[SPOILERS] Bobchillingworth Presents: The Six Million Dollar Golem

[Bobchillingworth]

Well crap. I guess Kuro is coming for me anyway:







That's too many warriors to just be defense, and he just adopted Arete so I'll have to deal with Bambur too. Augh. Okay, well if I want to kill him I'd have to really commit to it anyway. Every city is switched to military builds- warriors for this round, I'll decide later for next. UNATCO starts on Barnaxus who is finally down to a 3-turn build- He'll have a good opportunity to finally get some real exp against all those warriors, and I need to build him before I adopt military state. After Barnaxus, capital needs to make some catapults (although I'd like more wood golems too). I moved my stack in the north back south- it really pains me to not rush after that barb city, but again if this is a fight to the death I have to take it seriously. They should arrive right before the game-enforced NAP ends- a nice surprise for Kuro, who keeps try to scout Versalife's garrison. Thankfully I've scouted both of Kuro's copper, and he can't get either of them connected in time... at least, I'm fairly certain he can't. I'm also recalling Agent Navarre back home, combat IV on a Lizardlady should be plenty for picking off enemy warriors.



Oh yeah also check out my Murder Event:






Haha, can you imagine a "deeply disturbed" Wood Golem stalking the streets at night, slitting the throats of prostitutes? Beeri is most unimpressed with whoever build that particular unit Anyway -4 happy is crippling, so I obviously went with the boring +1 happy for five turns option.



Meanwhile, my barrow warrior finds but doesn't take a portal:





He had reasonably good odds to survive the fight with the goblin, thanks to Dwarfy poison resistance, and I either want to explore the barrow again or heal him up at the Pool of Tears.



Finally, got contact with Thoth via my treasure chest. He only has four cities! Weird. I'd have had eight in about six turns if I had been able to focus on expansion, and probably 9 or 10 by turn 100.

[DaveV]

Of course: Gnome axeman = wood golem. I think because it's a non-living unit it can never become enraged (in fact, because it's a golem it may not even be able to take the crazed promotion). On the other hand, the 10 XP is completely worthless. It's all academic, though. As you said, 4 unhappy is way too high a price to pay for a single T2 unit.

[Mist]

Of course: Gnome axeman = wood golem. I think because it's a non-living unit it can never become enraged (in fact, because it's a golem it may not even be able to take the crazed promotion). On the other hand, the 10 XP is completely worthless. It's all academic, though. As you said, 4 unhappy is way too high a price to pay for a single T2 unit.

The event is bugged and that 10xp doesn't happen anyway.

[Bobchillingworth]

I wish the game had a count-down timer for how many turns you have left in a game-enforced peace. I'm pretty sure that I have five- by that point I can have 10 warriors in Versalife, four wood golems, a skeleton, Agent Navarre, and Barnaxus. Maybe a catapult too. That should hopefully be enough to handle a bunch of non-bronze warriors.



Events of the turn:





Warrior got a bad lair result, but not so bad since that means three scorpions I can capture eventually.








Giant power-spike from Thoth- must be a mass-upgrade. On one hand, It's cool if he's gunning for Kuro, since that means I won't have to commit so much to fighting him, but I'd also rather have the spoils of Kuro's empire all to myself.

[DaveV]

I wish the game had a count-down timer for how many turns you have left in a game-enforced peace.

F4 screen, "Active" tab. Mouse over the peace treaty text, and it will tell you how long it has left. If it says "Click to Cancel", the timer has elapsed.

[Bobchillingworth]

Hmm. Only 3 turns left in my peace treaty.



Also, judging by the sudden flurry of lurker thread activity, and darrell updating Selrahc's thread, and Thoth's power spike, I wonder if the two of them are going to bash skulls. Selrahc has been badly behind for a long time- I have no idea why, if he got choked or what.



Some bad news for me as well-



First, kuro's build-up continues:







That's not the really bad thing, though. I can handle a pile of warriors. The real trouble is





He fucking popped fucking copper from a fucking mine! Lucky son-of-a-bitch!


FUCK. Okay. Well, he probably doesn't have BW yet. If he does, that pile of lame-ass warriors might actually hurt. Even if he doesn't though he can get it soon enough via his stupidly long Golden Age that never ends. Combined with enchanted blades from Bambur "The Party Animal", who I assume he's currently building (he'd be stupid not to), and he'll be able to fight me at parity. I can outproduce him, but I don't want to have to devote my entire goddamn empire to knocking down his shit 2CC nation. Crap.


Well. Assuming he *doesn't* have BW yet, he can't hit me with copper warriors as soon as the enforced peace ends. And I only need a few extra turns to start getting my catapults in place. That'll take care of defense. Actually attacking will still be an issue though, since I'll be at risk of getting swarmed, and Bambur will take out my top stack defender at least in his initial strike (probably Barney). Bah. Why can't he just roll over and die?! :neenernee

[Mardoc]

Why can't he just roll over and die?! :neenernee

Oh, man, do I know that feeling when it comes to fighting Balseraphs .


:neenernee

[Bobchillingworth]

Indeed, I woke up to to three saves this morning, one of which requires a turn report if I want military assistance. I'll do my best to knock them all off before I head to work....AFTER I make my kids breakfast and get them ready for school

^ Posted by darrell in some thread. Idk what games he's in exactly, but I'm fairly sure he's in peace in the others. So Thoth must have indeed done a mass upgrade + attack. Thoth also beelined the FotT way back when- I'm guessing he went for massed city raider axes.



Build-up continues for the fight with Kuro. Reaaaaaly wish I could just build axemen right about now. Or HA. Or regular workers, so that I wouldn't have to use my military pumps to keep my terrain improvements coming at a steady pace. Goddamn, this civ blows.

[Bobchillingworth]

This was a good turn




First up, great event:






If I get the prophet event, I'm 3 for 3 Welcome to the Majestic 12, Ms. Harpy. Gads, she is a ghastly creature, though. Looks a lot like William Shakespeare, actually.


Versalife is only size 3, so the unhappiness is entirely manageable.




So, I have a few options with my new artist. I could bulb Drama, but the log tells me that someone got an artist about 20 turns ago, and Drama seems like the obvious culprit. I could make a golden age- tempting, to be sure. But I what I'm thinking of doing right now is making a culture bomb (or settling). There are three main options-


1. Bomb Versalife, use it to gain control over some nice fp to my south and more importantly gain move ability to menace Kuro. Possible, but I'd only save a turn at best in the time to reach his nearest city, and Versalife is already pumping great culture from the Academy, so any non-Kuro tiles I obtain I'll be getting normally soon enough anyway.


2. Settle in / Bomb that barbarian city to my north. I'd gain control over a lot of tiles this way- very tempting.


3. Settle in my next planned city, here [the city sign closest to the Spider warning sign]:






This wouldn't get me as many tiles as it would in the north, but it does have the advantage of gaining advanced warning if the Rev tries to get frisky, and blocks him off from several tiles. Very tempting as well.



In other pictures, here's Kuro's garrison the turn before either of us can declare:





Nothing too troubling. I forgot to check his traits, but he must have just rolled a new batch, can't think of any other way he could have suddenly gotten a Commando unit. Whatever, I don't care what he is, as long as it isn't Aggressive. No Bambur. No copper weapons, and he hasn't bothered to road it yet ether.



Actually, his tile decisions make no sense. It's hard to see in this non-animated picture, but I'll provide it as a visual reference:






Kuro isn't working any of his 5-hammer super-mines, the 7-hammer copper mine, or the three 5-commerce non rice/wheat farms. What the hell is he smoking?! He must be running several specialists or something... that's my best guess. I have no idea why he would squander so much golden-age food or commerce or production potential, but a lot of his play honestly doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why has he been building warriors in huge numbers but no defensive buildings- does he intend to attack me with strength 3 warriors? Why hasn't he expanded? Well, whatever. Maybe he can build another academy for me, heh.



In two or three turns I'll have Barnaxus, 12 warriors (some highly promoted), 4 Empower 1 Golems, Anna the CIV Lizardman, and a Shock, CII skeleton ready to roll out- or I can wait for catapults, the first being able to enter Kuro's territory in 8 turns, and then another one every 2 turns thereafter. I'll have to do some sims to see what is best. Optimally, Kuro will go mad and decide to attack me with a pile of strength 3 warriors.

[Sareln]

The event is bugged and that 10xp doesn't happen anyway.

I figured out how to fix that!