Part 8

Update 8

Day 32


Mustaches work great for recruiting people with lacking facial hair growth. That’s 23 elves that just joined my army. Nothing can stop us now.


Naturally, I’m just short of getting it.


She buys a cottage so we can get more dwarves.

Day 33

Here comes a new challenger. He also immediately recruits a horde of nomads giving him quite the army. This sucks, because I wanted to have Arturius walk into blue territory. I know that Kilburn can’t catch up with this guy due to the dwarves slowing him down. In addition it’s a warlock so powerful spells will most likely get cast on us so any battle with this guy is sure to be interesting.

Out of the way peasant turned chamberlain, here comes Lardnar who provided me with this:


A detailed map overlay thingy to help find the ultimate artifact. Usually the artifact is somewhere in the center of the map, so I expect it to be near the red flag on the ore mine. Now that’s worthwhile information.


So, Kilburn picks up the artifact and becomes the knight of knowledge.


And he goes to stand over here, he will start digging next turn.


Ector contributes by getting mercury from the miller. This is great for the Phoenixes I can’t buy yet.


Arturius gets more spells. Actually only one and fireball as shown earlier sucks.


Troyan buys a mage guild, this way next turn she can erect Stonehenge.

Day 34

Nothing here.


I suddenly remember I have another hero gallivanting about. Carlawn heads home to get some units (probably a Phoenix or 2) so she can eradicate yellow.


Stonehenge is built and druids are bought.


Meanwhile, Ector and Arturius set up a supply line. Next turn is a new week so Ector can get some units for Arturius which Arturius can use to beat down that treacherous Agar. We’ll teach him not picking our side.

Day 35

New units!


The enemy draws ever closer.


I unfortunately find out that Ector can’t get as far back as I’d hoped. As a result Arturius can’t get his reinforcements and attack Agar in the same turn.


So I buy some more units (druids) with Troyan and then calculate. She couldn’t quite reach Agar, so I gamble that he also can’t quite reach her. Considering he has ogres who are slow this is a solid enough gamble. The only thing that can throw it off are movement artifacts. In later games this can also be inaccurate due to movement enhancing skills.
If he does reach her, he’s in for quite a fight. But he will win unless his catapult never hits the walls. Fortunately afterwards he will be easy to pick off with Arturius. So we’ll see how that goes.

Day 36

Sucks to be him right now.


First, before I forget lets have Kilburn dig and then we put the fool out of his misery.


Wait? What?! I wanted to kill Agar and this update is like really short this way.
Right, let’s pretend I never dug that hole.

Day 36

Sucks to be him right now.


I decide to test Agar’s blockade. Don’t mind me, I’m just checking out the rear end of your horse.


It’s not a very good blockade. This does give my army much better ranged capabilities. I estimate the Elves to be about equal in damage output to my archers, but they’re faster which is good. Agar has three close range fast fighters a few (probably around 5) centaurs and a couple of ogres. Those ogres aren’t going to be a big issue, it’s the ponies with rider and without rider I’m worried about.


Looks doa..


I get 23 archers and he gets over 60 nomads?!


Fortunately he has no artifacts to help him. This should be good.


My cavalry are kinda important, so a quick anti magic on them and we wait for the enemy to come to us. He casts protection on his horde and I lose a horse while he loses half his wolves.
I have my Rogues wait. They can easily kill the wolves, but they would crumple like paper if those nomads or the unicorns hit them.


This could take a while.


Die!


Now, remember that protection spell? Due to engine limitations only one spell can be active on a unit at a time. So I just cursed the Nomads to lose their defense buff. Now my Cavalry swoop in to do some real damage.


The AI is not amused and recasts and retaliates. I lost 5 cavalry and only killed 11 nomads. This could be bad.


Rogues do well at least and that no retaliation perk is going to be needed.


My fireball does 50 damage thanks to the artifact boosting my spellpower. Every little bit helps. My cavalry hold position. If the cavalry attacks the counter attack will likely kill them. If I keep them I hope that the enemy will ignore my rogues for another turn.


I did not see this coming. The wolves and ogres suggest that they came from a Barbarian town, in addition the only spell he’s used thus far was protection. Considering that I assumed that they didn’t have any good spells.


That killed my rogues.


I don’t see myself winning this anymore. I expect another drizzle next turn.


The cavalry need to start helping again if I want to make it.


I hate being right. Last time I played this, storm managed to get me into a stalemate. Whenever I had an army it would be decimated by this spell. I was still too strong to be beaten by the AI, but at the same time I was in no position to launch an attack. I never got the chance to see if I could break the stalemate due to the computer crashing.


Well, this battle is lost. At least it was fun.


I wanted to show off the surrender button, but missed my click causing my elves to walk around a bit and scaring me to death that I had wasted my turn and Arturius at the same time.


Fortunately I have medium speed swordmen.
So for 625 I can keep my current units and recruit Arturius back in my hometown. I think I will take it.


This way the enemy doesn’t get the artifacts. At least it’s a good chance to let you hear the sound of defeat. Looking back I don’t think there was any way for me to have won. Maybe if I’d brought only knight town units and rogues or druids along I could have had blood! morale. Luck could’ve allowed me to win as long as he doesn’t spam that storm spell. Fact that the AI never had a morale freeze despite having awful morale also didn’t help me much.


I’m a little short on cash to rehire him though. Next turn maybe?


Go B-team!


I undid his bless with my slow spell.


I cast bless on my archers, but the AI undid it with their curse.


No, despite my track record of missing clicks I actually sent my sprites there. It gives us an extra turn to shoot the ogres without losses.


Crap, where did the Ogres go? No one told me they’re master of hide and seek. Also, a rebless on the archers.


Attack!


Pikemen poke and…


At least pay me money you bastard!

Suddenly end turn!

Day 37

What? Did you think I would leave Arturius out of my victory celebration? He still did well.


We didn’t get a whole lot of army back with this. Usually this is why you’re just better off retreating.


But at least the artifacts are safe.


Kilburn digs a hole and guess what? I found the Eye of Goros!!!! This is the second time Kilburn gets helps me win.


Of course the people unite behind the guy holding an eyeball. I know I would too.


Let’s see what this next chapter is about.


A free for all, you mean the pasts maps weren’t free for alls?


And our hero for next time will be the completely human looking Maximus. He’s totally not a goblin spy in one of our armors.

Hope you enjoyed this short update, onward to the next!