[SPOILERS] They're cOMing to taKe mE AWAy! Haha! Hoho.

[Mardoc]

Missed this until now, but first:

Sorry things didn't work out better, Selrahc. Thanks for playing.

Eek! Did elli kill him/did you have any diplo with selrahc that says what happened???

Selrahc died to Mistform. Or more specifically, to Mistform + spawned barbarians. Just finished him off this last turn, but he's known it was coming for a while. The final blow:

This time I really am done! Loaded up the save and had just a healing salve defending the city, with a barb warrior outside, and no way to finish a warrior in time.

Good luck in the rest of the game. Have fun.

Just hoping that the Mistform goes in some direction other than ours, next.

What's happened since?
Can we see the second city?

Oh, dear, has it really been that long since I've posted a detailed update?

Well, in the first bit of news, barbarians have started coming. And man o man, are they annoying! Seriously putting a cramp on my worker's movements; I'm starting to consider going Bronze Working next. Or Knowledge of the Ether, perhaps - puppet spam could give vanilla warriors pretty good odds, I think. It's frustrating, because both Festivals and Education would really help with the economy, but it looks like we need something that can keep the barbs suppressed, and regular warriors aren't likely to do that. Possible mitigation: once I get some XP onto my warriors, they can fight with odds.

In addition to these:


I also have a pair of orc warriors advancing from the east. Pretty sure they'll suicide on Trapeze's Guerilla I defender, but I can't be farming around the lake while they're present - can't get good enough odds with warriors in the field, at least not yet.

I did take out the lizardman, lost one warrior, second won without damage. So likely there is a 50-50 battle with the skeleton IBT, which I can clean up after if I lose. I'm going to go ahead and open the barrow, I think. Skeletons make good XP, but I really want the Oasis tile to be workable without spending a lot on warriors.

An overview, after the lizard is gone, with one change post-picture. I ended up swapping Ringmaster to another warrior - sad, but there's no point in building a settler if we can't keep him and some workers safe. I'm debating with myself if next turn I can go on to the settler, or if we should knock out one more warrior, or if we can benefit most from a fifth worker - next turn we'll be working only improved tiles again, but without any spares and still not much progress toward preparing the third city. But I could do more with fewer workers if I can keep the barbs suppressed.


What does that mean? Well, despite the challenges, we're pulling ahead in the demographics again. Even with 10 culture/turn to a foes' likely 2, we're looking pretty good. And Trapeze still has a lot of room to grow.


It looks like we've got the best second city, as well I'm frankly a bit confused by HK's lack of growth - if he doesn't get his act together, our second city will be stronger than his capital. Maybe he's pushing REX even harder than we are, and is building settlers like nobody's business?

[Qgqqqqq]

Looks good!
Probably fine without BW till after one of the two, but I agree you want it soon.

Good food numbers
Where'd you get the mutated warrior from? Or is that just to do with the chaos mana?

[Mardoc]

Looks good!
Probably fine without BW till after one of the two, but I agree you want it soon.

Part of the question is whether we feel lucky about the Mistform, or if we need something that can kill it - I'd think a fortified Bronze warrior in a hill city with guerilla might have pretty decent odds, but a non-bronze warrior, less so. But if it doesn't come our way, then we don't have to think about it.

Best way to deal with Mistform is Floating Eye + summons, but there's no chance we can have that quite yet

Frankly I'm much less worried about regular barbs, once I get a couple warriors to CII or so.

Where'd you get the mutated warrior from? Or is that just to do with the chaos mana?

Yep, just born that way.

[Mardoc]

Two turns today! And a very good turn this one was, indeed

First, our 50-50 battle went very much in our favor, warrior ended up with 6 XP and 2.2/3 health. That was enough to promote him twice, and then go explore the barrow...where we got this:



So - warrior survived and promoted to be a good barb killer, the third city has gained a Gold (and I see no other gold on the map explored so far), and we still need no more tech than we currently have to use all the currently planned resource grabs. With the barbs pruned for the moment - I'm thinking Festivals next, for Creative insurance.

Ringmaster's started on its 7-turn settler, and meanwhile the workers are going to focus on roading to city3 and improving Trapeze. Hopefully I can get 3-4 turns of peace after the barb warriors suicide, to get some more farms up and some more happiness in place .

Also - with this many good desert tiles scheduled to be worked - we're going to want a Water adept sooner rather than later. Unfortunately at the moment I see only one mana node that's claimable (one just outside HK's borders). So we'll need to either find another, or wait until after we can take some meta promos.

[Merovech]

Oh dear, now everyone will think that I made an unbalanced map!

[Qgqqqqq]

W00t!
Not just two turns, two reports!
Honestly, that mistform will have 4-5 promotions from devouring him, and is also a lot of turns away even if it does beeline us.
Moreover, that first kill isn't as big a deal for us as it would en for the popper - he's unlikely to get much xp out of it, so we can afford to let it devour one or two.
But in general, I think we need to plan around it not coming for us, as otherwise we're playing to lose - mistforms are horrible beasties (can they be spotted with hawks? We should go there before meta....), even this late in Tue game, think about what happened to HK in '21.

Awesome pop, lack of mana is disturbing...is it worth building shrines for them?

@Merovech, don't speak to me about unbalanced maps...

[Mardoc]

But in general, I think we need to plan around it not coming for us, as otherwise we're playing to lose - mistforms are horrible beasties (can they be spotted with hawks? We should go there before meta....), even this late in Tue game, think about what happened to HK in '21.

Yes, with Hawks as well. Not sure that's really all that much easier to research than Sorcery, though.

It's not exactly late in the game just yet

Also, um - a whole bunch of things happened to HK in 21. What exactly are you referring to?

The other idea I'm kicking around is trying to use Loki to pull the Mistform toward an opponent. It's probably unrealistic, though, without a way to see the Mistform and without Loki built yet

Awesome pop, lack of mana is disturbing...is it worth building shrines for them?

Just because I've only found one doesn't mean there's only one. I'm not going to get too worried about it until we've done better scouting. Also, presumably Selrahc's starting area has one - if we can get there before HK.

I am starting to consider going for Kilmorph, though. Only real competition would be Ellimist. We've got gems, we've got alternate culture. But we don't have Spiritual (yet).

[BRickAstley]

The other idea I'm kicking around is trying to use Loki to pull the Mistform toward an opponent. It's probably unrealistic, though, without a way to see the Mistform and without Loki built yet

Sneaky Loki is always Good Loki.

[Mattimeo]

Updates <3

...I don't really have anything approaching constructiveness to contribute, but I figured more people popping in to say they're actually reading what you put up is generally heartening

[Qgqqqqq]

In '21 they popped some mistform late in the game (like around about when they summoned basium IIRC), and it decimated their workforce.
Point being, I don't think we've got a chance against one, though I like a Loki plan
Kilmorph sounds good - as a long- or short-term religion?