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

[Thoth]

Ouch ><

Losing Asteroids hurts. Only inflicting 4 casualties hurts even worse. I really thought we'd do more damage than that.

Looks like most of Serdoa's units are currently redlined/heavily damaged so we should have a couple of turns before he can pillage our copper/move on Pacman. He's made a good play by pillaging the hamlet and road on the FP. With that road intact we'd have a shot at counter attacking next turn.

As it is, the Archery Range + some upgrades and warrior spam while we still have copper looks like the plan. I wish we had the ability to counter attack while Serdoa's forces are damaged, but I don't see it being possible right now unless you want to make a huge gamble and move our forces out of Pacman this turn.


I'm not quite sure how Serdoa figured we were going to win in 20/30 turns, but I agree with his assessment that the Sidar are OP. After all, demonstrating that they are OP was one of our goals in this game.

No war dec email kinda sucks, but these things happen sometimes (esp when you've got that much on your plate) so no worries there.

I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that Conquest is broken, in EitB. It comes too early, and does too much - the only possible counter to Conquest is to go Conquest yourself, and even then, it boosts the early game military so much that if you get caught napping for a couple turns, you're too far behind and can't catch up. The same thing happened in the test game with Darrell/Ilios/Mist - they went conquest first and that was that.

I think I would put it back with Warfare, if it were my call.

Agreed that it's too powerful. Coming early isn't the problem I think, it's the extra xp that allows easy out of the box l3s. Combined with the game settings (which provide ooodles of easy exp vs barbs) and the game's premiere rush leader and rush civ and it's a perfect storm. The synergy is very strong.

[Ilios]

Agreed that it's too powerful. Coming early isn't the problem I think, it's the extra xp that allows easy out of the box l3s. Combined with the game settings (which provide ooodles of easy exp vs barbs) and the game's premiere rush leader and rush civ and it's a perfect storm. The synergy is very strong.

I think the problem really is the fact that it comes so early. If we moved Conquest back to Warfare (which needs Bronze Working to get), it would be a worthy alternative to Agrarianism and Foreign Trade, thanks to the extra XP.

[Thoth]

I think the problem really is the fact that it comes so early. If we moved Conquest back to Warfare (which needs Bronze Working to get), it would be a worthy alternative to Agrarianism and Foreign Trade, thanks to the extra XP.

That still leaves the problem that it helps to make it too easy to get to 10 xp for the Savant-->Mage upgrade which breaks Spi and makes Org too good (Command Posts now give 3 xp as well).

In base, it is possible but difficult to build 10xp units. In EitB it's much, much easier. Exp is very valuable in FFH, I think it should be tough to get.

[Ilios]

That still leaves the problem that it helps to make it too easy to get to 10 xp for the Savant-->Mage upgrade which breaks Spi and makes Org too good (Command Posts now give 3 xp as well).

In base, it is possible but difficult to build 10xp units. In EitB it's much, much easier. Exp is very valuable in FFH, I think it should be tough to get.

Which means the Savant -> Mage upgrade needs to go.

[Thoth]

Which means the Savant -> Mage upgrade needs to go.

Either that or the extra exp from Conquest/Command posts need to go.

I'm in favour of the latter. Coming up with complicated plans to get to 10xp units for fancy upgrades is part of the fun IMO.

[Mardoc]

I'm afraid I agree with Thoth, Conquest probably needs both to go back to 2XP and to go to Warfare. I like the idea of something early to compete with Agrarianism, but in its current form, that just doesn't work.

Anyway - Thoth was excellent, I have a game to come back to. Here's what it looks like:

XVIII: Only played 1 turn. Upgraded 4/5 Warriors (the unfortified ones) to Archers. Since we no longer have copper, I figured we're best to keep the 5 remaining Bronze Warriors unupgraded until we can sneak in a Training Yard. Put two worker turns into mining the remaining FGH (that has 1 t into the chop). We can finish the mine and chop in 1t by chopping with one worker and mining with the other. Built a 1t Archer. Since we're making ~20gpt at 100% tech I turned it back on. We can 1t warriors and upgrade to Archers @33 gold per turn. I think we want 3/4 more Archers before we swap to either DS's (if we can 1t them) or Scouts (to upgrade....we'll probably need more cash flow than we have at 100% tech for these). Getting a training yard and our remaining Bronze warriors upgraded to Axes is desireable (we'll need something other than DS's and Archers if we want any hope of taking back Asteroids).



... (after I asked him to play one more while I caught up on things)



Serdoa has noticed we have archers, he's got two Cover promoted HM. Goofed when I said I'd already put the turns into the mine....got a bit ahead of myself. We can finish the Chop and Mine t79. Built a warrior for upgrading and turned tech off again after thinking about how much gold we want for upgrades. Plenty of time for teching if we can retake Asteroids, and no point if we can't. We should be able to 1 t an Archer t 79 and 80 with the help of overflow and the chop. He's got 11 HM in Asteroids and our Partisan is still alive, but at 2.1/4 Strength (he had to dodge some barbs last turn).

So what's it look like on T79? Well...we don't have workers anymore. Or much in the way of improvements. I *think* this is a good sign, it means Serdoa no longer expects to own Pacman momentarily. Or that he really really needs the gold.

He's lost Warcry on two horsemen that we can see, so that's progress too.



In other news.. why didn't I upgrade the scouts to Divided Souls?


I think the scouts should definitely not snipe workers, they should stick around and see if there are other such opportunities. And at home, we need to build some DS's and get KotE researched. Serdoa's really left the cupboard bare, it appears!

On that note - we have an opportunity to trade a warcried mobII/CII horse for a CII divided soul. Err, probably, assuming it doesn't retreat. And to deter Serdoa from sticking around in sniping range. I take it...

and...we now have 12 garrison units to Serdoa's 11 wounded horses That gives yet more time for us to catch him up, and let Warcry expire, and so on and so forth. Although it does also mean there's a DS he can kill for a Cover promo, I suppose . I'm tempted to build some Scouts next, to become Divided Souls and keep that counter attack ability alive - but I doubt Serdoa will give us another chance in the near future. So another warrior to become an Archer it is (without the chop we can't straight build an Archer).

Still - maybe soon we can consider hunting for Shades again? If we don't get a little bit of tech going, we'll never be able to outdo Serdoa, let alone Bob and Selrahc. A couple Engineers here would really hit the spot.

[Mardoc]

Sadly, turns are quite straightforward to play at the moment. Built another warrior to give a bow next turn, gave last turns' warrior a bow, observed that Serdoa's now lost Warcry on three units and he's withdrawn back to Asteroids.

[Thoth]

Sadly, turns are quite straightforward to play at the moment. Built another warrior to give a bow next turn, gave last turns' warrior a bow, observed that Serdoa's now lost Warcry on three units and he's withdrawn back to Asteroids.

Had a look at the t80 save....a few things to note:

1) I'd promote the new build warriors to C2 before upgrading them, we've probably got a turn or two (at least) until Serdoa's units are healthy enough to take a shot at Pacman, but if he does decide to strike we'll want our primary defenders as strong as possible.

2) I think we should leave tech off for the moment. We need all the gold we can get our hands on over the next 10-15 turns (yes I think we can stay alive that long...see below).

3) Bob is already running GoN so he's got Hidden Paths and access to another hero + his level 4 Fawns (which are ridiculously cheap at 40h + no building pre-req) can upgrade to Satyrs.

4) Selrach is already in Aristocracy so he's well along the path to Vampires.

Some diplo manouvering to see if we can get either Bob or Selrahc involved might help. I'm not sure if mentioning that Serdoa now has an Academy, a Shrine and 2 settled GEs would help or just encourage Bob or Selrach to take Asteroids for them selves.

We've got 8 Archers + Budweiser and 5 Copper warriors as defense (I presume you promoted Budweiser and the 10 xp archer to Formation?). We can upgrade another new warrior to archer next turn and should be able to 1t an archer the following turn with OF. Adding another warr--> archer on the following turn gets us up to 11 Archers + Bud and the warriors. That's enough to stave off the forces Serdoa currently has in our territory if he attacks (at least for 1 turn).

From there, I think we start spamming Scouts to upgrade to DS's (at 53 gold a pop). When our OF is 16+ hammers we dump them into a Training Yard. Once we have 10 DS's on the board, we finish the TY and upgrade our 5 Bronze warriors to Axemen. That's not enough to retake Asteroids so long as Serdoa keeps his troops alive, but it's enough for us to pose a threat to anything he has within striking range.

The bad news is that Asteroids will come out of revolt in 2 turns. He'll only have a happy cap of 4 unless he converts to RoK but he should still be able to build 3 to 4 (bronzeless) warriors every 5 turns there which is bad new for us in terms of retaking Asteroids but won't help him take us out completely (well, except that it will free up his HM to come after us).


We're looking at 13-15 turns to KotE at max tech (and a Sage). We'll be well short on cash for all the upgrades we need (unit support costs are going to skyrocket) unless we go to 100% gold now and stay there. We're almost certainly out of contention to win the game at this point, but we're certainly out if we can't somehow retake Asteroids (and our Shrine and our Academy ). KotE would be wonderful to have, but we need more wartoys more than we need the perks of KotE.


I'm not sure what we can do with our Partisan ATM, but a unit in Serdoa's backlines that he doesn't know about (I think...I'm pretty sure he didn't get visibilty on it) might just come in handy somehow.


Speaking of units in Serdoa's backlines.....Bradeline's Well is not currently within Serdoa's visibility range. The problem here is the 3 t casting time to pop the lair (AFAIK our unit is immobile and can't have it's orders cancelled during that time?) if any barb stumbles across the Scout while it is exploring, the scout is dead.

I'd really like to pop the Well....a Big Bad result would be awesome. :hat: Not sure we can though.

[Mardoc]

1) I'd promote the new build warriors to C2 before upgrading them, we've probably got a turn or two (at least) until Serdoa's units are healthy enough to take a shot at Pacman, but if he does decide to strike we'll want our primary defenders as strong as possible.

Did that this turn, once I realized I can't take promotions on a unit after it's upgraded.

2) I think we should leave tech off for the moment. We need all the gold we can get our hands on over the next 10-15 turns (yes I think we can stay alive that long...see below).

3) Bob is already running GoN so he's got Hidden Paths and access to another hero + his level 4 Fawns (which are ridiculously cheap at 40h + no building pre-req) can upgrade to Satyrs.

4) Selrach is already in Aristocracy so he's well along the path to Vampires.

Yeah, we're almost certainly out of it. My main goal at the moment is to drag Serdoa down with us.

Some diplo manouvering to see if we can get either Bob or Selrahc involved might help. I'm not sure if mentioning that Serdoa now has an Academy, a Shrine and 2 settled GEs would help or just encourage Bob or Selrach to take Asteroids for them selves.

I don't think it's really going to be possible. Bob's been the one spreading the Sidar horror stories, and Selrahc straight up said 'better you than me'. Can you think of anything we could bribe them with? I can't.

From there, I think we start spamming Scouts to upgrade to DS's (at 53 gold a pop). When our OF is 16+ hammers we dump them into a Training Yard. Once we have 10 DS's on the board, we finish the TY and upgrade our 5 Bronze warriors to Axemen. That's not enough to retake Asteroids so long as Serdoa keeps his troops alive, but it's enough for us to pose a threat to anything he has within striking range.

That's about what I'm thinking.

We're looking at 13-15 turns to KotE at max tech (and a Sage). We'll be well short on cash for all the upgrades we need (unit support costs are going to skyrocket) unless we go to 100% gold now and stay there. We're almost certainly out of contention to win the game at this point, but we're certainly out if we can't somehow retake Asteroids (and our Shrine and our Academy ). KotE would be wonderful to have, but we need more wartoys more than we need the perks of KotE.

Um. Gotta think about this, but you're probably right. The main thing DS +Sever Soul would buy us, though - is the chance to go harass Serdoa at his core. We can probably get there before his troops can return. Still - it doesn't mean a thing if we don't have sufficient units to do it.

Really I need to figure out a way to train up some troops to Wane, so that we can afford both. But the only thing that comes to mind is killing Hippus, and Serdoa probably won't give the chance.

Speaking of units in Serdoa's backlines.....Bradeline's Well is not currently within Serdoa's visibility range. The problem here is the 3 t casting time to pop the lair (AFAIK our unit is immobile and can't have it's orders cancelled during that time?) if any barb stumbles across the Scout while it is exploring, the scout is dead.

I'd really like to pop the Well....a Big Bad result would be awesome. :hat: Not sure we can though.

Yeah. Could do it if we'd upgraded them .

[Thoth]

Did that this turn, once I realized I can't take promotions on a unit after it's upgraded.

Yeah, we're almost certainly out of it. My main goal at the moment is to drag Serdoa down with us.

We can do that. If he wanted to steamroll someone he should have gone after Selrahc (who is *still* behind us in power in spite of the thumping we took at Asteroids I). Serdoa's captured a nice prize in Asteroids, but he's not getting both our cities unless we seriously screw up. (Note that includes Waning anything before we retake Asteroids and moving any of our defensive units outside Pacman. We can hold, but we can't afford to screw around with attacking out or deleting units for Wanes. )

Not yet anyway.

I don't think it's really going to be possible. Bob's been the one spreading the Sidar horror stories, and Selrahc straight up said 'better you than me'. Can you think of anything we could bribe them with? I can't.

Has he now? Hmmm. Might want to point out to Selrahc that Bob now has dirt cheap Fawns (that can be upgraded to Satyrs at l4....on a barb heavy map) plus one hero on the board and another available. Treacherous Elfs. :mad:

Never trust an Elf.

I like Bob, he's a good guy and is fun to chat with.

That being said, if we get the chance in this game I think we should give him a swift kick in the nuts for his diplo efforts on our behalf if we get the chance. Nothing personal, and we probably won't but the Sidar owe the stinking Elfs a favour.

A possible bribe might include dibs on the first barb city we capture and or Serdoa's core cities. Serdoa's shot his bolt and failed to take us out. He gets weaker as the game goes on (assuming he can't take Pacman) both Bob and Selrahc get stronger as the game goes on. If Bob's been doing the "OMFG the SIDAR ARE SO SCARY" routine, then Selrahc's our only (faint) diplo hope. An "OMFG the Elfs are going to PWN all of you with 2 heros and easy Satyrs" routine might work. It would be worth our while to grant both Serdoa's cities to Selrahc in exchange for some help....but he probably won't bite. He's at the bottom of the powergraph and is probably delighted that we and Serdoa are bleeding each other white.


Wildcard: Peace and an alliance with Serdoa in exchange for Asteroids. We'll need to offer something tasty like a couple of barb cities + a commitment to helping him vs Bob and/or Selrahc but he might be willing to bite if he's realized that we've stalemated him on taking us out.



OTOH, both Bob and Selrahc played in XI and while I doubt either is inclined to carry grudges from game to game......someone who is dedlurking you did rush Selrahc in XI and eventually win the game.

If they only knew just how bad some of the advice I've given you this game actually was.

Um. Gotta think about this, but you're probably right. The main thing DS +Sever Soul would buy us, though - is the chance to go harass Serdoa at his core. We can probably get there before his troops can return. Still - it doesn't mean a thing if we don't have sufficient units to do it.

Really I need to figure out a way to train up some troops to Wane, so that we can afford both. But the only thing that comes to mind is killing Hippus, and Serdoa probably won't give the chance.


Yeah. Could do it if we'd upgraded them .

Wane. Stop using that damn word. :mad: That's what people who are winning their wars do.

We're not winning this war ATM. We've managed a stalemate for the moment, but we need every unit (especially highly promoted units) that we can get right now.

Sever Soul and some mobility would be awesome, but we can't afford it right now. Survival is our short term goal.