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

[Tasunke]

What I meant was that, if the first strike is at high odds, then they won't get much higher unless a fresh assassin dies. Although I'd agree your method makes "survivors" of the attack less likely to actually survive. (as the next one kills them).

I guess its a trade off.

What sort of odds are you getting on these attacks? If they are super high, then the likelyhood of a weak assassin dying is less than the odds of an older unit eventually dying due to a bad roll. (assuming weakest attacks first)

[Mardoc]

What you're describing, Tasunke, is the best way to get elite assassins, super high level guys who never lose a fight. But what I'm trying to do is kill Serdoa's army as fast as possible, and I'm willing to take casualties along the way if I have to. Which means I'm setting up the fights so I have the max number of 'good odds' fights instead of setting them up for 'best odds' on the high level guys

That said, the worst odds fight that I took was 64%. Most every fight has been 95%+, though. I'm a bit worried that my odds may go down to a point not worth fighting, as Serdoa's left with only the strong horses. But my bigger worry is that he might be able to build new ones faster than I can kill them, or tech to something that has a chance against me.

But if we lose a couple assassins in the process of getting Asteroids a couple turns earlier, I think that's a win.

[Tasunke]

Yes you caught me

building up marksmen units like little pets is a bit of a hobby of mine :P

Makes sense what your doing though.

[Mardoc]

[COLOR="SeaGreen"]He keeps building them?! :D




Okay, so I have a question for you. I've been thinking of summoning Basium for a while now, mostly just because I really want to see him in a game. I was going to a while ago actually, back when I had a great engineer on hand, but at the time there were some economic techs I very badly needed and with Basium increasing tech costs in EitB it would have been suicide. Now I'm at a point where Basium would only be merely crippling!

Ellimist, who is my dedicated lurker, would like it if I allowed him to take over as Basium, should I indeed summon him. I checked the tech thread, and at no point did anyone specify one way or another whether we wanted to allow human take-overs. Ellimist is in my timezone, and he is online at the same time as I am, so I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't screw with the game pace. Actually, if Serdoa dies, that'll leave everyone in EST.


So the question is- would you be okay with a human player taking over Basium? This isn't something I'm willing to do unilaterally, so I will respect your decision on the matter. I would not want a human Hyborem in this game. I haven't been scrapping an empire together out of dirt and wood and barbarian innards just so some demon jerk can spawn on my borders and try to knock it all down. But Basium just turns one civ into 1.5, with a hefty teching penalty.


Let me know what your thoughts are [/COLOR]

Huh. I can't really think of any reasonable reason to refuse. I mean, what am I supposed to say "no, bob, I don't want to fight someone proven in MP warfare.

And besides, if Bob goes to Fanaticism, trying to feed Ellimist Leaves units, and teching at reduced rate - that may not hurt me as bad as it sounds.

[Tasunke]

I really don't see why Bob sees Human Hyborem as such a threat.

Hyborem has no choice but to turtle initially if he is summoned past the Bronze Age ... but whatever ...

[DaveV]

if Bob goes to Fanaticism, trying to feed Ellimist Leaves units

Leaves units are true neutral, and their death doesn't benefit either Basium nor Hyborem.

[Tasunke]

True, if anything, the only Basium feeds would come from true nuetral city razes, and good city razes (which is not possible with no city razing), as well as units with the runes religion tag. (well and Order and Empyrean)

This means some of the units built in cities with Runes religion.

Also, all living Mercurian units have a chance of going angel anyways.

[Mardoc]

And besides, if Bob goes to Fanaticism, trying to feed Ellimist Leaves units, and teching at reduced rate - that may not hurt me as bad as it sounds.

Looking at it in more detail, I'm not convinced I need to fear this (what's to fear is Ellimist's killer instinct, but fortunately Bob would have the whip hand).

From Bob's perspective:
Pros:
Reduced maintenance! Maybe he could return to God King
Most of my units and Serdoa's units, killed, become angels
Access to some awesome tier 4 units
With significant effort, perhaps a Undercouncil partner

Cons:
Quite a bit of tech detour from the Tower: Fanaticism, a Good Religion, temptation to each of the Tier 4 enablers
-50% team research penalty

What does it mean from our perspective? We need to hurry up the war, get the bulk of the Kilmorph-on-Kilmorph action done before Ellimist is summoned.

On that note - what are your thoughts on when we can afford to move out? I think we need to be able to know that neither Pacman nor our expeditionary force will die to Serdoa's leftovers. We can first-strike him, we can move up to the walls and attack before he can retaliate, which helps - we can discount any horseman we can kill outright. Sadly, I still don't think we're quite there. I can't see a way to kill enough horses in a first strike that the remainder can't mess us up good, with current numbers on both sides.
Maybe one more cycle of Ghost kills will do it?

I'd be comfortable leaving alive one horse for every Ranger we leave home, one for each archer we leave home, and a handful for each Beastmaster we leave home. Maybe 5?

Or, hmm. Beastmasters are replaceable, it's just Pacman that isn't. In fact, our newb Beastmaster either needs to fight a lot, or definitely be replaced - I think he'd do his job quite adequately if he kills 5-10 horses and then we upgrade a better candidate to fill his spot. Maybe what we do is this: send the newb Beastmaster and some support south (maybe 5 rangers and a bunch of Hidden Ghosts?), have them start plinking at Serdoa along with the Ghosts. If Serdoa decides to attack and erase that stack, it's still probably a net win for us. Right now we can win a straight army vs. army fight, it's his fork potential that scares me. So we need to force said straight fight.




Also, we need to make another cunning plan, something that lets us turn an almost guaranteed tech advantage into something that can handle the hordes of angels and elfs. We've got Beastmasters and the Baron, and we'll shortly have AV for collateral. What else could we use?

Well, it would certainly be nice to gain another Tier 4 unit option. And a GCommander so we can finally have a Command Post. Does it make more sense to research that way, or to try for the Grimoire? And if we do this, which Tier 4 option do we want?

I dunno, I'm just brainstorming at the moment. Current plans are set in stone, keep banging on Serdoa, capture all I can, build the Baron and get him feeding. It's what to do after that where I'm still confused.

I really don't see why Bob sees Human Hyborem as such a threat.

Hyborem has no choice but to turtle initially if he is summoned past the Bronze Age ... but whatever ...

I think Bob's more afraid of the annoyance and disruption of schedule - or he's trying to be preemptive and say 'no, Thoth can't play Hyborem for you for free iron' .

Leaves units are true neutral, and their death doesn't benefit either Basium nor Hyborem.

Yeah, I know - I'm wondering if Bob does. But he's usually pretty good at the mechanics. Which is why Bob's plan for Basium confuses me, Basium would likely only be awesome if Bob's already beating me, in which case why bother? He still doesn't have Fanaticism, so Basium probably can't show up ahead of the great Hippus/Sidar mutual slaughter.

I think the true answer is, Bob still doesn't see us as a threat. He's in single player mode, believes he's got the game won, and is playing around with fun stuff. He doesn't want to waste Selrahc's land on the barbs or keep it himself, so this is the answer.

[Mardoc]

[COLOR="Silver"]I was perhaps a bit vague - I wasn't able to kill the cat last turn, just to see it. This turn is when it died. I'll let you know if more appear (and keep you informed on their lifespans ).

I'm fine with you bringing Ellimist in, if you'll take responsibility for figuring out the technical details of how to actually make it work (or recruiting T-Hawk to do so for us). Ellimist has demonstrated a good PYFT-factor and that matters a lot more than timezone.

Ah...either you need to get Serdoa's approval, or wait until after we kill him.

I haven't thought about Hyborem much one way or the other, but I can agree not to summon him for a third-party human (or Thoth). You're not going to ban me switching to him if it comes to that, are you?

- Mardoc[/COLOR]

As cool as it would be to give the Infernals to you, Thoth, I think it's a cheesy thought, in line with the XP-farming idea. At least if we allied - and if we didn't, then it's a scary thought :neenernee

[Mardoc]

And if we do this, which Tier 4 option do we want?

Spent some time reading the manual, most of them look pretty 'meh'. They've all got decent base strength, but...well, that's all. Hopefully our 'decent base strength' category can be adequately filled with Beastmasters, Baron + Greater Werewolves, and Blooded Werewolves + Rangers. If we're going to spend a lot of time researching, I'd like to get something that's a game changer, not just more of the same.


The possibilities that seem attractive:
Eidolons and Beasts (yes, still)
Knight + Shadowrider + Shadows (if we went Esus)
Immortal
Archmages
High Priests
Druids

Pros and cons:
Archmagi and High Priests are actually fairly achievable in one sense: combine the adept/priest you want to level with some Ring of Flames action and a barb warrior (or axe), and the XP should be quite easily farmable. In another sense, they're impossible: we don't yet have either incense or reagents, and I haven't seen a city that claims them. Although it's possible Serdoa's got them and I just skimmed past.
They'd probably be the nicest option - super summons, direct damage, and if we go this route we also gain the ability for the lesser versions to help out. Got to look over the map, first.

Knight + Shadowrider + Shadows have the advantage of being compatible with our current army. They're fast (or invisible). There's also Ride of the Nine Kings down this path, if we want to truly break the Sidar. And we'd learn what EitB Esus is like. They're not much better than Beastmasters, but it would be a cap of 12 units instead of 4 at the high strength, and with high withdrawal percentages.

Immortals are like summons, who can learn promotions. Fun guys. I'll have to look at the tech path to see if it's remotely feasible. On the other hand, at 1 speed, with a huge map like this - they might not actually get to do a lot of fighting. And they can't keep up with our current army, let alone where our army will be once it spends promos on mobility.

Eidolons and Beasts of Agaresare both fairly strong, but Sareln's spread out their requirements considerably. We'd need Fanaticism, Malevolent Designs, Smelting/Iron Working (or else finally finish the Mines of Gal-Dur). And we don't really have any good candidates in the works to upgrade to Eidolons, either. And we know they're not particularly good fighting against Basium. Pass.

Druids I've got very little clue on. Entangle seems nice but not awesome. Channelling III, OTOH, and starting Nature I, that's very nice. Poison all our Blades, Vitalize our lands. We can upgrade Rangers here, so that they could be decent fighter types as well. I think, because they're Divine not Arcane, they can't learn new spell spheres .

I think, all in all, that I'm leaning toward either the Knights + Esus route, or the Druids. Unless I can find incense or reagents that I've been overlooking, archmagi and high priests are right out. And, well, we've got a pretty decent army already, that I want to add to, not replace. Which means we need fast units who can keep up with Severed Soul action. I'll have to study the tech tree to figure out the best way to get there from here; it's likely to include a stop by Infernal Pact, though.