If you'll recall (and you probably don't, because I doubt anyone cares all that strongly at this point) we had last left the gakkar with trolls swarming into their home cave. Things became somewhat problematic after that.
Fortunately we had just gotten ironworking capabilities, and iron swords + breastplates prove to be more than enough to retake our city and push the trolls back.
They are also way, way more than enough to take care of the dwarves. We got really lucky last game, as dwarves have damn all they can do about the physically stronger races early on: they can't compete in melee against races like gakkar and trolls, and they're so terrible with ranged weapons that the first few tech levels don't help them any. Worse, the AI doesn't seem to understand this fact and has happily equipped the bulk of the dwarven military with wooden bows, which are so weak to begin with that the dwarves really would be better off unarmed. Even at 1:3 force ratio, our nominally inferior weapons shred them--a fitting punishment for their appalling undwarfliness.
That settled, it's time to muster our forces to take care of the trolls
AND SWEET CRAP ON A STICK HOW DID THEY GET GUNS?!
Granted, they don't seem to have iron yet, and the flintlock weapons represent one of the smaller incremental advancements in effectiveness--our mounted units are fast enough to close their range before they can get a second shot off, and once we get in close we do more damage blow for blow. Nonetheless this is a worrisome development. We've still only taken the one neutral city and have been making a lot of soldiers, so our population is disappointingly low for this point in the game. Fortunately gakkar are strong enough that our iron equipment is sufficient to overpower most neutral cities, so we go on a conquering spree to raise population.
The results speak for themselves; we make it all the way to level 3 weapons and
real guns before they have any other tech advancements to show.
We smash our way into the trolls' cave. It looks like it may not be all that big, but I wonder where this tunnel leads...
ARGH HOLY CRAP THIS IS MY TUNNEL!
It looks like the trolls had been stuck in that little cave all game, so it's real damn impressive that they managed to pose a credible threat as long as they did. They must have just now broken into this tunnel, so we wiped their last cities out just in time; 3-4 turns' hike in either direction would have lead them to undefended cities they could have captured but never had the opportunity.
Elsewhere we find that this time the last enemy race is bergbui again. Our most advanced scissors-based weaponry proves useless against this rocky menace!
So we kill it with guns instead. It looks like we might be in for a repeat of last game's disappointing ending.
...or not.
They might look stupid, but bergbui in full plate are nothing to laugh at. Note that in the time it took
an entire cannon battery to kill one, three inept riflemen from a race with ranged attack penalties had sniped out most of the cannons.
Our transport tech just got up with our weapons tech, so we roll out the assault buggies. Dakka dakka dakka!
Huzzah! Judging by the title of this tech level you might think that we get tanks now. But you'd be wrong. This is a cruel, cruel joke; at the moment all we get are rocket launchers.
Normally rocket launchers rank pretty highly as far as consolation prizes go, but this too is a cruel joke as the rocket launcher is a sorely disappointing weapon. Assault buggies are easier to research, easier to build, twice as fast, and roughly equal in effectiveness (rockets do slightly more damage but have slightly less range).
Then again, considering this rocket is about to one-shot that guy in mithril plate, maybe there's a point to them after all. Also, god damn these guys have a lot of mithril to throw around. Being bergbui they probably have some pretty good earth magic by now, so that could explain it.
Meanwhile, our assault buggies push up to level 2. As I recall the entirety of last game took place on the lowest 3 levels, so we're breaking new ground here. Not that there's any actual functional difference from one floor to the next. If you look at the top you'll notice it looks like the bergbui just got automatic weapons and future-looking body armor too. This probably won't be much more than a speedbump by now--we've taken out quite a few fair-sized cities already, so their production has to be hurting.
I'm going to take a break here, because researching the last level of transport technology always takes a while, especially since our food level is about to crash. Later: tanks!
