The Haunted Forest: Mardoc puts the Sidar to the test.

[Tasunke]

What is the turn order?

[Thoth]

What is the turn order?

Serdoa, Us, Bob, The Barbs.

[Thoth]

excerpt from this morning's chat with Mardoc:

9:36 AM me: So we're still alive and kicking in XVIII
9:37 AM Mardoc: oh, yes
me: Ghosts to snipe and run at his weak units is looking good. We're at 99 and 98% odds across the river with our current pair. We can then Sever Soul and run back into pacman
Mardoc: did you see the thread?
me: I'm just looking at it now.
Mardoc: Serdoa wants to quit
what should we propose as a 'fair' way for him to do so?
9:40 AM I mean, I don't want to provoke him into pillaging us before he dies
me: I'm not sure. One possibility is for him to give control of the Hippus to an AI
Mardoc: all, good old alt-q
ah
9:41 AM the frustration is, Serdoa knows to fear Bob too - but does an AI?
and do we care?
Hippus already lost their best shot at the game, they could be a very nice source of XP and 'wolves ;-)
9:42 AM tactically I agree, it's time to start whittling down that stack
me: Yeah, if we go the AI route, Bob should be required to DOW on his next turn.
9:43 AM Baron will take 4 turns....or we could build 4 more Ghosts to thin out the weak units from the Hippo stack.
While we upgrade our experienced DS's to Rangers (~1 every 2 turns)
9:44 AM Mardoc: yep, agreed. Ghosts don't need the XP nearly as much as Rangers do
since they only fight when the odds are good
9:45 AM me: and can pick up some easy exp
Mardoc: so better to hand-build them
me: we can 1 turn Ghosts indefinately
Mardoc: also, do we give Bob a map?
we can at least put that off a turn, I suppose
9:48 AM me: I'd say "not yet". The map gift was the price for him DOWing Serdoa. No DOW, no map.
9:50 AM Mardoc: seems reasonable, mostly. We need to get ourselves some Subdue-promoted units, then
9:51 AM I'll put it off and play the turn, send Bob a note and try to figure out what's next
9:55 AM and I'm going to fortify all the beastmasters, in case of AI (or Serdoa trying to go out with a bang)
9:58 AM me: Sounds good. We'll be on the defensive for the next 10 turns or so unless the Hippus (however controlled) make a suicide charge against Pacman
Mardoc: huh, looks like he deleted a bunch of horses, too
or moved them home
me: Thinking....Ghost/Ghost/Baron (who should be 3 turns with overflow)/Ghost/Ghost/Ranger
9:59 AM Yeah, probably moved them home to cover his eastern holdings vs a possible attack from Bob
10:00 AM Tiger spam is going to be useless against us. All our combat units get +50% vs Animals. Hold off on the Subdue for the moment though....we've got some Horse steaks to grill first. :D
10:01 AM Mardoc: I want to ensure we target the priests first, ignore the Tigers entirely
besides, Bob seems to treat Subdue as kryptonite the same way Serdoa does high-Str units
10:02 AM me: Yeah, we'll want some Subdue Rangers vs Bob, but we'll need some heavy hitters to deal with Champions and LBs
Mardoc: point
10:03 AM well - that's what Ritualists are for
but I suppose we might be at war sooner than that
me: Also Scourge Ghosts.
+40% vs Disciple units.
Mardoc:
10:04 AM me: Also....Empy hasn't been founded yet and we have the hammers to 1 t Radiant Guards.
The Empy shrine also gives +2 xp to Disciple units
Mardoc: I think it's too late to try the 1-turn Wane strategy
10:06 AM me: IDK. We've got some tough defenses so we may have some time yet. If not, we don't lose anything by heading towards 1t Wanes. Extra xp on Disciple units can be very handy. Paramanders are Disciple units.
10:07 AM Mardoc: well, we lose the time to research Empy in addition to everything else
willing to consider it as an 'after AV' thought, though
10:08 AM me: Yeah, AV/Priesthood first. But Blinding Light is awfully handy to have. The Shrine is just a bonus.
10 minutes
10:19 AM Mardoc: well, sent the message, killed two horses, fortified
8 minutes
10:28 AM me: sounds good.

[Mardoc]

Turns out Serdoa's perspective wasn't quite as down as it sounded at the time:

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]I understand your pain, Serdoa :| It has to be frustrating to build up a massive army and twice now discover that higher tier troops produced / upgraded in the final hour are stymieing your plans.


I'm not sure that I can read from your message that you wish to actually retire from the game, but if you do I'm okay with it. Don't worry about Selrahcland, I can take it for myself at pretty much any time anyway- my troops are a little bit more mobile now than you might have suspected :P If you do turn things over to an AI, I'm also fine with warring with it for forever- I'm declaring on the Hippus this turn anyway.


Anyway, aside from that I think we just continue to play on. Mardoc does not want to concede, and currently I feel like it's finally my time to win one of these things, so I am not interested in a draw, at least not at present.


-Bob [/COLOR]

[COLOR="Lime"]Yeah it is frustrating tbh. I would have loved to try to punch through the defenses in both occasions, but my wb-tests showed that even with ridiculous luck it wouldn't work. Especially in Mardocs case it wasn't worth even trying. My best test showed that I could kill 2 of the beastmasters and I think 2 or 3 more units with what I had available. Thats... not impressive when all my units are left in front of his city with 0.1 - 0.4 health left Thats the biggest issue with a withdrawal-army: You have to have an insane amount of units AND need to finish your target in the first turn as you'll probably can't live through the counterattack.

As it is, I am fine with playing some more turns, knowing that it will at least be quick over. I just wanted to make sure that I don't have to play through another 50 turns because neither of you is investing the time and money to attack me. But as you both seem to be fine with doing that, I am fine with staying on and playing so that this game is not decided by some stupid AI-stuff (instead we'll have some stupid Serdoa-stuff ).

And thanks for being so open-minded. Both of you. This game was - despite me going 3rd - a really, really fun experience, simply because of you all (Selrahc included of course)

Kind regards,
Serdoa[/COLOR]

We will, of course, try our very best to finish him quick, we want to profit from his loss .

Also, a message from Bob to just us:

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Here's the latest:

I have declared on Serdoa and advanced a force on his Selrahcland holdings- both cities there should fall either next turn or the turn after, depending on the breaks / odds.

I also have advanced the Champion Relief Squad I was sending your way towards your former second city- they'll probably get wiped out unless you can really dent his horseman hoard, but I should be able to kill or at least redline a good few of them first.

I forgot to ask you for a map again this turn :P I'll try to remember next turn- it'll help me with logistics and coordination with you so that we can work together to carve up Serdoa's remaining territories.

What's the situation on your end? The sooner you can recapture the Runes Holy City, the better- without it, I seriously doubt he can afford to continue to support his armies, at least at their current sizes.

If you could somehow get Hawk coverage on Serdoa's capital, that would be amazing. I can hit him there in a few turns with Kithra, but I really don't want to throw my mounted hero into a trap. Do you have any invisible units left who could carry hawks?

I'm building a second large force at home atm. Right now it's there to protect against a desperate Hippus assault, but I can move it out to strike elsewhere should the majority of his mobile forces be neutralized.

-Bob
[/COLOR]

As for Thoth's comments - yep, those horses are dead. I didn't even have to use the Beastmasters or take casualties. Also upgraded our best DS to Ranger, positioned Ghosts for invisible next turn killing in Asteroids, gave Bob our map. Settled mr. bear.

I really want to start clearing out barbs again, as well, but I hold off for now. Presumably that'll be easier to justify once we whittle Serdoa down some more. For now, I stick with 1-turning Ghosts, even though I really want the Baron before we lose all our mines and mills. The real way to get there from here is to take Serdoa out of the picture, and that means punishing all pillage attempts and aiming to kill horses faster than he can build them. 5 in 2 turns is probably about even, but our Ghost population increasing steadily ought to help, as should Bob's efforts. Once Serdoa loses Calabimia, then we just have to do better than 3/turn killed to guarantee progress.

[Mardoc]

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]Okay. Please, please keep me informed though if he moves the bulk of his military out of sight of your borders- I need to prepare my defenses if he decides to charge after me.

My four champs near you all got wiped out, sadly only killed two horsemen. Wounded a bunch though, so maybe that'll take some pressure off of you.

I had a string of bad rolls in Selrahcland, so nothing fell this turn. I'm a little worried about Serdoa catching up to my troops thanks to that huge road network of his- another reason why I need to know if his guys have gone out of vision range.

Thanks for the map! Lots of lairs left to explore, when we finally have the time :P [/COLOR]

As for the turn? It was boring. HBR came in, we promoted a couple Rangers with Mobility, started on Corruption of Spirit. If I can get the Rangers to MobII, the potential exists to attack Asteroids and return to Pacman in a single turn.

Serdoa didn't do anything, at least to us, so we potshotted two more horses with Ghosts. 0.3 health horses die extremely easily Trained another ghost, next turn we'll only kill one horse, but can position 4 ghosts for the turn after.

It looks like the Thane is actually the top defender in Asteroids, due mainly to getting defensive bonuses while the horses don't. If I were willing to leave a unit exposed, I would take the chance to kill him. I'm probably going to stick with safe and sound for now, though, gotta reduce Serdoa's striking power.

[Mardoc]

Killed another horse. Bob wants to build the Pact of the Nilhorn , I told him I wouldn't contest it. Can't think of a reason why I would, actually.

Bob built the Great Library, Serdoa got another GEng from Asteroids, and is escorting it home with three horsemen. Sadly, I can't figure out a way to jump it without making that a suicide mission. OTOH - I'm not sure I want to, we're the logical ones to inherit whichever wonder he builds

Our hammers are looking pretty sad, comparatively. I couldn't manage to 1-turn a Ghost, so we're going to 2-turn one instead. And probably use the overflow to start Baron, we're to a point where I'd be happy keeping the war on simmer, it'll take a while for the Ghosts to kill enough to let us consider offense, but we've convinced Serdoa to stay still, it seems. Plus, I want to work on the barbs, to free up our hammer tiles, and Baron's perfect for that.

[Profane]

Bob wants to build the Pact of the Nilhorn

I'd imagine that it's for some Bombarding capability without relying on waiting for his Adepts to gain enough XP, since he can't build cats.

[Mardoc]

T140 - Good news and bad. Good news: we killed three Horsemen! Bob claims he's gotten Selrachia free, too, so I know we're now to a rate Serdoa can't replenish.

Bad news: our newbie Ghosts no longer have excellent odds. But we can't afford to look vulnerable, and Serdoa's still not weak enough that we can consider a direct assault. He still has about 30 horses in Asteroids, and we have only 17 units who could reasonably be expected to kill a horse on the first try (Beastmasters, Rangers, Ghosts). So we can't yet go for a direct attack either.

I dunno. The experienced Ghosts still have excellent odds; maybe I just need to train up the newbies on the barbs before throwing them at Serdoa.



Serdoa has an economy again, too . About 100 GNP. I guess Selrahcia was always a net cost to him? Either that or his maintenance bill has shrunk.

[Tasunke]

Our hammers are looking pretty sad, comparatively. I couldn't manage to 1-turn a Ghost, so we're going to 2-turn one instead. And probably use the overflow to start Baron

Gunning for the Baron? I wonder ...

[Mardoc]

Gunning for the Baron? I wonder ...

If it weren't for the Baron, RB would never have had werewolf games to begin with That's what gave Selrahc the idea to introduce it to us.

Anyway, I'd love to banter with you, but that would be breaking a rule. We can argue all we like over in the game thread.