Part 172: Hinnom - Turn 67

Turn 67

Last turn I traded Incy/Mictlan elemental armor, a fire brand and a shield of gleaming gold for 60 blood slaves.  Note that Mictlan is another nation that has issues with no cross paths (and no E access, how did they summon Father Illearth?) and all these require E/F to forge.  We agreed to two of these trades and this is the first.  One of they keys in this game is diplomacy and after reaffirming the tripartite alliance with Pan and Sauro, I chat with Incy.   We arrange the trade above and then irony or death and Schneeble settle on this turn to begin the invasion.  I don't want to get left behind in the land grab and I don't want to lose out on the slaves from this trade. But, I also don't want to have to fight Incy so I first confirm the validity of the trade and then I start to think about how I can both take Mictlan and avoid fighting Incy's forces.   

My researchers begin to roll through Alteration, easily mastering basic organic chemistry. Go ahead, take an organic chemistry test.  Shit's hard, right?   Now go try again with an immortal animated skull whispering secrets in your ear or a lantern that illuminates answers in the void.  Lots easier, right?

Blood hunting is at 98 and what the fuck Flauros, I'm sorry I didn't name you but stop being terrible at finding blood slaves.  

And then you can see what a sort of apathetic "look guys, I'm totally fighting and not building up infrastructure and blood stones and a blood economy!" attack on Mictlan looks like.   There are a few earth attacks and still fuck the ocean takes a province. You can see that AN ISLAND BEARD cast send lesser horror and then we took Muspel unopposed which means that the wee horror ate some province defense and I scout capped it. This is a really annoying thing to deal with on the receiving end and a wonderful tactic to use on the sending end.  So, some dead mages from earth attacks and then two provinces taken.  Not the most terrifying blitzkrieg ever, but remember I have unparalleled ability to port in thugs and SCs so it is to my advantage to wait for Incy to respond with his less mobile troops before raiding with teleporters.   

THIS KRAKEN ALSO HAS NO LEASH hit Lanka with a mindhunt.  Mostly because I'm a petty jerk.   But, also partly because I want to reduce the number of cloud trapezing Raksharaja that he can send out in a final "fuck Hinnom" blaze of glory.  

Finally, RIP The Biggest Poppa.  You were only three apples tall in a world of giants.  



Alteration is one of the best schools out there.  Almost every level has quite a few useful spells and most of the useful spells are great.    Let's take a look at some of my lesser-used favorites.  


This lowers the temperature in the target province by three scales. So heat 3 becomes neutral and neutral becomes cold 3.  It's useful for casting before casting murdering winter, for casting if you're attacking with niefel jarls (giants literally made of ice like it cold - who knew?), for testing to see if a province is domed and cracking any domes and for reducing income in an enemy's cap.  


Arouse hunger is an easily castable remote attack spell. It summons some zombies (ok, ghouls) to attack the target province.  They're not very good but they kill low levels of province defense and it's a cheap spell with low levels of casting requirements.  I always end up using it a lot more than I expect.  


This spells just breaks constructs, like mechanical giants and iron dragons.  Fuck this spell.  Obviously. 


Zzzzzzzzaaaaaappp


This is the lesser horror sent by AN ISLAND BEARD.  


still fuck the ocean mourns the passing of his master, :Zero Emissions:, but he knows that the best way to honor his memory is to carry on King Hippomnomnomom's good work.  


He finds two sanguine dousing rods. Perhaps someone back home will have a use for these souvenirs.  


:Zero Emissions:'s final resting place will become a tribute to his wisdom and his zealous promotion of the values that King Hippomnomnomnom holds dear. 


We're down two players from our original seven and TheDemon is still alive.  Fun fact: TheDemon actually served as the original inspiration for the poster of the kitten hanging from a free branch by one paw with the caption "Hang in there!"


In T'ien Ch'i, Thuella faces off against the drunk, debauched immortals of, uh, T'ien Ch'i.   


Their lightning resistance will do little against being torn apart by the living tornadoes that leap to do her bidding. 


This is not a fair fight.  


The tornadoes prove ineffective against a water elemental and Thuella is forced to show them how it's done.  


Lu Tung-Pin presents less of a challenge. 


With his brother in arms torn apart by the air itself, Li T'ieh Kuai tries to flee.  


But it is too late.


This hero has great flavor.  You don't really want him respawning in your cap and diseasing all your expensive mages, but it's funny when it happens to someone else and you can use him as a sort of scout disease roadblock.  Just put him in a province enemy scouts are moving through and he'll disease them.  Not that that happened to me.


One thing I have to applaud Feinne for: he really maxes out on spite here, sending all his gems to a competitor and then burning down his own lab.  Frankly, I like this move a lot.  It also forces me to spend my Ba'al money for this turn on a lab.


In Old Man Mountains, MOAR KRAKEN trades a bunch of neck beards for a sweet castle.  Meanwhile, Ornias, picks up a phone and, with sweaty palms begins to dial.  



Savnok was weary.  He had worked for weeks forging the Armor of Virtue.  He grabbed a few gummi-jags and chewed on them absentmindedly.  Without thinking, he put the armor on a dummy, preparing to test it.  He summoned an Ammi.  "yes sir?" "throw some lightning at this thing." *BZZZZT* "Fuck." "Sir?" "It returned."  Savnok sighed and got back to work. I actually forged too much and there wasn't room for the armor of virtue in my vault so it poofed.  A few penis euphemisms forge the second set of elemental armor, fire brand and shield of gleaming gold for Incy and PAY NO ATTENTION TO ANTRAX.  NOTHING HAPPENED THAT WOULD NECESSITATE ME REFORGING THE SICKLE WHOSE CROP IS PAIN!




I thought this kraken name was amusingly prescient. 


Last turn I summoned two .  Here's the first and she's a beauty. A6 is wonderful for summoning Queens of Air and doing all sorts of neat air buffing (ok, so at this point it's a lot less good because Thuella has A10 and Ornias has A4 and full slots but it's still nothing to sneeze at).


Here is the second.  I stand by this name.  


Muspel is the province I scout capped.  You can also see those two provinces to the north that used to be Mictlan's are now Pan's.  I politely tell irony or death that I'm taking the fort be between us.  I don't think there's anything he can do about it in the short term if I send a kitted Melqart.  Long term he can send in the Pans buffing hordes of revelers with weapons of sharpness and casting petrify and that will ruin my shit, but for now I'm hoping he won't be too greedy. 


I pointed this site out earlier when Ornias was touring Mictlan.   It is still awesome and Muspel is a great province for having it.  



Gemgen Counter
Blood stones: 133
Cost: 633E, 1,008 slaves
Gems Generated: 1,815

A Day in the Life

Welcome back to A Day in the Life of King Hippomnomnomnom!  We're taking another look at how this rich and famous pretender spends his faaaaabulous wealth.  

Forging
Robe of Shadows = 5s
Blood Stone x 6 = 30e48slaves
Armor of Virtue = 7s
Pendant of Luck = 2s
Earth Boots = 5e
Fire Brand = 2e2f
Shield of Gleaming Gold = 2e2f
Elemental Armor = 5e2f
Starshine Skullcap = 5s
The Sickle Whose Crop is Pain = 24d

Total: 19s, 44e, 6f, 24d and 48 slaves

Casting
Release Lord of Civilization = 107 slaves
Three Red Seconds = 72 slaves
Mechanical Giant x 3 = 48e
Arcane Probing = 3s
Haruspex = 2n
Arouse Hunger = 5d
Awaken Cyclops = 30e

Total: 3s, 2n, 78e, 5d and 179 slaves

Grand Total
22s, 2n, 122e, 6f, 29d and 227 slaves.

Let's talk for a minute about efficiency and what I should be doing to win.  Right now I really should be churning out maybe 5-10 iron dragons to act as raiders and then focusing on minimally equipped cyclops (blood stone and earth boots gets them to e6 and they can all self buff earth power for 4 reinvig and iron will for +MR) to roll in a huge tide of go fuck yourself with blade wind/petrify spam.  Astral gems should be going to amulets of antimagic, luck amulets and starshine skullcaps for my Melqarts.  Nature for regen (my nature income is still terrible).  Fire for Zmey and fire brands.  Air for another Queen of Air if I can get her before Pan.  Water for kraken.  Death for, uh, something anyway. And blood for truly massive hordes of demon knights and storm demons to block for my cyclops casters.  I am, obviously, not doing that.  Because fuck that.  I want to see some god damned Grigori in a game for once and I'd like to show off the awesomed up demon lords as well.  I like the idea of King Hippomnomnomnom being some poor goon assembling gundam kits in his basement and mechanical giants fit with that. 

So I'm going to do some inefficient things going forward but let's not kid ourselves. My game has never been about efficiency in the same way as Lilli's or TheDemon's and if you can't appreciate the fat guy from Lost breaking his uncle, Danny Trejo, out of hell then I don't know what to tell you.