Unfortunately, it appears that Kragroth could see that hill with my stack parked and sole pyrezombie. He sent this message circa T 65: I notice your rather large army near my borders
I hope you know that when I said I came in peace, I meant it. I hope you will continue the same.
Too late for that, Krags; you have to strike while the iron is hot. I lost a turn of surprise and will deal with 4 warriors in the city, but they do not have time to fortify.
Tasunke sends the following image: http://i.imgur.com/O3Jo4JM.png
The pic is clearly from Krags point of view, probably in an attempt to get help from Tasunke.
Tasunke also says: Your decisive action shows your wisdom. It is true that justice is on your side, and your side alone, this day. I wish the best of luck to this, your initial endeavor.
Now might I pose a suggestion ... turn off science (go to 100% gold), and after u capture the city, upgrade several of those warriors into Pyre Zombies (as many as you have gold to do), and then, if u can, march on the next city.
Actually good advice. I'm not going 100% gold, but def enough to upgrade 1 more warrior.
The following interaction with Tasunke is awfully nice of him (he tries to help me with military analysis, but largely superfluous (don't tell him that).
[spoiler] I believe that on turn 66 his border city will be defended by exactly 4 warriors. If I'm wrong then so be it. (I give 80% probability, based upon a heap of assumptions, using Beyesian probability) Additionally, if he left any workers in the area, they would be worthy prizes, but be wary of traps. Capturing the border city should likely come first, and, assuming no reinforcements arriving this very turn .... you should be able to capture it on t67. However, if there is only 1 or 2 units reinforced during Kragroth's part of t66, you still will have a good chance of capturing at t67. (Going all out on t66 might not be worth the risk, assuming all 4 warriors are sitting inside the city, as waiting allows for you to use your hero Twice, your Axe 4 times ... as opposed to Axe twice and hero once. (These will be your highest odds battles)
Example (Attack with Axe wielding Warrior, pick up axe with Hero, attack w/ hero. Next turn, Attack w Axe on Hero, pick up axe with Warrior, Attack w/ Warrior)
I hope these screen shots/ Map Analysis help out btw, I put a few hours into them
A smashing victory!
My luck was beyond expectation, and I did not lose a single soldier in the attack. Next time I will remember to enable the combat log so I don't have to spell this out. Kragroth had 2 warriors with promotions, 1 with a fortify bonus. I squashed him with the pyre zombie, heavily promoted for over 95% odds. Did I mention how ridiculously strong pyre zombies are? The next one with the promotion I hit with my warrior wielding Orthus at 65%. My next warrior took up the axe to hit for 70ish%. The last one was taken at 65%, for a perfect swing.
I moved my unharmed warriors into the city. I plan to march right on next turn. No time for healing, promotions will take care of the worst, and my Pyre zombie already has healing march.
Whew. Well hello anyone out there. Its been a while. I apologize for the extended break, I had a crazy summer job and some other issues IRL. During that time period I was holding the save for lengthy amounts of time much to the annoyance of everyone, and unfortunately making hasty ill thought decisions when I did manage to take my turn.
And now of course, I pay the price for being an idiot:
Yep, Here is Kragroths smelly band of orcs in the city you last saw me take, currently threatening my capital. Its bad. He's got 17 in there along with the one scouting, and they are all promoted. He also has Orthus' axe. If he manages to take my capital I'm done. probably 80% of my pyre zombies are raised in Nidhoggr. If he takes the city He will flatten me like a pancake. So...
I currently have 6 pyre zombies and 2 warriors standing between me and destruction. On one hand, they are pyre zombies... on the other, he has 17 dudes. I really had a wake up call when he smashed my attacking army about 6 turns back, and with my summer job over I started seriously micro managing the way I should be every turn in the last few to recover my army. As of next turn I will have another Pyre zombie in Nidhoggr with enough overflow to finish a second the next turn. I will also have an arrival from Jormungandr, which puts me at 9 PZs and 2 warriors at the earliest Kragroth can attack Nidhoggr. That is certainly not enough, but I do have hope that with 30% walls they could hold. I may also set off my worldspell which would be the biggest waste in the book, but survival trumps stupid wastes of power.
Heres a better overview to get a sense of whats happening
Thats all for now folks, I'll post more screens, and when I have time update the previous screens (my military debacle) for those who are interested.
So good news and bad news. Here we have Kragroth somewhat surprisingly intent on keeping Shazack. He sticks a decent garrison of 5 warriors there since my pyre zombie stack was in range which would make me commit most of them to retake the city - something I'm obviously not doing as his stack of 12 is headed for me. Thats the good news. 12 warriors is a big difference from 17. I am mildly worried he is turning those 5 in the city into axes but imo the smarter move would of been marching everybody onward. This got me thinking possibly Kragroth is underestimation the awesomeness of pyre zombies. Which brings us to the bad news...
While looking at the saves i got weeks back so i can screenshot them to fill in the blanks for you guys i realized my PZs didn't do nearly as much damage as they should of upon explosion. Kragroth barely had to heal his troops after cleaning up my army. I got worried for a bit that I hadn't downloaded Tholals fix and they werent exploding right. Nope, not the case; Orcs have fire resistance! I completely forgot about this! Like holy crap thats big. Pyre Zombies are broken broken destructionaters in base FFH2 but with fire resistance they're just kinda nifty when they die. So that explains Kragroth going ahead with 12 warriors; he's not that afraid of me suiciding 7 PZs into them.
I'm not completely boned though. As you can see from the screen, end of this turn I have 8 PZs and 2 warriors in the city, with another PZ able to get there before his stack. I think that should hold him pretty good, so he will either wait for his (possible axes) to join the main stack or pillage the countryside or head towards my capital. I think that shortly I will be able to challenge his army if he decides to do the latter, but as Tasunke said to me, He can raise a new army pretty quickly, and his GNP will suffer the longer his stack remains alive in my territory. Well, thats certainly no way to win a war though, it simply gives Tasunke a bigger edge over Kragroths economy.
