I'm actually quite skilled at typing with my head! After being inspired by that one #FinalFight comic I've achieved a disturbing level of proficiency. But before you say, "Oh for fuck's sake!" Here's DOSBOX!
Today let's join Frocto, Lord of Volcanoes, Prince of Laughter, and his naked imp familiar on their quest to take over all of
Austra Myrror.
We need a nickname for that little guy.
Last we left off, Frocto was on what turned out to be an island. His trireme quickly scouted the right-most part of the island and we have rightly determined that Frocto started this game off in the ass of Myrror.
In this time of relative peace he amasses an army of hell hounds to do his bidding. Eventually, they'll be needed to do some heavy "liberating" of troll towns, but for now, we're taking advantage of their rapid pace to explore the area to the down-right.
Hot diggity! (They're hell hounds. It's funny.) A ruined keep already! Time to scout it out!
Free stuff!
It's meager now, but believe me when I tell you I've found hoards with thousands of gold and magical items strewn about it. What? You didn't know about magical items? Well, you're going to know (next to nothing) about them by the end of this update!
Ooh! Ruins and a tower?
Ruins.
Eh, Shadow Demons again. Something we're not able to tackle just yet. So let's set it aside.
Towers, once cleared of monsters, are gateways between the planes. There are other avenues to leap from one to the other, but towers are the mode through which there is universal access.
Unicorns are rare level Life monsters. They come in herds of four and generally Life creatures in the rare and very rare summons tend to have bonuses to dealing with Death and Chaos monsters. Unicorns can also teleport freely about the battlefield.
As critical as it is for Frocto and his dark elves to check out Arcanus, this is not the best avenue for them.
Continuing to explore up-by-up-right.
Hills, mountains, and forests without roads on them do cost two move apiece to get across without any logistics or mobility traits (e.g. Mountaineer). Roads replace the ordinary movement costs and prerequisites for a tile. I mention this because Frocto's Hell Hounds actually moved up-left then up-right to get into these mountains, taking advantage of the relatively unimpeded movement through that tile of desert. Keeping your eyes peeled for faster routes is only about as important as it is in Civ, but it can make the difference between a city being sacked before its journeying defenders can return, or a thorough rout of the invading force.
Quork crystals are essentially meaningless to dark elves, but every little bit helps. This would actually be an almost-decent spot for Nomads for whom deserts are almost an advantage, rather than a horrifying sandpapering of an elf's danglers.
It's probably a good time to mention...
The marketplace and granary have opened up the possibility of producing...
A farmer's market! Look at that hot, hot population growth. For those of you just joining in, that's an additional 50% growth. Every two food is also another citizen figure we can move from farming to production, quadrupling that figure's contribution to building awesome stuff.
It occurs to me that I haven't really been talking up Libraries. They're useful, and are a prerequisite for magical weapons, fantastic stables, and wizards towers. Wizards towers produce the most magically inclined unit of that race. Something to consider given that Frocto's using a race whose excretions glow with magic.
For right now though, Dagdoomdra is building a unit of settlers.
I need more !manlyname please!
But there's a cave to explore!
This is an even bigger windfall than it was in Frocto's previous existence. Frocto has basically been summoning hell hounds non-stop, and even with his hot elves doing their kinky sex magic to keep his mana full, there's only so many hell hounds they can sustain. In fact, Frocto has only been saving a mana crystal a turn for several turns now.
"But," says the most astute reader, "Surely, Classic, you must be joking! We can see in all of those previous screenshots that Frocto has been cruising around with no MP in the bank!"
Indeed you're right, but here's the thing: Frocto has been casting another shot of Hell Hounds for exactly as long!
The blue text shows that Hell Hounds is currently being cast and the number of Chaos Swirls shows the remaining time until the spell is cast. Frocto's Spell Power, the rate at which he can channel magic into a spell, is over 7, the remaining mana needed, so the time is instant. When Frocto's Spell Power hits 30, he'll be able to cast Hell Hounds as an instant once a turn (provided, of course, he has sufficient mana).
Given the lethality of this game, cheap units never quite become useless so summoning a dozen or so at a time is actually an asset for cannon fodder if nothing else.
That said, it's an advantage comparable with any other summon in the 90 mana range and its usefulness depends heavily on the situation. For example, there's no point in bringing in Hell Hounds to deal with flying creatures without giving them wings or magical flight first, as there's literally no way for them to take advantage of their fire breath.
So I end the turn, happy to have another group of deadly doom beasts at my disposal when a dilemma hits...
I think I'm going to shut up and let the huntress speak for herself for a while.
Pathfinding is one of those Logistics/Mobility attributes I mentioned. Permanently enjoying the effects of nonmagical roads is a pretty nifty trick.
Heroes always enjoy a few neat perks unique to heroes. Most such perks have a Legendary (or Starred*) version of the feat that ups the efficacy by some amount. More magically inclined heroes can even throw spells as though they were a wizard without even dipping into your stock of mana crystals!
Heroes also level up, going from the meager "Hero" up through eight ranks (inclusive) of suitably exciting description. But level up information is always stored on a hero's equipment pages.
Heroes don't enjoy direct benefits from the Warlord retort.
These are more-or-less self-explanatory in the sense that I will be explaining them later rather than doing two boring infodumps. Wizards with the artificer retort can construct items right away, possessing both Enchant Item and Enchant Artifact. The most interesting magical equipment can only be created through the higher level "Enchant Artifact" by wizards with a solid knowledge of other spell schools.
Those of you who are shiftless, callow rubes can just pop open ITEMMAKE and take a look at all the bells and whistles you could put into a magic item and even save it for use in your game! Unfortunately, if I ever try to actually save, ITEMMAKE crashes with a heady mix of indignation and outrage.
Before you guys all shout, "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR CLASSIC!?" We need to talk finances.
The Huntress is classed as a "low-power" hero, and as a result charges a modest two gold a month and a 100G hiring fee. Note that at our current tax rate, we couldn't support her hire. Further, after her signing bonus is paid out, we'll only have 21 gold in the bank. It might not be economically viable to hire her now.
She might eventually come back later with more experience and possibly a higher price, but her upkeep costs should remain consistent.
Second, if we DO hire her, we'll need a name.
You've probably ascertained that the title "The Huntress" is an immutable part of the hero's name. This is true of all heroes and all heroes with the same title have the same base attributes. We can customize our heroes with gear, enchantments, and spell casters enjoy having some of our combat magic available to them in addition to their pre-determined memorized spells.
So, all this seems awesome right? Well, yeah, all of
that is. Here's where I cock Frocto up: My last save in Master of Magic is too far back for me to remember the exact choices that led up to The Huntress showing up for hire. Or at least, I can't get the RNG to get her to show herself on the same turn.
I think I can make it work so that I can take your input on a hero's name AFTER introducing them, but I didn't do it for the Huntress. So we have two options:
1) Continue on with Shuri The Huntress.
or
2) Do essentially the same stuff, but somehow not have her arrive and be better prepared to take audience participation for the next hireable Frocto hero.
Author
Topic: Master of Persistence (Read 5018 times)