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Technowolf
Nov 4, 2009




Loxbourne posted:

What's with the bunch of white animals who rush off towards the enemy in the opening seconds? Wolves? Killer sheep?

Tuna's PG starts with a random amount of animals each combat round. I think those were goats.

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PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Mictlan

Turn 42



And the fighting for the fate of Mictlan resumes!




I shoo his raiders away at an acceptable cost in slaves(i.e., any), and he goes for Dunheim again. Rushing my troops there to save the province would risk worse raiding happening in the heart of my provinces, so sadly Dunheim will have to eat poo poo this time around. Also this time he actually brought some mages and stuff, so trouncing these troops might be less effortless. To help give me a fighting chance, though, I've been investing in more sacreds(of course) and also summoning Jade Serpents. They're some of my favourite Mictlan summons, both because they're cool as gently caress and because their super-lethal poison can kill even supposedly poison immune golems(as Arcvasti found out in Newbad2).



Also son of a bitch, speaking of Rain of Toads. Considering that most of my forces are concentrated in my cap currently, this could potentially hurt me long-term, the unrest won't be good for my gold income or blood hunting, either.




I'm surprised he didn't learn his lesson with the dryads the first time.



My battle strategy for dealing with the incoming troops from Pan will be to turn everything into a clusterfuck. Beast bats, ozelotls and eagle warriors to his back lines, a broad line of beefier sacreds to actually do some damage, and hundreds of literally sacrificial slaves to eat poo poo on the flanks and make sure no one escapes. Jade Serpents are split out among the various formations since they grant a formation-wide +1 Morale, sadly not cumulative, but it'll help.

The only real battle magic I'll be bringing at this stage will be Howl. I'll never really get tired of it as one of the most supremely useful battlefield spells in the game.



I can gather my poo poo while Pan fucks around in Dunheim and... hmmmm... Utgard has a worrying number of troops on my southern border. Eh. I'm sure it's nothing. Lemme just bring up the ol' diplomancy that's served me so well before...



Oh God it isn't nothing he's coming and I'm boned, for once my infallible diplomatic skills have failed me.

Turn 43




I can't remember what Atlantis is paying me for, but if I'm correct, it's for being the best and coolest player in the game, and very enjoyable to work with.



Blood 6 allows me to summon Tlahuelpuchi, which are decent magical assasins, access to a few more demonic summons and Infernal Disease which would be great if I was fighting, say, TC or some other faction with mostly human commanders.



Stellar Focus is just +Astral Pearls, so nothing too horrifying. But it occurs to me that +gem rituals are worth considerably more in the Late Age than the Early and Middle, due to the dearth of gem gen sites. Something I've never really taken into consideration before.



I retake the province on my border with Utgard just so I can have the extra gem income for as long as possible.



No surprise Dunheim goes down like a wet paper bag and-



gently caress me but that's a lot of giants. This might be the last stand of Mictlan unless I can pull out a super-unlikely win.

Turn 44



Utgard is still, bafflingly, holding his fire. I think he may be waiting for Pan to wear me down before committing any real forces to fighting me.



As I kind of expected, Disease Demons suck poo poo against Pans and I never bust it out again this game.



+W gems spell for Atlantis. It makes a lot of sense to cast, though it's quite late in the game for gem gen rituals.



Call of the Winds attacks a province with birds that stay around, it's... not a bad spell? Against some nations and some PD it's completely useless, but with 10 or less PD where there's only one commander, as long as they can snipe him before their own commander bird gets owned, they can take out a lot of things. Plus they stay around after being summoned and can thus contribute to offenses with attack-rear commands or just a bit of general raiding.



Hm okay maybe Jotun was just waiting for his PG to shuffle up to the front. This ain't good. I throw some event gear on my new Tlahuelpuchi and send her off to the front to annoy my enemies with some targeted assassinations.



And just to get a look at the victory situation... unless one of the nations visibly holding two thrones is sitting on Death and Fortune without taking them, we're still probably a good distance from anyone sneaking the win rapidly.

Turn 45





The fighting resumes on turn 45, Pan throwing up Mother Oak is bad news, since he can do a lot of fun things with nature gems, much like I can. On the other hand, so far his battle magic hasn't been exceptionally threatening, so hopefully he'll squander this opportunity.



Five Pans and three Centaur Sages could get spooky, on the other hand this is the sort of stack which, if I can flatten it, would really knock Pan back.

Not knowing which province he plans to hit, I pull a lot of big mages and sacreds back to my cap since they'll be able to respond everywhere, and yank a bunch of my blood hunters back to my westernmost province so blood slave production doesn't slacken too much no matter where I'm invaded.

Turn 46



Well gently caress, Pan and Utgard attacked me on the same turn. I somehow suspect this might have been planned, some sort of... dishonourable coordination between the two of them.



Ritual of the Five Gates is like a demonic variety pack. It gives you a Demon Knight, Frost Fiend, Storm Demon, Devil and I think the fifth is a Fiend of Darkness. The takeaway is that you get some beefy fodder and four flying demons, of which the Storm Demon is definitely the scariest(ethereal flier with two AN attacks), but more flying troops is never bad. Throw the demon knight in with your other melee goons and tell the four fliers to "attack rear" and reap a bunch of fun, especially if your enemy is expeting a non-flying nation.



I forget why I had that guy out patrolling at all, but RIP him I guess. On the bright side Pan has more or less just walked everyone on to my biggest troop concentration, so with one big roll of the dice I can banish him or get knocked out of the game, and in the former case I can focus on Utgard, maybe bloody his nose as well.



So far Utgard's offensive is leading off gently, I suspect he plans to let Pan do the heavy lifting and then eat everything south of my cap once it's confirmed that resistance is crushed.



Just to completely gently caress things up with chaff, I've also had Mictlipoctly re-animating every single protesting villager that's been patrolled to death as a result of my blood hunting for the last ~20 turns, that's a lot of undead chaff. I don't expect them to do anything useful, but I expect them to bog down Pan's front line effectively while Howl and flying sacreds do the real damage.

I also have some slaves and ghouls at the far rear of my own formation in case Pan makes the smart decision and has some Stymphalian Birds of his own on Attack Rear, that way they'll get tied down fighting something completely useless rather than squishy mages and commanders.



I also toss the majority of my sacreds out on one flank with an attack rear command, with any luck some of them will fight their way through the enemy lines to start mangling commanders.



This seems like a good cliffhanger to end this post on. Now you can all wonder how the protagonist of reality, me, is going to manage to pull a win out of this one.

Khisanth Magus
Mar 31, 2011

Vae Victus
So, since I am so behind in posting I'm not even going to bother trying to catch up turn by turn. I'm just going to give a summary of what I'm doing:

Gath showed my first attack attempt, which ended badly. He hasn't gotten to my second attempt, which had pretty much every remaining soldier I had and a bunch of mage support, which ended just as bad just in a different way. I immediately sued for peace because at that point I had absolutely no troops left.

I was kind of at a quandary on what to do at that point. I didn't want to fight patala or Argatha because they were fighting gath. I was pretty sure I couldn't handle TC. And I was very annoyed at Purple over the fact he was trying to get all my neighbors to kill me. I had a NAP with him through turn 43, but I notified Pan that as soon as that ran out the full power of Utgard was going to decend on the furries to the north. I was also starting to ramp up my blood economy and aiming to get to blood 9, which has mass summoning spells of the different demons.

PlasticAutomaton
Nov 12, 2016

Artoria Pendonut


I'm enjoying Mictlan's chronic backstabbing disorder finally come home to roost. :allears:

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Khisanth Magus posted:

And I was very annoyed at Purple over the fact he was trying to get all my neighbors to kill me.

In my defense, just abou the only neighbours you didn't end up actually fighting were the ones I tried to convince to attack you, so perhaps you should have just let me keep it up.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

PurpleXVI posted:

In my defense, just abou the only neighbours you didn't end up actually fighting were the ones I tried to convince to attack you, so perhaps you should have just let me keep it up.

In Khisanth's defense, his decision to attack you turned out to be funnier, which is all anyone really cares about anyway

Technowolf
Nov 4, 2009




Agartha

Turn 42


And then there was peace.


Gath takes out some monkey PD with a blood remote attack.


I'm not sure what happened here. Misclick? Getting rid or a diseased/feebleminded mage? Hilariously failed thug?


This event puts a sneaking giant boar that increases unrest in a province. It can be caused by a spell, but only a few nations get it and the ones in this game that do (Arco, Pan) are busy with something else. Also, the spell isn't that good. I never patrol this one out and it doesn't really affect the province that much.




The plague event sets a flag on the province that generates more events for it and sometimes events in surrounding provinces.




A group of hobbits halflings hoburgs decide to settle in one of my provinces. The only real thing they provide is a N1 mage, but it's not really worth forting and labbing that province for that.



The other two events are barely worth talking about.


Patala has an army of sacred snakes besieging a Gathite fortress. Sadly the nagas aren't too good, and Lotham should probably have spent the gold/resources on more light archer blobs.


Movement overview. I don't think I'd decided what to do next at this point, so most of this is consolidation.

Turn 43


A fairly quiet turn.


I'm not sure why I got these gems from Marignon. Maybe he's just giving away his stuff before dying/going AI?


I start going up the alteration path.



At level 5 I get this national spell, which juices up all my undead units.


Like Purple said, this is one of the less scary globals.


While more province income is good, sometimes this can lead into attacks from Throne of Gaia units later down the line.


More plague events.


It's now I notice that Erytheia has two astral globals up. This is slightly worrying, as that means they have a lot of pearls to throw around. Lategame astral can be just as scary, if not scarier, than lategame blood or death.


In order to combat this fish-based menace, I'm going to need a lot of soldiers. Also, my god starts remote searching for water sites.


I really need to get my dominion and scales into Windsong.


My first force moves into place for the assault.

Turn 44



When I said a lot of soldiers, I meant a lot.




Woo! Two +1W sites, especially this late in the game, aren't anything to write home about, but I'll take anything I can get.


Mostly because my gem income is abysmal for this stage of the game, even for the late age.


This ritual gives a small amount of each gem type (minus blood slaves) to Atlantis. The catch is that it can only be cast underwater.



Everything's fine.



No need to order a shelter-in-place order yet.


Why don't we all just sit back and have a nice, short war.

Turn 45


Everything seems to be going well.


For me, not for Mictlan.


Another gem gen global. This one is a bit more worrying, mostly because Pangaea can do a lot with nature gems.


See? A short victorious war is what this nation needs right now.


Not more testing supplies.


The stock market's doing fine!

Turn 46


I consolidated my position against Erytheia last turn, so no battles.


AI Marignon throws a random event commander at Erytheia for some reason.



RIP Pythium, you will be missed.


Looks like the cult is beginning to be a problem. I'll have to deal with them later, though.



More minor events. Looks like the cure to this plague is Cold 3.


I invest more into a skeleton army.

Kurr de la Cruz
May 21, 2007

Put the boots to him, medium style.

Hair Elf
Been loving this series. Ramc told me to post this, so here you go:

Ramc
May 4, 2008

Bringing your thread to a screeching halt, guaranteed.

Kurr de la Cruz posted:

Been loving this series. Ramc told me to post this, so here you go:


Incredible.

OOrochi
Jan 19, 2017

On my honor as the Dawnspear.

Kurr de la Cruz posted:

Been loving this series. Ramc told me to post this, so here you go:


That's amazing!

Ramc
May 4, 2008

Bringing your thread to a screeching halt, guaranteed.

Cobra Lionfist
Jun 4, 2013
Pan's perspective at this point of the game was like the dog that caught the car. We had a great expansion, built forts, gems rolling in, money and whatever we could recruit. And we'd decided that we had to take out our treacherous neighbour who seems to have had a poor expansion. Okay, messages to the neighbours, let's do this.

Oh wait, Mictlan has a blood vengeance bless? What is that anyway?

Well not sure how best to approach this but let's throw our overwhelming forces at Mictlan and see what happens.

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Swarm assassins forgive a multitude of sins.

Cobra Lionfist
Jun 4, 2013
Yeah also this was when I realised I should have been using swarm

gonadic io
Feb 16, 2011

>>=
Asphodel's dryads losing assassin is such bullshit

OOrochi
Jan 19, 2017

On my honor as the Dawnspear.

gonadic io posted:

Asphodel's dryads losing assassin is such bullshit

That’s really dumb. If anything, it’d be more thematic for them to be able to assassinate people than regular dryads.

gonadic io
Feb 16, 2011

>>=

OOrochi posted:

That’s really dumb. If anything, it’d be more thematic for them to be able to assassinate people than regular dryads.

I can see the argument for them losing seduce although I personally disagree :heysexy:

OOrochi
Jan 19, 2017

On my honor as the Dawnspear.
Atlantis Turns 42-46

Turn 42



Biggest news of the turn is that I bought 50 water gems off of Mictlan for 15 gold a pop (750 total). We’d been negotiating after I’d already submitted my turn 41, so I wouldn’t have been able to pay him until the tick between 42 and 43. Purple said that they’d just send me the gems early and would trust me to pay later. I had 50 gold spare this turn, so I threw it in as a bonus and thanks for sending them early.



The big reason I wanted the gems was so that I could cast Maelstrom. It’s a gem-generator global that you don’t necessarily see too often because it’s all the way down at Evocation 8, is solidly expensive, and has to be cast underwater. For that, though, you get 27 gems a turn (15 W, 5 S, 3 A, and 1 of everything else) which is the most of any gem-generator. I have pretty easy access to a mage to cast it and could really make use of all of the gems it’d get me, so it seems like a no brainer to cast it.
(I was strongly considering casting Ghost Armada instead, which is a silly global that makes ghost pirates attack anyone who borders a water province, but decided against it since it wouldn’t really help me in any way)



I continue taking provinces from Marignon.



Lose Hall Woods to yet another indie attack. Seriously, sometimes I feel like there’s a hidden modifier or something to make provinces more likely to be attacked.



And then watch as Marignon sends a lot of crossbowmen to bother Erytheia.



I keep moving towards Marignon itself, making sure to take out that temple between me and Pythium as well.



I also move to besiege the citadel below the crystal throne and send another cheap raiding party to take more provinces.



And finally go to take back Hall Woods again and move a W4 Angakok under water to cast Maelstrom next turn.

Turn 43



Lots and lots of battles this turn.



Also, Erytheia cast Stellar Focus. It’s an interesting global, in that it’s incredibly cheap to cast with a correspondingly small benefit of 5 astral pearls a turn. Because it’s so inoffensive, it’s typically thought to not be worth the effort to dispel, especially since the dispeller could just cast their own version for the same cost as a dispel.







None of the battles are actually that crazy, just my troops smashing through PD or light opposition.

There is one notable battle though. If you remember, last update I got a free Siren from an event. I decide to have it go mess with Marignon over by Erytheia since that’s an area with a lot of water and commanders running around. Since Marignon has no amphibious commanders, it should be easy for her to get a few kills, right?



Wrong. Apparently Marignon got an Azure mage (who is a water mage and can breathe under water) from an event and my Siren had the wonderful luck to target him first and then get eaten by summoned sharks. RIP.

My events are all pretty minor gem or gold gains, or me casting wolven winter on forted provinces.




For moves, I’m continuing to advance up towards Marignon and am reinforcing my army in Boar Woods in case Marignon sends a bunch of soldiers at it.



And in the east, I can see that Gath has quite a large stack of their sacred giants where Patala had been sieging. It really is quite inconvenient that Gath got their first, because I would’ve loved to put a fort their myself and have easy access to the underwater throne.

Turn 44



Not as many battles this turn, but I did get Maelstrom off without a hitch.




I’d fired off a few Tupilaks to stop Marignon from moving around so much. One bounces off of a Marignese hero, the other obliterates a blood mage.



I see Marignon’s god running around with a really small force. If I catch it in the cold, I’m pretty confident a small-ish army could kill it without too many casualties now.




And I also keep smashing more of Marignon’s PD.



At this point, I remember that supplies are actually a thing and notice that my army just below Marignon is starving. If an army starves for 2 turns, then they start to get diseased which is basically a slow death sentence for anyone it happens to. So to fix that, I split off part of my army to move backwards and get supplies safely while sending an Angakok with a few supply boosting items across the lake to help out he ones staying still.



And finally, here is my gem income graph for the turn. As you can see, casting Maelstrom was an MASSIVE boost to my income and it should pay for itself pretty quickly.

Turn 45




Start the turn off with a new message from Mictlan. Certainly seems like they’ve got a lot going on. To be honest, I’m hoping that they’re able to stay alive for as long as possible, since that’ll keep Pan and anyone else involved distracted.



Continuing the global news, Pan gets a global up with the gem-generator Mother Oak. It’s not too hard to cast, with a relatively low research cost and is pretty easy for most nature-heavy nations to have a mage reach. I’m honestly a bit surprised that it hadn’t gone up beforehand. Still, Pan of all nations can make great use of the nature gems it gives, so it’s definitely something to be a little concerned about.




I fire off 2 more Tupilaks and get 2 kills.



And then Marignon tries to get in on the assassination action but their assassin gets killed by a cast of Frozen Heart.




My two battles go well, crushing a bit of PD and successfully taking the fort below my throne.



Now that I have my supply issues covered, I have my main army and a supporting party advance on Marignon’s capital, while I send my formerly starving group to go besiege the fort in Queen Forest. Lastly, my army from the fort in Boar Woods moves to hopefully kill Marignon’s god, if it doesn’t move.

Turn 46



Nothing too crazy this turn. Though Tien Chi finally stormed the fort in Pythium and put an end to Danger Noodle and their gloriously hell-blessed hydras.




My Tupilaks continue killing.




My 2 secondary armies keep advancing.




And Marignon’s capital PD falls pretty quickly.



Sadly, Marignon’s god did not stay still and instead attacked another of my provinces.



No matter, I’ll keep chasing it with my army from Fenatice. I’m also moving my army out of Queen Forest, just because I’d rather not take the extra casualties from fighting the Boar in a hot province if I don’t have to. Instead, they’ll pop down and take Mari’s lake province.



And to wrap the turn up, I see that Erytheia hasn’t made much progress taking provinces in the east of Marignon. Since they’ve been sitting there for a while, I decide that I might as well take advantage of it and go for them my self.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Mictlan

Turn 47




So before we get to the meat of the update, I just want to point out once again that succubi are one of my favourite blood summons. Somewhat expensive, fragile due to lacking a body slot(presumably the wings get in the way of armor?) but can potentially land you free commanders and disrupt enemy armies by either stealing commanders or getting into a slapfight with them in their bedroom. Having the rare trait of Invisible they also literally cannot be patrolled out by patrollers without Spirit Sight, and are real hard to land a hit on in physical combat.

In hindsight I wonder if it would be worth maybe empowering one to make her an extra-strong assassin. A rank or two of Nature so she could bust out Swarm might be a pro move, albeit also very expensive.

Anyway, on to the turn itself! Fights have happened!



My mildly thuggy assassin ghost stabs a bird, not really a surprise she came out on top. Hopefully that'll keep some Panish hawks out of the fight itself.




Motherfucker. Pan saw what was coming and skedaddled on to a neighbouring prov. Also not again the consequences of heat aura as it, uh, kills seven times as many of my own chaff as there are enemies present in the battle at all.



Meanwhile Utgard starts the invasion in earnest and fine, fine. You have fun with that fort, giant dickheads. I'm gonna squish Pan and then you'll get yours. Since Gintmark is lost, I decide to try out a Suicide Vest Communion for the defenders hiding inside the fort.




When you set up a communion, or sabbath, any spell cast by a Master that self-buffs will also buff every slave. Primarily this is good for stuff like Summon Earthpower(extra slave reinvig), Phoenix Power(elemental res + more magic skill, which makes the slaves take less fatigue) and Twist Fate(defensive buffs). But it also applies to Hell Power. Now Hell Power is at first glance a spell you'd be casting all the time, you'd think. +2 to all paths! A bunch of buffs besides! Oh and it'll keep summoning unaligned horrors as long as it's up.

The theory of a Suicide Vest Communion is that you have a shitload of slaves and one guy who pops Hell Power so you'll have TONS of goons calling horrors and it'll ruin everyone's day, not just yours. Let's see if it actually functions.



And obviously the troops at Mictlan are heading up to chase Pan's goonsquad.

Turn 48




Ha ha man this coulda ended so badly. If they'd taken him out, he was leading the majority of the troops headed up north, that might actually have made a huge difference for Pan and in fact would likely have secured him my entire mage squad dead for free.



This is a decent ritual, basically just increases resources and gold income in all friendly provinces, which while not spectacular, can make a huge difference in how many mages and generic goons you can pump out, and especially in the late age that can matter a lot especially to resource-hungry nations.

Now let's get over to the big show of this turn, the fight against Pan.




Holy poo poo it's a loving massacre! Now, I didn't walk away from it unscathed, losing my King of Legends, in particular, sucks, since he was more or less my only source of free undead chaff, but... primarily what I lost was troops, and frankly not even that many of the good ones, it was mostly dead chaff, slaves and soulless. My sacreds accounted for themselves at an absurd K:D ratio, look at those loving jaguar warriors. 19 dead for 217 kills! Pan, meanwhile, lost ridiculous amounts of mages, including seven slow-to-recruit Pans.




Semi-sensible wedge-shaped formations for both of us. If I was Pan I would probably have opted for a "sandwich" formation instead, with primary troops farther ahead in a line mages in the middle and a line of guys in the back to soak up attack-rears. This sort of dense formation with the rear relatively close to the middle still leaves open the option that small flying attackers might touch down in the middle of the formation if arriving in sufficient numbers, which could disrupt mage scripting.




It almost happens, too, the outer edges of my eagle warrior blob are reaching his mage/commander cube in the center. The active battlefield spell there is Howl.



I wish battles had more robust statistics reporting, because I wish I knew how many of my slaves got killed by Heat Aura and how many actually got killed by Pan's troops.

Ultimately my front line grinds through his, and a combination of Howl dogs and my Eagle Warriors cut off his mage squad from being able to retreat, thus the total destruction seen.

Now, what could Pan have done differently? Hard to say. With a bit of Centaur Sage luck, Pan can get Gifts(throws out very inaccurate but extremely damaging, basically always instakill, meteors at the enemy) caster access relatively ez pz, and a few lucky meteors could really have shifted the battle in his favour or at least blown holes in my sacreds who carried most of the killing. Alternately, if he'd rushed Enchantment at some point, access to a Foul Vapors(constant poison damage to the entire battlefield) + Serpent's Blessing(poison res for all allies) combo would absolutely have devastated me. Or at the very least he could've popped off a Howl which might have discomfited my mages and caused me some serious losses on the back lines.

If nothing else, throwing some Earth gems on his Pan's and letting them bust out some Earth Elementals, or better yet Living Earth, could have helped him withstand my front lines more effectively.



We're denied the other battle as Utgard inscrutably shuffles over one province instead of storming the fort. Either he sensed I'd have some sort of trap(I think I made a bunch of ominous bullshit sounds about it) or he knew that my cap blob would go for either him or Pan and didn't want it to come for him.



I refuse to believe Pan will be able to muster any sort of effective response for a while, so it's time to turn back south and see if I can deal with Utgard. I also loudly proclaim my victory over Pan and hope that someone who's as much of a dickhead as I am will take the chance to attack him.

Turn 49




I had already evacuated Koromoo, so Utgard does economic damage but little else. I also get another rank of Blood research in. Vanilla Blood 7 is where you get access to vampire lords who, while not super powerful, are immortal, flying stealthy D/B casters that auto-generate useless chaff in friendly dominion. As they also require D/B to summon, they can turn into an infinite vampire factory provided there are enough of blood slaves incoming, and coincidentally with their free chaff they help assist patrolling to secure the necessary blood production.

One of the bigger JBBM/SILT changes is that spells which summon immortals instead turn the caster into that type of immortal, as the Infinite Lich/Worm Mage/Wraith Lord/Vampire Lord factories are ostensibly a big problem in vanilla, though in the vanilla games I've played I've never actually really seen this to be a big gamechanger.



I have my succubus and my unpronouncable ghost lady try to take a chunk out of Utgard's commanders. With some luck I might be able to strand some of his troops in Koromoo while the rest move on to Gintmark, thus allowing me to fight him piecemeal. I don't count on being quite as lucky against Utgard as I was against Pan, in part because giants can be serious trouble even if they're just a big meat wall without proper caster backup.

Turn 50




After the usual bit of bluster, let's get on to the action.



One less enemy commander is always good, but I have my doubts that this guy was actually leading anything of note. Either he was along by accident, ferrying in reinforcements or Utgard brought him along specifically as ablative anti-assassin/mind hunt armor, which honestly isn't a bad move. In this game I don't think anyone really has good mind hunting abilities(possibly Atlantis?), but you've got all kinds of assassins. Both Mari and Jomon have recruitable ones, blood nations always have succubi, Pan has dryads, etc.



While nornas are, at least, semi-expensive slow-to-recruit mages, this still feels like a bad first run of the whole succubus thing. drat. Skelespam got my succubus after she killed the norna.



For whatever reason Utgard didn't move his troops, thus giving my assassin another shot at them before they get a chance to, as assassinations are some of the first things to happen in a turn, trumped only by ritual spellcasting as far as I'm aware.

Turn 51




Gift of Health is probably one of THE best globals in the entire game. Within your dominion, all your troops get 10*Candles% bonus max health, and every dominion candle in a province is an attempted heal check every turn. Considering that most nations do not have proper Healer access and only rarely Disease Healer access, this can be a big gamechanger in terms of being able to keep thugs at maximum power and having less attrition among your troops and commanders. It sounds small, but over multiple turns that can add up to a notable advantage. Especially if you're a nation that relies on small numbers of very expensive mages or commanders. TC loves it because they have a lot of old man mages that now get an extra lease on life rather than dying a winter or two after being recruited from a disease or getting muted by an affliction or whatever.



Seithkonas are a step down from nornas, but I'll take what kills I can get.



I presume Utgard moved to avoid further assassinations.



Alright my stupid plan is to let him take the fort while I shuffle over some assassins and seducers, that way I'll get in a turn of trying to take out some load-bearing commanders before I actually move in my troops proper. Plus there's always the chance that the SVC hiding out inside might manage to do some damage rather than just being an embarrassing failure like most gimmick strats I attempt.

What a cliffhanger!

Arcvasti
Jun 12, 2019

Never trust a bird.
Casting gifts from heaven into a big pile of blood vengeance sacreds is elaborate suicide, that definitely wouldn't have saved Pan there.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Arcvasti posted:

Casting gifts from heaven into a big pile of blood vengeance sacreds is elaborate suicide, that definitely wouldn't have saved Pan there.

It's not about winning or losing, it's about going out with or without style.

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


Succubi don't wear armor because then they can't have their tits out. Simple physics.

gonadic io
Feb 16, 2011

>>=
RE GoH making your SCs chunky:

The_Final_Stand
Nov 2, 2013

So cute and cuddly
Don't most "instant death" spells actually just do "only" 999 damage or something like that? So the modded abomination we're looking at can be outright Disintegrated or Soul Slain and still have more hitpoints than a monolith.

Technowolf
Nov 4, 2009




Agartha

Turn 47



A long log of mostly summons. Also I traded some gems (I think nature) to T'ien Ch'i last turn and this is his payment.



Well, poo poo. Looks like Erytheia's got their communions up and running, as well as one of the mind control spells. So not only did I lose my army, I added to his.


Fear not! These 11 water gems will save me!

Turn 48


The arena pops up again, but I'm a bit too busy to send someone.


Riches from Below is a big help to nations like Atlantis, whose normal troops are competitive even in the late game.



Events are minorly positive.



But, now, for the most important thing this turn, and probably my biggest mistake. I take one of my mages and begin empowering him in blood.


A look at the globals so far. Atlantis's two are much better than Erytheia's, since Maelstrom gives a lot of gems of all types and Riches helps them make even bigger armies and more mages.

Turn 49


I'm pretty sure that Gath wins the arena with a thugged-out Seren.


Blood is the easiest path to empower in, since slaves are essentially free, but there is one major drawback. Each time you empower in blood, you risk horror marking the mage, which will eventually attract a horror to assassinate them. Luckily Karl here avoids it, for now.



I finally start using the astral remote search spell with my pretender, and find a decent site. I really should have been doing this earlier.


Atlantis whacks an AI Marignon army.


This is really good.




This, however, is more funny than good. Gnomes are trash troops, with low HP and low stats. The only thing going for them is glamour, but that doesn't help that much. The other outcome to this event is a bunch of lamia, which have regen, a second form, decent stats, and a life drain attack.


The last event is okay, but I would have preferred an extra digit. Or a magic item. Or gems.


I set Karl to empower again. See if you can spot why this is a mistake.


Turn 50


My blood income is going up little by little.


Don't be a braggart, Purple. Especially when also trying to ask for help.


Karl dodges the horror mark again.



The cost of empowering goes steadily up for each level you go (except for going from 0->1, that costs 50), and anything beyond about 3 or 4 will start to get expensive.



Really, really, should have been doing this ages ago.


Marignon wipes some Atlantis PD. For some reason the AI is using a succubus as a normal combatant rather than seducer/assassin.


I load a mage up with gems to take to my stack bordering Erytheia.


This looks to be Marignon's last stand.


I start queuing up blood research.


I'm also going to start using this spell on some of my more powerful mages. When this game was played, twiceborn was a 10-gem, D2 spell that puts a special "twiceborn" effect on the mage that casts it. Any twiceborn mage that dies will reform as a human-sized wight mage back where they cast the spell (although some nations, like C'tis, get special chassis). This makes it less useful for giant nations like the Nifel-line or Ashdod.

After a recent patch, they changed it so that the cost is 5*size death gems, and what the mage turns into is also based on size, with size 5/6 mages getting turned basically into tartarians.

Turn 51


Erytheia still hasn't counter-attacked. Maybe they're happy with a white peace?


And here's Karl, in all his blood empowered glory!

And here's why empowering him was a mistake - he's only base D2, and to summon vampires, you need B3D4. And I can't empower him in death because I don't have the gems.

Whoops.


I finally see what TC was doing with those nature gems they bought from me.



Some Pan refugees try to take one of my forest provinces. Ain't happenin', bud.


Dangit, Bogus! I needed those for the war effort!


I'm also going to awaken a Tomb Oracle. This'll get me what I hope is a decent thug/SC chassis.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
I wasn't asking for help, I was giving you the opportunity to crowdfund my eventual victory.

Arcvasti
Jun 12, 2019

Never trust a bird.
The rising tension of Karl's blood empowers, where you mention each time that he misses the horror mark, is pretty good. And then revealing that the issue is that his paths weren't good enough is a nice twist.

Khisanth Magus
Mar 31, 2011

Vae Victus
I really want Gath to post their next set of turns. My favorite moment in the entire game is in his next set of turns!

Ramc
May 4, 2008

Bringing your thread to a screeching halt, guaranteed.

Khisanth Magus posted:

I really want Gath to post their next set of turns. My favorite moment in the entire game is in his next set of turns!

:f5:

Technowolf
Nov 4, 2009




Arcvasti posted:

The rising tension of Karl's blood empowers, where you mention each time that he misses the horror mark, is pretty good. And then revealing that the issue is that his paths weren't good enough is a nice twist.

Yes, that's why I did it that way, for the twist. :sweatdrop:

Tuna-Fish
Sep 13, 2017

Khisanth Magus posted:

I really want Gath to post their next set of turns. My favorite moment in the entire game is in his next set of turns!

Mine too. I don't think we're talking about the same thing, though.


Sorry for tardiness, being more than 10 turns behind the thread, but I think I can claim extenuating circumstances here.

Gath
Turn 35

Not quite sure what happened this turn, actually. There might have been another fight in Omicria, but I don't have screenshots of it. I am now pressured in full from three sides -- there is a large monkey army in Namor, Agarthans are massing in the north and Jotun reinforcements are two turns away. I am possibly quite a bit too cocky for the situation.

I am sending my god solo to clear out the small Agarthan contingent. Note how I need to anticipate their movements here -- armies move in size order, meaning that a single supercombatant will never interdict an army before it moves. That is, unless it magic moves, which is just another reason by bronze colossi are so scary. I expect that the Agarthans want to move south to Balkoria.

I am sending my main army north to take Panuonia and the throne of earth back from the chilly giants, I feel very strongly that even with mage support there is no way they can survive the army attacking them.

The monkey army appears to consist of mostly light bandar chaff. They have mean bows, but they also have very low prot. One of the important features of dominion battles you absolutely need to know is that if take more than 75% of your total original army as casualties, everything non-immortal in your army instantly routs, no matter how pathetic their remaining opposition on the field is. This, the low prot and the lack of fire resistance on their archers means that if I get firestorm up against that army, I win the battle in 4-5 turns, no matter what, even if everything on my side gets crushed. So I prepare a small communion, screened by a bunch of goat demons, and send them south to clear the siegers of Swynland before they manage to get through the walls. I am so sure of my success that I don't even evacuate my helpless researchers from the fort.

Turn 36



My god effortlessly clear the small Agarthan contingent, but their larger army is approaching. The Jotun counter-counterattack, this time with mages, is also going to hit next turn. The monkeyball hits Swynland, and destroys the walls in one turn. No matter, as my southern small army will clear all that crap right out.

I originally had my god strike the Agarthan army this turn, but at the last moment, after I took this screenshot, I chickened out and moved him to join forces against the jotuns. The reasoning there was that maybe Agartha has had time to develop some counter against it, and since my armies are substantially less durable without the bless, I didn't want to risk him.

Turn 37
This is a big one with two battles. First, the Jotun army fries like it's supposed to.

Conclusive proof that fire giants > ice giants. (at least if the battlefield is on fire)

I saved this turn originally to get a screenshot of this battle, but since then Illwinter patched the game with a complete Jotun overhaul, and the fight doesn't look like the same at all.

Next, against the big monkeyball. Remember, here all I need is to get firestorm up and I win, even if the only thing remaining on my side is a single crippled, paralyzed goat.
Oops.
I completely forgot to take into account how dom spell targeting works. When mages cast offensive spells with targets, they attempt to maximize the amount of hp damage they do. Spells such as paralyze or soul slay, with constant effect regardless of enemy hp, and which are defended against with mr, consider the value of targeting someone to be their HP/mr. And since my big casters are larger than anyone else on the field and do not have an equivalent amount of extra mr, all the paralyzes hit them first.

With no firestorm or even divine blessing, the enemy archers make short work of the demon goats and kill most of the mages too.

This is a big failure, especially as I now have a fort full of entirely defenseless research mages about to fall to the monkeys next turn. I try to build an emergency communion in the fort to fry the assaulters, but it would also kill all my own researchers if it works.

However, after taking out the big Jotun army with so few survivors, they now don't have much left and I negotiate peace with them. The peace terms are that I get some gems and get the throne back, but since my army is desperately needed elsewhere and it failed to break the walls in one turn, and he really wants to save the survivors in the fort, I agree to move my army off the fort for at least a turn so he can evacuate the unique mage he made in the fort. It will take me quite some time to actually recover the throne.

Even though there have been some setbacks, I feel quite positive at this point. 1/3 enemies down, and as I move the few giants I left in the west to join my main army, I will get it back in full strength to take on the next one.

Turn 38

The monkeys clear the fort and my firestorm caster fails again. The Agarthan army moves to siege the fort they were closest to. They fail to break the walls in one turn, so my army will be able to get there in time. Everything seems good again.

Wait, what's this?

Oh, a remote attack spell on my god. No matter, he is perfectly capable of kicking the teeth in of basically anything short of doom horrors, this is fine.

Oh crap. The souls of all his victims came to haunt him. He was perfectly capable of killing 4-5 of them a turn. However, there were just too many, as after 100 rounds of combat everyone left on the field will be instantly killed. The clock ran all the way to the end, with him surrounded by hundreds of remaining dead ones.

Him being dead means that for a time I lose not just a great supercombatant, but also my bless until I get him back. No matter, half my units are priests, I'll just call him back. I should have more than enough combined holy levels to get him back in one turn.

Oh wait, if a god is immortal, they cannot be called back. I just have to wait until the next early spring before I get my bless and god back. It's currently late spring. I take back all the good things I ever said about my god.

I'm so screwed.

Tuna-Fish
Sep 13, 2017

Technowolf posted:


I'm not sure what happened here. Misclick? Getting rid or a diseased/feebleminded mage? Hilariously failed thug?

I always like to know what exactly is in every stack facing me, so I suicide random commanders to them basically every turn. Helps avoid surprises. My basic researchers are really cheap, and I think most of my scouts in those parts already got killed so I just moved to nerds.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!
Vengeance of the Dead is real scary if your military power depends on a few, load-bearing mega-murderers. Like, say, a big ol' humanoid expander PG.

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

oh my fuckiugn god that is the best thing i have ever seen

Khisanth Magus
Mar 31, 2011

Vae Victus
So yeah, I accidentally killed Gath's pretender after making peace with him! I felt kind of bad, but it was really hilarious at the same time. I really needed the Gnome I was able to recruit out of that throne province to kickstart my Earth magic with my pretender still dead at this point. I love vengence of the dead, because unlike something like mind hunt there isn't any real danger to your people casting it unless the target is in a Dome, and the kills that happen during Vengence stack up(so if his god got hit with another vengence after coming back there would be 1100 ghosts because the original 700 + 400 killed during that vengence attempt).

Mr. Locke
Jul 28, 2010

Khisanth Magus posted:

(so if his god got hit with another vengence after coming back there would be 1100 ghosts because the original 700 + 400 killed during that vengence attempt).

Do you wanna make Doomguy?

Because this is how you make Doomguy.

Rip and Tear, leafy boi. Rip and Tear.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I can't believe they defeated Gath's pretender by making him hit his pre-set kill limit and shut down from timing out.

Dr. Kyle Farnsworth
Apr 23, 2004

Blood nations like

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


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OOrochi
Jan 19, 2017

On my honor as the Dawnspear.
Atlantis Turns 47-51

Between turns 46 and 47, Erytheia posted updated graphs that can be seen here.

They made sure to remark on every category that I was leading or near the top in. Thankfully, because I am neither a blood nation nor big scary giants, and I did not commit the cardinal sin of taking an early lead, everyone seemed to mostly ignore my position.

Turn 47



I continue to beat up Marignon.



Notably, the army with their god in it did not end up moving



So the big pig ended up freezing and then getting hacked apart by ice guards.




I beat Mari’s PD in 2 more provinces, including the lake to their west.



TC apparently had the idea to try and take the lake was well. Sadly for him, skeleton horsemen cannot carry the day.

However, because I don’t really care about the lake and I’d rather keep TC semi-friendly to me, I agree to essentially roll off 2 dice to see who gets the province. I roll a 1, TC does not, so I’ll be popping back out of the water this turn.

Most of my events are pretty minor, but there is one very important one:



In addition to getting me an absolute ton of gold, the real prize of the event is the Treelord’s Staff. It’s a nature booster, and is one of the rare ones that boost a path by 2, which opens up tons of new things for me. Thanks to this, I have access to things all the way up to N5. My income isn’t enough to really compete for the globals, but this does still get me some very nice spells including a relatively cheap immortal summon.



With my forces on the cap, I feel pretty confident and go to storm Marignon.




While I decide that Erytheia has left the eastern area alone for long enough that it’s up for grabs and move to take the citadel at Whiteport.

Turn 48



This one is pretty much just more cleanup.




A few assorted battles go well




Including the storming of Marignon itself. There really wasn’t much left to fight against.

But there’s also this small battle described in 3 pictures:





Yeah, a single random fireball routed the entire small stack, meaning that that mage lives to get killed another day.



For moves, I send my Angakoks to sail back and relieve the new siege on Boar Woods. If I’m lucky that army of crossbowmen will move there too and I’ll be able to wipe out AI Mari’s forces pretty much entirely.



And I keep siegeing Whiteport down and try to take Summerbay again.

As a note, I also use my earth gems to cast the global Riches from Beneath. It boosts your income and resources depending on your dominion value. Since my troops are strong, especially with my buffs, but resource intensive, this seems like a very solid idea for me to cast.

Turn 49



Overall a pretty uneventful turn.



I see Gath lose what I assume is a thug attempt to a decent group of Patala’s.



My Angakoks crush that sieging force in the Boar Woods.




While Erytheia steals my chance for vengeance against the mage and then fights off my troops for good measure.



Most of the events are pretty unimportant, but I do get a free fort in the lake next to Marignon. Slightly annoyingly, it’s a giant palisade that I cannot upgrade, but I’ll still totally take it.


My only two notable moves are to storm Marignon’s fort in the west next to the lake, storm the fort next to Mari’s throne. I’m planning on hitting Marignon’s throne next turn. I know Erytheia said that they wanted it, buuuuuut it’s a lightly defended throne right next to a big army of mine. If Erytheia sends a big army at it I might reconsider, but from what I’ve seen they don’t seem to have enough forces in the area to actually go for it on their own.



Because I have a big W gem income, I decide to pivot my research towards Vengeful Waters. It’s one of the most effective defensive globals in the game, since it sends water elementals after enemy commanders in my dominion and water elementals are very dangerous.

Turn 50




Start the turn off with Mictlan proclaiming victory yet again. Pan’s defenses on our border seem to be pretty thin and Marignon is just about dead. Plus, they have a big border on the lake so I can hit tons of spots at once with no warning.



I see what looks to be the last bit of Marignon’s army take a province next to the capital. Hilariously, the only casualty is a thugged out succubus that dies to a friendly xbow bolt.

I also notice that there are only 4 commanders in the stack and none of them are particularly tanky. So to that end, I ready up and have a few of my Angakoks cast Send Tupilak on the group to decapitate them.





Otherwise I crush the forces in Mari’s forts and province.



And then get another event for a good chunk of gold and a very situational item.



For moves, I go and send my army at the pre-chilled throne fort in Laria




And I otherwise shuffle troops around to hit Pan next turn.

Turn 51



A turn with terrible news!




TC, after I graciously vacated the lake for them, rudely overtook my Maelstrom with their own Gift of Health! That’s a massive pain because Maelstrom was really expensive to cast and I need the gems to keep casting Wolven Winter so I can’t easily save up to recast it or Vengeful Waters. In effect, I also partly caused this because my Riches from Beneath took the last slot on the global list. Still, I am very annoyed.

Also, my 2 Tupilak casts kill 2 of Marignon’s leaders and the stack itself does not move.




Erytheia’s smallish force beats Marignon’s defenses and then gets smashed by my much larger army.



I get a 3rd big gold boost from an event, with another random item to boot.




Now that I’m besieging Mari’s final throne, I’m moving to attack Pan in multiple places at once. Up top I have a bunch of guys and a group of Forgiving Fathers move to take the throne in Troban. And across the lake, I sail to go take the border fort in Cerne and then hit the woods instead of the fort in Silver World.

The reason for that is that Pan has left one of their heroes, Taurotyrannos, mostly unguarded in the open. Taking out a unique unit and powerful mage is worth potentially letting an army of mostly Satyrs run around in the unimportant area west of Marignon.



I also have 2 more Angakoks send Tupilaks at Marignon’s stack and then send some random event trash at it to hopefully rout them without an actual fight.



And as a final move, I have another group move out of Queen Forest to hopefully take the throne in Lithia next turn. For whatever reason, neither Utgard, Pan, nor TC have bothered to take it yet so I’m hoping it should be an easy fight.

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