[Spoilers - Flauros (sunrise089 and darrelljs)]

[NobleHelium]

I don't understand why you didn't use the spectre attack instead. Surely ~12 spectres and 15 vampires can attack 15 warriors and 2 catapults without losing more than a vampire or two. You won't wipe out their stack, but there's nothing big in retaliation range.

[darrelljs]

Sunrise089 sim'd it out and said 20 vampires minimum. In any case I don't think he can bring the equivalent of 13 skeletons, 2 vampires, and 2 spectres to the city in one turn, so holding off seemed prudent to me. The one concern was the catapults but I believe healing resolves at the beginnig of my turn (?) So with Regeneration I should be fine.

Its worth noting he lacks HBR so I move faster on his roads than he does .

Darrell

[NobleHelium]

Yeah, all units heal at beginning of turn. Regeneration gets removed after that if units are fully healed.

[sunrise089]

Its worth noting he lacks HBR so I move faster on his roads than he does .

Darrell

That's the key. Cats are really strong in FFH, and darrell and I chatted before we knew Serdoa would be in position to cat us and then attack, so that does change the calculation some. However as darrell said we can't kill his city in 1t. If Serdoa runs away we can catch him and attack in the open (we have nothing to bombard). Adding skeletons lets us take the city even easier and probably doesn't cost us a turn.

[darrelljs]

Do you want to re-sim the current situation? I think its pretty straightforward, go in with the Skeletons, then the Spectres, then the "real" units. Moroi if odds are low, Vampires if odds are good (or we run out of Moroi). Hunters are a last resort.

Darrell

[DaveV]

For lurkers who don't understand the mechanics of summoning, this sequence is the optimal force multiplier for vampires. Skeletons can't move nor attack on the turn they're summoned, Spectres disappear the turn after they're summoned. So you move your stack into position, and mass summon skeletons where they'll be in position to attack next turn. The following turn, the skeletons are able to attack, and you mass summon spectres. You can attack with all your summons before risking your regular units who have to be built with hammers instead of being summoned out of thin air.

[Square Leg]

It is also worth noting that Skeletons, and other such summons that are permanent (tigers from PoL), cost in upkeep and add to war wariness if killed where as disposable summons do neither.

You can also only summon as many permanent summons as you have casters able to summon them. However, you can cast multiple times from 1 casters.

So if you have 5 Vamp, you can have only 5 Skeletons at any one time however, they could all be summoned by 1 vamp on 5 consecutive turns. (Or all on the same turn by each vamp)

[darrelljs]

Chat with Serdoa...seems like he bunkered down. Smart move with all the defensive bonuses I think. With sunrise089 having simulated it out I feel somewhat confident, but I bet we lose some vampires for sure. Question is how many and what does it do with our offensive. The ability to draft will help for sure, but after this I don't expect to do more than trickle units in. I don't have THAT much population.

Serdoa: received the save for FFHPBEM2 already?
Darrell: no, not yet...I think Ilios still has it
I am very curious however
Serdoa: thats a pity. I want to know your reaction when you find your whole stack missing gg
Darrell: it would mostly involve whimpering
Serdoa: no, just a joke. only wanted to ask if you've taken my city already
Darrell: Not yet
Serdoa: you should when you get the save.
Darrell: sunrise089 claims we might not have neough, he ran some simulations
Serdoa: you have, easily.
Darrell: I would have thought so, but maybe he's just really conservative
vampires are overpowered, obviously
no unit should get both a temporary and permanent summons
Serdoa: well, I am not sure on your odds with them, but some have C1,S1 right? So those have surely odds on me. And you can weaken all warriors with the skeletons and the spectres. Not even sure they will be still there after that. Pretty much if you can't take that stack out before it hits you, you are gone. Well maybe not with better troops, I'll never find out
Darrell: well my spectres will only be str 3
I think yo udefend at over 6 with all the bonuses
so his worry must be the fodder doesn't do a lot of damage
most vamps have C1, death 2 and mobility
One has body 2, and I think one has shock
I was an idiot and forgot to pillage the copper, so any new units you built get bronze weapons too
Serdoa: hm, you are right when I think about it. 25% fortify, 30% defense gives 55%. Thats 6.x str. If I could have finished that wall I might have a realistic chance :/
Darrell: and in a golden age, you are probably churning the warriors
don't forget 25% for warrior in a city
most have close to 80% I guess, so that's over 7!
Serdoa: oh yeah, forgot that as well - ey, they are not as bad as I thought then :D - as for the warriors, yeah, I am getting some. But I think I can get copper via other sources as well Darrell
Darrell: Hmm...interesting
Want a screen shot of the combat log after its over, or do you prefer the suspense?
Serdoa: combat log would be great
Darrell: Okay will do...and as always, good luck, but not THAT good
Serdoa: thanks for you too

Darrell

[sunrise089]

What combat log?

It's also funny to see him shift from "my units are toast" to "my units can almost live." Not a criticism, just none of us really have a lot of FFH experience so it isn't that instinctive yet to estimate a battle.

[darrelljs]

Yes, I agree. When you told me we needed 20 Vampires I thought you were insane. It is very good you ran a simulation. The battle is over and it was very tense for me. First, he did use the Catapults as I expected:



Fortunately, Regenration healed all units completely except for 1 Skeleton and the two Moroi. I decided to go Skeletons first and see what happened. Most got in only 1 hit. A few got two and a few got zero . It was very worriesome. I realized we needed everything so I brought the two Vampires up from Nubia. I then summoned (one at a time) 14 Spectres. Again, they all died . Most of them got multiple hits, so now most Warriors had 3 hits total. My first Vampire though had a unit with only 1 hit on it to go through. I chose my Shock Vampire after some concern, and won at about 70%. From there the battles were usually 85%. I ended up doing pretty good :



The city came intact with a Monument, so I can save my two spare Bears for new cities:



Total body count:



You can see we killed I think 15 Warriors total plus the two Catapults. I see around 7 Warriors and a Swordsman left and heading for his next city. So I think its a heal and then strike turn again. With Warfare in, I revolted to Military State for two big reasons. One is the ability to draft Vampires of course. The other is to save cash:



If Krill is reading he's laughing his ass off.

Darrell