(November 9th, 2013, 13:05)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Wow everything's happening fast...I think we'll need the collateral more then the weapons for trying to actually crack Kwethellar, but definitely speak to HK, he may not like it but I think we're a bit beyond that now...
How useful do you think pillaging would actually be? We don't want to make a mistake and let it end, but it could give us enough time to combine.
I'll still switch to AV asap (4 more turns), but only the capital has a temple (or even AV at all), so it's doubtful I'll be able to get more than 1 or 2 ritualists since the earliest I can attack is in 5 turns. And besides, HK will have his Dwarven druids with crush there soon thereafter. I just need to delay (and keep my stack alive) long enough for collateral to arrive. Pillaging every mine/lumbermill (difficult since most aren't roaded) will only steal like 20-25 base hammers from TBS, but that might delay him 1-2 turns. Since we're asking for iron from HK, maybe we should ask for gold too...the more bloodpets we can upgrade to chariots, the more pillaging we can do. Spectres can't pillage mines/mills because it takes two moves to move onto them, but hasted mobility chariots can get a LOT of pillaging done.
I suspect they'll be planning to drain their gold on upgrades if they're serious about it, rather then giving it to us, but go ahead and ask. Is it worth spreading AV a bit to make sure we've got ritualists, or can we afford to wait for HK to invade? Also, we should probably get our skeletons ready on site (getting the best vamps to summon them). Is it worth drafting moroi and/or upgrading the best over ritualists if we do plan to wait for HK?
Does HK win on his turn or do we get one last desperate assault to stop him?
Make sure exposed chariots are defended or deleted (and turn before it may actually be better not to delete so we can wound his units).
Maybe save promos for city raider?
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Sorry RL is getting crazy (recruiting season = very bad timing). Just a lot of buildup at this point, and stressing over just how quickly TBS can finish the big tower. He's finished all 4 minor towers now: 3 in the last 3 turns - he put a turn into each earlier, then this time around he's been cash and engineer rushing them. So he's built up probably a minor tower's worth of overflow (500+ hammers) to dump into the ToM starting this turn (111). I can attack T113, HK T115, so the million dollar question is whether pillaging will slow TBS down enough so that I can wait for HK and his collateral, or if I need to slam my stack of 30 vamps and 15 assorted moroi/chariots into Kwythellar, which TBS is stuffing as we speak (will probably have 25+ natural units, plus as many mercs as he can buy from 1000gpt).
and i really don't have the time right now to carefully calculate. My gut says I need to attack. TBS is making at least 200hpt in Kwythellar, which means he only needs 4 turns of production to finish. Anyone know if the player completing ToM wins immediately (end of their turn), or wins at turn role (i.e. everyone has a chance to play), or wins at beginning of their next turn (like in single player)?
Big decision: where to stage before moving in on the Kurios? A, B, or C? TBS is allowed to strike this turn (due to the first strike rules of our NAP). He's got two air II mages on the road T113 tiles, just waiting to take a whack at my stack.
A: + Original plan. 25% defensive bonus, all units (except skeletons) can reach Kwythellar in one turn, so can either hit there, or do maximum pillaging of hammer tiles. - face at least 2 maelstorms. - can be hit by CA's from Kwythellar who can then make it back to the city to be healed by arthendain.
B: + Centaurs can't hit AND make it back to Kwythellar. - Potentially leaves skeletons behind as they can't reach anywhere to be useful (could leave them at A, but then he'd just pick them off for free experience. - face at least 2 maelstorms
C: + TBS would have to build a road in order to hit me with maelstorms and it looks like all of his workers are still busy chopping (although they could be roading). - Can't hit Kwythellar with the whole stack/further away from pillaging.
I'm kind of leaning toward's A and trusting in regeneration to pick me back up. Current plan is to do as much pillaging as possible on T113, then attack all out on T114 (because I think he'll finish ToM that turn). If it looks like he won't finish until T115, then I'll wait to attack then, when HK can also hit him that turn. First ritualist can hit Kwythellar on T114.
A, I don't think he'll be wanting to attack out of 105% defences and we need to trust in regeneration. Is there anywhere he could hit that matters on his first strike? (Like mana nodes or the cities around them?)
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Ok, so I moved all I had to "A". Something like 30 vampires, 6 chariots, 4 rathas, 5 moroi, and a couple bloodpets, all covered by 31 skeletons and 17 spectres. TBS' GA just ended so, we might actually have a shot to pull this off after all.
My email to HK explains the current plan:
Jalepeno Wrote:Looking at the tiles around Kwythellar, I think TBS is only working hammer tiles then all hammer specialists. Hammers: 53 from tiles, 29 from PoC = 82 base. Then he's got 11 non-hammer citizens, probably 15-20 hammers there when you count his starting GE. So call it 100 hammers, +75%, gives him 175 hpt. ToM is 1340, -536 from overflowing a minor tower (can't go above that, right?), leaves 800 hammers to finish it. 4 turns at 175 hpt gives him 700. Turn 111 he made more while still in a golden age, plus all his chops will probably let him just barely finish on T114. However, if I can significantly pillage his hammer tiles, there's a good shot we can drag it to 115. The end of his GA certainly makes it a lot more likely.
Now, if we manage to stretch it to T115, he's certain to finish that turn, in which case I won't have a chance to attack after you "crush" him. So I'll plan on pillaging like crazy T113-114, then attacking all out T115. Hopefully you and WK will have enough to finish him off after I attack.
Turn 114 in my inbox, and I still haven't let you guys know how T113 went. Off for thanksgiving now, so hopefully my reporting will be better during what could be our last few turns.
So the turn opened very poorly
Lost a death node, even though I had it covered. I totally missed the fact that his fast movers could reach there. I then lost several high odds battles taking out his pillaging force. Good news is he'll have 5 fewer units in Kwythellar, none of the units I used there would have made it to the front in time, and my adepts will have it back up in time for the final assault.
Here's the situation in the south:
He's kept a significant force in Avelorn (good news!) and abandoned his settlement.
I proceeded with cutting off his resources
Unfortunately, the settlement had order, so this pushed the AC to 30. Blight is upon us! and TBS has heal...yeah, I'm making mistakes all over the place. What I was trying to do was get the bloodpet in place to cut off his road connection to enchantment mana and cotton next turn.
Here's the situation around Kwythellar
Took a couple maelstorms, but TBS didn't attack out. He workshopped all of his forests - sucks because that's another 70+ hammers, but at least it makes pillaging much easier.
I pillaged all hammer tiles, plus his sole source of sugar and all of his grains. If I'm going to starve due to blight, so is he...except he's already starving Kwythellar down to work all hammers. I hit his stack with 4x blinding light, but probably got less than 1/3 of his units. Too many promos I guess. Stack is on his forested hill deer (50% defense + road!), cutting off reinforcements.
Military advisor from when I only had vision on Kwythellar (i.e. what he has in there)
Too depressed to count
Hi Mary!
Power graph
MFG (probably more important at this point)
Diplo with HK (includes ToM finish date calculations)
Jalepeno Wrote:Ok, confirmed that TBS is starving Kwythellar down: size 27 down from size 29 last turn (draft + starve). Unfortunately, I accidentally triggered blight this turn; forgot that settlements would auto-raze! Hope blight damage won't cost you too much; most of my vamps can promo-heal next turn (not that it matters since they're going to get nailed by a ton of maelstorms anyways).
I pillaged all hammer tiles, which was made easier by the fact that he workshopped all of his lumbermills (6 forests I believe). Took out his sole sources of sugar, reagents, incense, and all of his grains and all but one of his workers. Although, since he's got the PoC and most of his pop is only working 1 hammer anyways, pushing him into unhappiness isn't likely to have any effect (every pop who stops working is just another +1 from PoC). So I'm going to focus on commerce tiles to slow down merc production.
He's down to only five 2-hammer tiles, plus the city tile. He might have a couple engineer slots, but that still should only be max 40 hammers worked, plus 27 from PoC. That puts him at <120 hpt into the ToM. He's already got 534 (minor tower overlow) + 72 (chopping) + 175 (T112) + ~200 (T111) = 981/1340. So there's an outside chance he won't be able to finish on T115, but I'm not willing to bet on it, so still planning to attack all out T115.
HidingKneel Wrote:Jalapeno,
Pillaging looks good, though the blight is a bit of a disaster for us. We've got our stack positioned on the border, and it will have one turn to heal up. But that turn won't do much good if the stack gets plagued, and TBS is bringing Mary Morbus up from Naggarond. He left her out in the open this turn (though on a hill guarded by two longbows). If you have the ability to take her out, that would make our attack much more effective. But he's got around sixty units in Kwythellar. Even if we can win every battle (which is unlikely, given that we'll be fighting wounded), we don't have enough units to finish the job on our own. I think it probably makes more sense to save your strength for turn 116, on the off chance that we have that long (not sure you'll do much good on turn 115 before Crush; his longbows are defending at strength 30 or so).
Flintheart
-near positive TBS can't finish until T115 at the earliest, with an outside chance he won't finish until T116.
-Blight is going to cause HK problems
-Mary is up to mischief and it's up to me to stop her
Hope blight damage won't cost you too much; most of my vamps can promo-heal next turn (not that it matters since they're going to get nailed by a ton of maelstorms anyways).