Dominions 3 Part #163 - Hinnom

Part 163: Hinnom - Turn 61

Turn 61

Once King Hippomnomnomnom dreamt he was a butterfly, a giant butterfly but not really a butterfly at all, more like a moth and a butterfly and really super big with giant laser beams that shot out of his eyes, flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself just blasting stuff PEW PEW PEW PEW! Maybe stopping for a burger and a root beer float at the A&W where they bring the food out to your car and then they bring it out and the burger is just slightly undercooked and they're like "oh god please don't blast us" and King Hippomnomnomnom is like "*bbzzzzztttttt PEW PEW PEW* looks like this burger... Is well done" and then drinking all his float in one gulp and flying off and generally doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was King Hippomnomnomnom, except he did. Like when you get a little drunk and do something crazy like fly around shooting laser beams out of your eyes and it doesn't feel like you but it is. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, a giant Sphinx made of stone and the dreams of his people, solid and unmistakable King Hippomnomnomnom, but he was covered in empty A&W float cups and when he burped he tasted hamburger and rootbeer. But he didn't know if he was King Hippomnomnomnom who had dreamt he was a giant butterfly/moth hybrid that shoots laser beams from its eyes and loved rootbeer floats, or a giant butterfly/moth hybrid that shoots laser beams dreaming he was The Pantokrator, Lord of All. Between King Hippomnomnomnom and a giant laser shooting butterfly/moth there must be some distinction! The distinction is called the Transformation of Things and is that one is the Pantokrator whose physical being is a giant sphinx made of stone and who commands the most powerful of armies and magics and all sorts of awesomeness and owns bones at every type of video game except the weird princess builder ones that kind of creep him out and the other is a giant bug that flies and shoots lasers and loves root beer floats which King Hippomnomnomnom also does but he would never go to A&W because, if some shitty mountain can go to a two-bit pretender like a Prince of Death then King Hippomnomnomnom can certainly get an A&W built next door. And a taco bell/KFC. In fact, it will be an A&W/taco bell/KFC and King Hippomnomnomnom will order a double decker taco with extra crispy chicken in it and a large rootbeer with a Choco-Taco in it.

There's TACO FLAVORED KISSES - chins stuck down, resting on his magnificent belly, lint in his navel, leaning way back into his chair, shoulders hunched up by his head, mullet flowing about his shoulders, his left hand's five fingers fluttering on the top of the keyboard hammering W, his right index finger depressing mouse1. By respawning and blindly charging, he gets enough kills to put him at the top of the leaderboard; by playing only on noob servers and switching to the side with the good players, he smokes enough little nublets to feed ten Melqarts. When the admins call out the people he reports, he stands in the crowd taunting them and giving them the finger, then he goes to the appropriate message board and posts about how certain elements are ruining his immersion; when they get up a big group to raid in WoW, they pass him over because he's too busy tea bagging his victims. And when they are counting up kills, he always comes in first because only kills matter, not deaths. With just W and M1, he's still able to fukken own you n00bs lol. How much better, then, if he had h4x!

-The True Classic of Hinnom Florescence

Arco's done, gone their fun
From the game, from the East, from the West
Now in hell, with the rest,
King Hippomnomnomnom's the best.
Fading Virtue, dimming sight
Jaguar demons and Zmey, hopeless plight
From afar, drawing near
Falls the night.
Scribes erase, all her praise
On the net, she was sly, as we watch, mem'ry die
As she goes, this we know
Hinnom's nigh.
-Taps

When a player finally dies, they often send all their things to either their closest ally or whoever has the best chance to avenge them. Dexanth sent me his things because Incy killed him instead of keeping him around like Lilli did. Remnants of a dead nation: 102 gems, two clams, dwarven hammers, rings of fire and spell focuses, and one rune smasher, ring of water breathing, ring of frost and crystal matrix. RIP Rainbow Dash.

Blood hunting has leveled out at 71, and there are a small number of battles as Pan and I tear T'ien Ch'i to ribbons.

We've already seen one arch-devil with Mictlan and here's the research they used to summon it.

Leech is one of my favorite spells in the game. If I had this when the Zmeywaffe had moved in things would have been very different. It's relatively short range, but the damage is irresistible and it reduces fatigue and increases hp of the caster. It's also important to note that it hits a whole square, not just one target so it's also quite good against high quality troops.

Blood Rain goes perfectly with demon knights. I love demon knights and will talk more about why when they show up.

There are some neat things you can do with vampire lords. They are immortal, flying, stealthy and come with blood 3 and death 3. Every turn they can make a little vampire.

These are the junior vampires. Vampire Lords can create one a turn, or you can summon them wholesale with this spell. I really like using a bunch of vampires as a defense force when I'm sacrificing to push dominion but generally prefer using troops and thugs that aren't immortal but are otherwise better

This is one of the really fun blood spells. If someone is hitting you with remote attacks, toss this up and laugh as they curse you. Then laugh in despair as all your mages get horror marked. From a pure fluff standpoint, a dome made out of horrors from beyond that occasionally swoop down to snack on a mage is fantastic.

This spell is broken and does nothing, but it sounds like it should be neat, doesn't it?

When people cry great big pubbie tears about blood magic, they're usually thinking of this spell. Arcane Corruption makes every gem expenditure on the big map (so casting spells and forging) cause a check to summon a horror that eats (post cast or forge, so you still get the spell/item out of it) the caster or forger. The chance increases with the gem expenditure so cloud trapeze at three air gems is pretty safe while SC chassis summons at 35+ gems are almost guaranteed to get a horror. The real fun comes at 20+ gems when (based entirely on anecdotal evidence) you get a chance of the doom horrors showing up. For some reason, it absolutely infuriates people when you put this up. I have no idea why. Unfortunately, it's fairly easy to defend against. Putting five troops on guard commander will help a lot and most schools have a spell or two that will murder horrors. Air: orb lightning, earth: petrify, water: frozen heart, fire: incinerate, death: skelespam, astral: returning, blood: banish/claws or life for a life/leech, nature: storm of thorns (the worst answer but a great spell). If you get a doom horror your only hope is really returning or banish/claws.

Savnok comes through with a global enchantment providing 5 pearls a turn. It's not much, but it's a nice little bump and, because it's cheap to cast, nobody knows quite how much extra I pumped in so it should hold a global spot nicely, stopping someone from putting up a much better global.

PIMP ROBES harvests more pain in Grey Mountains. At least that PD can rest easy knowing they died for something meaningful!

In Lupia, Pan attacks that castle full of river demons. Like I said, I'm glad I don't have to deal with them!

In Bogger Wold, Ornias puts The Biggest Poppa to the sword.

:Zero Emissions: lazily soared through the clouds. Each lightning bolt that struck his metallic hide was efficiently stored by space-age technology in batteries that would later be used to power the first hybrid car. Before regular cars were even invented. That's how progressive King Hippomnomnomnom is. :Zero Emissions: glanced down. Was it time? These masters of the way provided much less challenge than the Priesthood of Mictlan. Generally they just bowed their heads and shuffled nervously into his mechanical maw. He ground up each one and would use them to mulch his orchard back in Hinnom. Perhaps he was getting too old for this. Anything Smaug Can Do had been coming along nicely.

Earth attack is a great way to snipe mages. *CRUSH*

*CRUSH*

oops

Here we go, Ornias against the last best hope of the T'ien Ch'i people.

The Biggest Poppa prepares by weaving layers of protective magics around himself. Ornias prefers to get stuck in.

While the province defense of T'ien Ch'i clatters off of Ornias like a bunch of dudes turned to stone by Aegis, The Biggest Poppa reaches out with his mind to snuff the independence from Ornias.

The Biggest Poppa is the most powerful mage... in the world. A four armed deity from beyond, Guardian of the Gate to the Void, steeped in millennia of mystical knowledge and he uses every last iota of magical power to bend Ornias to his will.

But Ornias is the Son of Ezekial, brother to King Hippomnomnomnom and the most powerful warrior the world has ever known. In his hands, the sword Mage Bane keens for The Biggest Poppa's blood.

As The Biggest Poppa repeatedly hurls his eldritch power at Ornias he finds his spells battering impotently against the citadel that is Ornias's mind. Within, Ornias contemplates the deepest of mysteries, repeating the Koan taught by his brother: "Could King Hippomnomnomnom make a food so delicious that bacon would not improve it?"

The Biggest Poppa's efforts to shatter Ornias's mind are interrupted as Ornias's tremendous golden horns crash into The Biggest Poppa's stupid face.

The Biggest Poppa is bloodied, but unbowed.

In shock that the magic of the void has abandoned him, The Biggest Poppa lashes out. Many times has he danced the dance of birth and death and he has never yet lost. His magic may have forsaken him but he will still win the day with force of arms.

Ornias stumbled as The Biggest Poppa slammed the frost brand into him. He could feel the magic of his brother's ring coursing through him, mending flesh and bone, picking him up that he might fight again. In his hands the sword vibrated with wrath. It had been forged with one purpose only: to bring doom to The Biggest Poppa.

With a cry of "For King Hippomnomnomnom and Ranch Dressing!" Ornias struck.

Mage Bane sank into The Biggest Poppa. Swirls of tiny magical vortexes erupted along the blade as the sword siphoned power from The Biggest Poppa. In a moment, The Biggest Poppa collapsed on the blade, drained entirely of magic.

As Ornias pulled Mage Bane out, it glowed with the power torn from The Biggest Poppa. Mage Bane had done its duty to King Hippomnomnomnom and was complete.

Ornias kicked The Biggest Poppa to the dirt and brought Mage Bane whistling down in an arc. Vengeance was King Hippomnomnomnom's.

Let's take a quick look at this turn's

. W6 would allow me to summon water queens of my own if I hadn't already let Schneeble have them and didn't prefer kraken. As it is, this kraken can clam nicely. Or it could if it had hands and a fish amulet.

With Earth Blood Deep Well, Stellar Focus and Perpetual Storm I control three of five global slots. Pan controls the other two with Mother Oak and Gift of Health. From this point forward I'm constantly thinking about putting up Forge of the Ancients. How many gems I'd need to put in to make sure it wasn't overwritten and how likely that would be to make Pan, Mictlan and Sauromatia attack me vs. how much benefit I would get out of it.

In Grey Mountains, PIMP ROBES prepares to do a neat little trampoline returning trick off of Sauromatia. I hope Schneeble doesn't mind!

Back in Histyra, Savnok uses the hammer of the forge lord to forge the boots of the planes for only 16 gems. Several new cyclops are awakened and Ammi forge lightless lanterns to assist the cyclops in their research. The A Team Van, A and B.A. Baracus (in Hinnom) cloud trapeze gate cleavers to T'ien Ch'i.

Boots of the Planes are one of the must frustrating artifacts to deal with. They allow a commander to teleport wherever they want. This makes them effectively impossible to catch. You can throw mind hunts at them and cross your fingers but your best bet is to defensively teleport/move to wherever you think they're going to move next. It goes without saying that this a frustrating game to play if you don't have the boots. They're also far more effective against newer players than against experienced players. A more experienced player is just going to deal with the raiding using counter raiders with flight. A newer player is going to get frustrated and either rage quit or over react. It is, after all, only one province a turn and as you saw in the recent war between me and Lilli, in late game you're trading five or six provinces a turn.

In Hinnom, SEAN CONNERY ON CELEBRITY JEOPARDY heads out to look for virgins south of T'ien Ch'i.

For years, The Biggest Poppa and then

had been abusing the populace of T'ien Ch'i. Masters of the way locked in their ivory towers, contemplating the universe's mysteries while their people rioted. The result: a ton of unrest.

Let's take a look at where capturing much of T'ien Ch'i leaves me in terms of gem income. Even with 20 extra E gems a turn from Earth Blood Deep Well, water is a relatively close second. Fire, air and death all lag behind and Pan continues to hoard the nature gems. Why irony or death, why? Don't you like other gem types? 22 water gems + 2 from vincent=bestcharacter's magic eye means I can continue to summon a kraken a turn. The earth income will be going into cyclops.

Gemgen Counter

Blood stones: 97
Cost: 453E, 732 slaves
Gems Generated: 1,173

A day in the life - Mo' Gems Mo' Problems

Let's take a look at how I'm spending all my gems this turn.
Total gem income is 94 gems and 73 slaves broken down like this:

plus another 91 gems from blood stones.
So that's a raw 185 gems and 73 slaves. Of those gems, the majority (125) are earth.

Summons
I'm summoning four cyclops this turn at 35 earth gems each. So that's 140 earth gems down the drain and reduces my reserve supply to six. Note that this means I'm at least two turns out from casting Forge of the Ancients with enough gems that I'm sure it will go through. I'm not summoning a kraken, but generally will be for 25 W.

Teleporting
SEAN CONNERY ON CELEBRITY JEOPARDY is teleporting (2 S) and B.A., A and The A Team Van are cloud trapezing onto T'ien Ch'i (3 A x 3).

Site searching
Arcane Probing (1x3 S)
Haruspex (2x2 N)
Voice of Tiamat (1x8 W)

Forging
Starshine skullcap (1x5 S)
Blood stones (7x5 E and 8 slaves)
Frost brand (1x2 W)
Boots of the Planes (1x16 S)
Lightless Lanterns (3x2 F)

Total
230 gems and 42 slaves. This is a relatively slow turn for forging as I'm working on building up a cyclops brigade and on researching (forging is mage-time intensive). I'm not too concerned about being caught with my pants down because each cyclops can forge at least some of their own gear. Once I get a decent number up they should be able to work on a sort of just-in-time manufacturing system, responding to needs on demand.

Diplomacy