For Fear of Little Men-Clan of Embers Spoiler Thread

[NobleHelium]

End the world yet?

[Selrahc]

The fate of the Horde:
2 arrived back in the homeland.

They're watching the construction of the Prophecy with bated breath.

1 has managed to pillage three windmills now, for a total of 24 gold. Those evil evil windmills... He is currently just outside borders heading for another.

Don Quixote, slayer of windmills.

1 stands guard over the Pines. He plans to be an Ambassador of Pain, ushering people into a congress of whupping their ass.

His friend the Diplomat of Destruction was recently eaten by a bear.

1 follows the noble example of Don Quixote and his windmill destroying quest. He has crested a hill, and is soon to destroy his first hated windmill. I'm sure nothing could possibly go wro-

Ah.

Everybody else has died in the wilderness. Bears and Griffins have been declared as enemies of the state.

They did not die (completely) in vain though. Their suffering brings the Goblin Kingdom a fairly comprehensive map of the world.
And what a world it is. Or should that be "Was"?

The mirror of heaven gave me a really good view of my surroundings. And you can see just how crazy the world is. That's five different Remnants of Patria just in these screenshots?



You can also see some of the Kuriotate and Lanun lands, dominating the world south/north of me. The Kuriotates already have a vast empire extending westwards from the screenshot.


The Elohim domain is to my east. And I've reason to believe a similarly sized Balseraph domain is westerly. They are my closest neighbours.


Just for good measure, here is a screenshot of my lands. I'm still right on schedule for World Demolition. Currently I'm having my solitary worker scamper about, looking to improve all my resources. Once exploration comes in, he'll start connecting them. I'll have him covered by a warrior, in case somebody tries to snipe him. I'm hoping that doesn't result in me having forces out of position when the hammer falls.. but really I'm more hoping that the hammer just doesn't fall at all. I got less forces home after the Horde than I would have liked.

From the mirror of heaven, the Goblins looked out at the entire world. They saw the remnants of a previous age. All around are Patrian ruins, artefact caches. Tombs of Sucellus jut out of the landscape, and some credit them for the absurd fecundity of the world. When Sucellus was rent asunder by the mad winter god, his body parts were scattered far and wide. Wherever a part of his noble countenance landed, nature bloomed. And thus a land without water became the most fertile place in the world. Plants and animals sustaining themselves on divine nectar.

The goblins however are a contrary people, and they believe differently. They know that the heart of the world is the slime vaults. A natural delicatessen. An oozing cornucopia of delights. The slime vaults well up from deep underground and seep into the surrounding areas, enlivening the world. Animals drink at slime pools, or the great slime geysers. Even the mighty dragons came to sup on delicious slime. In ages past mighty goblin sages bravely poisoned the slime pools the great beasts supped upon, then stole their treasure. It was one of those ancient Caches that Fleas used to establish his breakaway kingdom.

Graph Time!

The overall graphs. A sad sad tale. A line of 5's in almost every category, and completely dominated economically. But this was always an "All In" strategy. No recovery is planned if it doesn't work.

The biggest point of alarm here is that enemy production is pretty high. Even doubled by warrens, my military production is going to be less than my opponents.


Top 5 cities. Notice the lack of Clan representation? Discrimination! When will people recognize the goblins as a legitimate civilization?



Big jump for the Kurio's in score and culture due to early legends.


Bob is absolutely dominating the GNP. I'm very very worried about him. As I've said, I think one of my big hopes is that he manages to hit 50% higher score than me.




The other graphs I find less interesting. Except I'm not seeing any real evidence that forces have yet been arrayed against me. I'm tied lowest in power, but that is more due to my lack of population and technology than raw numbers.

[Notintheface]

Would it be worth the detour to settle Seven Pines and fire it off yourself early?

[Selrahc]

Would it be worth the detour to settle Seven Pines and fire it off yourself early?

No. I plan on not building any more cities. Doing so would be a big delay to the entire process, a drain on my economy and a defensive liability. Imagine I start on a settler now. It takes 6 turns to complete(24 ac), then a dozen turns to travel over. By the time it arrives I will have finished Prophecy and Warrens, and gotten 4 or 5 units completed(20 ac). So it would cost me 34 AC, and worse it would do it by preventing the AC from ever going high. If an opponent wants to shave 34 AC, they need to wait for the counter to reach 68 unleashing 3 of the 4 horsemen and blight.

[Selrahc]

T40 has just been played. Right on schedule with the test game. Warrens are completed. Prophecy will be completed in 2 turns. The first prophecy units will be rolling off the assembly line on T44.

One change from the test game. I've been running Pacifism and a Priest specialist for the entire length of the build process, filling a good third of the GP counter. Since the Prophecy opens up another priest slot, and gives 2 prophet GPP, I could nova another prophet very quickly. Pacifism gives +50% to GPP, which when you're only generating 3, only adds 1. If I increase my generation to 8/turn, pacifism will be giving me a much more substantial 12/turn.

I'm still not quite sure about the play here. I'm hoping I can do this without significantly affecting military production. A Great Prophet will be handy, adding production and gold. Two things I could definitely stand to have more of. But my gut is saying that if it means delaying builds and AC rises, it isn't worth it. What I think is most likely however, is that I will be able to 1 turn goblins, but not warriors. So there will be defensive issues, but not AC issues.

Anyway, still under consideration. The cost that has come out of this play is that Exploration will not be completed until the turn after the prophecy(potentially even two turns), instead of simultaneously. BUt I like having the option.

Still aiming for T70 doomsday. Tick.

[Selrahc]

For some reason, even though everything basically looks the same as my test game, I must have dropped some hammers along the way. The prophecy hasn't been able to be whipped. So.. T45 slave of the Prophecy. First Marked units on T46. This is very disappointing. Two whole turns out... ugh....

[Selrahc]

Prophecy? Complete.



Enemy stacks? Nowhere in sight, and nowhere obvious demographically.

Game status? Basically lost.



Bob's already got Ashen Veil, which puts him around five turns from Hyborem. This puts my victory plan as basically "Try and hope Bob's score goes more than 50% above mine".


Everybody else in the game is doomed at this point. With mine and Bob's raises to the AC, doomsday will hit hard and quick. And I would be *shocked* if they can stand against it(although Ilios does have sanctuary in the bank).

How realistic is it to get Bob to have a score 50% more than anybody else? Well he'll have more technology, more cities and more land than me. If I continue OCC'ing and artificially halt my population and technology, he'll have a hard time not going ahead of me without artificially holding his own score low... however he does have a big safety margin. He has twenty turns after settling before land points hit, which will put him nastily below me in score. If everybody else dies in this period I'll actually be in danger of getting 50% above *him*, but if I can crest that danger zone, things look a lot rosier. I'm planning on getting 2 escape settlers, to go running out to the horizons. If Bob goes after me, I'll try to settle a city far from the action and hope the Horsemen go for him, while having the capital stall him for as long as possible with warrens warrior spam.

[Selrahc]

Oh for fucks sake.
Well, I might as well give up. Loaded up the turn today, AC was down at 4 when it should have been up at 26 and one turn of production from blight. Nobody has disturbed my picket of the pines, so obviously this map is festooned with bloody Seven Pines.

HK has sent a team of 2 centaurs to harass me. I could deal with them, and I think it would actually be a pretty fun challenge to see how I could take them down without losing marked units. But honestly, what is the point? How do I know that I'm not just going to get cockblocked again next time I run up the count?

It's all hideously disappointing. I think putting in multiple copies of a feature than *completely flatlines the AC counter*, in a game ostensibly about showcasing the AC, is bad map design. Since each use of the Pines completely removes all AC points, you're essentially letting the AC count be ramped up multiple different times. How many? Fuck if I know, but even 2 is too many. The possibility of more? Ugh. Why not tell us this? This is a pretty major thing... I'm fine with a crazy map as long as it does not undermine the very premise of the game.

Anyway. I'm doomed now. Ilios and Plako have spiking power levels. HK has already sent a harassing force. Bob is seemingly unmolested in his walk to Hyborem. My big hope was to get things done quick and easy, and that has been dashed to absolute ribbons by crazy map decisions. I've deleted all constructed marked units and started over. It's only 8 turns of units I've lost... that isn't *so* bad. I'm more concerned about what it represents. If somebody else uses Seven Pines, my entire gameplan becomes a farce. And frankly my "guard" on the copy I've seen is not good enough to prevent them being used by a determined Ilios.

[Selrahc]

[Mist]

Since each use of the Pines completely removes all AC points, you're essentially letting the AC count be ramped up multiple different times.

Pines can be used only once *regardless how many of them are on the map* Peace spell gets locked out after use, there's a special flag in the event code that makes sure of that. So this is essentially no different than if I put one copy exactly in the middle, with your gameplan you could neither claim them for your own nor deny their use.