Part 27

Update 27 

Last time I started the final map of the knight campaign and scouted my little corner of the world recruiting a lot of units in the process. Let's see what a new day brings.

Day 19

Week of the plague, so no new units for me. On the bright side, in later games this also affects wandering stacks. Who knows how it works here.


Nope, these guys are plague resistant.


Those tree stumps are pretty annoying and leave me with no idea how to position my units. My archers are going to get hurt as I can't see any way to properly wall them off.


The archers had the most amazing stroke of luck. First they shot the enemy paladin, and then they got a second turn, followed by getting hit once, retaliating and killing the leftover paladin. This left my cavalry free to take on the second.


My cavalry killed one stack of enemy paladins. Partially by retaliating as the enemy AI inexplicably decided to ignore the yummy looking archers. Meanwhile, my own paladins easily kill their target stack.


The last two died against my paladins and the double team of my archers and cavalry.
I can’t believe I only lost two archers against these guys.


Please feel free to protect your property.


Let me rephrase that, please feel free to try to protect your stolen property.


Sandro swoops in to collect the goods while Kilburn heads for greener pastures.


Sandro manages to collect everything there in a single turn.

Day 20

Playtime is over. I cast my useless spell! We're mining for data!


Blue has at least two castles, but only two mines. Weird. The others have three mines, but only one castle. I think it would be best to go after blue first. Set a course for south, ramming speed Kilburn!

Day 21

I don’t think I’ve tried my luck enough yet.


Archer status: replenished.


I have this weird idea that the stacks here have been altered to make them more likely to join and now I have 22 cavalry.


Sandro has the most glorious of jobs, cleaning up behind Kilburn. This will surely not backfire in the future.

Day 22

These guys were in the way.


Kilburn levels up from these sorry sub humans and gains a hatred for all living things. Attack +1.

Day 23

Change of plans, this screenshot was from the previous day. The real target…


Are these guys.


Perfect, just perfect.


Kilburns stats are coming along nicely and as such his archers are getting good at tanking hits.


More units!


Well, we had a good run. This does make me doubt if the stacks have been altered or if I've just been really lucky.


Things are going just brilliant. The archers kill 4 swordsmen per shot and they get a second turn.


Two can play that game.


And that was the end of that. That last swordsman stack will kill itself on either the paladins or the cavalry.


It was the cavalry.


There are more enemy stacks down there.

Day 24

Sandro is still following, flagging mines and taking resources. He’s almost as fast as Kilburn thanks to having only a single gargoyle.


Hi Crodo! It's probably a good thing that Sandro isn't that close yet.


I’m not impressed. I’m not really surprised by this considering the information I gleaned from the thieves guild and mine scan.


Time to block the centaurs and kill some of their flyers.


That medal was so worth getting. All flyers are dead.


The question now is, will he run? His turn will be before my archers can get theirs.


Good call, attacking those cavalry.


And we win and gain a + to our spellpower. Are you feeling okay Killburn? You are looking more magical than usual.


With all the wandering stacks still around it’s easy to see where he came from.


Taking a break from how I’ve been doing things thus far. I deem it more important for us to sabotage their meager resource flow than it is for Kilburn to be fast. I do wish I had Sandro closer. I could use his eye sockets.

Day 24

Finally a new week and new units!


Where do I have to go? This map isn't nearly as symmetrical as most of the other maps.

Day 25

Probably not over here.

Day 26

Pikemen? I think I spotted some new friends.


Surely my greed will not come back to haunt me at some point, I mean it's not like it's a real sin like murder or eating?


Easy as pie.


Victory! I can't believe how well things have been going thus far.


Uh oh, I feel like this could be trouble with Sandro unprotected like that. As an aside, you can see Sandro's additional view range in action here. Look at the border of the fog of war. That's a huge difference. It's strange how some of the more interesting things about the warlock are so great in balancing, yet the Warlocks themselves the are most unbalanced faction. The extra view is great at the start, yet its usefulness rapidly drops off as more of the map becomes available, whereas the Sorceress, but especially the Barbarian and Knight specialties keep their usefulness throughout. The Dragons magic resistance means you can't boost them, but at the same time they can't be harmed by magic either.


It was nice knowing you Sandro.


And now you know why he became a mayor villain in a later story.

Day 27

The rules of nature!


I love that bird.


I really do, even if it also showed up on the other side which cost me an archer.


This left one archer who died of a punctured heart shortly after.


Victory! Also, attack +1 for Kilburn.


I found another obelisk.


Oh and the enemy castle was right next to it.

Day 28

Did somebody say boring siege!


Because we can totally do that.


Watch as nothing of interest happens.


Except that my eternal nemesis, the catapult with bad aim shows up again. It's like I used up all my luck earlier.


In the end it was but a minor road bump.


This will do nicely. How could they get this level mage guild having only three mines?


I just checked out the thieves guild because, why not and noticed that Green is doing far too well for my liking.

Day 29

Charge!


Atlas joins the party as a new warlock hero.

Day 30

Yes, lead me to your castle.


Oh, it was only five steps to the left.


A quick look around. There appear to be no further enemy heroes around

Day 31

The AI has a problem now. It’s a new week, so Atlas can comfortable hold his castle while Kilburn takes a new one.


But there’s always time for a good puzzle.


We’ll kill the hydras.


Tank the gargoyles.


And take a defense +1 level up on the way out.


Me too my friends, me too.


Round one: We stand near the wall.


Round 2: We get further acquainted with the wall.


Round 2 redux: I remember that Kilburn now has spells and blind the enemy archers.


Round 3: We have successfully lost all the old man archers while out dating the aforementioned wall.


Round 4: This relationship is getting us nowhere.


Round 5: I hate you so much. It's a good thing the catapult is incapable of missing, otherwise I could actually see myself losing this siege.


Finally some action!


And now the idiot finally breaks down the correct wall.


These losses are really bad when you consider what I was up against.


I just built that cathedral and bought all the units for this week. The conquest will continue! Wait, why didn't I just spend all my money on a dragon tower and get the strongest magic free unit I can get. Because I'm high on knights! That's why! There is no way that this will end badly.

Day 32

Ari doesn’t know what the hell.


The stache needs fresh sacrifices.


One way or the other. (Defense +1 for Kilburn.)


Go get them Atlas.

Day 33

Ari just made a terrible mistake. I love my boots.


But mistakes are made to learn from.


That was quick. This is all going far too well for the final level. At this rate I can wrap this up in another two updates.


Ooh, wandering archers!

Day 34

Oh hi! They actually look fairly strong even if most of their units are level 1. I guess those archers will have to wait a little before joining my merry band of men.


I guess I can kiss my archers good bye.


They berserked my cavalry, I berserked their phoenix. I don't know why they didn't berserk the paladins, but what do I know about tactics. Actually, it's probably related to potential damage output and size of the stack. If only I had dragons.


That went fairly well, but I couldn’t stop their sprites from attacking my archers.


But they are easily slain.


They keep walking around.


This is bad, they berserked the paladins who decided to chop up my swordsmen. My cavalry meanwhile decided to attack the phoenixes.


They shot the cavalry.


Apparently high morale works on berserked units. The cavalry are just trotting about aimlessly looking for something to quench their blood thirst.


Time to end this!


This was surprisingly fun, I was worried for a moment when the enemy kept berserking my units. Kilburn doesn't have the spells to undo it, he only has a single casting of dispell, bless and curse in his book. I think I learned something about casting berserk. Anyway, attack +1 for Kilburn.


I didn’t learn anything, go get them tiger.


This is really starting to hurt. I wish I bought dragons.


A quick lightning bolt on the sprites and my cavalry finish the job.


All those losses were my paladins and pikeman fighting amongst themselves.


We need a new mule. With the rate we're going I'm going to run out of units before I even reach the sorceress castle.


This update is long enough. Next time I prioritize defeating the sorceress. They have access to better level 6 units than I do and they are much better spell casters and unlike in the face off they aren't afraid to use these spells. I'd better stop them before things go bad. I just hope I don't have to fight a sorceress in the siege, it is doomed to fail. She would just cast berserk while my units chop each other right outside the walls. But what will green do in the meantime? They used to be the strongest faction.