[SPOILERS] PB1- Mardoc buys a can of paint for Thoth and Ellimist

[Thoth]

We're up for t121.

I've logged in an moved all but 4 combat workers. We've still got lots of time on the clock for this evenings military fun.

I'd like to draft a Radiant Guard this turn in Reisling. The unhappy will hurt a bit, but with haste/mob1 that RG can be Blinding at the Napa/Stalingrad front t122. Earliest we can get a Vicar in range is t123. We might just be able to buy enough time to save Napa if we can stall their stack via Blinding Light for a couple of turns.

In the Westlands....4 warrior garrison in the Malakim border city. We should be able to clean that out with our available forces (we'll probably take a casualty or two but I think burning that city is worth the price)

[Mardoc]

We're up for t121.

I've logged in an moved all but 4 combat workers. We've still got lots of time on the clock for this evenings military fun.

And here I was going to complain about the timing . Guess it worked better for you.

I should be around this evening, yes.

I'd like to draft a Radiant Guard this turn in Reisling. The unhappy will hurt a bit, but with haste/mob1 that RG can be Blinding at the Napa/Stalingrad front t122. Earliest we can get a Vicar in range is t123. We might just be able to buy enough time to save Napa if we can stall their stack via Blinding Light for a couple of turns.

Remember that we can only Blind a unit every other turn. And there's a chance to resist. Of course, even getting half their stack would likely limit them greatly. I assume pausing to upgrade to Ratha wouldn't actually save us time? At least on defense, 3 move is probably enough, true.

I agree with the draft, as long as it doesn't cost a turn on the Vicar. It would have a secondary bonus of leading them to think we went Empy for Blinding Light, not for Revelation

Ah...if we're staying in Empy for the long run, we should go ahead and build Chalid. He's been nerfed, but he's still a fast unit with collateral and fairly good base strength.

In the Westlands....4 warrior garrison in the Malakim border city. We should be able to clean that out with our available forces (we'll probably take a casualty or two but I think burning that city is worth the price)

That's unexpected - I thought we'd see Fawns, not warriors. But I agree, we want to keep applying pressure, and a size 10 city is definitely worth a few casualties on our end - and only one of those warriors might have a fortification bonus, too . If we can kill it with slow moving units, we can get Calabim units onto their road network, IIRC. Maybe there's a Kurio city vulnerable?

But in any case, smashing up some of their production/research potential is all to the good. Pretty sure we haven't seen the Malakim WS yet, either. And if this is what their frontlines look like, their backline cities may be nearly empty.

Are they still building their northern stack? I think that could kill our current garrisons in the crumple zone, if they pushed with it. Not sure if the best approach is to send more reinforcements up there, or instead to send reinforcements to the Malakim/Kurio front, though .

[Thoth]

Quick update:

We burnt Balderham at the cost of a 2xp chariot. Picked up 136 gold from the capture plus ~100g from tile plillaging.

They've cut the road to the Kurio city, so no easy access next turn, but overall a highly successful raid. Depending on what they do next turn, we can either pull our forces back, or heal up and bring the combat workers forward.

In the East, we've mostly pulled out of Stalingrad, leaving only 7 Staligrand built Bloodpets and 5 Moroi to die valliantly for the Rodina. Not enough force to hold the city (we'd need about 60 units for that) but enough that they should have to Snowfall in order to take the city.

We also detonated another Thane bomb, which takes us up over 50% cultural control in Stalingrad and it's inner ring. So we won't pick up any new WW from fighting around Stalingrad while the Clowns will.

[Mardoc]

In the east, we evacuated, but we did manage to kill one more mud golem with a griffon . Should hopefully keep them moving slowly and purposefully with their stack of doom. Next turn we probably pillage some more roads.

At Balderham, we did feel the need to pillage a road ourselves, to keep the wounded units safe. They've probably scrambled enough forces to stop us for the moment, here, but we got some fun stuff done. And with Hawk coverage and chariots/shaman, we ought to be able to punish any mistakes, and we're currently basically forking two empires. Likely result is that we just retreat, take the XP and the pillage/raze gold, and go mess with someone elsewhere, though.

Hawks confirm that the center 'island' is anything but - in fact we've a land route from Maximum Ice to the Wizard backlines, if we can spare the units. Or, ahem, probably also to the Team Clown backlines :D. Course, there's not much point in hitting their backlines in 10 turns when we could hit just a different part of the front in 2-3, given the way they're defending. Northern Luchiurp lands are lightly guarded at the moment, just a handful of wood golems. More than Malakim lands were initially guarded, but not a lot more.

In other news, Smelting is in, and we have two Iron sources within our borders. One on our very border in the far east, not yet improved, and one directly beneath Guinness. There are two more just outside our borders, again one in the west and one in the east, that the next two settlers are headed towards. I guess all the iron is in the borderlands. Good thing we expanded like weeds!

Should mean that we'll be fine on getting Iron weapons to all our units on schedule, but we'll certainly feel happier once we've three+ sources. A mechanics point - units have to be in a home city to get metal. I don't know how relevant that will be, though, since most units can't really afford to take a 3-4 turn vacation to upgrade their weapons.

And, also, we've got our first Vamp, Vicar, and Radiant Guard all produced. Calabim in GA are worth something like 380 hammers/turn; next best is Orcs at 200. Yet it's still not enough . Guessing it won't really feel like enough until we win - but it probably feels like too much from the opponents' perspective. Unfortunately we can't afford to hold back and surprise them with critical mass of our new units, they're instead going to flow to the front lines immediately.

Zinfindel is a beast of a city, especially in GA. Not only will it be one-turning Ratha and Vamps indefinitely, it's stacking up extra overflow in the process.

It occurs to me that, if Team Clown is depending on Djinn, they can only use half their available Snowfalls. Combine that with Blinding Light and I start to see how you think that might be enough . Especially since we can Blind summons, including puppets, and Summoner doesn't help much if the summon can't do anything on its second turn of existence. Can't stop them entirely unless we can blind the casters, but every bit counts.

So, to sum up: Good turn, next turn is going to be painful, and the pain will continue until we manage to neutralize that Clown stack. Hopefully we've made the other teams cautious enough that

[Qgqqqqq]

Wow looking really good!

One question: could you make the resurrection vamps elohim?
Or do non vampiric vamps not come with body/death?

[Mardoc]

Wow looking really good!

One question: could you make the resurrection vamps elohim?
Or do non vampiric vamps not come with body/death?

I'm not sure I understand the question. Resurrection is a Life sphere spell. If you mean Regeneration - theoretically we could, but we've two problems. First, Elohim don't have any Command Posts, so their vamps would only start with 2XP. Second, only Calabim vamps can Feast, so they'd only get more XP by fighting. We'd have to choose between mobility I and body II. We could maybe fix that if we revolted them into Apprenticeship or Conquest, but we don't want to give up all that lovely production and beakers even for a turn

And, honestly, mobility I isn't negotiable. The difference in speed is so huge - it's how we got all our city kills, by hitting before the other team could react. We can leave it off of city garrisons, and leave it off chariots/wolf riders sometimes, but vamps aren't either. Even Regeneration vamps aren't allowed to be slow, because their main point is to keep up with an attacking stack and let it attack every turn. Regenerating a stack in a city that isn't moving anyway, has no real effect.

Anyway, Elohim don't really have enough production at the moment for us to worry about it either way. Especially in just the (Calabim) cities. I don't personally think a Vamp is worth 120 hammers, if he can't start with at least two promos. We can build axes or Monks or soon Champions for a much better ratio, in Elohimia.

[Qgqqqqq]

Yeah regen

I had forgotten the command posts though.

How are vamps 5xp then?
CP/FoT/what? (Presume not conquest/apprenticeship because of agrarian/drafting)

Do you plan to skeleton spam at all?

[Thoth]

Here's a fun thought for Vampire cities with GMs that are well under happy cap: With Empy we can draft Radiant Guards for one pop and +3 unhappy for 6t. IOW, we get a 60h unit (with 2xp in our CP cities) and an extra 18 base hammers from the unhappy over the next 6t.





(of course we need to invest some hammers into Vicars for spreading first Soon.




Unrelated, but food for thought: The Elohim are at the point where a GA would be profitable. We've been idling along collecting GPP in Tequilla, Vodka and Whiskey. I haven't been tracking them very closely but we should be able to pop a GP quickly from Whiskey. With the GLib it's got a solid base GPP potential. We'll be able to cancel the Marble loan to the Calabim on t124 or t125 (I'm not sure which). At that point, we have 3 flatland forests left standing and they are currently unlumbermilled. 39 base hammers--> 78 post marble hammers so we're looking at a 2t NE here if we can finagle the chops (this should be doable without too much effort. 3 workers move onto forests t123. Chop 124, 125. Either way the chops are marble boosted. Farms or workshops can replace those forests.

That should enable us to pop another Orc and Calabim GP first (Chardonay is quite close, as are the Orcs whom we want to finish theirs first. Both are due in 3t IIRC). I'm really hoping for an Orc Merchant. If so we fire the merchants, hire a second priest and get a Vicar over here yesterday so we can run another pair of Priests. As much as I don't want to swap away from Axes, we may need an additonal GP slot or two for the Orcs in order to generate a not-Merchant/Priest GP as our second. A second Orc GA would be....um.....well Awesome just doesn't quite cut it. Better than Awesome.

[Thoth]

GPP pools as of EoT 121:

Keith's Ipa: 263/301. +20 GPP in current config. Next GP due eot 123. Mixed GM/GP/GC points.

Chardonay: 273/368. +26 GPP currently, but this will drop t122 after we Feast. Pool size will increase to 405 after Orc pop. Mixed GM/GS/GP/GC pool. High GM chance.

Riesling: 46/368. +46 GPP currently, this will drop t122 after we fire a Priest in favour of the Banannas . Once the draft anger wears off in 5t we can increase the GPP rate.


Whiskey: 249/368 (435 after orc/calabim pops). +18 GPP/turn. Can push 24 at a cost of 2h/turn. With NE ~126 we should be able to trigger an Elohim GA t127/128/or 129.

Tequilla: 271/368. +6 per turn. We need some more happy here (Whaling boat in the new offshore city is a high priority for some cash t123 ) but we should be able to cash in the GPP pool during GA and combine with a second from Whiskey for a second Elohim GA if needed.

[Thoth]

I don't think we have the range to burn Wind Drake t122, but unless they step lively I think we have a shot at burning it on t123.

If the Fawn/Worker stack moves as expected, a road 1 NW of the pigs lets us hit the Fawns with Chariots/WRs. I'm not sure if we take the shot or not. It's likely going to cost a chariot or two to kill that stack. A worthwhile exchange under most circumstances, but we'd probably be a bit light on bodies t123 for the assault on WD. I'd rather engage the Fawns in the flatland city than on a hilltop. They can keep the workers. If we burn WD, they won't be doing much for a few turns anyway and we might be able to bag them later.

The real prize here are those Villages. That's a *lot* of pillage gold and we still have 3 highly promoted warriors in search of chariots.