[Spoilers - Flauros (sunrise089 and darrelljs)]

[darrelljs]

Something smells fishy :



So much for his huge power drop, it actually went up by a reasonable amount! He's pulling a Warrior/turn in every city no doubt. Here is the tactical map:



I can see 15 Warriors, 3 Swords, and Ilios's Hawk. Only two Warriors can reach Jubilee next turn however (in addition to the 3 Swords and the Warrior already inside). He has four Workers building a fort on the tile NW of Jubilee. What are your thoughts there sunrise089? I suspect someone is giving Serdoa a lot of gold, because even in a golden age he added an absolute insane amount of gold.



That on a turn he upgraded a few Warriors to Swords. I didn't want him to pour 6 Warriors into the city next turn, and upgrade them all to Swords. He's very scattered right now and I like it that way . Once we take Jubilee he is split in half, and can't concentrate forces any more. Rather than attacking, I decided to do the same Skeleton trick as before. So on the staging tile we have 11 Vampires in various states of injury, 2 Moroi, 2 Hunters, and 10 Skeletons. On a hill, our top defenders will have crazy odds on his Swordsmen, and with Regeneration most will be healed by next turn .

Oh, and its costing us 30 gold this turn to field the army .

Darrell

[NobleHelium]

I'm pretty sure this is showing everyone how strong Body II + Death II is on vampires, so I don't think you should be complaining about upkeep costs.

[darrelljs]

I'm pretty sure this is showing everyone how strong Body II + Death II is on vampires, so I don't think you should be complaining about upkeep costs.

But...but... . Okay, I'll try to keep the complaining down to a minimum.

Darrell

[Brian Shanahan]

But...but... . Okay, I'll try to keep the complaining down to a minimum.

Darrell

Complain away, nobody'll listen to you anyway.

[darrelljs]

Okay two major combat actions this turn. First off, the battle for Jubilee:



After the Skeletons went in for collatoral, the Vampires all had close to 99% odds. No losses this time around. The city came with some nice goodies:



After that I noticed he had units streaming in from multiple directions. I decided to first go for a pair of Swordsmen guarding four Workers, using Spectres to get great odds:



I burned through too many to be able to handle the stack of two Warriors inbound without risking units, so I had to be satisifed with the four Workers for now. Next step was to try and get some control over the battlefield.



Spectre fear will likely prevent his units from moving as indicated, so the Workers should be safe. I have a full strength C2 Vampire on the tile as well as the Hunter to make sure. Even better though the Spectres prevent him from joining his forces. I guess that's both good and bad actually, but bottom line is I can use them as blockers to control the battlefield, and strike when and where I choose.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Ilios appears to overestimate my willingness to bend over and take it:



Darrell

[NobleHelium]

Care to elaborate?

[darrelljs]

Care to elaborate?

I point blank asked him if he as going to take Seroda up on his request for help against me, but he said he wanted to see Serdoa taken down a peg. He then said he was NAP bound and needed my help to "keep up appearances". He said in chat he was "hanging out" in Coombe View to make Serdoa think he might help him. That city was mine next turn, it only had one Warrior in it and I had more than enougth troops ready to take it. He knew exactly what he was denying me when he razed that city, a naked act of aggression if I ever saw one .

A few diplomatic messages went out. First, one to Ilios, no body, just this subject:

I hope it was worth it

Then, one to Serdoa:

Did you conpsire with Ilios to spite me, or did he break his NAP with you?

The last one was for my own curiosity, I don't really think it changes anything.

Darrell

[Ravus Sol]

Ouch, So what shall the response be to this aggression?

I know this is probably off on a tangent, what with you knocking heads together with Vampires at the moment, But I wondered if you were planning to grab a religion after the war?

Religion is such a large part of my personal play style that It just seems plain weird for a nation not to have one yet

[darrelljs]

Ouch, So what shall the response be to this aggression?

Well, first I'm going to sleep on it. Then, I'm going to do what any self respecting Vampire would do .

I know this is probably off on a tangent, what with you knocking heads together with Vampires at the moment, But I wondered if you were planning to grab a religion after the war?

Religion is such a large part of my personal play style that It just seems plain weird for a nation not to have one yet

Yeah, I know . I am heading towards Ashen Veil as we speak. If you want beeline vamps, sometimes you have to wait for a religion. I'm doing pretty good techwise so I think I will be sacrifing the weak in about 2 turns.

Darrell