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[Aklyon]

From the calmly written notes of Lord Najesh of the Aristrakh:

I need to go acquire a second journal, while people were calming down after the Infernals just sat there and didn't attack us, I knocked over my ink pot and lost a lot of blank pages. Also need to stop the diplomat from talking unless the demons are involved, because I don't particularly care about any of the others as long as the Infernals are not angry at us. Lastly, it seems the scions had found sheut stones, which will make them somewhat more of a pain to fight later with the unholy resistance.

T94 - Bartering is now a thing, I suppose. As long as it gets us more money, since right now thats the only thing holding back the defiler construction...
T97 - Defiling Catalyst in Heresh has been activated. But again with the lacking defilers!
T98 - Nightwatch reports a village that gave them a secret kind of cartography. More technology is good, but it doesn't help with money...

T100 - The Emberites accuse us of being timid for not joining their war against the Amurites. They aren't sitting next to the Infernals. They're pretty far north actually, according to our only useful scout the Nightwatch.
T102 - And now we get the same thing in reverse. I heard the diplomat almost had the messenger stabbed for repeating themselves. Meanwhile, apparently Deathknell is very cultured, according to the alive artisans. They gave us some smelting equipment, which I doubt actually is related to being cultured...
((Apparently the guild tree is powered by culture points instead of beakers, once you have a guild at least. Nifty.))
T105 - Either the workers have vanished, or they were busy and I wasn't told about the busy ones. Regardless, I have sent a new set of them to make a third defiler near Deathknell.
T107 - Despite my earlier disinterest, if they're bringing the offers to me, i suppose I won't refuse them for now. A temporary amount of open borders with the Emberites and the Amurites has been arranged. Considering the latter has joined the Overcouncil, I don't see it lasting long.

(The scions also threw the same offer at me right after I'd saved. )

[Aklyon]

Second Journal of Lord Najesh, page 2:
T110 - Oh dear. The Nightwatch reports having seen the Tomb of Sucellus, an important Life Mana location guarded by holy damage-wielders. We'll be avoiding that one, but that reminds me, we have Nofuos the Imperishable and not much for Deathknell to build, so I think its about time we claimed the Mirror of Heaven and its Fire Mana, the spot right next to it would be absolutely perfect for another city of defilers. Then south towards the mana node perhaps for a void catalyst eventually? It'd need to grow some first so its not too weak, but more souls is always good...

T116 - A Dwarf appeared near deathknell, and offered to transmute our copper near Deathknell into gold. Since we still had more copper near Heresh, I accepted, and now we have a source of gold!In addition, the army has begun to march towards the Mirror of Heaven. I doubt anyone will make it back except for Nofuos the Imperishable, but we have an unlimited supply of undead. The guardian cannot last forever. And with our knowledge of bronze working, soon we will have properly armored Tomb lords to improve success, as well as Pale protectors instead of mere barrow warriors.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

T119 - While anticipating results of the battle, I was told there was a unicorn prancing about the wastelands. Aristrakh wastelands are not for prancing, I said.
Sometime later a messenger came in announcing that the dead unicorn had been sold, and handed me a reasonable sack of gold pieces. A defiler was started near Heresh as a result of our luck with money today.
T120 - Unsurpringly, it was a slaughter of undead. But the messenger reports both survival and a Glorious Victory for...what? Not for Nofuos? A barrow archer survived? Hmph. I would hardly call that glorious. It can barely speak, let alone revive like Nofuos the Imperishable. Hold still.


...Guard, tell the next entrant to not bring such absurd news as one of the supporting units stealing the glory from someone who can actually think. Theres bone fragments all over my robe now and I have an acolyte team to send out.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

T121 - Interesting. There are Illians here, but why do they sound so happy to see us?

[Tarran]

...You know, I do hope there's not some trend going with all the evil factions having the most points and strength. Otherwise, we may see a distinct lack of alignment balancing in the future.

[Aklyon]

Well, considering I started with 6 AIs (since 2/alignment would've been interesting, but random by align was broken, etc), Its rather unbalanced already, unless the last AI has hax and already turned into the sodding Mercurials. But I haven't heard of Order being founded yet. (or any other religion, really. Only the forced-founding of Ashen Veil that happened when I knew of the Infernals) It might get more balanced if the Amurites win their long lasting war on the Clan of Embers, too.


Second Journal of Lord Najesh, unnumbered page:
T124 - A gladiator in the bone cage has become rather popular. In the interest of experimenting on seeing if he'll notice the difference, I've arranged for him to be set up against easier opponents. ((Random event that gives us extra culture sounded more useful than a one time bit of gold)) Aside from that interesting bit of work, the acolytes and co have left for the claiming, Nightwatch have found the Illian borders, and they've finally finished reworking Curse to work here! Quickly, Necrosages! Get me a barrow adept! I want any barbarians or griffons nearby struck down by the power of unholy curses! Or at least significantly weakened. After that, start looking at how fire mana works.
As a side note, we've agreed to open borders with the curiously friendy Illians, and the Emberites/Amurites continue to pester us with conflicting demands to support them in war.

T126 - Tarfah has been founded. Nofuos kicked a lion.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

T128 - Very, very warily, we've allowed open borders with the infernals. Extremely wary borders still, but refusing them sounds like a terrible idea.

T131 - The fire mana flows into Deathknell through the roads, and a rather odd thing happens.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'd been spellresearching Necromancy 2, and the wonders of overflow are hilarious to see. This basically gave me fireball and fireblade for free, and slashed Scorch down to a two turn spell.

T134/135 - The Illians gave us their map.
Hehehehehe...this is nearly the entire map! And we gave them hardly any useful map in return. Southwards, Nightwatch! Finish our map up! Meanwhile, closer by, Nofuos, Tomb lord, Barrow archer, and Barrow adept will begin burning out the barbaric neighbors with no culture. Nofuos' sword is aflame, and the barrow adept burns things. In doing so, they found more ancient spellbooks! Hastening the fireshield research is good, we could do with some extra protection.

T138 - An Infernal diplomat came to us and demanded we cut off deals with the scions. Its not the best thing to do, but the scions are not nearly as close as the infernals are, so we agreed.
T140 - Far south of the Illians, Nightwatch reports an Infernal city. And also the Austrin? They don't sound at all familiar, and according to the Nightwatch, they didn't say a thing. Then again, why say something to someone you can't see?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Aaaaand that concludes the civs. All starting as either evil or neutral, it looks like.

T142 - The Infernals have declared war on the Scions.

[Singularity125]

Well, do you know how to play vanilla Civ 4? Because this is like trying DF before trying anything simpler if you don't know how to play civ beforehand. More resources, the entire mana and magic systems, and the tech tree isn't one huge mass of semi-linear techs you can wander through if you have no idea where to go, its split into different sections. (though that has made it easier to peer around it to find things)

That aside, I haven't played Master of Magic myself, so I couldn't make a good comparison.

I'm no expert, for sure, but I have some familiarity with vanilla. I've won a couple Noble-level games against AI, which I know isn't much of an achievement, but yeah. Right now I'm trying to play Caveman2Cosmos, which is... overwhelming, to say the least. But it's all good. When (if) I finish that up, I may try this mod. 

[Tarran]

Holy crap, the Infernals have at least 3 times your military strength. What the fudge, the neutrals are so doomed.

[Aklyon]

Well, right now my Military strength consists of a very skeletal bunch, puns aside: an archer and a skeleton soldier per city, a couple barrow adepts, and Nofuos the Imperishable's squad of him, Tomb lord, Glorious Victory Barrow Archer, and Barrow adept. Theres also the Nightwatch/Unseen Blade (who doesn't attack), and a caravan of acolyte, worker, barrow archer, and skeleton soldier for making another city later.

I'm not exactly surprised they've got a massive amount of strength, but if I needed to I could throw out a barrow warrior from deathknell every turn for the rest of ever, or a pale protector or barrow archer ever 2 turns, and attrition things to death like I did the Mirror of Heaven, whose guardian had about 25 strength but only one unit when you included the fire damage.

[Frumple]

... having started an infernal game out of curiosity as to what the changes et al brought, I'm kinda' wondering how the infernals have 3x your military. Dunno if I buggered up settings or something, but stuff like manes spawning seems to... not be happening. And the infernal start is no different from anyone else's, unlike when they come in part way through the game. Which is to say they're kinda' gimped. No pop growth, at all, same units as everyone else (except constrained by the whole "no manes" thing)... demon trait goes a long way, but...

Point being they may be a paper tiger. Looks nasty (presumably because they've been spitting out warriors constantly, or something), but not actually a threat.

[Aklyon]

This is on Noble, for reference. And you require manes for pop growth, if I remember how the frozen worked correctly (the two are somewhat different, but use the same unit= growth or other uses thing.)

[Frumple]

Right... and manes are supposed to (occasionally) generate when an evil critter dies, s'far as I can tell. Problem being, th'game I'm running, 2/3rds of the other dudes I've ran into are evil, every unit I pump out is, things have been dying in droves (due to waging wilderness) and... no manes, 70+ turns in. Not from stuff I kill, not from things that kill me, not from other civs critters keeling over. Nada. No manes ;_;

E: Coulda' sworn infernals were terraformers, too. Doesn't seem like it, though...

[Aklyon]

The Infernals are basically stealth-terraformers. High Armageddon Counter levels cause Ashen Veil to start spreading Hell Terrain. The Infernals only appear (unless they started the game now, I guess) late in the Ashen Veil religion techs, around the point where anyone with AV will start getting hell terrain. Higher AC makes it spread outside of AV religiocultural boundaries, and the Infernals are all about the AC afaik.

As for the Manes, their Civpedia description is rather specific in what counts as 'evil unit', so either you aren't killing things that match the mane-requirement, or they're bugged in 2.11.

[Frumple]

... or something. Turn 200, I finally get two manes (immediately turned into pop! Yay, my one city is now size 4 >_>). Didn't personally kill anything that turn, or the turn before. Did nuke some scion units, but no fatalities. Guessing something wonky's going on, or one of the two other ashen veil civs running around finally got someone killed...

Maybe if I spam savants around and let them die off...

E: Woah. Building the infernal grimoire spawns the infernals a balor. 40 strength doombeast, yes, thankyou.

[Aklyon]

From the notes of the Nightwatch:

143 - Rumors of an Infernal takeover on Scions city.
146 - Another Infernal city. Across the lake from Deathknell this one is too.
151 - Watching city of the Scions. Map more or less finished.

Entries from the Second Journal of Lord Najesh:

T143 - Apparently we can now ride horse. I suppose it'll get things moving quicker for the things that can use it.
T151/152 - I quite like this description of a Scions city, it has quite a bit of useful resources. As soon as we have our next city built, we shall go after them in force.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, I hear we have a new node of death mana, which is excellent news!
T153 - The Guild of Shadows snuck into Deathknell. I know because they interrupted a messenger by stabbing him somewhere in the city and greeting me themself, after giving me the message I was actually expecting. Apparently this means I can get additional Unseen Blades, and if we had Warhorses (the technology), a rather useful-sounding unit as well.

T158 - The Scions gave us a rather humorous offer today. It began with 'Help us' and ended with 'War on the infernals'. I heard the diplomat was grumbling in a shouting voice on his way out.
T160 - Barbarian interference is delaying the city construction. Burn them!

T161 - News of the death of the Amurites spreads. I suppose we'll have to put off the scion city acquisition for now, the Emberites are on our border and likely to think they're better than they are. Raise the barrows!

[Aklyon]

Entries from the Second Journal of Lord Najesh:

T162 - Azhar founded, although a blooded werewolf is causing trouble, even for Nofuos. However, soon we will have 3 sources of Death mana!
((Magic tech Witchcraft gives access to all mana vaults. Mana vaults give you one source of X mana, where X equals the type of vault you built. Vaults also block construction of any other type of vault in the city. They require 4 mage guilds total and a schola arcana (or unique version) to be built.))

T163 - The werewolf wandered away for now. Eventually, a vault of Mind Mana will be built somewhere once there is enough Mage Guilds for the arcana to be aligned just right upon the vault or whatever. the Necrosages demand at least 4 of those buildings, we need wood for them, Nofuos found wood. Everything is working.

T165:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Someone wanted to kill me. Well, now we have their assassin, but the damn city is so worried everything has stalled for sometime. Goddamnit, panic. Why do you effect us?

((Whatever effect that was, it stalled research and production for 20 turns. ))

T166:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

No one likes a sneaky barbarian asshole, Sheelba. All you've done is save me the trouble of writing the declaration myself. Nofuos, to Deathknell!

T168 - Assassin sent to Tarfah for defense. The panic in our cities needs to settle the fuck down, I require warriors! Nofuos alone with only barrow adepts and skeleton soldiers as backup does not constitute an offensive army!

T 174 or something, its not important. Now, everyone shut up! I don't care you're panicing. I don't care about the bloody assassin! GET BACK TO WORK, THIS IS A CITY OF UNDEAD!
YOU, MAGE! YOU BETTER BE SUMMONING SKELETON SOLDIERS OR I'M GOING TO THROW YOU OUT AS BAIT!
[a pool of ink is here that covers many of the following pages, but presumably Lord Najesh continued his fit of rage over the stalled production of warriors. This footnote added by the new head scholar of Lord Najesh]

From the messages of Nofuos the Imperishable:
Lord Najesh seems to be in a constant incoherent rage at this point, unlikely to calm down until warriors begin production again. Due to this, I have torn out the remaining usable pages from his second journal and am using them to direct the war until he can.
T175 - A great battle was fought at Tarfah, and I learned how to resist fire. However, the city was lost, and I woke back up at Deathknell once more. I have pulled everything not garrisoned back into Deathknell.
T176 - Major battle at Heresh. City remains ours, but with only one defender remaining. Expecting another loss next time.
T177 - I do not know if this is a success. Our defender murdered their hero, Rantine. But we have lost another city.

T180 - They ignore Deathknell and are about to attack our newest city. Dire times are upon us. Another skeleton soldier has been summoned in Deathknell, however. This brings the defenses up to 1 Barrow archer and assuming no unholy resistance, 6 strength 14 soldiers, along with myself.
T183 - Azhar has been razed to the wasteland. Only us remain.
T186 - I have had enough of writing. The town has been forcibly moved into returning to working order. The barrow warriors are emerging one by one. We will need time, but the Clan of Embers will be smothered into the ground under the collective weight of a million skeletal warriors if that is what it will take.

[Tarran]

Uh, wow, that event choice was brutal.