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

[DaveV]

And, of course, if the unit holding the item dies (or is accidentally deleted), the item drops to the ground and can be picked up by anyone who hasn't casted a spell.

[Mardoc]

Dang it, my day at work hasn't stretched this long in a while; Serdoa posts one of his rare posts, and Tasunke's burning up the lurker thread, and I get this message with the as-yet unopened save:

[COLOR="Lime"]And I saw a shadow looming over the land,
And I saw blood and tears and death.
And when I started to cry, for all the horror,
A light guided me home - to my beloved
Horses.

[/COLOR]

Are we at war? The downside of relying on the NAP, we've scheduled most of what we need for T135...I don't see us surviving without the Beastmasters (and potentially we also need the Ranger backups).

OTOH, if Serdoa hit us with what he has, now, today, he'd probably have passed the save to Bob, not to us. So that's a helpful thought

[Mardoc]

Nope, still unattacked. We did have an unfortunate event. Normally the graveyard would be the obvious choice if one can afford it - but that costs us one upgrade on T135. I think we'll need said upgrade. So I took the health penalty instead .




I whipped out Sareln's combat calculator, out of curiosity, calculated the number of horses it takes to get even odds on typical defenders. Turns out one Ranger defending is worth ~2-3 Horsemen, depending on what I assume each side has for promos. One Beastmaster is worth 8-10. One Archer is worth 1-2, and one DS is worth 1-2.

We'll have four Beastmasters, 7 Rangers, 6 DS's, 3 Archers. Directly adding everything, that's 55-79 Horsemen required for even odds. So I think we'll be ok. I only see somewhere on the order of 30-35 horses, and I still don't see a reason for him to keep more in the fog. But...variability might kill us anyway, if he gets lucky and kills something on bad odds. Or if I simply miscalculated somewhere, and his chances are better than I think.

So...I send the turn on. Sometime in the next couple days, we'll know if we made it or not.

[Thoth]

Sucks about the timing of that event. A Graveyard to pop would have been nice (and the permanent +1 unhealth sucks ). But I agree the extra upgrade is a better bet.

I haven't looked at the t133 save, but I counted close to 40 Horsemen in Asteroids on t132.

I wonder how many (if any) he can get upgraded to Horse Archers.

[Mardoc]

Sucks about the timing of that event. A Graveyard to pop would have been nice (and the permanent +1 unhealth sucks ). But I agree the extra upgrade is a better bet.

Now that the save has moved on, I satisfied my curiosity for the path not taken. We'd have been able to loot the graveyard for 22 of the 33 gold spent...which would have left us 1 gold short of our last upgrade Which would mean a Beastmaster with CII, not one with CIV/Formation.

If we live, we'll just have to settle an extra Merchant, that's all .

I haven't looked at the t133 save, but I counted close to 40 Horsemen in Asteroids on t132.

I wonder how many (if any) he can get upgraded to Horse Archers.

42, at the moment. Some are injured.

Honestly, if he were going for HA's, I can't see him building and keeping so many horsemen. He'd have actually had an economy if he didn't keep all these guys around. I'm going to guess less than 5 HA's. Possibly exactly 0.

[Mardoc]

42, at the moment. Some are injured.

Now that I think about it - this means there's probably only three possibilities for what we see on T136. In order of my best guess of likelihood:

1. Our stack is gravely injured, and missing a member or two. Serdoa's stack is halved or worse, lots of wounded horses everywhere
   
2. Nothing. Just a tech thread post from Serdoa. Depending on how lucky he was and how much he likes our wanes, it might include a concession to Bob.
   
3. Standoff. This is a good situation, gives us time to tech some more, start killing horses and the Thane, debate between building the Baron, Ghosts, and Rangers.
   

[Thoth]

42, at the moment. Some are injured.

Honestly, if he were going for HA's, I can't see him building and keeping so many horsemen. He'd have actually had an economy if he didn't keep all these guys around. I'm going to guess less than 5 HA's. Possibly exactly 0.

Yeah, I'm just being paranoid. His economy has been shite for a long time, but he's been in the black for long enough that HAs are an outside possibility.

Now that I think about it - this means there's probably only three possibilities for what we see on T136. In order of my best guess of likelihood:

1. Our stack is gravely injured, and missing a member or two. Serdoa's stack is halved or worse, lots of wounded horses everywhere
   
2. Nothing. Just a tech thread post from Serdoa. Depending on how lucky he was and how much he likes our wanes, it might include a concession to Bob.
   
3. Standoff. This is a good situation, gives us time to tech some more, start killing horses and the Thane, debate between building the Baron, Ghosts, and Rangers.
   

I suspect we'll see a bit of #1 and a bit of #3 if things go badly for Serdoa with the first dozen or so fights. Time to get some more Rangers/Ghosts/The Baron on the board would be nice.

Actually attacking Asteroids while the majority of Serdoa's forces are intact is very, very risky. We'll be exposing units to counter attack on open ground and weakening our defences in Pac Man. Unless we can actually take back Asteroids we should probably stand on the defensive for the moment. Otherwise we risk defeat in detail.

[Mardoc]

I suspect we'll see a bit of #1 and a bit of #3 if things go badly for Serdoa with the first dozen or so fights

I suppose the mix is possible. I wouldn't do that in his shoes - but then I'd have attacked Bob despite the odds in his shoes, too. Actually...looking at his stack a little more closely...

He's got a wide mix of promos - but a small fraction are combat! My odds calculation was based on CIV units for the Beastmasters and CII units for everyone else - but his focus on shock and cover and flanking instead mean that our odds are probably actually better than I calculated


That Str 16, +210% Beastmaster he'll face, is likely to pulp his first few horses without even taking a scratch. It's quite possible that demoralizes him. In this case, we can kiss our tile improvements goodbye again . At least this time I intend to keep the workers alive.

Actually attacking Asteroids while the majority of Serdoa's forces are intact is very, very risky. We'll be exposing units to counter attack on open ground and weakening our defences in Pac Man. Unless we can actually take back Asteroids we should probably stand on the defensive for the moment. Otherwise we risk defeat in detail.

Yes. The only reason the odds look so good is that +90% from cultural defenses plus fortification.

If scenario #1 happens, and our healing is fast enough, I can see the value in attacking out to kill off as many wounded horses as we can, so long as we make sure to keep a strong garrison intact. We do have better healing than Serdoa, so can recover faster from an apocalyptic battle, if our units actually survive.

If scenario #3 happens, then we have to play defense with almost everything. I foresee the Ghosts doing some harassment, and perhaps after a few turns, we can add harassment or core threatening with Rangers. And in any event, we can keep teching, to get more toys on the board.

If scenario #2 happens, then it doesn't matter anyway

[Tasunke]

I see you are building the National Epic again?

[Mardoc]

I see you are building the National Epic again?

Leaving it in the queue, sure. It'll stay one turn from completion for quite some time .