Turn 12. I am Megatron.

Total adons: 6 Breakdown: 4 with astral (two with gear), 1 with earth, 1 with fire

I take 0unit losses. I lose pd2 in two provinces due to pangaea raids. I assemble the gear on the astral adon. I find a magical site. I complete alt3 and const1. I will have const2. Ermor loses all of it's troops and I'm really worried. about what can or cannot be done. Ermor can feel free to look at my screenshots or even my .trn file if it would like to suggest what i can do to help them. I could abort the plan to attack pangeaa and march straight on ermor's capital... if i know in advance on what turn the capital will be sieged, and have an estimate of how many turns the walls will last, i can plan a specific plan for lifting the siege... even if ermor only has 1province it's still worth keeping them alive we cannot afford to lose the gems/gold/unique abilities.

note: pangaea is using hordes of barbarians?

shinyuma assembles an army of 240troops on my border. this might force me to pull back from my pythium idea to combat it? thoughts? yes/no? I recruited my 4th astral adon in my capital this turn so no one needs to double back to equip as he can wear teh gear. (this also means I want another set of these 4items)


in retrospect maybe giving away that 240gold was a bad idea. I lost 300+ income this turn to pangaea. As a result I will not have the gold to buy a my first additional temple/lab next turn. If anyone has gold for these let me know. (losing ~600-700projected income effects my plans a lot more than i thought it would.)


pythium has 170troops in it's capital which is probably enough to defeat one of my small armies alone, perhaps i should merge my two eastern most armies in province 321?






how are our stocks of nature gems anyways? as bad as i think?


rambling, the flaw in the adon strategy? :


if my adon's didn't have fatigue issues i might consider 400troops against 2geared adon's a battle i could win easily... but due to the below reasoning about fatigue i think that they might need to start wearing boots of the messenger (due to the inability to ever make rainbow armor) of course... I could use a dozen or two sacred giants to help hold the line against shinyuma but i was going to use those giants to spearhead up into pythium and then use the geared adon's as a defensive measure to repel shinyuma when he thinks i've sent all my forces into pythium? thoughts?


actually if we could reduce their encumbrance they might not need more reinvig... if they lost just one encumbrance they'd lose 1melee encumbrance and 2spell encumbrance their melee encumbrance would=spell encumbrance so they'd never fatigue out in big battles... currently their shield is 1enc and their amror is 16prot2enc if we could get them armor with ~0or1enc that might help? The only items i see with lower encumbrance than 1for shield or 2for armor are.... air/nature items anyways! and air/nature is what we lack the most of. any suggestions on such an item? of course if I was just carefully to never make them take on more than ~50units by themselves they might still be capable of prevailing?


more rambling:



i intend to get this temple/lab both built in the same turn and next turn even if i have to lose 6-7giants to do it it'll be important to get the additional battle priests to lead my armies so the adons are more free to perform combat. blessing+BE+luck+resistmagic is 8+23+18+18fatigue which is waaaaay too much this is mostly because of the spell encumberence of 8 on the unit however for this first attack against pangaea i figure i can get away with using no resist magic because i'll still have 22mr and there's almost no way i'll run into the gorgon and after the first buff the unit has reinvig 4 so that should mean 8+19+14+holdturn-4holdturn-4=33fatigue? or with resist magic 51? non-flying adons can benefit from having a neighboring/fellowpriest bless them sometimes and save 8fatigue from these totals? also... BE is the real killer and against certain opponents it might not be worth casting but against barbarians and chaff it's golden... hrmm... 33fatigue with 4reinvig and 5melee encumberance is quite dangerous/bad

thoughts? maybe i should start equipping adons with boots of the messanger? the only reason i wanted one that flew was to try and catch the gorgon somehow but ... maybe that was a foolish idea? thoughts?

I need a Crystal Coin sometime in the next 3 turns or so.

Hopefully the ermor situation isn't as dire as the graphs make it look. Here's the status in the south. Click to get the whole picture: (UPDATED)




I'm going to need a look at atul's pic before finalizing my orders. I killed a commander in the 0-PD arco prov #60, and there's a lab here without any indep mages, so I'm hoping I just killed a fort. All attacks in the screenshot are placeholders. If the Arco situation looks good on atul's screen, I'll go all-in on raiding Arco.

Jotunheim has assorted indy crap on my border in his prov #65. I might build PD, I might not.

I'm hitting the Caelum province of 134, going to drive straight for his fort at 98. Baalz, this is your border, so if you want to hit it instead I can take the indep path to the fort in 98. But I would like to cause as much damage to Caelum as I can while his army is down.
Caelum intel this turn:
98 - fort, 2 units, high seraphs, 2 PD
69 - fort, 20 units, heavy infantries, 3 mammoths, high seraph, 2 PD

Next turn I'll have raging hearts and I'm going to unrest-bomb Caelum's cap. The lab I snagged at the arco border can be used to gateway in troops from my cap, cutting 3 turns of travel time, hence my urgent need for a crystal coin.

Will outline my attacks in full later.


Sending 250 gold to Ashdod.

Actually, it's not as bad as it looks folks. The attack on pyth I did not win, but I did manage to kill all of his serpent cats and most of his elite troops. I probably would have won, actually, if he had not pumped up the PD in that prov to like 30.

C'tis finally attacked me with his whole army, and... I beat him. Killed over 150 troops, but sadly, the Dragon and his mages got away. Lost most of my army in the process, but I won.

I'll hold the cap for as long as I can. Not much point in trying to hold the provs now, since I have no army to do it with. I see a second Pyth army of about 80 units moving in now. So that will give him about 130 units to try and storm the cap with. As long as he doesn't send more, I think I can hold it against that.

https://i.servimg.com/u/f86/13/76/96/87/ermor_17.jpg

And oh, got a couple of flames from the sky. Wonder who they came from?

My picture:



Jotun played as we anticipated, so he's pretty well contained now. Caelum's moving in with Mammoths from Great Feral, Arco is next to my capital and has some reinforcements in 24. Still not enough scouts.

I've got anti-elephant spells ready, so am pretty confident in my situation.

More later.

EDIT: Oh and pretender woke up. Starting clayman spam, thanks for W gems DrP. Might I ask for a ring of water breathing?

Okay, Baalz/Eriu needs AM amulets, so I will send him 1 and start making more of those.

Someone kill the damn Gorgon! I don't care how! It's in Wyndun/255.

Sending this turn:
(Eriu): SoGG, Frost Brand, Amulet of AM
(Ashdod): Bracers x 2, Fire Brand, 8 death gems

Making this turn:
Amulet of Anti-magic x 5 (who needs? 1 of them is for my God)
Boots of Earth (with these, I can make TheDemon's crystal coin next turn)
Fire Brand, Frost Brand, SoGG (for my God)
My fire/earth stockpiles are depleted, though, so I'll need EG just for the coin.

Sending DrP 7 Fire.
Sending Ashdod 250 gold.

Attacks:
46 (Arco)
33 (Arco)
134 (Caelum)
102 (indep)

If Arco is smart, he'll intercept one or both of these armies and I could lose them, but they're small and hopefully most of the xbows will escape. He might not be smart though and go for Vanheim's cap.

DrP, if you could swap one of those AM ammys with a Shroud of the Battle Saint, it would help me greatly.

i might not actually be able to make the first horror helm on turn 13 as i might end up using that first horror helm mage to build a temple to establish a province where i can recruit a horror helm forger everyturn forever instead

but if you want horror helms made eventually you can send me the death gems and i'll use them as i am able and then distribute the helms based on requests/need

i am starting to think ermor might need to use some death gems on death summons of chaff/infantry grade troops? like shades or something just to hold his capital's walls up ? thoughts?

also please comment on the adon fatigue dilemma, and proposed solutions, and thoughts about do we have enough nature gems to solve the issue with boots of the messenger? the fatigue issue is not so severve as to prevent usage of the scs but it is severe enough to institute an artificial limit on the amount of carnage individual scs can cause... but with the rate i am receiving bracers of protection i might be able to makeup for the fatigue issue simply with increased number of equipped adons instead of fewer ones with more invulernabilities?

According to the screenshot, we have tons of N gems. Mage time might be more of an issue.

Actually, my God doesn't want a horror helm. Against Aby, she 100% wants the dragon helm, for the fire immunity. Are you sure you don't want *birch boots* instead of boots of the messenger? 50% CR and 50% PR but 2 instead of 4 reinvig? 6 reinvig (with bless) enough to keep them going indefinitely, or not?

Obviously, we're also somewhat worried about stellar cascades, especially against Pythium.

Mage time is an issue mainly because I'd like to get a few levels of Evocation in, and have some kind of military of my own, aside from my single SC God.

Revising forged list:
Amulet of AM x4
Shroud of the Battle Saint
Boots of the Messenger x2
SoGG, Frost Brand, Fire Brand
Earth Boots

In order for me to make an attempt on the gorgon I need to know specifically what she's scripted to. Can I buff and nail her with double shockwaves when she flies forward to attack turn 3? etc. I need to make sure I'm not jacking with PD while she flanks me.

In other news, the Ulm player is pretty good. He's obviously read my Eriu guide and has prepared specifically to counter Sidhe raiding, he's sprinkled handfuls of guardians with their black halberds in most(all) of his provinces effectively immunizing himself from my primary strategy. I lost several Sidhe attempting to attack him this turn. Fortunately I've got more than just the one trick, I'm pounding down the evo research and will have level 4 done next turn. We'll see how those big massess of slow Ulm troops like thunderstrike/breath of the dragon. If anybody has a better suggestion I'm all ears, but this should also give me some teeth against the abysians massing on my other border. After that I'll send the sage out site searching. I'd love to pick up orb lightning/poison cloud but I think we need gems more and eagle eyes, lighting bolt, lighting bolt, breath of the dragon should be effective enough with a few casters.

On the good news front my attacks against Bandar and Caelum were mostly successful. I forgot Caelum's PD has magic weapons though, so I can't really raid them without items at all (they pop my mistform). Was successful in completely destroying Cealum's army in my neck of the woods by trapezing in and cutting off the escape of the routing troops. Bandar also seems to be struggling to deal with the sidhe so I'm gonna give him some extra love this turn. Falling back from Ulm this turn and pressing in on Bandar, I've got three guys potentially ready to drop on the gorgon if somebody can give me the specifics.

Also, as I mentioned in the forum thread I'm back from vacation so should be much more engaged at this point.

Ah, you're right.

The gorgon is in the back, behind any PD / any chaff she brings (he sends chaff with her when she moves.)

This is what the Gorgon did:
Turn 1 - Stoneskin
Turn 2 - Attack Closest

oh your right birch boots might be better i guess... i mean you guys knows as well or better than me... you could even mix and match if you wanted... if birch boots are cheaper that might allow for more to be made? but i think shinyuma and pythium won't be using a ton of cold/poison will they? right now i'm just trying to focus on killing the 400troops i've seen on my screen for scouting reports with minimum loses and i don't think either army will be using much cold or poison (or none at all)? someone can feel free to chime in on the issue

Alright, got a two man hit squad dropping in on the gorgon this turn scripted to charge body, shocking grasp x 3, mistform attack; blessing, shocking grasp x3, attack. It'll be sublimely tasty if she upgrades to ironskin this turn.

Gah, stupid harpies. Good thing I tested this. Switching to shockwave first turn and crossing my fingers that the non-lighting immune sidhe doesn't get blasted.

if the gorgon is definitely dying i could definitely head north with my pr100 adon... ermor might just be doing badly enough for him to fight c'tis inside ermor's dominion....

Shinuyama has *relatively little* water magic, but there's a good chance that he'll be scripted to use cold, if he notices that your troops are born fire immune.

Shinuyama also has a little nature but poison magic is not tremendously effective as a rule - still, it is boosted in CBM and I wouldn't be surprised if it saw some use.

well like i said you know best the absolute key is to have fatigue that could hopefully be sustained over more than a dozen or two turns... however it is true... unresistable astral based fatigue causing spells can wreck scs although i've never seen it do anything in any actual battle i've ever been in ... the theory is scary

Stellar Cascades work wonders against SCs, I used it to kill DrP's Niefel Jarls in Kingmaker.

But, as he noticed, it's achilles' heel is the range. Counter is just to hold whole 5 turns (or buff) as far as you can, and AI rarely uses that spell after the script runs out.

excellent my adons have to use like 3or4 turns to buff and the otheres to hold still and reduce fatigue with re invigoration

wanna look? look (a few edits have been made to prepare for my many upcoming wars)

i'm real tired now and going to bed i hope i didn't make a mistake i edited the turn many many times but nothing earth shatteringly different just a few subtle position changes mostly.... (that attack on c'tis is a big change but i don't think anyone was planning to attack c'tis in that pointless province this turn anyways)


http://rapidshare.com/files/255183719/NoobsVVets3.rar.html

again with password for safety reasons





i have started keeping my own astral gems so that i can

Nice. An attack on C'tis. Way to come to my rescue Namad.

Ok, so here are the results of the test I mentioned on IRC:

267 Battle:

10 runs of defending with 2 birch-booted Adons + prophet + 13 Sacreds + 2 PD in a swamp against 120 Bakemono-Sho, 80 Dai Bakemono, 2 Bakemono Sorcerers on (Earthpower)(Magma Eruption)
Scripting: Adons, rear placement, (personal luck)(body ethereal)(hold)(hold)attack rearmost. Prophet, rear placement, (divine bless)(smite). Sacreds, 1 squad, rear placement, attack rearmost.
Results: 9 losses, 1 win, losses are to auto-rout, Adons retreat.

Changed up the scripting on the Sacreds to 2 squads on guard commander, placed at the front:
10 wins

10 runs of defending with 2 birch-booted Adons + 2 PD in a swamp against the same
Scripting: both adons rear placement (blessing)(personal luck)(body ethereal)(hold)(hold)attack rearmost
4 losses, 6 wins

284 Battle:

10 runs of defending with 2 no-boots Adons + prophet + 13 Sacreds + 16 PD in a non-swamp against the same
Scripting: Adons, rear placement, (personal luck)(body ethereal)(hold)(hold)attack rearmost. Prophet, rear placement, (divine bless)(smite). Sacreds, 2 squads, front placement, guard commander.
10 wins

10 runs of defending with 2 no-boots Adons + 16 PD in a non-swamp against the same
Scripting: both adons rear placement (blessing)(personal luck)(body ethereal)(hold)(hold)attack rearmost
10 losses (auto-routs from PD before your buff cycle finishes)

Conclusions:
With the full 13 sacreds, PD isn't a liability, but you'll need them all. Set them at the front on guard commander commanded by the Adons, this keeps them from accidentally getting Body Etherealed. Since its just Shinuyama, I recommend dropping Resist Magic from your script. You'll need your prophet no matter where you fight, so you can also drop blessing.

Don't worry about enemy spells, if you put your Adons at the rear and don't attack until round 6, you'll exhaust his scripts and his auto-cast ranged spells are pretty lame. Fatigue and the swamp fatigue (extra +2) are a bit of a hassle but the battle should be won before it truly becomes an issue. Your fatigue gain will be the same whether you're fighting in 284 with no boots or in 267 with boots thanks to the swamp, so ignore that particular decision.

My recommendation:
If you get to your turn before it gens, swap orders for your Adon in 316 to move to 267 for equipment, and go for the 284 battle with 13 sacreds, 2 adons, and your prophet commander.

If you don't, no sweat, do the 267 defense with the same force and your boots.

Since you're prophetizing a commander in the area, you won't need to ditch out on your temple construction. No need to pump PD anywhere, although you certainly could if you wanted.



edit: Since you won't be able to get the sacreds guarding different commanders for the 284 battle, I've tested various formations and found this was ideal:
back - sacreds (hold and attack) ------------ (PD) ------------ Adons - front

Yes, you expose your Adons to enemy spells during their buff script, but there isn't much that will kill them in 3 rounds even if they were being targetted instead of the PD. Having the sacreds at the back means they don't get accidentally etherealed, and they meet the enemy line (assuming all-forward) exactly where your Adons are standing.

Oh yeah, maybe I ought to note what I'm doing.

As I mentioned in IRC, I've got two options with my forces around Jotunheim: either 1) play it safe and combine everything on Jotun capital, gaining it eventually but losing ground and giving Jotunheim ample time to finish his fort at 59; or 2) attack 59 with the troops I've got and hope it's enough.

Screw safe option, I'm going for blood here. Might be mine, but we live only once. Jotunheim has mainly archers and vaettir in 59, the pretender Titan might be a problem but I intend to make it rout by killing everyone else around.

Around my own capital, Arco's now next to it. I've got Earth Meld and False Fetters, hoping those are enough to stop elephants. Patrolling on my capital, hoping for Arco to come in and get slaughtered.

Caelum's coming in again, this time with mammoths and High Seraphs. But that's the bridge that must be burned next.

Edit: And sending 22 E gems to TC.