Mardoc Wrote:Ah, the server cooperates. That was a very fast turnaround on the turn!
No March - no recapture, either. Or further capture. I'm definitely hoping that Bob and Serdoa record the war carefully, I want to know what's happening! .
We'll have some Hawks soon.
Quote:By firing a Sage, I manage to get Rathus down to a 3-turn build.
Nice. :hat:
Quote:In what passes for excitement around here - I spot a barb axe! Does that mean there's a city? Or just that everyone's gotten to bronze?
It means that Bob has Iron Working.....barb warriors upgrade to Axes once someone has IW (based on my FFH XI experience)
Barb Kill stacks just got a whole lot nastier. (bad news for Serdoa if he's over extended )
Aeron's Chosen is awarded to the first level 6 (not 26xp....) Assassin on the board. Leveling up one of our high xp DS's is a priority.
Agreed on our Hero, he's nice and all. But his main uses are the Nether Blade and unlocking the Shrine of the Champion. He's better than a regular Assassin, but not enough better to keep him on the board vs his other benefits (assuming we can afford the SoC).
Thoth Wrote:It means that Bob has Iron Working.....barb warriors upgrade to Axes once someone has IW (based on my FFH XI experience)
Ah. If true - Bob probably wouldn't go to IW until he had Longbows on the board - oy. Serdoa may turn out to need our help.
On the other hand...well, I mean a Iron Longbow still dies to a CIV/Cover horse. And easily dies to a 85% withdrawer followed by said Cover horse. I think we have to wait and see.
Quote:Aeron's Chosen is awarded to the first level 6 (not 26xp....) Assassin on the board. Leveling up one of our high xp DS's is a priority.
We've one on the edge, 20 or 23 XP, something like that. Mainly I was wondering what should be prioritized.
Quote:Agreed on our Hero, he's nice and all. But his main uses are the Nether Blade and unlocking the Shrine of the Champion. He's better than a regular Assassin, but not enough better to keep him on the board vs his other benefits (assuming we can afford the SoC).
SoC, after Industrious, is basically the same cost as Rathus. So it should be quite doable.
Mardoc Wrote:Ah. If true - Bob probably wouldn't go to IW until he had Longbows on the board - oy. Serdoa may turn out to need our help.
On the other hand...well, I mean a Iron Longbow still dies to a CIV/Cover horse. And easily dies to a 85% withdrawer followed by said Cover horse. I think we have to wait and see.
Yep. Let the leaders duke it out while we sit in the shadows....
Quote:We've one on the edge, 20 or 23 XP, something like that. Mainly I was wondering what should be prioritized.
At this point, xp on units that we want to keep (ie Recon units) is more useful than another Wane. We're teching ok and have a solid GPT. We *need* more real units with promos.
Quote:SoC, after Industrious, is basically the same cost as Rathus. So it should be quite doable.
Thoth Wrote:At this point, xp on units that we want to keep (ie Recon units) is more useful than another Wane. We're teching ok and have a solid GPT. We *need* more real units with promos.
I think I phrased myself poorly - what I meant was more along the lines of 'do we need a lot of Ghosts, or just one, or one with high XP, in order to get Aeron's Chosen'. Which you did answer, elsewhere - I need to get one, well-promoted Ghost. I can debate on the other DS's what the right balance is between Ghosts and proto-Rangers.
I agree 100% that we need military above all at the moment. We've gotten our GNP to within spitting distance of Bob - if Serdoa manages good stuff in the next few turns, then we'll be number one here. Next goal is keeping it from being yet another outpost of the Hippus empire .
I believe I edited the post here before any could read it, although it was much the same- as far as suggesting what I felt was the optimal combination of the choices they presented to each other, under the assumptions and parameters their thread had thus far presented. However, I think I see now that this is no excuse for attempting to give any advice to anyone while being 'globally spoiled' as there could be the potential transference of 'indirect information'. [SPOILER]As in, not what I was saying but what I was not saying ... was not warning them of X,Y,or Z. This is only of course if they thought that I would warn them if such a thing were to occur, and thus the lack of warning meant that I had nothing to warn them about.[SPOILER]I would like to think that I could give neutral advice from a vacuum regardless of outside knowledge, based solely on their thoughts and concerns of the moment, however it is best that I do not continue this behavior because it gets into the weird part of diplomatic psychological intelligence gathering, and one is never fully aware of what information they may or may not be presenting to the subject.[SPOILER]Now, I doubt that I had been able to give them any information they did not already know ... Thoth's post 10 minutes after mine which said much the same thing "rathus first" while he was typing he clearly did not see what I had written because it was basically a 'ninja' effect. Also, this game has 3 players and the political complexities are, at least on the surface, at a minimum.[SPOILER]Now lets say for instance, that Bob and Serdoa decided to gang up on Mardoc, in order to finish him off due to 'being the sidar.' While this would have been unlikely, it is possible that me giving them advice while saying nothing of 'being ready to fight' before the Serdoa NaP wore off could have indicated that such an attack was not likely to occur. However, I would like to think that I would not have revealed this even if it were the case, and I would instead continue to give them advice based upon the knowledge they were working off of, basically which of 2 options that they presented might be the best. So I gave my opinions on what option might be best. Still, I can see how this could lead to a massive grey area, so other than dedlurking ... I will simply have to remain silent while the game is still being played. At least to the player's themselves, even if the input would seem harmless.[SPOILER]I believe the advice I had previously given on this particular post, prior to editing, was saying that Assassins suck at city defense, and thus they only needed Aeron Assassin + an army of Rangers for the defense ... but I think 'assassins suck at defense' is something everyone knows. Still, its best that I edited it before they could read it, because I think army composition is getting dangerously close to war plans, and as I understand it trying to meddle in their war plans as a non ded lurker is strictly frowned upon, therefore I can see that I should avoid even the most harmless of indiscretions so as to not later commit something that could be potentially harmful, aka influencing the subject in a way that they might have not been influenced by a ded lurker.[SPOILER]Since I cannot predict how I would think while being unspoiled, after already being spoiled, as some sort of strategic schrodinger's cat ... I should only give any small parcel of strategic advice if I am ded lurking or on a team.[SPOILER]I hope that I have not offended anyone with my actions as of yet, and I hope that all can see this is all Mardoc and Thoth's own work. I think it should be obvious from earlier posts that they clearly know more about what they are doing than I do XD ... as they have shown me that some of my suggestions and advice were strategically unavailable/invalid options. And in other cases, they simply had a better idea on how to go about the game than I did. I think the best I did was tie with Thoth on Rathus first vs. the Mage Guild, and as I said with a 10 minute difference there was simply no way he could have seen my post first, as he was doing multiple quotes and writing out a fairly long post which would have taken longer than 10 minutes to write, so he must have started while I still hadn't posted. And in all earlier cases when I gave advice, I recall that they always had a better idea, heh.[SPOILER]In any case, I like the lore of the Sidar, and I suppose I became a bit too attached and possibly pretended that I was ded lurking for awhile, if you consider the conditions of this PBEM, I do not think that would be hard to do for the underdog? Honestly I was tied between the Sidar and the Hippus for awhile, but after the Hippus rolled over the Calabim, I just wanted to see how far the Sidar could go from their dire straits.[SPOILER]That being said, I never revealed anything about the other players (or their intentions) or my general 'global thoughts' to any of the players or their threads, including the Sidar. I have no idea how this game is going to end, but I hope that any observer can see clearly that I had no effect on the outcome. Therefore, I will refrain from giving any of the players advice (unless I happen to be ded lurking someone) so that I will no longer put any players at risk of being accused of an 'unfair advantage' ... although honestly, from the advice I've been giving lately, I think I'd call it something closer to an unfair DISadvantage [SPOILER]Thank you for reading this far, hopefully you understand my motivations and that you agree that I have had no affect on the outcome of this game!
Quote:[COLOR="Lime"]Well, I guess I was overly optimistic. I won't be able to take any more cities of his. In fact I will propose Bob to concede the game to him as he is far too advanced for me to have any hope of taking him out, not that I really should have expected anything else, this map is simply too big for a rushing civ
Anyhow, if you think you can win, let me know.
Kind regards,
Serdoa[/COLOR]
I responded, told Serdoa I still think I have a chance and am having fun.
Mardoc Wrote:I responded, told Serdoa I still think I have a chance and am having fun.
Also played the turn, nothing newsworthy except spotting another barb axe, and we got our first Ghost kill.
I'm obviously not perfectly aware of the situation, but I still think Serdoa has a chance - Bob is underestimating the value of XP, I think, and Serdoa's horses are really powerful. And, more importantly - if he loses, it's nothing to do with 'big map' - he's freakin' Hippus! It's either our tenacious defense, or Ljo defense that did it.
Serdoa doesn't think he has a chance (and check out his GNP btw )
I haven't looked at the current save but he was at -24 GNP a couple of turns ago. If he can't generate some pillage cash he'll be heading into strike in the not too distant future.
As far as Ghost/Rangers go, I think somewhere around 30% Ghosts/70% Rangers. Rangers are our mainline units while Ghosts are our clean up/ surprise attack units.
Not sure exactly what you're talking about - but I suspect you're complaining about my request . Let me clarify - I don't think you've done anything wrong so far. But generally the rule is better safe than sorry, and you've been drifting in the direction of too much help for a global lurker. I wanted to make sure I said something before you actually crossed the line.
Quote:[COLOR="Lime"]If you want to attack him at any point in time you will need collateral Mardoc. Otherwise I don't see how to hurt him - his Kithra defends at ~19 str. My WB-tests show that my withdrawers won't scratch that.
[/COLOR]
Quote:[COLOR="Silver"]
It's rather convenient that I've acquired a Nether Blade, then, isn't it?[/COLOR]
Serdoa...you know you want to return Asteroids to its rightful owners, don't you? C'mon - if you've given up against Bob, maybe you can accept a partnership and trust in your ability to crush me in 24 turns...
In other news - well, that was the biggie - Rathus born at EOT. We're at about 30 gpt, and it's still not enough to upgrade all the Ghosts I want; we should get another Wane in a couple turns to help with that, though. Ghost training is even easier than DS training, the tricky part is finding targets. I cleared out the lizard guarding its ruins, but don't yet have a unit I'm willing to let sit there for three turns looking for loot I might skip upgrading the next scout, and just keep guards in the area - he can upgrade if he lives .
Mardoc Wrote:Serdoa...you know you want to return Asteroids to its rightful owners, don't you? C'mon - if you've given up against Bob, maybe you can accept a partnership and trust in your ability to crush me in 24 turns...
Given his GNP, he may not have much army left in 24 turns.
Quote:In other news - well, that was the biggie - Rathus born at EOT. We're at about 30 gpt, and it's still not enough to upgrade all the Ghosts I want; we should get another Wane in a couple turns to help with that, though. Ghost training is even easier than DS training, the tricky part is finding targets. I cleared out the lizard guarding its ruins, but don't yet have a unit I'm willing to let sit there for three turns looking for loot I might skip upgrading the next scout, and just keep guards in the area - he can upgrade if he lives .
Nether Blade handy....but Serdoa's right....we do want some form of stack damage for when we go up against Bob. Fortunately Bob isn't our first choice of target.
.
[SPOILER]Thank you for reading this far, hopefully you understand my motivations and that you agree that I have had no affect on the outcome of this game!