Whosit Clowns Around in EitB PBEM XXVI [SPOILERS!]

[Whosit]

Got a free Runes spread to Argenteria, killed the barb Warrior by Coombe View (covered victorious, but wounded, Warrior with the city garrison unit--but the city should be safe for a turn). Popped Warrior out of Argenteria, and will send to Coombe View so I can safely wipe out that Goblin Fort once and for all.

Siege Workshop complete in Capital, started Settler. Was gonna do a Temple of Kilmorph, but I've decided I should just get a couple Settlers out while I can. I think I'll do 1, follow up with worker, do another, then a couple more workers, then pump units until T100 and hope for the best. Though 2 settlers and 3 workers will probably take me pretty close to T100 as it is.

[Whosit]

So, what does this mean?



Also, the good ol' Armageddon Counter is at 10, so something is making it climb. And, grumble grumble, I lost two Warriors clearing out that Goblin Fort. Both had 76% odds to win. My hope was to kill one, heal, then kill the other, but when the first one died, I kind of felt it had to be all or nothing, because otherwise that Goblin would heal with a ton of promotions. Two dead Warriors, when I shouldn't be throwing guys away like that.



You can see there's another Barb Warrior approaching to make it even better. I'm trying to decided if I should risk a turn popping that fort or not. Most of the times when I explore a goblin fort, I get some kind of curse, but can it ever pop units on me? I don't really want to leave my city empty. I'm sending a Warrior from Hexam as reinforcements, but it's going to take ages to cross the distance. At least when Argenteria reaches size 3 and works that Copper mine, it should at least be able to spit out Warriors with reasonable frequency.

If the Capital is on Settler/Worker duty, and Argenteria can handle Warriors, that should "free" Hexam to produce Catapults, and maybe get a couple Freaks out. I'm not sure if I have time to produce an Arena for Swordsmen, considering my power is half that of my rivals.

[Brian Shanahan]

Don't worry, everything'll be all right. And if it does go wahoonie shaped, then you can follow my misadventures (and give dodgy advice as revenge) in the soon to be started PBEM (prob XXIX).

IIRC on the gobbo fort, yes units can be popped. The likelihood of good vs bad pops from dungeons and lairs is heavily influenced by two factors, 1) whether a unit is flagged as scouting or not, scouting units like scouts or hunters get better odds, and 2) how highly promoted your unit popping is. One good strategy in SP with popping lairs is have eight units sitting on the tiles immediately surrounding the dungeon to prevent monsters popping, though you don't have that kind of muscle yet.

[Whosit]

Man, I don't think you'd want any kind of advice from my in EitB. Let me know when your game starts, though, and I'll try to follow it.

I certainly don't have enough units to surround it, but is it better to go in with a higher level unit? I'm assuming it is, but never know. I suppose I could build a new scout for the express purpose of popping this. Then he can go actually scout somewhere, I guess?

[DaveV]

So, what does this mean?

+3 to the Armageddon Counter. So you're the one making it climb.

WRT lair popping: you can get anything from free disciples or great people to game-ending groups of units. The result is determined by a 0-99 die roll, and the level of the unit (the second line in the unit details) is added to that roll. So the influence of experience is pretty slight, and you run the risk of getting some bad promotions on the exploring unit. See this thread for the gory details.

Summary:
1-13: You lose!
14-43: Bad
44-73: Probably bad
74-93: Good
94+: Very Good

[Whosit]

Welll, Hexam's borders popped, which brought some bears inside. That could prove... problematic. Barb Warrior by Jubilee is forking a farm and an Incense Plantation. I'm hoping it still decides to go for my Warrior on the hill (I could have attacked at 76% odds, but I wasn't feeling lucky). If it goes for the Plantation, I'm losing it, because I have no road to get there. That would be an unfortunate setback. I juggled units at Coombe View. Put my unupgraded Warrior on the gobling fort while the wounded one retreated. Between the 4 STR and 20% def bonus, my Warrior ought to have the advantage. Do warriors get their city defense bonus in a fort? If so, great. If not... I should be fine?

Queued up a Scout in Argenteria after the current Warrior. I think I'll just camp a warrior on the fort to prevent spawns, and pop with the scout later, hopefully reducing the odds of some catastrophic thing affecting my guys.

I don't know if it's luck, great planning, or both, but Serdoa is still just 9 points under the 150% score limit for breaking alliance with the barbs. It's infuriating, but honestly, I don't think Barbs could even bother him at this point.

[Whosit]

So, in other news, I just activated the Guardians of Pristin Pass because I thought the only activation square was directly south of the mountain. Turns out, southeast of it does it, too. As much as I'd like to find a way to justify reloading, I should probably have just not gone anywhere near that mountain in the first place.

What's worse is that the triggering unit is a Worker, and I have few enough of those as it is. Argh.

[Whosit]

Things started out fine:



Led to an overall decrease in my costs from 8 to 4. Picked the gold option because I'm still currently Financial. The Barb Warrior by Jubilee moved onto the farm and was easily killed by my Warrior. My Worker plans near Hexam had to be drastically altered because of the Bear. Trying to lure it to attack a Combat III Warrior on a forest hill.

Then I did this:



Threeeee of them. Goodbye valuable Worker. Goodbye any chance I had.



Overview of what will probably end up being the "peak" of my empire.

I'm petulantly choosing to hold on to the save for a little bit until someone can give me advice on how to not die, if that is possible.

[Brian Shanahan]

The good news is:

barb animals won't attack anything inside your borders, if you move a unit to a neutral tile adjacent to them they will attack though. Your workers will be perfectly safe improving your 2nd ring tiles though

[Whosit]

I guess I'll move the warrior to a neutral forest hill to just get the bear out of there. It still makes me nervous.