Freezing the World below Absolute Zero - Illians Succession Game

[Aurorarcher]

I can understand that, Dave. The game is at the point when even only 10 turns can easily take an hour (or more depending on the situation). Should we go back to 5 turns per player to make it less time consuming to play the set?

[Qgqqqqq]

That was what I thought would happen after my set (it's why I played only 8t).

[DaveV]

OK, I finally sat down and ground out five turns. The good: I killed a lot of Clan units, the Metamagic node is finished, we control the seas near our cities, Thessa's treants are gone, and I didn't lose any cities. The bad: Varn has stopped giving us Iron again, and we are at war with nearly everyone. Our only friends left are Cardith and Varn, and they don't like us very much.

I was amused at the complicated relations when I started the game:




After a couple turns of rusting, slowing, and killing Clan units, the unthinkable happened:




Arrgh. Falamar fired off his worldspell on turn 268, I think, killing one of our triremes and destroying a few coastal improvements. I spent a wad of cash to dry-buy a javelin thrower in Evermore after Thessa barely failed to take it with Treants. The treants are gone now and the cities look safe for the time being.

The relations screen is a little less amusing now:




Here's our main Sheelba-fighting stack at the end of my set. I killed two Clan assassins, so that sign might not apply any more. Thessa does have some assassins, though.




Here's our city list.




We have several unhappy cities, and several hungry ones. Mortenshome is suffering from +3 draft unhappy, +3 pining for the fjords ("PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?"), and +1 war weariness. Thanks to summons, slow and rust, we're holding our own, but Falamar hasn't shown up yet.

I don't think we should spend any more hammers on boats until we have stabilized the situation on land (says the man who has a workboat queued in our newest city). Without fireballs or cultists, naval warfare is discouragingly dependent on the RNG, which was not good to us during my set.

The power graph at the end of my set:

[Dreylin]

Well your line and the Clan and Ljosfar's are going in the right direction, but the Calabim and Lanun lines are quite worrying...

[Aurorarcher]

Argh. Amusingly enough the only leader that is cautious towards us at this point is Falamar (went from friendly to cautious). It looks like Falamar bribed Alexis and Volanna against us.

Now that we have metamagic we should try to scout with it so we can see Falamar's stack as early as we can. If the western front can hold I think we should try to some of Mahala's cities, their power seems to be pretty low and Falamar might attack Thessa before he comes after us, but you never know about the AI...

[Mardoc]

Yikes!

Well. If we can survive long enough to have a surplus bit of army, at least we can now absorb Mahala and Thessa and unlock Drifa that way. And at least get ourselves some Bronze from Mahala.

A minor tactical tip: Ice Elementals can benefit from Enchanted Blade. We'd have to stack an Enchanted Blade adept with our summoners and cast it every turn, but every extra buff helps.

I see that Myrean is building javelin throwers, when it could be building adepts. Not sure how desperate the situation is - adepts are better long term, if we have a long term.

I'm glad to see three adepts at 7XP. By the time my turnset comes around we'll hopefully have half a dozen mages.

[DaveV]

It looks like Falamar bribed Alexis and Volanna against us.

Falamar might attack Thessa before he comes after us, but you never know about the AI...

I think it was the other way around: Alexis declared first, and probably bribed Falamar into the war. Edit: actually, Thessa was the first to declare.

Falamar did take a former barb city from Thessa. I don't see her being much of an obstacle to him, though, and conquering her lands would put him right on our border.

I see that Myrean is building javelin throwers, when it could be building adepts. Not sure how desperate the situation is - adepts are better long term, if we have a long term.

That was just an oversight on my part, although the situation is pretty desperate.

[Qgqqqqq]

*gulp* Well this will be...interesting!

Definitely Falamar is the most worrying, especially seeing as Volanna and Alexis are unlikely to reach us before bludgeoning the targets between them.

Support getting out Floating Eye's to scout, especially over the Thessa/Falamar border, but also over Acheron's land for a sneak attack from there.

As well as keeping on the look out for if we ever have enough surplus troops to end Mahala, I think we should keep a watchful eye on Thessa's cities, especially in case Falamar ever comes close to (or only just manages to) taking a city - a raze on the border there would be much better than giving him a forward base.

We should also start thinking about tech goals. I haven't had a look at the save, but I think we should consider how we can get something good collateral-wise. Theology, for High Priest's of Winter (even if only two, now ), might be a good target to ToD - there's only Religious Law and Divination itself left before that, right? Arcane Law => Strength of Will might be another option.

Either of those would probably all-but guarantee our security for the forseeable future. I get our economy is in a shitty space, and it's a lot of investment - especially as we're halfway to Taxation - but I think we should consider it.

Anyway, good luck to Jalapeno!

[Qgqqqqq]

Oh, and I'm pretty sure the AI doesn't do naval assaults on Pangaea, which is a big weight off our shoulders.

[Dreylin]

Theology, for High Priest's of Winter (even if only two, now ), might be a good target to ToD

I thought Auror had managed to kill a second one off a few turns ago...?