It's the end of the world, and Dave feels fine

[DaveV]

jalepeno razed what must have been a size 7 Mardoc city, pushing the AC past 10. Thanks for unblocking my gates, buddy!



Aurorarcher moved his warriors back and blocked my Maelstrom, so I stacked up with them. jalepeno left his workers exposed on the newly-forted tile, so I killed them with a fireball. Without workers, he can't attack our stack with any of his 2-movers. Still no sign of his adept.




I used my other fireballs to bomb his city defense back down to zero, and attacked with my last fireball at about 1% (I lost). I left one skeleton on my old tile, hoping Aurorarcher gets the hint and moves his warriors there.

Meanwhile, I have something up my sleeve in my north. I killed a workboat that was hanging around.




The demos are amusing. My GNP is embarassing, but the other three guys combined have only 460K in power, barely more than me and barely more than half of jalepeno.



A new witch was born at EoT:

[DaveV]

Turn 112. Looks as though jalepeno saw me coming for the island.




I killed two guys in Treasons Harbor. Aurorarcher is fielding wizards now. My cash is running out like sands through an hourglass. Another new witch comes through the gates at EoT.

[DaveV]

Turn 113, complete with sub-par screenshots.




I killed three guys at about 85% with spectres, then lost four straight fireball attacks at about 45%. Note the Stygian Guard coming up the roadway. There's also a Pirate in Nutmeg Consolation.

I left the spectres on the desert tile because I think he will lose a horse or two trying to take them out. Any non-horse unit that he uses will be left on the desert to die. If he chooses not to attack, the spectres should be able to kill three more units next turn.

On the island, I lost two fireball attacks at about 15% and 20%.




Another witch was born at EoT.




Waiting for a Spirit witch to pop my borders was clearly not a good idea.

[The Black Sword]

Good job keeping this game interesting Dave.

[DaveV]

Good job keeping this game interesting Dave.

Thanks, but I bet jalepeno has a different opinion (something along the lines of, "what is this moron doing attacking me halfway across the world?").

More attacks. Two out of three on spectres, oh-for-fireballs.




He has a forge and iron weapons now, but Rust is still appallingly effective.

Note the Pirate:




Two witches in one turn!

[DaveV]

I realized this turn that I should have been summoning spectres on the desert tile so they could retreat and rejoin my stack instead of leaving them to be Tsunami'd and killed cheaply.

I wish I could somehow ask Aurorarcher to cast Rust; I couldn't make any real progress against the city because my spectres were getting about 1% odds against the Styg, although I did kill one unit before he became top defender.




Economic collapse is imminent. I'll probably have to send in a bunch of units to die next turn.

Yet another witch from the gates:




With Spirit mana, finally! Time to pop some borders.

[DaveV]

Apparently Aurorarcher agrees that it's time to push the stack of chips into the center of the table. I sent everything in against the city, and killed almost all of his hitters and a couple of his catapults.




Then I deleted a couple of badly injured skeletons to end the turn with positive cash.

Now would be a perfect time for him to pop his worldspell. I played in a hurry and left a bunch of units exposed in my homelands. I expect that my unit maintenance will go down a lot next turn...

Before and after demos:

[Miguelito]

Nothing to contribute really, but nice to see you've managed to make this happen.
Could you post a shot of the event log and also tech progress/plans? And F3 maybe?

[DaveV]

I might try to grab the event log next turn; I didn't feel like replaying the big battle. Most of it is "Unit xxx damaged yy% by fire damage", anyway.

Civics:



Pretty standard for toroidal wrap.

Cities:




Military:



At a guess, somewhat more than half of those witches came through the gates for free.

I'll try to get a shot of the tech screen next turn, too. I'm very backward, but I'm not sure investing in tech is going to get me much ahead of where I am. More war and higher AC is probably my best bet to get ahead. I have a great scientist coming in five turns, but I don't see where a Sorcery bulb will be of much benefit for me.

[jalepeno]

Great job recognizing my position and committing to stopping me! I [mostly] did appreciate you making the game interesting. I really wish I'd been able to bring my adept over to spring... but he was needed to cast floating eyes so that Mardoc wouldn't take me apart with invisible cultists. I was stockpiling units with free promos to try to move to the desert-promote mobility-attack, but you built your stack too big.