Library after I plant a marble city) -> Code of Laws -> Consumption/Horseback Riding/Trade in some order.

Then it's probably a beeline to Iron Working. Maybe with priesthood and KotE somewhere. After that, probably just hoarding gold.

[Ichabod]

Turn 119:


Golden Age has come and gone. A lot of time has passed. Let's try to remember what happened.

Selrahc's infernals passed me on GNP and a lot on production on the last 2/3 turns. That's bad, but he has reached his peak in a sense, with no more easy targets avaiable. I really hope he doesn't attack me while i'm after Sciz. Maybe he will think he's in a pretty good position with his current demographic leads, which would be pretty good.

I'm in a bad shape economically right now, with my military costing a lot of upkeep. But I'm soon going to double my number of cities, with some really good real estate.

I just finished writing and I'm running 100% gold until I finish a library on the capital. I'm spreading runes to my other cities too (no natural spread happened so far) and I'll probably build Kilmorph temples all aroud too.

Here's a picture of the capital during the golden age:

I really cranked up the production of units during the golden age. With lots of bonuses from civics (nationhood, military state and conquest), I went from 2/3 turn trebs and 3/4 turn axemen to 1t trebs and axes.


I also made peace with Hyborem and the AI Lanun (netting me a free world map):

That's about it... Nothing else happening...

















WAIT A MINUTE!

There's a WAR going on!!!!

Yeah!!!

So, my main stack was approaching Kurald Galain. I had already captured a worker using the double move on hills from the dwarves. This was a critical turn, because I'd station my troops on the tile 1N of Kurald Galain, a desert tile, which would mean a -25% defense bonus. Sciz could use some sacrificial warriors to try and kill my stack defenders, which would be very, very bad.

So, when I opened the save, I was worried. Here's what I saw:

Sciz moved an adept on range of my main stack and terraformed the desert on a plain tile... What the hell? Free xp + no defense penalties... Thanks!

I killed the adept at 98.5% odds with my main axe. This was pretty good, because I finally reached a lvl 6 unit for the Form of the Titan. I'll build it in the capital after the library! No need to wait for Bambur to get there. I wonder how to promote the axe: march or + combat promotions... Don't know yet.

Here's my main axe:

And my main stack:

Kurald galain will be mine on the next turn (Sciz has two warriors and a catapult there - I have odds even without bombarding and collateral). This will mean a forward hawk base + the end of the most dangerous attack phase. After capturing Kurald I'll have a way to Sciz capital in defensive terrain. I'm pretty happy about this outcome!

Here's the second stack, going to Arkhrast Kovalein. Sciz has 2 warriors there, one freshly built. He moved some defenders from there, since I don't think he antecipated my second stack. This defenders are currently covering his copper, even though he doesn't have BW yet. Maybe they are moving to the capital, I can't really tell. Sciz springed a lot of tiles from Arkhrast, making it a pretty good city (2 springed oasis and 2 springed incenses).

And Bambur is late. That's why he didn't head for the council of WW9. He was busy going to war!

Bambur won't be that useful in this war, since I think I have more than enough to conquer Sciz. But he's a good way of telling to Selrahc that attacking me will be dangerous. Time is on my side here, in my opinion, so I'd like him to wait. The worst that can happen is if he builds the Grimoire to get Malevolent Designs (for Eidola and Beats of Agares), but it'd take a long time, since the tech in this game is very slow.


Military advisor:

Compared to my rivals, I think I'm in a good position.


I need to decide on a tech plan and a good counter to diseased corpses. Guess trebs + champions + Arthendain will have to do... Ah, and Maros! Maros can really help me!

Any questions, just fire away!

[Ilios]

So are you still talking to Sciz?

[Ichabod]

So are you still talking to Sciz?

No, I have nothing to do with the pause on the game.

My diplo with Sciz during the war was someting like:

"Hey Sciz, I'm attacking you because this game is kind of boring. I hope there'll be no hard feelings".

"No problem".

He's not the most talkative of players, neither am I. But now that I build a very big army, I'm not going to hold the attack. Hopefully he's not planning things with Selrahc, but I really doubt it.

[Ichabod]

New turn arrived, will play it later. The good news is that Selrahc still hasn't started the cooldown on our NAP. Each turn that he doesn't do it is a victory to me. I need to finish the Sciz war fast!

[Ichabod]

Turn 120:


Sciz abandoned the city to be captured by my troops. I flew a hawk through his land (made a move, since I should have done it after capturing the city, while using it as a forward base) to see if I could catch his fleeing units, but that wouldn't be possible.

So, I captured the city with a warrior:

136 gold is nice, 6 turns of revolt is not. Another move made by me. I should have brought a than of kilmorph to culture bomb the city, taking it out of revolt. It could be working that nice 0/2/10 gold tile right now. 60 commerce lost just with that tile .

Fortunately, my second stack has a thane to bomb the captured city, making me work the 2 plains incense and the 2 plains oasis from the get go!

The city came with a decent amount of infra: a monument, a smokehouse and a siege workshop. I just recently started building smokehouses, mostly due to wanting more health in case of blight and growth. I think the hammers are best used elsewhere at the early/mid game.

I left 3 warriors and 2 axes at the city, since Sciz has some units in range. The trebs and axes continued further, since the place had neutral roads after the capture of the city. If Sciz keeps fleeing next turn, my axes in the city will be able to reach the main stack due to double movement on hills.


Meanwhile, my second stack is approaching Arkhrast, with Bambur following close:

I could have attacked the adept 1SW of the stack with my combat 2 gripphon, which had 75% odds. But I didn't want to risk it, since there's no point in doing it. I have enough to take the city either way.


Even if Sciz pumps a lot of warriors in his capital, connects bronze and uses his world spell, I still will be able to defeat him, in my opinion. Collateral from trebs is too strong and my troops will be on defensive terrain with better promotions.

I plan to start FotT on the capital or Civ V soon. I also intend to build a settler for Marble (Great Library, maybe Bone Palace, the Epics). Civ 5 will probably be my heroic epic city, since I can make some nice lumbermills there.

Ah, there's a possibility of another turn today! That would be golden!

[Ichabod]

[SIZE="3"]The Hippus War:[/SIZE]

A lot has happened since the last update, with some nice turnarounds in the war front. I'll put you up to date with a series of Ravus' style (:neenernee) updates now.

Turn 121:

My secondary stack reached Arkhrast Korvalain this turn (the ancient tower tile 1NE). My initial plan was to use the trebuchets for collateral or taking down the city's defenses. But when I looked at the odds that my axemen were getting against his defenders, I decided to attack this turn. So, after promoting my troops, here're the odds I had:

Here's the outcome of the battles, regoarrarr style:

1. Combat 3, Shock 1 axemen vs. Combat 1, Commando 1 warrior - 98,7% odds - WIN
2. Combat 1, Shock 1 axemen vs. Combat 1, Commando 1 warrior - 95,5% odds - WIN
3. Combat 1, Shock 1 axemen vs. Combat 1, Commando 1 warrior - 96,1% odds - WIN
4. Combat 1, City Raider 1 axemen vs. Combat 2 adept - 95,5% odds - WIN

Note that only the first warrior had a full fortifying bonus.

This lead to:

The conquest gold really helped me. I'm at low vault level and I had enough gold to use for deficit research later (it was really needed, as you'll see).

City overview:

Too bad about the lack of infrastructure. But the city tiles are very good, especially after Sciz springed the oasises and the incenses. And this time I had a Thane ready for the culture bomb!

But not everything were good news this turn. I used the city tile of Kurald Galain to fly a hawk over Sciz's lands. I was disappointed to see that his capital had more troops then I was expecting. He had 6 warriors and 4 catapults, taking in consideration the units that fled from Kurald. My main stack was bigger, of course, but it made me worry.

Why, you ask? My main stack had 9 axemen, some greatly promoted, 2 warriors and 6 trebs. Why should I fear a bunch of catapults and non-copper warriors. Well, I antecipated the worst case scenario. Assuming that Sciz could do 1 turn warriors (he could, since I could see his capital workable tiles), he could have 9 warriors ready to attack on the turn I reached his capital. I also saw another warrior coming from his tundra city, which meant 10 warriors. I also assumed that he would tech BW, connecting his already mined and roaded copper.

So, 10 strenght 4 warriors and 4 catapults against my main stack defending on defensive terrain... Why should I worry? Because of the damned Hippus world spell. It gives +1 strenght, +1 movement and BLITZ (!) to all his units. So, now things didn't look as favourable to me. Even if his blitz promo wouldn't matter (I'm assuming a 2 move units attacking an unroaded forest tile would use its 2 movement points, but I'm not sure), his collateral initiative would give him odds on some of my units (don't forget that Sciz is playing an agressive, commando leader - and he had some nicely promoted troops too). And I couldn't afford to lose my main stack. It'd be too dangerous and I couldn't spare more resources building troops.

Another important thing to notice is that siege only does collateral damage in FfH while in full health (according to the manual) and siege can take collateral damage. So, Sciz catapults could own my trebs.

So, I decided to change my attack plans! Here's the before plan, with my troops movements marked in red. Also, see the garrison that Sciz had in his cities:

I admit that I was really paranoid with this attack. My whole game depended on it and my MP noobness started to take its toll. I was really, really worried!


Turn 122:

Here's the new and improved battle plan!

The plan is centered around the randevous point, the yellow blob. The yellow blob is where my two stacks would meet, together with the powerful Bambur! Free enchanted blade to everyone!

The idea of uniting the stack was: reduce collateral (more units on the stack), make Sciz less likely to attack (he'd have to attack across the river, getting a hefty penalty - one which my more powerful troops could endure, specially sine I had collateral to spare - or lose the fortifying bonus by crossing the river and then attacking) and join forces with my powerful hero, that could empower my whole stack! Ah, and Bambur could also fix the trebs that took collateral damage from Sciz's cats.

Interesting things to notice about the battle plan:

*Bambur was going to take A LOT of advantage of the 2 movement on hills bonus from dwarves (something to consider for the EitB mod - make trebuchets also have the 2 move on hills bonus) to reach the randevous point in time.

*The blue squad took Sciz world spell on consideration for its movements: if he decided to attack it using the newly gained 2 movement bonus, he'd have to leave his troops exposed to my counter attack!

*The pink squad! This was a key piece of the battle plan, that had the all important mission of pillaging Sciz's copper. One axe (the pillager, since recon and animals can't pillage), one hunter and one gripphon. The axe had xp for one promotion.

You can notice that I started teching Horseback Riding, due in 3 turns. I should have had it for this war way before, since mobility is a key promo. I made the mistake of waiting to finish the library on the capital to start it and now, Sciz had a couple of turns to get his copper online (no point in pillaging his copper after his troops promoted to bronze weapons already). I was crossing my fingers to have the time to pillage it. By researching HR, I took one turn of the needed time, since I could move onto and pillage the copper tile at the same turn.

Here you can also see the already expanded borders of Arkhrast. It was a size 6 city, but due to a lack of connection with my empire, it had 5 angry citizens . I was only working 1 plain oasis tile and the city was starving. It too ~3 turns to mae the connection. Meanwhile, the still revolting city of Kurald Galain had acess to furs, gold, etc. Another moment.


Turn 123:

I traded maps with dantski at the beggining of the turn. Dantski is my biggest ally on the game and, even if we don't talk that much, we have a solid alliance. His map gave me a better look at the infernal core.

I also started to spread Runes of Kilmorph to my cities, since the spreads weren't happening alone. Titanic pumped out some thanes with the conquest bonus and the newly converted cities started on Kilmorph temples, when appropriate:

Meanwhile, in my core cities, I was building infrastructure. The capital was getting happy (building a carnival also enabled the settling of that lion that was on my capital... it reduced like 3 gold on maintenance ) and health buildings to keep on growing and to overcome the blight unhealthiness, that will probably happen soon... Does anyone know the exact blight formula? I think I'll suffer a lot with blight...

Boatmurdered:

Civilization IV:

Meanwhile, the troops made the moves according to the battle plan!

[Mardoc]

Does anyone know the exact blight formula? I think I'll suffer a lot with blight...

The above means that when Blight strikes, every city on the map receives 10 + city population in unhealthiness, minus a small amount based on any healthy buildings in the city (totalGoodBuildingHealth).
TotalGoodBuildingHealth covers any and all buildings that naturally provide health (herbalist +1, aqueduct +2, hospital +3 etc) but does not include bonus resource health from buildings like smokehouses or granaries.

Read the quoted post for more details, if you're interested.