[SPOILERS] PB1- Mardoc buys a can of paint for Thoth and Ellimist

[Thoth]

I'd like some scouting info on the intervening terrain with an eye to a kill strike on the Illians. Damfino if it's doable, but if we can do it, denying them Pows, Ice mana on future Adepts and Arcane/Cha Archmages would be worth quite a lot.

Hmm, I like it. Presuming our stack is at least a 3-mover (vamps with Haste), it might not really be that long between leaving and showing up at their doorstep - and Illians are their littlest civ anyway.

I was thinking more along the lines of Hawk scouted routes for Mob/haste chariots to strike hard and fast.

But the Hawks are the most important part of that equation.

Also some built Mob 1 Hunters to carry said Hawks.

[Mardoc]

Holy cow. They've stuck another adept on that tile. Another Illian adept - 60 hammers and a good bit of XP.

On the same spot, tempting us to stick around...how cunning do we think they are? Can we kill it too?

[Thoth]

what?

what?

what?

OMFG?

What?

It's gotta be a trap. No way is that for real.

[Thoth]

Right.

I haven't re-logged in to check up. But if there is an Adept on the very same tile we killed an Adept on last turn.....


Plako played in a hurry. DaveV did not.

There is at least one warriorpult and a SA scout in range of us if we hit the Adept and retreat.

We run like hell.

No way we want them to boost their morale by confirming the Spider and nailing a capture.

We can strike again later.

(or not at all....Spidey has earned his keep already so long as we keep him in our hands. Any future kills are a bonus. And a live Spidey in our hands is a threat to them. Captured Spidey is a PITA for us. )

[Ellimist]

(I've been following the updates, but don't have much to add since I can't log in for a few more days.)

If the MS great commander still hasn't happened and we want him, then let's not delay it. Hunting and archery don't have "first to discover" bonuses, and we can get all of those techs very quickly anyway.

I probably agree with thoth regarding the adept bait. It's hard to believe they'd do such a thing by accident.

[Mardoc]

It's gotta be a trap. No way is that for real.

Probably. Yet...that's mighty expensive bait. Are you sure that a spider is worth more than one and a bit turns of the production of the entire Illian empire? (they have slightly less MFG than the Elohim 53) In the form of a Cha/Arc adept?

For that matter, are you sure that a CI spider in a forest is killable by stuff they have in range?

It's a plako adept, too...



@Elli - your picture doesn't seem to be working

[Thoth]

Probably. Yet...that's mighty expensive bait. Are you sure that a spider is worth more than one and a bit turns of the production of the entire Illian empire? (they have slightly less MFG than the Elohim 53) In the form of a Cha/Arc adept?

For that matter, are you sure that a CI spider in a forest is killable by stuff they have in range?

It's a plako adept, too...

Damn. I don't know Mardoc.

We can kill and retreat into forest S, SE, or SW of our current location. Which might be safe. But we only have a hard locate on one PoW, a soft locate on a second, and no idea where the third is.

That bait is a bit too perfect for my tastes TBH. It looks very tempting.

Too tempting.

And Plako did have a day or two to think about his moves before he exposed the Adept.


Our Spider won't vanish overnight just because we aren't using it. Let's keep it alive and in our control for the moment. We can always strike again later.

Remember, there are old Snipers and there are Snipers who strike twice from the same location.

I like old Spiders.

[Qgqqqqq]

Looks like you're doing great
If they capture the spider, do you have defences to stop it?
When do you think they'll get sorcery?
When do you inten to go on a conquering spree?
What religions are you in?
And, as always ... Pics?

[Mardoc]

Thought we banned diplo . Not that I see any way to object that doesn't make it worse .

Well, even if they do dogpile us, we can probably handle it. Only Clowns currently have an army that's scary, and we're within 10 turns of opening the spigot on our own army production. And it's not like we'd have left the other borders naked while assaulting Team Clown - this just would mean a little bit more left at home for deterrence.

If they capture the spider, do you have defences to stop it?

Yes, probably, but it'd be a pain. We've still got a horde of CI/Subdue scouts, cause they refused to die in combat. In about, oh, 2-3 turns we'll have Hunting and shortly afterward, a Hunting Lodge; CI/Subdue Hunters ought to straight up have odds on a spider. We've enough of them for a pretty thorough screen - Thoth was paranoid earlier. And, ahem, it's only paranoia because as it turns out, they weren't out to get us .

But, well - we'd do much better at stopping it from approaching and harming us, than we would at recapturing it. It's hard to catch a three mover that you can only see sometimes. Especially if they're careful enough to supplement it with Floating Eyes to spot the Hunters

When do you think they'll get sorcery?

Any turn now. They've all the mana for the first Tower of Divination, and a Great Engineer somewhere, they just need to pick a city and build the last few hammers that the Engineer won't. And in their shoes, I can't see any tech worth more than Sorcery.

Certainly within 5-10 turns, pessimistically if their GEng is in transit and they need some hammers to top up whichever city builds it. Could be next turn.

When do you intend to go on a conquering spree?

Don't think we're going to conquer much of anything - raze and replace, OTOH? Oh, yes! We can't afford to keep much unless it grows organically, city maintenance is already killing us. Although anything we keep, is probably going to the Elohim for Tolerant purposes.

Although, hm...offensive Sanctuary, anyone? Be expensive in city maintenance, but it would be downright painful to be on the wrong side of it. Particularly with Raider Vamps on the other side, and not a lot of care taken in road placement I think. Still, my gut says that raze and replace will serve us better - conquered cities just won't pay off fast enough, particularly if they kill our tech rate.

Besides, I honestly think that after we kill Team Clown, we'll have basically won. We might need to go through the formalities of conquering the other two, but an army capable of handling Team Clown will be capable of handling the others. Whether or not we expand into Clownish territory.

Anyway, current plan is to just keep turning up the pressure gradually. We won't be dedicated to it until a few turns after Vamps are in - tentatively T120 - but we're going to keep a steady stream of units heading east, and who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and catch them off guard somewhere. We're still focused on self-improvement at the moment. One last ring of cities to settle, still a good bit of infra to put up in the cores, and we don't yet have Feudalism or Iron Working for our core units, anyway.

Post Feudalism, the Calabim are going to be almost solely on Vampire production and Feasting, for a good long period. Post Iron Working, the Clan are likely to join them with Ogres. That'll give us a stack or two that ought to be able to smash some cities. It'd better be - otherwise when puppeteer Archmages show up and have infinite high Str units for free, we're dead.

I foresee the main debate on vamps to be a pretty simple question, actually - do we amass a stack, and aim for a surprise crushing blow somewhere? Or do we simply add them to the current harrassment forces, keep turning up the pressure until they start to crack? Pillaging would be a lot easier with summons, and so would killing off worker cover...but surprise is quite valuable too

What religions are you in?

Kilmorph, Kilmorph, and...Kilmorph. We haven't researched any others, and only AV is on our short list. Kilmorph may not be worth a ton in terms of military, but it's very good for the econ. Particularly when you're Spiritual and have Warrens. That'll only get better once we have Priesthood - 40 hammers for a temple and a spread? Yes please! Soldiers of Kilmorph are quite handy too - they've been helping get our new cities launched faster, and they're actually the more efficient way to build all buildings while we're in Military State - 60 hammers into SoK with a 15% bonus, provides 60 hammers of building that otherwise would have no bonus. We're not quite doing all buildings via SoK (for one thing, that's only possible where we have Kilmorph and a Warrens).

It's like the arcane line, or the mounted line...other religions would be very nice to have, but tech is so expensive, that we just haven't been able to afford it yet.

And, as always ... Pics?

Hey, I gave you one just last night!

[Ellimist]

Thought we banned diplo . Not that I see any way to object that doesn't make it worse

What about a dismissive response. Snowfall puppets are pretty scary, and AL is a temporary fix.

I expect that Warbaxia wants the other two major teams to engage in a muually destructive conflict. It shouldn't be hard to convince them to sit it out.

On the other hand, they can get the most mileage out of AL if more than one team takes advantage of it.