A Tale of Fire and Blood

[General Tacticus]

Peace.

Quiet, uneventful, blessed peace.

In his quarters, the majordomo was relaxing, sipping some of the “wine” the Mictlan troops had liberated from Man. Nobody seemed to know how it was made, but it certainly was better than the cactus alcohol that passed for a national beverage in Teotihuacan.

The Most Exalted God, may all his enemies crumble beneath his Paws, was touring the Empire, looking for magic sites. And having great success too, clearly all those elaborate preparations and carefully forged items were paying off (4+ in every magic skill except the priestly ones).
Mictlipoctli, the King of Legends, was North, celebrating his victory over Vanheim and raising a new army.
Quetzalcoatl was South, on Mount Chaining, (40% blood discount), experimenting with ever more powerful rituals with a few of the best priests of the Empire. At Last reports, he had summoned a Fallen Angel, a second Arch-Devil (not as powerful as the first one, but still nothing to sneer at), two Succubus, and his cross-breeding experiments had yielded about 200 assorted foul things, including a basilisk, a chimera, and two big bad things without names. The basilisk and the chimera were put in storage, to use against Ulm (ranged, area-of-effect, armor-negating attacks should work nicely against the tin men).
Many unique artifacts had been forged. The Hammer of the Forge Lord had been given to the Fallen Angel, who was busy forging Soul Contracts. With the Forge of the Ancient spell, those were very cheap, and already 5 devils were joining the armies each turn.
Blood slaves were found in great number. Nobody had a clue what to do with the mounting piles of gems – Nature was already over 300, with income of 25 by turn. The God had vaguely spoken of “higher summons” and “Gift of Reason”, perhaps that would help.
Gold production was still weak, at about 800 gold pieces, half of which went to pay the armies, but gold was rather irrelevant. A particularly obnoxious young priest had been given the task of finding “where all that money went” - the majordomo suspected it went mostly to the priests -, but truth to tell gold was not important.
Research was doing well, 200 spell pages a turn and climbing.
And the Empire was at peace. Well, not technically. Technically, it was still at war with Jotunheim, Man, and probably half a dozen others which it had never met. But apart from the occasional spiteful Arch-Angel from Man (and one Arch-Devil had made short work of the Last one), no battle was happening. The God had left explicit instructions during his journeys : “Pounce on the first one that so much as looks crossly at us”, but so far nobody was looking. Still, better schedule a Horror, or perhaps a Horde from Hell, to answer Man’s provocations, before the God came back. Just to be on the safe side.
And finally there was an opportunity to retrain the palace staff. Experienced servants had become few over the years – but now the new ones were being trained to acceptable standard. The majordomo opened one eye. “More wine !”, he told the slave girl he was personally training at the moment. Yes, they were coming up nicely, although there was still room for improvement. “I shouldn’t have to ask !” he scolded her…

Peace was good.

And it would not Last forever. Now was the time to enjoy it.

“Come here”, he ordered the slave girl…

[General Tacticus]

Originally posted by Coffeedragon:

quote:

---

Originally posted by General Tacticus:

So If I can work in peace for 20 years,...

I am glad this strat works only in SP [because in MP, others wouldn´t let you alone presumably], or the game would be in need of a patch!

Great AAR!

---

Hey, so far, I have been actively fighting for about 60 of the 70 first turns, and the other 10 where mostly moving armies into place. I deserve a break ! I want to play with improved cross breeding ! I want to see what my succubus can bring me ! I want to cast the big bad-*** spells !

Hopefully my current neighbours (Caelum, Atlantis and R'lyeh) will leave me alone for a while. Truth to tell, only R'lyeh of the three could give me a good fight...

[Bossemanden]

Originally posted by General Tacticus:
And finally there was an opportunity to retrain the palace staff. Experienced servants had become few over the years – but now the new ones were being trained to acceptable standard. The majordomo opened one eye. “More wine !”, he told the slave girl he was personally training at the moment. Yes, they were coming up nicely, although there was still room for improvement. “I shouldn’t have to ask !” he scolded her…

Peace was good.

And it would not Last forever. Now was the time to enjoy it.

“Come here”, he ordered the slave girl…

Hmm the Majordomo is becomming too relaxed for his own good. It seems he needs the fear to keep on his toes.
A saying comes to mind: "When the cat is out the mice play on the table" (a more or less direct translation from Danish).
Anyway keep up the good work. Looking good so far.

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Bossemanden:
Hmm the Majordomo is becomming too relaxed for his own good. It seems he needs the fear to keep on his toes.

Agreed. I suspect he's going to come to a bad end soon.

A saying comes to mind: "When the cat is out the mice play on the table" (a more or less direct translation from Danish).
Anyway keep up the good work. Looking good so far.

Actually, that's interesting, 'cause there's a French saying that goes (direct translation as well): "When the cat's away, mice dance"

[Psitticine]

There's an English Version too: "When the cat's away, the mice will play." I wonder where the expression originated?

In any case, I think the Major-Domo had also better hope for a long campaign. His god will get bored once the world is won, and that might not be good for the ol' M-D . . .

[ January 27, 2004, 18:39: Message edited by: Psitticine ]

[ExitJudas]

in danish: "når katten er ude danser musene på bordet" --> "when the cat is out, the mice dance on the table".

Oops sorry PhilD, didn't see the danish reference. Oh well. Now at least you can see how its spelled in danish

[ January 28, 2004, 08:34: Message edited by: ExitJudas ]

[Norfleet]

It sounds like Tacticus has hit the stable point, where you're no longer really credibly threatened by any AI opposition, and can more or less sit there indefinitely and power up. I'd suggest empowering up to Astral-6 or so, putting on the the Starshine, Crystal Coin, and/or Ring of Sorcery/Wizardry, and wishing your way up to 10-all+power, just for kicks. Wish up some clones of yourself, too, and then go nuts.

[General Tacticus]

I don't know about that... According to the score graphs, Ulm and Tien Ch'i have as many provinces as I do, and R'lyeh is just behind. I have about one-third the gold income of Ulm (which put him at about 2500g/turn !), my gem income is on par with Tien Ch'i, and I am third in research... Ulm also has a good number of castles.

But it's true that with Atlantis and R'lyeh serving as buffers, I have no credible threat in North America. Atlantis seems to be no threat, R'lyeh just might pull off some dangerous void summons.

On the other hand, I cam muster some really heavy blood summons myself, since I have blood 9, an income of about 60 blood slaves a turn, and a 40% reduction site. I have 2 Arch-Devils, 2 Fallen Angels, and one Ice Devil, just for starters. And I haven't even tried the 2 biggest summons yet ! I am working my way through the Artifact list, my Pretender is off searching the Empire for site.
Actually, I am ramping up for a devastating, multi-pronged, overwhelming attack on Ulm. Caelum will be dealt with whenever I'm bored, Atlantis and R'lyeh when I can cast Thetis blessing and don't need the buffers anymore...

Meanwhile, I watch Man die. Apparently he lost his capital a few turn backs, has only one or two provinces left, and his God is shooting up in the Hall of Fame diing gloriously every other turn He already has 609 kills to his name, not bad

[Norfleet]

I've been through a great many games against the AI, and I can clearly recognize the symptoms: You've got a more or less secure border with fairly passive opposition that seems otherwise occupied...even in the case of one of my Jotunheim games, when Pangaea was absolutely massive and occupied all of Europe and West Asia, having an absolutely massive army and more than twice my provinces. Of course, eventually all hell broke loose when the shooting started, but by then, I was certainly ready for it.

One of the things AIs have traditionally done poorly in is concentration of force. Once your position is fairly stable and consolidated, in your case, the Americas, the AI won't pose a really credible threat unless he's absolutely supermassive.

As a nice sidenote, if you can get some fairly cheap death-4 mages, you can cut loose with the Ghost Riders and the AI won't realize what the hell is happening: You can sack province after province, then just roll in and take it over without a fight, by leading with a bombardment of Ghost Riders. Eventually, you'll accidentally arrive at the same time as an AI's force, and that might start the war in his eyes, but by this time, you're probably already on his front doorstep....and you haven't lost a single unit. Even if he knew what was happening, it would STILL be a good strategy, modelled after the classic German blitz: Bombers, tanks, infantry.

[ January 29, 2004, 19:47: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[undead dolphin hacker]

Originally posted by Cthulu13:
Awesome report, do you take requests? Could you do R'lyeh next?

Not to steal Tacitus's thunder, but if I were to do a R'lyeh AAR, would anyone mind?