Part 180: Hinnom - Turn 70

Turn 70

The war with Mictlan continues its slow burn.  I still don't want to overplay this and seize a bunch of provinces at once and Incy has agreed to take his rage out on not-me so I want to give him a chance to move his forces away and also don't want to do anything that upsets that delicate balance.  

Summoning this turn is two demon lords, a queen of elemental air, a wendigo and 10 mechanical men.   Blood hunting is back over 100 with 124.  



Alteration 8 and for the first time it will take two turns to get to the next level.  


Alteration 8 has some fantastic spells.  


This is the worst and it's still pretty decent because it's a sizeable AE and has very low path requirements. 


I really like this global and think it's seriously under rated (and overcosted).  It adds phantasmal to your province defense and lowers unrest all over your nation.  That means you can overtax by 20-30% with 0 unrest or blood hunt with an extra hunter without worrying about unrest. It also makes raiding a little more difficult which is pretty nice (although AE and CBM have made raiders good enough that this is less of an issue now).


This is large aoe quickness and is a great troop buff for the late game.


Wizard's Tower is the earth version of the blood spell Three Red Seconds. Both erect a fort in the target province.  Both are good but the Wizard Tower only has 150 defense while Three Red Seconds has 600.   


Crumble is one of my favorite spells. It's broken.  Instead of a 150+25E defense reduction it's an instant fort cracker. You still need to have a sieging force that's stronger than the inside force, but that's easily accomplished (for me) with some gate cleavers.  


Another army buff, this one makes all your units lucky.  50%chance for everyone in my entire army to avoid any damage? Yes please!


This is just badass.  Not too effective as it's MR resists, but still badass. 


Similarly, this is great but for the research required not tremendously my effective.  Still, turning your enemies into an army of swine is pretty great.  


On this episode of "is it better than PD?" Zmeythansa Air Competitor the Zmey: yes!


still fuck the ocean the iron dragon: yes!


Antrax the King of Banefires: yes!  And with that, the last independent province in the world has been taken.  On turn 70.  


What is this nonsense? 


The tires on Belphegor's car crunched on the gravel road as he drove.  He flicked the wiper switch on and sprayed a jet of water over the dusty windshield. He was the Lord of Hell,  why did he have to keep meeting these chucklefucks in the middle of nowhere.  But he knew he owed Semyaza. And he always honored a blood debt. 

He slowed and pulled into the parking lot of the Dharma diner.  The sun beat down as he got out of the car. The wind's quiet whisper over the hard, red earth carried the smell of blood and death.   In the distance, thunderheads had begun to mass over the plateau.   Belphegor carefully arranged the robed virgins into a giant cock and leaned against the car.  Waiting.  Pazuzu would come.  Pazuzu always came. 


Take a look at Pazuzu. He's the only demon lord arguably worth summoning in vanilla and in awesome endgame he gets a huge boost.  His paths are bumped up just a touch and his slots are still absolutely terrible.  What makes him awesome now is reinvigoration 20.  He can cast anything you want and keep casting it more or less forever.  


I don't think we've seen this tag before. It's what killed the poor people in Old Man Mountains and is a pretty cool bit of flavor.  


Semyaza knew he'd tried to be a good father. Even when his son had been born a huge shambling stone hulk he'd seen the boy's talent for magic and tried to impart what wisdom he had.  But what could he have done?  Nobody expected the transaction to go that bad.  When he left that day he had expected to be home within the month.  But it hadn't worked out.  It never did.   He had spent the next thousand years imprisoned by the Pantokrator.  Always searching.  Always seeking a way home.  His boy would forgive him. Had forgiven him, hadn't he?  Why else was he up here?  He hadn't thought anything capable of breaking the seal that bound him to Hell.  But King Hippomnomnomnom had done it.  How?   Even he didn't command that kind of power.  And then the boy had given him that look. It was cold. Asking... No. Telling him to call in old favors.  


Buer is a serious death, fire and blood caster.  Like all the demon lords he has real issues with slots.  Because they are terrible.  He autocasts heat from hell in battle which is fantastic as long as your troops are fire immune too. It fatigues everyone and when you're unconscious you can't fight back! 


Not quite King of Elemental Fire level, but still pretty spectacular!  


I was pretty concerned that irony or death would have already summoned the other two queens of air, but I'm in luck!  


Aella is basically the same as Thuella.   But it's not like an A10 caster is ever anything other than wonderful.  She also autocasts storm in battle which will be nice if perpetual storm ever goes down and Tempest is busy.  



Let's take a look at the situation around Mictlan's cap. Pan, Sauromatia and I were all racing toward Mictlan but I got there first.  Pan brought 400 Maenads and a buff machine tarrasque.  


Sauromatia brought the Queen of Sea.


Mictlan still has storm demons, jaguar warriors, sea trolls and a tlaloque close by. 


As well as Ozelotl, turkeys and an Arch Devil.


While I'm bringing this. Pak-Ur is there to soak life for a life and leech.   


As well as another 30-40 mechanical men, another buffing cyclops and a mechanical giant.  The mechanical giant is there because he's basically immune to blood magic. Even if all my commanders get murdered by life for a life or leech he will make sure none of the mechanical men run away and the murdering is complete. 


In Histyra, S uses the black mirror to mind hunt Histyra. We don't need no stinking scouts spying on us!  Savnok forges the oath rod of kugri.  Retheric the shadow seer teleports onto Mictlan where he will cast will of the fates to further buff my army of mechanical men.   SHSL kraken cloud trapezes over to Mictlan to provide fog warriors support and I switch Thuella to casting shimmering fields again.  WILLIE and DICK both cast crumble at Mictlan's forts.  Next turn comes the storming of Mictlan!  




The oath rod of kugri is part of my horror harmonica plan.  We'll talk about that later, but it will be pretty sweet if I can pull it off.