Aurorarcher leads Khazad out of their cavernous homes

[Aurorarcher]

To be honest I don't think I can lose anymore at this point.

There's not a whole lot my enemies can do on land when I have so superior power advatage. They both lack HBR for surprise attacks and Dave doesn't have Sailing so I can keep my coastal cities almost empty. Jale on the other hand has Sailing and has at leas 4-5 galleys so he could surprise attack me with boats + haste adopts. But with Hawks I can see one coming from a far distance. The most powerful thing Jale could do is to get Priesthood for Cultists. Imo he should've done that a long time ago. Recently Jale researched Necromancery which is not terrible but probably means he is on his way to Sorcery. That could of course be scary but I think it'll take way to long to research it and set mages up. He got sage recently so bulbing a big chunk of Sorcery is an option obviously. Anyway, I don't think that will work because the time is running up.

[Aurorarcher]

T116.

I found that Jale has Entropy mana:




He's planning to use Rust against my stack. That could actually be really useful, especially his arcane units casting spells won't be resisted that easily (-10% to target's magic resistance due to ARC). On the other hand all my units start with Magic Resistance which gives +20% to resisting spells. But still, if he can put Entropy 1 on enough units it could do something for sure. For this reason I decided to research Smelting for Forges.

Anyway, here are some plans for the follwing turn, turn 117 that is.




Haste adept + 5 units. I can load the on land and attack on same turn. There are at least two cities of Dave that I can target, probably will check with Hawk which one is poorly defended.

Here's the defenders of Orange Prism.




Jale moved his Adepts away for some reason.

Here's my stack moving forward. There are bunch of units behind as shown in 2nd pic, not all on that tile, some adepts and axes are not on the same tile.







The units will jump on the hill next 1NE of Orange Prism. Then on T118 the city should be easily captured after hitting it with 5 Trebs.

Demos.




Jale's power is rising somewhat fast every turn, but still only roughly 1/3 of mine. Not sure where all those units are though as warriors are only 3k each.

[Dreylin]

For some reason he didn't use Burning Blood to attack with Morois .

I put it down to foolishness ... or possibly idiocy.

Yeah well, good game! I guess that AGG really helped verses the Barbs early on as you trained those insane units - oh, and the ultra-early Prophet has certainly taught me not to play with Lairs on again anytime soon!

[Aurorarcher]

Yeah, the prophet was really helpful, it put the early snowball rolling... Anyway, for me lairs are a double-edged sword because while they can be really helpful for people who are brave enough to pop them early, they can also eliminate you on T10. But I think the prize for BigGood is so high (especially early in the game) that it's worth a shot even with a possible BigBad, and there are not very many THAT bad results, Azer and Ogre are the two worst results that come to mind. Also, I always pop lizzard lairs because they can be a pain in the ass if you leave them be. But I guess I can agree that playing without lairs is more balanced (I think that's what you were implying) - which I guess is good, maybe a bit boring though. I guess we'll find out that in EitB 45. I think the new changes for lairs in v12 is pretty good which adds level requirements to pop lairs, which basicially means no early prophets on T10 .

Also regarding AGG, I think the trait has been somewhat underrated. I have played 2/3 of my games here with AGG civ and I really like the early advantage it can give, also half-priced Siege Workshops suit perfectly for Khazad. Anyway, it sure helped me to get that very well-promoted Scout. That part was also very lucky for me because I did pop a graveyard early in the game which resulted in a spectre and my scout couldn't escape to safety so I had to either attack or wait for it to attack. There were no defensive tiles around so I took my chances to attack with marginal odds - and I won for like 10 xp (don't remember excactly).

[Aurorarcher]

Recently Jale researched Necromancery which is not terrible but probably means he is on his way to Sorcery.

Nevermind, he doesn't even have Writing.

But he fired his WS:




Perfect timing, 14 turns is pain without haste. Also no more Enchanted blades or immobilization of enemy troops.

On Dave front I scouted with Hawk to find poorly defended city.




The other city had 4 defenders.




So I went after Ash and it burned.




Got a bit lucky here. I landed the warrior, promoted to Mobility + Shock and attacked at about 30% odds and won.

On the other front of Dave's I scouted Hickory.




Still waiting for Trebs.

Jale is moving troops towards Orange Prism.




That "5 swords" is actually 4 swords + 2 warriors.

I moved my stack as planned, some units following.




Jale can put a total of 22 units to the city on T118 (not counting summons), add 7 to that with skeletons. I don't quite have that many hitters but after Trebs all my combats should be over 90% maybe even over 95%. Even without Trebs my top units have decent odds, best one has over 98%. So I can't quite take the city next turn but I should be able to kill a lot of units. Not sure what Jale should do actually, he can't possibly think the city can hold?

Also, Jale is giving Dave copper, looks like has has two of them.




One more turn left of my GA that has been going for 24 turns.

[Aurorarcher]

Jale rusted almost all my troops.

Looks like that Magic resistance didn't help that much.




But he left Orange Prism basically empty (2 skeletons).




I found interesting fact: Unit being Rusted can unrust by visiting a city (no forge required), but melee units need a city with forge to remove the -10% strenght. Both can get their weapons back in any city. I'm not sure if it was actually meant to be this way - but according to civiliopedia it could be such that getting weapons back would require forge.

T119 I razed 2 cities.

First Ebou Dar, which had one 3 strenght warrior defending it on T119 .




Then Hickory.




Dave can counterattack with some units. His best units might get 50% odds against my defenders - still I have huge number advantage and I doubt he'll attack. Obviously not much is going to stop me now.

Jale is trying to surprise me with a huge stack (around 40 units). He really needs HBR to surprise me in any way. Right now I can't really move any stack towards his cap, there's no defensive tiles left anywhere. Also he has too many units and with Entropy mana he can rust my troops very well so I'm not going to gamble here and retreated my units.




I'm planning to use ships again, I have now 3 Triremes + 3 Galleys on the northern part of of Jale's land. The plan is to attack weaker targets as Jale is obviously massing around his capital. He can't have very much behind.

Also, did I mention how annoying Arcane Lacuna can be when fired in the very late game? These turns would go so much faster with Haste ...

[Aurorarcher]

I'm not sure if this a bug:

I built Dwarwen Smithy (forge replacement)...




But somehow my melee units are still getting -10% strenght. Is this intended or am I missing something?




In other news I captured one of southern cities of Dave. I got pretty lucky winning two 35% combats with my chariots (forgot to take pics) but otherwise it was pretty straightforwarded.

[Dreylin]

Is it an end of turn trigger, or like Weapons where it doesn't trigger on stationary units the first turn they're available?

[Aurorarcher]

I forgot to check end of turn... so that could be it actually. Well, I guess I find out when the next turn appears. Units get Weapons whenever they enter a city that has the required resource + tech I believe.

[Dreylin]

Right, which also covers new units which "enter" a city when they are produced. But there's also an end of turn check on stationary units which happens /before/ the tech completes, which is why stationary units don't get Weapons the same turn the tech completes, but 1turn delayed.