Aurorarcher is making the world disappear

[Aurorarcher]

T109 I decided to pull back some units, jale has two workers behind the city.




He also has tons of units in the city. I believe Dave is hitting the city with fireballs/spectres but hasn't managed to done a lot just yet. I'd hope that he'd come to my city till I get my wizards ready, untill then I don't see us doing a lot of progress.




Jale razing my one city earlier made me very paranoid of another city getting the same ending... and I was right:




No idea why that one cultists isn't inside the ship. I was able to get these in the city:




Pic from before hitting enter, so that's those 5 + warrior. I think the city will live but it will lose 5 units, unless that Cultists wasn't actually inside ship at all... then Jale could hit the city with 6 units. So I'll give the city 50% chance to survive for a turn!

I had to put my Wizard candidates in risk in order to get those skellies in the city. I hope Jale won't hit this stack. The warrior stack behind should be able to hit Jale's stack next turn if he puts them on land. Shame that they couldn't reach the same tile as my adepts.







But hey, when there's diseaster happening at least I spawned gold




... and it's pretty annoying that it's next to city that has a chance to get razed next time Jale plays .

I think there's something serious going on Mardoc/Jale border:




Did all of Mardoc's invisible Cultists die somehow? I guess Jale is doing some heavy defending and attacking here. The 1% chance to slow Jale down might just have gone to 0.1% now. I forgot to check save (lazy to do again), but maybe Mardoc lost a city or something very serious? Either way... thing's are not looking very good.

Dave's stack is here T110:




Worst case scenario: Jale springs the desert now that my warriors/adepts are gone and Dave doesn't notice that possibility and keeps his units in range. Jale kills Dave's stack and then my game is over also. Next turn is going to be absolutely crucial for the rest of my (and possibily also Dave's) game.

Anyway, next turn I can promote my first adept to Wizard (if one with 10+ xp stays alive that is).

[Aurorarcher]

Never mind, now that I look at the pics I see that Mardoc lost over 60 pts between t109 and t110. That's lost city for sure.

[Aurorarcher]

The city is alive!




And I managed to kill one Cultist with very low odds presumably.

I used my poor Guerilla warrior to clean up (loss) and cleared up with one warrior from city. I also got my first Wizard and used fireball to take out the galley with low odds victory. This was very fortunate for me because otherwise I'd have probably been forced to use spellstaff to get another fireball.




Floating eye reveals no more pirates coming from the sea.




In SW Jale's Griffon is still blocking my tiles even though it's nowhere nearby... Is there something I am missing or is this a bug?




Jale has Smelting, probably to avoid Rust. This reminds me of the situation in PBEM XLIII.




Dave's economy is in the toilet. You can see that spectre pillaging my (former) city improvements, his GNP is around 10-20 IIRC. I don't mind pillaging, he's been a great help for me and I wish I could give him some of my GPT.




Dave's stack is still well-alive so I don't think Jale has plans Springing that desert. I moved my warriors W of his stack and will add adepts and wizard next turn when I can. I can now add new Wizard every turn, I have still 4 more adepts that can be upgraded.




The turn pace is still awesome. Though, Mardoc has missed some turns lately, which makes me a bit worried that this good trend is going away... Still considering the run from the start, it's been great!

Even when I'm losing.

[Aurorarcher]

T112.

Jale's never-ending-gold-age finally ended!




Oh wait, hello Big Lighthouse. That's a huge boost on this map for Jale. Will it change the outcome much? Nope, not really.

Traded Maps with Mardoc last turn. It seems that Mardoc is in trouble with Jale (no surprise he has to fight on his own there ). Notice the city ruins also, that's the razed city earlier.




I flew a floating eye and spotted something interesting.




That galley could carry 6 units in theory. With two promos available Jale could load them 2S1W from my capital and promote to Mobility II, assuming those 6 units were mounted. That could raze my capital. I doubt he has 6 chariots there but it's relatively scary still. No idea why he's flashing those 2 chariots... that'd be dumb if he was going to use them.

Anyway, I had to put some garrisson to my capital.




This turn I moved my warriors + one wizard to the forest where we'll start killing Jale's units very soon with Dave. Next turn I can (unless Jale lands a lot of units near my cap) put 4 wizards to that tile, 3 with Air II and one with Fire II. Combining that with Dave's 7 strenght spectres I think we're starting to see a lot of kills soon. I will do the collateral and then Dave plays after me, it works perfectly. Jale has about 50 units in total near Treasons Harbor. He doesn't have his Spring adept nearby so that forest tile can only be attacked by Chariots/Horseman.

I am planning to transfer one of my Entropy nodes to Death and just gift it to Dave to make his summons even more useful. Then I can dispel that whenever I need to cancel the deal (to avoid waiting for 10 turns).

I also offered Molach OB and asked for his Chaos mana for free. He doesn't need it (no KotE for him yet), and I could use it to get closer to building Wizards out of the gate. I'm probably asking for Mardoc's Shadow mana too next turn; it doesn't give him anything atm, while I could use it for +1xp like with Chaos.

Demos. Looks like I'm 3rd pretty much at everything.

[Aurorarcher]

Mardoc lost yet another city. I guess Marodc might even think he's ready to concede to Jale, considering his recent trend of forgetting to play the turn. Well, I am also pretty sure Jale is unbeatable, and that was already easy to predict long ago. I guess it's mostly my fault though; afterall it was me who chose the wrong mapscript, so sorry guys . If I'll play with Torusland again Lanun should be banned for sure, Falamar's traits are also very strong, EXP especially. Maybe more thoughts after game to come...

So Mardoc's down to 4 cities. Also Jale's in GA .




I offered him Entropy + Gold for his 3 palace manas. I'd get +2 xp and maybe he can even use Rust to slow down Jale?

Molach rejected my offer and instead offered straight OB... Okay, I'd get 2c from it when he'd get almost 20. Now just give me that Chaos mana? I re-offered him OB with Pig (which he doesn't need), I hope realises how much he'd get if he accepted... Also, Molach for some unknown reason hasn't joined the dogpile yet. Stay in peace untill Jale has killed everyone else?

I also proposed this to Dave.




I have extra happiness, might as well hand some to Dave. Maybe he can then work a few more cottages that'd help with his economy. I dunno.

Then something weird. Jale has Stygs!




That's scary... But how did he get to Malevolent Designs? He'd need either Infernal Pact (none has AV), or Mind Stapling. Tech screen proves he doesn't have MS.




So how does he have Stygian Guard? Can you get one from some event in the later stage of the game? Anyone have a clue? Or am I missing something completely obvious and looking like an idiot here?

[Aurorarcher]

So yeah, that Stygian was from an event. Very nice event indeed.

This is still puzzling me... and I guess none can or know what's going on. My tiles are still blocked for what even reason there is to it...




Anyway, that's minor issue. Glad to see that Dave, Molach and Mardoc all accepted my offers. Now I have 9 manas, though only 7 different type of manas so that'll give my adepts +7 xp, add to that Apprenticeship and I can almost build mages, only 1 xp short.

Jale's defenders in Treasons Harbor. A lot of units, notice Iron Weapons, that's not good... Also that Stygian is going to be annoying as it's Demon, which means Dave's Spectres are no good against it.




I blew Maelstrom twice and let my Pit Beast show what it could do. It's also Demon so I was able to not fight my demon buddy.

The odds weren't good, but 1/5 chance is surely worth it... that shouldn't even give much xp if I lost.







Win! Okay 49 units to go...

Zooming in the city I found that it has a Forge in it now. Rust is to no use now, except that I think the "unrusting" happens at the beginning of Jale's turn so Dave could still use the benefit from it.




At some point I'm going to use Charm Person, and if it'll hit enough units I think we could even move to that Desert tile with Dave (he can spring it too). My warriors get decent odds on Jale's stack after using Maelstrom.

Demos.




My goal now (and for the game) is to get Arcane Lore, I discared Firebows plan after putting 80b into Archery, what a waste ... While I think they're very nice but at this stage of the game, I cannot waste time building Archery Ranges. On othe other hand Arcane Lore can give me a very powerful unit with price of 120h, Hemah. And what even better I can keep building adepts nonstop. This goal may seem very ambitious, and it indeed is . But if I ever get to Hemah it may be possible to some serious damage to Jale.

The plan is the following: I have one GS already which can bulb 1/3 of Arcane Lore (the tech is worth ~3800b). I can also get another GS out in 13 turns... ok that's a long time still, and the game is probably over by then - but if not, then the other one can bulb another 1/3 of it. Then I have to research on my own about 1200-1400 beakers. With current expenses that would cost me about 550g and 6 turns of research. That's not terrible, and I can research some of that while saving gold. So I'd assume having Arcane lore in 15-16 turns from now. That's still a lot of turns.

A lot depends on how long Mardoc can hold Jale. And it's not looking pretty there, though no more cities got captured on T114. Me and Dave can hold the eastern front pretty well... at least untill Jale finds time to get Body adepts. He still doesn't have KoTE so no worries yet.

[Aurorarcher]

Yeah, like I said that 15 turns would be a lot... Mardoc lost another city on T115, and Jale can get to my western front (which is btw almost undefended) if he takes one more city from Mardoc. And he is likely to do that as Mardoc prolly stack everything he has to his capital.

So yeah... I'm still enjoying the playing even though the hope is totally lost. If however Dave&Molach want to concede already I don't want to keep playing on my own rights... So feel free to inform me if everyone wants to concede. I'm 95% sure Mardoc is but I have no idea of others. I'm having fun teaming with Dave, it's been a pleasure to have him as a buddy here from the time when signed OBs.

On the eastern front I did the usual double Malestorm and gave a Pit beast his poor attempt again. This time 10% chance to win was a loss. I'm thinking firing Charm Person spell soon and if it'll be succesful enough I am going to move all my units to the desert tile, then Dave should follow me and also spring the tile. It's not ideal play but after a lot of collateral a lot of our units should get odds on Jale's units. We need some more blood on eastern front, this game needs proper ending before we all concede to Jale... the only question is whether the one bleeding is us or Captain Jack once we hit that city. We shall see if that ever happens.

[Aurorarcher]

Managed to kill Styg and moved my units to the desert tile. More deatiled update later today.

[Aurorarcher]

First I did the usual Maelstorm twice but then I decided to Rust because it should help Dave some. And also used Charm Person spell. It's pretty useful here because it makes the units unable to attack, only affects on living units (so not cats, demons etc.). Results:




Jale has 62 units in the city (one catapult selected is not in the city). EDIT: Actually 61, one horseman is in the west...




I was able to Charm about 30 units, which is 67% of units that I was able to Charm - pretty good. Of course some of the units might lose their Charmed promotion after the turn.

Me and Dave a total of about 50 units next to the city, even more if you add to that 5 more Spectres Dave can add next turn. I decided to gamble a bit and use my best warrior to take out Jale's Stygian Guard. After Maelstrom the Styg was down to 70 hp so my best warrior had odds on it, roughly 70% to win and I won indeed.




This is was very fortunate because I knew Dave's spectres would've had terrible odds against the demonic Styg. Now Dave should first spring the desert and probably hit the wounded units hard. 10 7 strenght spectres, all with c1, some with enchanted blades I just gave them (you're welcome, Dave!), could easily kill 10 units. He has tons of skeletons which could take coinflip or even worse battles. Then some fireballs. And for last some PZs, I hope he doesn't lose many of those or my adept on the forest tile might get pretty badly hurt. I'm not sure if it could even trigger war? Hopefully not... that'd be terrible. I think that could also help his economy (at -3 GNP atm) if he were to lose some units. That's actually pretty amusing way to avoid going broke . Dave could also pillage one of the cottages outside my territory, that would be fine also.

One problem is that Jale can still cast Tsunami twice from the city and so heavily damage our units. And he also hit us with 15 cats. Fortunately he doesn't have many units that could attack and also kill. Only about 15, so I think our chances are pretty good. I'll add courage promotion to our units next turn, sadly that doesn't really help Dave's units a lot as PZs can't take it.

Dave has to kill as many units as he can now or it might be too late. Don't let me down, buddy!

I think Jale is planning to land a lot of units somewhere from that island... Presumably near Cevedes.

It's a mystery how the galley with 7 cargo (Oh my, 5 moves, 7 cargo... these galleys are crazy!) is damaged. Maybe Dave is attacking from south to the island somehow (fireballs or waterwalking wizards maybe?). Anyway I have to keep my capital well-defended still.

In the west Mardoc lost another city. Now down to 2. I'm spamming warriors in the western city (1 warrior/t) to avoid getting runover. It's obvious that Jale is trying to attack our weaker and poorly defended cities from west. I'm trying to get some mages there, if one of my adpets get +1 xp next turn I can use Charm Person spell here as well. Very very useful again.

In other news Molach used his WS. Now, are you going to attack Jale or just keep playing it this way:

[Aurorarcher]

I do not know how many units Dave lost attacking that city, but... just one word: Raging Seas!

This WS is deadly. Jale wiped all of our units basicially by firing his WS. I actually thought it only works next to OCEAN (like the pedia says) but I should've remembered that it affects every adjacent tile to any water. So yeah... I waved the white flag for good, no point playing anymore.







Amusingly enough one of Dave's spectres stayed alive with 0.1 health .

I might write some after game thoughts here soon, but now it's time to hand the victory to the Pirates .