Aurorarcher leads Khazad out of their cavernous homes

[Aurorarcher]

So Dreylin moved his Morois on the lair, maybe to prevent me from popping it?

Then while ending the turn this happened:

And then I took a look at the stack on the lair...

. Thanks, Spiders! There were at least 2 of them and they killed both of Dreylin's Morois and my warriors stayed safe .

My supervision scout is nearby so next turn I should be able to see how many of them there are left. Now I can also pop the lair next turn if I want so. I wonder if Dreylin will keep guessing whether those Spiders belong to me actually.

I also landed the GC as planned.

[Aurorarcher]

Turn 96 was interesting.

First I made a calculated risk to kill Dreylin's warrior and a worker that the warrior was guarding:

And the result was in my favour:

I have some units coming in boats next turn unless Dreylin puts enough units in Postman Pat.

First some injuried (all have a promo available) from taking barb city:

I also have 2 units (ax and warrior) in Hawaiite waiting that are loaded into my 2nd galley.

Postman Pat will be burned next turn most likely.

Then I decided to check Nogging the Nog with Griffon because... why not, maybe I could even attack that city?

It turns out that there was a surprise waiting for my Griffon:

Now the problem here was that the Galley could kill Griffon and go back to safety... Unless I reveal its nationality. Now the Griffon would teleport out of Dreylin's border (because we're not in war) and this is where it ended up:

Now Dreylin can kill the Griffon if he so wants by promoting to Longshoremen Crew. However, doing so will give my two galleys an opportunity to sink the galley in return. I think Dreylin will take the shot because he can't see my Galleys coming.

Also things worth to mention are that Dreylin revolted to Slavery/Religion. Going to abuse those hammers from unhappy people, that seems obvious but Religion? Maybe he needs some more happy now that he has revolted into OO. I also noticed that Dreylin has OB with both Jale and Vent. Also Dreylin has given Ale for free to Vent.

It seems that Jale and Dreylin could very well be fighting against me at the same time. I've started to put troops to my western front where I'll suspect the biggest battles will be fought. The city, Lamproite, was just settled this turn. Being on a hill helps a lot.

Demos EOT 96:

GAs are so important in PBEMs. I can keep going for 16 more turns (not taking into account the current 3t I have left) in GA with Bone Palace + GM&GC double great person GA.

You can see from Exports/Imports that someone (I suspect Dreylin as he has Sailing) is getting some nice commerce from TRs with his buddies.
Someone is giving out more than getting themself, I guess that's what the -18 means. Can any lurker confirm that (the negative part)?

[Aurorarcher]

So T97 finally came after Vent holding it for 80 hours due to some issues where his comp died. I had been a bit impatient because I wanted to see what Dreylin had put into his cities; as it turns out, not much:

Nogging the Nog only has Drown and PB.

And Postman Pat:

A bit better defended, so I decided to go after Nogging the Nog with the northern galley. First combat wasn't quite in my favour:

Loss for me.

How about the next guy on line, this should have better chances, right?

Win! One BP left and I have an axe + badly injuried warrior.

So I send the axe for a coinflip battle:

Loss.

Now I better win the last one:

Result:

. The city got burned down obviously.

So all in all 2 losses to wins + the city. Not bad.

Then I landed the axe + warrior near Postman Pat and gave a shot to kill the galley:

Next turn I'll grab 2 trebs fro Hawaiite and two axes as well.

I expect Dreylin to whip more next turn.

More pics to come later.

[Aurorarcher]

Some more pics:

Now in Consumption + MS, which should boost my empire even more.

Also an odd "bug" I've never seen before:

Look at that 2 xp worker!

So even though Dreylin lost BP + size 8 city + Drown + Galley his power actually didn't go down. He probably built a few PB/Moroi last turn (he also whipped 2 pop on T96).

Demos EOT 97 (before hitting enter GNP was around 270):

[Aurorarcher]

So while we're waiting for Vent to come back, here's some pics from T98:

Jale declared war on me T98 because he tried to pop lair inside my borders. Apparently it failed, and for a reward I killed his warrior + popped the lair (which made the tile to find copper). No pic here, but the lair was near my latest city, Lamproite. I offered a case fire back to him (like he did to me at the start of the turn) - I'd expect him to accept, but not like it means much as it can be cancelled at any time.

But here's a small stack of mine moving towards Dreylin from south:

I don't expect this stack alone to do much to that city, leave alone taking it. If nothing else I will pillage some tiles and use the hills to prevent any reinforcements from north. I left promotions open as I'm 99% sure Dreylin won't attack out (even with 1-2 units behind the city).

And here on the other hand I have some units on my galleys:

The 6-move galley can fork all 3 cities. The one in north was just found not too many turns ago. The southern is where my stack from previous turn is - I can move Trebs there next turn and do some damage. Or if I want I can attack with all the 5 units (notice the 2 injuried units, but they both have a promo available) towards Postman Pat.

The defense of Postman Pat on T98:

I have also 2 units (warrior + axe) 1N of Postman Pat to prevent Dreylin from reinforcing the city from north. There was one burning blooded Moroi 1W of the city ruins at the beginning of the turn. It can't reach Postman Pat on T99. I think Dreylin will whip one more BP in Postman Pat, though.

So all in all I could attack PP with total of 7 units (though only 5 that can can capture the city). Have to watch and see what the next turn brings but with 2 Trebs I think I can take the city. I really want to destroy Dreylin's coastal cities because I don't want him to attack my cities from the sea. If I can keep him on land I can focus in one place (the southern) and outproduce him with my MFG/TECH advantages.

Just got KotE EOT 98. It's pretty fun to keep 1-turning all these cheap techs .

[Aurorarcher]

T99:

The turn opened with a peace treaty from Jale:

I took it because I've no intention to deal with two front war if I can avoid that - thanks, Jale! He was probably afraid that I'd make peace with Dreylin and put all my strenght against him. He obviously didn't know that I didn't have that much military near his borders.

Ok. Then back to war with Dreylin. Dreylin had reinforced Postman Pat with one BP since T98. That wasn't enough, I landed the two Trebs (forgot to take pic, but they're awesome, just plain awesome) and attacked. Both retreats and some heavy damage to Dreylin's units. To put the damage they did to some perspective, let's just put it this way:

- Before the Trebs my best unit had around 60% odds against first BloodPet.
- After the Trebs doing their work all of my units had over 90% odds, most over 95.

And so it was rather easy to raze the city:

Promoted after comabt to Mobility and moved to checked wether Dreylin had anything coming from west. It turns out, nope, not really:

So I'm assuming my stack will be safe, especially as there are 2 full health axemen.

Dreylin reinforced his southern city a bit better:

My best unit had about 65% chance to take out best defender. I didn't take it - not worth it because I can't capture the city anyway. Instead I pillaged 2 mines.

Next I might move my stack from north towards this southern city (whatever the name of that city is, I can't read it from the pic ). Or then I'll escape with ships, depending on what Dreylin will do next turn. I have a new boat full of axemen ready in Hawaiite for next turn.

Demos EoT 99 (I once again finished 1t tech, Writing this time):

I also finished Bone Palace for another GA.

[Aurorarcher]

T100 opened with the bad news:

So Dreylin attacked out and killed 3 of my units. That first warrior he killed was C3 and he killed it with a PB without any combat promotions! If I did my math correctly he had 1,25% chance to win that fight! Dang, I got pretty unlucky there. I should've promoted my units properly last T99, I didn't give them all the promotions because I didn't think he would attack out. Good for me that now the city only has 5 units and some of badly injuried.

So I came back for a revenge:

First this:

Win, but only barely:

Then about 69% to win with my Axe, which I lost.

Then I got a lucky and won 44% chance combat here:

The rest was helped with a ship from Hawaiite where I had 3 axemen ready to finish the work:

I kept the city for two reasons. 1) It's a great canal city to naval attack Jalepeno later and 2) because it's a city I can hold probably as it's closer to my city (on land that is).

Now in the north I wanted to kill that one Moroi. This should be a win, right?

Loss.

Well at least I was able to clean up as the next guy won:

I wanted to check whether Dreylin had anything waiting in the close-by city. What is better even I could snipe 2 workers for the same prize. I had to delete the warrior afterwards but I needed that scouting info.

It turned out that the city was guarded only by a single BP:

Notice the copper next to city - probably Dreylin's only source as far as I can tell. Better pillage that as soon as possible. If I can do that I think I can finish Dreylin off (unless someone trades Copper to him).

Then I did something that I probably shouldn't have done. I only noticed after hitting enter, oh well:

I moved my mini-stack closer. The good thing is that unless Dreylin kills the stack/reinforces the city next turn I can burn the city. The problem is that Dreylin could very easily have a stack of Morois (his power is still high, see below power pic) which could wipe out my badly injuried stack (and my GC too obviously). The only tile I can think for the stack, that could hit me, to be (if it exsist) is under the "Moroi 74" -sign. I'm somewhat confident that he doesn't have a stack there but you never know. See the power graph after hitting enter:

Dreylin's power didn't drop too much, even though I killed units worth of 32k power (3 morois, 2 warriors and one scout), which means he built almost as much on T100 as he lost on T100. I myself lost some power first time in this war - next turn it's gonna change though as I'm getting out 3 Trebs and some other units as well.

Notice: No sign from Dave to raise his power. Quietly, in a way that doesn't attract attention I have been bringing some units (Trebs and warriors only so far) on the eastern border which I share with Dave. It's a very tight border and either of us could attack the opponent's city in one turn from their own city (assuming we both have two-movers).

[Aurorarcher]

Turn 101:

I took a quick look at my injuried stack and found it alive.

As Dreylin didn't want to kill my slave, I had a chance to check the city's backlines as well:

Here's what he has in the city now:

And behind there is a stack that wasn't there last turn luckily:

Only 2 Morois though - but still.

Not that much in the cap either:

So that's 3 units in Willo the Wisp. I had a chance to hit the city with Treb and then finish it off - but to do so I'd need to make all my combats perfectly without losses. I felt this was too risky even though the prize would be to remove Dreylin's copper, and I'd have lost that stack next turn for sure.

So what I did was I brought reinforcements from south, some came from boats and these are the units that are waiting nearby to attack Willo the Wisp on T102:

Plenty of somewhat injuried units. So what do I really have:
- 3 Trebs that can attack, 4th is too badly injuried.
- 6 decent hitters and 3 badly injuried that I'll use to clean-up if the better ones fail

I assume Dreylin will build another BP in Willo the Wisp next turn. And also put that stack from behind in the city. That'd be in total 9 units in the city which isn't easy to crack. Obviously my Trebs would play a big role there as the amount of damage they will do pretty much decides whether or not I can take the city.

Here's my army EoT 101:

I have one city bumping Axemen nonstop (it has built all my axes) and I'm using my traits to upgrade warriors to axes from cutted price. As I now have Trade I'll start adding Chariots to my army shortly.

Demos EoT 101:

I'm probably going to save gold for a while now, maybe even play a little bit with Vaults. I'm not really sure I need anymore techs at this point. There are bunch of things I'd like to get from now on, and to list some (in no particular preference order):

- CoS + Priestood: Yeah, Ritualists could be awesome. I do have a great source of collateral already, so probably not needed that much - still, I'd really benefit from a healer.
- Mathematics -> Engineering: Building GoH would be very good. Add that +30% production to all my cites with one building! Also making my troops move faster on roads would be very useful.
- Smelting -> IW: Iron weapons.
- OO + Priesthood: Cultists! These guys could rape the map very easily. I have been checking my bonuses towards Priestood every turn, and Jale doesn't have the tech yet. I'm assuming he'll grab it sooner than later. It'd be nice to have a counter to his Cultists (there are tons of lakes in this map), and what'd be better than my own Cultists?
- Something different: Honor! Rathas to fight Dave's recon units (+50%) and Sun II is obviously awesome. This could actually be fun.
- etc. the list could go on..

I'll see what I think would be good/fun thing to do. If I'll end up playing with Vaults I can make the, overflowing in ~10 turns. I don't think that'd be the most fun thing to do but we'll see.

[Aurorarcher]

Dreylin retreated most of his units back to cap:

8 BP + 5 Morois.

Razing Willo the Wisp was easy as predicted:

One Treb + 3 attacks with very good odds. No losses.

I thought for a second to keep it but decided not to. I couldn't possibly hold it very well with my injuried stack. Instead I moved most of the units 1SE of the ruins. Dreylin can hit me with 5 Burning Blooded Morois but none of them would have great odds - so I think he'll just try to stack his capital as much as he can. I won't be able to crack that city for a while but I can pick weaker cities instead.

7 more turns of peace treaty left with Jale. Need to start putting some units south incase he's planning to hit me.

[flugauto]

Aurorarcher, could you make images in JPG format, JPG images are a lot smaller than PNG.