For Fear of Little Men-Clan of Embers Spoiler Thread

[Selrahc]

Firstly: I'm not really too pissed off about the pines. Essentially, it's very similar to if this was a random map and somebody spawned Pines nearby. I am still a little pissed off though.

Somebody getting an uncontested Seven Pines in an easy to claim location is essentially "Worst Case Scenario" for me. What scattering them around the map did was *ensure* that situation occurred. It's a heavily anti-AC rush map design. Particularly in the fact that I wasted resources guarding something that didn't need to be guarded, and relaxed a bit since I thought I knew where the Pines were. If I hadn't found the Pines at all, or found multiple copies, I would have played things differently.

If Mist had gone with the suggestion to put a (single copy) in a prominent place though, this game *would* be in full on apocalypse. And I'd fancy my chances. If we'd been asked about this idea, I for one would have put a strong vote against it. Because it almost specifically screws me over.... And if the vote had gone against me, at least if I'd been warned I could have gone with a rapid settler to burn the pines early.

So, ultimately, the map design really has screwed up my plan here. To an extent that can basically be called a worse case scenario.



How are things proceeding onwards? Well, I'm back up to 26AC. Getting Seven Pines flashbacks. One more unmolested turn will at least see the Blight hit. Unfortunately there are a half dozen centaur who have been harassing me, and I'm now all out of unmarked fodder to absorb hits. Bob has apparently been distracting a good chunk of the centaur forces with Hyborem, so they're playing cautious and staying out of strike range of my troops, and fully healing between attacks. At current pace, I'm outbuilding their destroy rate. But as their experience increases they will be able to kill me for less damage to attack more often. As they add more centaurs, they will be able to increase their kills/turn. I'm on the losing edge here. So the big hope is that Bob manages to tear some guts out of the Kuriotates, and drag them off my bloodied body to defend their homestead. And that Ilios and Plako continue their ignoring of the situation... Bob would be wise to get me as much breathing room as possible. The horsemen ride for me, but they ride for him too.

[Selrahc]

Sorry for being all negative in tone by the way. I'm still having fun... I just really wanted to win this one, and I think all my testing and work kind of got undermined by factors beyond my control. It's a bit frustrating. That's going to be the last time I complain.

[Selrahc]

8 centaurs. Critical mass. They aren't even bothering to stay out of my attack radius now.

It looks like they're steeling themselves for a death blow in a few turns.


I couldn't even cause blight.

[Selrahc]

Incidentally I did find the big mistake that cost me 4 turns from my sim, and it was caused by my decision to run Pacifism. Religion gives a bonus happy from pagan temples, Pacifism does not. In my test game I was running with 1 extra productive population for a considerable number of turns.

The lesson learned there, don't try to overthink things. The possibility of getting a Great Prophet 2 turns after the game was supposed to be over is not worth screwing with a working model.

[Selrahc]

I'm kind of wishing those centaurs would just finish the job. There obviously isn't much hope of anybody bailing me out here.

Bob(or at least Hell terrain) is really close. If diplomacy was enabled, I'd try and see if he could send me some guards. Rosier and Hyborem might scare off some of the centaur attacks, and this would be a good time to send them to help. But the coordination needed is a bit beyond "No talking!"

[Selrahc]

I expect to be out of the game next turn, possibly the turn after. I threw my remaining troops at a stack of heavily wounded centaurs(0.1-0.3 strength), but couldn't break past the one healthy stack guard. Two warriors remain in the city.

I went and scouted on Bob with my centaur slave. He looks to have taken a bit of a beating. His champions are missing, presumed dead and [strike]Hyborem[/strike]Scratch is missing his immortality. But his city looks a tough nut to crack.

Personally, I think he'd have been a lot better defending my city for a dozen turns rather than letting me die. But then neither of us have Cartography or any sort of GNP so that becomes a bit of a pipe dream too.

I still blame this almost entirely on Seven Pines. Without Seven Pines, the AC would have gone over 60, with the Horsemen constantly pushing it up even higher even with Ragnarok held in check... With the Seven Pines triggered? Welll.. things have been a damp squib. I wish I'd realized that it gives a total wipe of the AC, because I didn't plan for that at all. I wish I'd talked about it in the set up thread, and maybe lobbied for it to be banned. I wish I'd played on a map that didn't include multiple copies of it for everyone to use, and one that wasn't so rocket hot for Kurios, and slow to build Ragnarok.

The biggest thing I'm kicking myself for though is that stupid mistake about Religion/Pacifism. Grr. That's 16ac thrown away right there. And 16ac on the quicker counter, before Hyborem comes in and inflates things. If I'd forced Seven Pines trigger *before* Hyborem came in, then his summoning would have added a healthy chunk back onto the counter again. As it was, he was summoned and his impact was wiped immediately. Because I was too slow in getting Ragnarok and forcing a Seven Pines trigger.

[Selrahc]

I thought I'd have a go at converting my experience into a more coherent narrative.

Armageddon Timeline

Turn 1: Clan begin prophecy beeline. ETA, turn 44. Lanun begins Hyborem beeline.

Turn 46: Ashen Veil is researched by Lanun.

Turn 47: Due to a silly error, Prophecy arrives on T47.

Turn 52: Two centaurs turn up on the Clan borders.

Turn 54: Hyborem is summoned. Ragnarok marked unit production puts the game one turn from blight. Seven pines activated, completely eradicating the marked units, AV founding and Hyborem AC changes. Counter starts over. Clan deletes all marked units since they aren't affecting AC, this wipes around 3/4 of their entire military. Centaurs begin attack.

Turn 55-60: Centaurs are slowly increasing in number, while also attempting to deal with Hyborem threat. They whittle down and then eliminate the unmarked units, but Blight becomes a looming threat again.

Turn 61: Rosier construction tips the Infernals into blight, but the centaurs launch a heavy offensive against the clan killing many marked units and drop the world back under the magic 30. A few centaurs are lost in the fight.

Turn 61-67: Centaurs keep AC almost in check by killing units, while building up for a big offensive. Despite a plummeting population and a pillaged landscape, Clan keep up marked unit production through heavy use of the whip.

Turn 68: Centaurs thought blight would be launched again, but AC ends up on 29. They launch a massive attack, killing the majority of Clan forces.

Turn 69: The Clan city is gassed out. Centaur pillaging has removed all productive tiles and constant slaving has left it unhappy at size two. The remaining few goblin forces suicide into a heavily injured Centaur stack, but cause no casualties. Centaur reinforcement mop up the slaved in warriors that held the city, razing the prophecy.