Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Jyn Ryvia]

Fair! Especially the armored troll variants, though if they had good morale it'd be quite tough to fight them. I mostly only play multiplayer though so I'm not too familiar with the campaign mechanics. Glad to find another Total War player though! If you don't mind me asking what's your favorite faction to play?

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I only go for short campaigns these days when there is new DLC.

Multiplayer: Empire, they just have the most options or Vamp Coast cus they have a fun aesthetic.

Campaign: Crooked Moon, not because I like Orc's, but because they are the hardest faction to win on Legendary. they are the only one I think I can lose on a repeat.

except maybe chaos warriors, but that's more because they can get gold starved to death early rather than 'I could be beaten by the AI'.

 

[TotallyNotEvil]

My view of Project Nightlight:

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Image is broken for me.

By the way, after we finish our tower, what task should we pick?

There were many people in this thread that didn´t want to push Belegar to more radical things like Aethyric Vitae or Queekish... What do you think of helping Edda with the Undumgi?

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Belegar would consider three or four different people on the Council alone before he considers Math for the job, and we can't really fit it in.

I want to offer up Aethyric Vitae for our next project, because it's virtually impossible to get it done without it being our task, and after seeing Belegar's thoughts, its exoticness doesn't really factor in.

 

[Dracikral]

I only go for short campaigns these days when there is new DLC.

Multiplayer: Empire, they just have the most options or Vamp Coast cus they have a fun aesthetic.

Campaign: Crooked Moon, not because I like Orc's, but because they are the hardest faction to win on Legendary. they are the only one I think I can lose on a repeat.

except maybe chaos warriors, but that's more because they can get gold starved to death early rather than 'I could be beaten by the AI'.

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Neat! I main high elves since due to their versatility and good leadership so I'm quite biased towards them . Empire is pretty fun to play as well though I do get annoyed at their lower leadership in comparison to high elves. I will say their new units are really damn good from the Hunter and the Beast update. Wulfhart is insane. I'm not too familiar with the Coast personally butthey do have quite the aesthetic!

 

[noliar]

Doing it with infrastructure is better, and I want it to do it that way too if possible. I am just saying, that reflecting light in required way is hard. That mirror also would need to be on gyrobomber, with all downsides gyrobomber have. Then, the ground source needs to effectively make a ligh ray, which is damn hard compared to normal light source.

As for actual source of ligh, I was thinking either runes, or enchanted. Light college can do it easily. Either by creating light, or if that interferes with system, by capturing and releasing daylight. If shadow is targetable, then it does not need to last long. It's deadly as it is. Five minutes per day would be enough to sweap through and destroy an army. With item/rune, actual physical size does not need to be big.

As for infrastructure... we have a mountain-shadow control center in a tower. I would like to add weather control center to this. Then, after we actually use 'warrior of fog', add scrying/detection facilities there. Basically make Krarag Nar a command/control center for K8P.

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The mirror is not a solid object, it's an aetheric projection - one of our toolless enchantment suite spells scaled up. Position and shape controlled by the operator in the tower with her hands on the device that generates it.

The light source(s) would be in elliptical mirror chambers with a couple of lenses on the front like a great big stage light - plenty enough collimation for our purposes.

We absolutely do not want Hysh light fed into our high power Ulgu system. That's how you get Dhar seeping down along the Gazul girder and messing up our foyer. I wouldn't want to put a major Azyr installation next to the Grey Tower either for the same reason.

If there were to be a Celestial magic based weather control and scying tower then the place to put them would be the Karag Lhune secondary peak. Handy for getting information to the actual commander of the Karak and the gyrocoptor bays. That would be for Celestial personnel to build maintain and run.

 

[picklepikkl]

I want to offer up Aethyric Vitae for our next project, because it's virtually impossible to get it done without it being our task, and after seeing Belegar's thoughts, its exoticness doesn't really factor in.

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Yeah, after our social turn with him and @pucflek pointing this out on the other page, I am less worried that he is going to consider it a slide into being like the Dawi Zharr.

Obviously I'd like to see how Project Zharrvengryn plays with him before I commit myself to anything, but I expect that AV will be on the list of projects we propose next time.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

Neat! I main high elves since due to their versatility and good leadership so I'm quite biased towards them . Empire is pretty fun to play as well though I do get annoyed at their lower leadership in comparison to high elves. I will say their new units are really damn good from the Hunter and the Beast update. Wulfhart is insane. I'm not too familiar with the Coast personally butthey do have quite the aesthetic!

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ahhhh, I see.... your a High elf basic bitch, sorry we can't be friends now.

(In all seriousness we should stop, we are very of topic.)

 

[me.me.here]

In other words the idea that any theoretical Kvinn-Wyr attack must inherently be linked to a Karag Mhonar attack in order to be sensible appears deeply flawed to the point of being outright wrong as far as I can see, and I'd very much like to hear your justification otherwise. The optimal expansion route looks pretty clearly to be Kvinn-Wyr->Under-Citadel->Other with a potential pause to consolidate after each step.

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The problem is that we don't want to attack Clan Mors anytime soon for fear of disrupting the Skaven Civil War and turning the fronts we have with Clan Mors active. If we aren't taking Under-Citadel to consolidate than taking Kyvinn-Wyr eliminates the troll fronts in exchange for a similarly low activity front against Clan Mors as well as a front against whatever is in Karag-Mhonar.

 

[Bilbo Baggins]

For the record, the 'her' was Mathilde, but I think you might be succumbing to Protagonist Syndrome.



Unless it's along the lines of 'I just invented Dwarf Viagra' any options to cure Belegar with the soothing energy of expended AP will continue to be crit-fishing long-shots.

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Clearly we just need to equip the deceiver coin and spend the six months disguised as Valaya Herself, telling every dwarf we can find that they have a holy mandate from us to make all the dwarven babies immediately.

 

[Redshirt Army]

In other words the idea that any theoretical Kvinn-Wyr attack must inherently be linked to a Karag Mhonar attack in order to be sensible appears deeply flawed to the point of being outright wrong as far as I can see, and I'd very much like to hear your justification otherwise. The optimal expansion route looks pretty clearly to be Kvinn-Wyr->Under-Citadel->Other with a potential pause to consolidate after each step.

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Nah. Wait to see how the balance of power goes for Mors.

If they're doing too well, take the UnderCitadel, and have the We start directly pressuring the UnderCaldera. From there, the natural next step is to capture Wyr and Mhonar while Mors is off balance, since we only open up one new front total that way (Rhyn), and the Eshin will need to reposition to be able to strike at Mors.

If Mors is doing too badly, instead do a mass series of sabotage and assassination against Skryre in Zilfin, then push for Mhonar and Rhyn overland. Mors will be too busy relieving the pressure by hitting the weakened Skryre to interfere from the UnderCaldera, and we can take out Wyr at our leisure later to secure our logistics.

 

[Yeangst]

Would the Tower of Oh-Shit let us learn spells in a safe environment, or are we only able to do that in the college at Altdorf?

 

[noliar]

We need to be ready for the Skaven civil war to end. At some point the Horned Rat will declare Mors back in the fold and we'll have to face all three clans. It's one reason I think the Queekish is urgent.

 

[Robotninja]

That reminds me.

This is a horrid idea, but using the Deceiver to leverage Matty's relationship with Belegar to lie to him such that we convince him that he's making an improvement for his people, even if Matty isn't actually perfectly confident that he is making things better for them...

Well, it's an idea.

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So he would think we are telling the truth. But that does not mean we are right, just that we think we are right. The best way to wash away his doubts is to ensure that he succeeds so well that it proves him right. That he was not wrong to adopt less honorable methods.

 

[picklepikkl]

Would the Tower of Oh-Shit let us learn spells in a safe environment, or are we only able to do that in the college at Altdorf?

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That Tower is good for things like "learning Battle Magic" or "doing experiments that might involve a lot of magical energy being released," where things might go catastrophically wrong very quickly. Learning regular spells is best done in the Tower of Dawn and Dusk, which is a very cooperative home for Ulgu (+20 to learning them).

The upper bound of Invisibility's DC to learn is 60, and I suspect it is more likely 50, so if we get a scroll and learn it at home, we have a 13% chance of failure if the former and a 3% chance if the latter.

 

[REAPER35]

later to secure our logistics.

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Any plan with this phrase in it needs to be revised. secure your logistics first, THEN everything else.

 

[CrimsonOddball]

That reminds me.

This is a horrid idea, but using the Deceiver to leverage Matty's relationship with Belegar to lie to him such that we convince him that he's making an improvement for his people, even if Matty isn't actually perfectly confident that he is making things better for them...

Well, it's an idea.

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That's not quite how it works. It gives you a Bluff check result of "Yes." Convincing them still requires their prior probabilities be aligned such that "because it's true" is the most plausible reason for you to genuinely believe something.

Like, Qrech knows who we are and what our role is. He knows we are Eshinzhufokri. If we say "the Empire has access to Queekish," the most likely reason for a professional spy to believe that is because it's true, so if he believes that we believe it, he will probably believe it. But if Mathilde says to Belegar "the dwarves are improving, you have nothing to worry about," that won't work, because Belegar doesn't have reason to believe that we have access to facts of which he is ignorant; he'd just conclude we are interpreting the facts in a naive way.

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It also doesn't work on truths, so if the you want the coin to work when trying to convince Belegar then you also want Mathilde to genuinely believe it's hopeless

 

[DarkLight140]

Nah. Wait to see how the balance of power goes for Mors.

If they're doing too well, take the UnderCitadel, and have the We start directly pressuring the UnderCaldera. From there, the natural next step is to capture Wyr and Mhonar while Mors is off balance, since we only open up one new front total that way (Rhyn), and the Eshin will need to reposition to be able to strike at Mors.

If Mors is doing too badly, instead do a mass series of sabotage and assassination against Skryre in Zilfin, then push for Mhonar and Rhyn overland. Mors will be too busy relieving the pressure by hitting the weakened Skryre to interfere from the UnderCaldera, and we can take out Wyr at our leisure later to secure our logistics.

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Down your "too well" branch, while taking Kvinn-Wyr would be the sensible move if we decided to take the Under-Citadel anyway, there's really no reason that we'd have to do Mhonar at all. We could hit Kvinn-Wyr and stop, with taking Mhonar gaining us nothing but extra space we're not even using and potentially losing us a lot of soldiers. Once we're in that position Mhonar becomes the obviously optimal next place to take if we're going for the full sweep, but there's nothing meaningful that we gain from taking it in the short to medium term.

Down your "too badly" branch, attacking overland against Mhonar and Rhyn and then backtracking to hit Kvinn-Wyr seems needlessly reckless when taking out Kvinn-Wyr first and then those two if desired is perfectly feasible. If we launch our primary attack against Kvinn-Wyr through the underway then the only people who will even be able to notice are those under-Citadel (and down this branch Mors won't have the strength to contest our taking a mountain they don't even hold) and under-Mhonar (and if someone crawls out of there to fight us outside their defenses instead of waiting for us to come dig them out, that's to our advantage anyway). It's entirely possible that no one else will even notice our taking the mountain until it's done, and then we can move on the others with our logistics already secure, assuming that we've decided they're important enough to attack.

 

[chocolote12]

Welp. I think the talk of trying to solo troll mountain has finished Boney off. Their blood pressure got too high -- impressive, for a skeleton -- and that was that.

Sit tibi terra levis.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

So let's look.


the Biggest long term problem is the Caldera: Clan Mors

we should clear out Mor from under the Citadel first, they know we are in the game now and if we are going to have a front there anyways it might as we not be directly under the Citadel.

if we take every Peak one at a time we open up more and more fronts that we have to hold from Mor and whoever is below.

if we take the Caldera we will not have to deal with Mor, but will open up every front at the same time.

at the same time... we would be opening up the front on our terms if we take the Caldera and thanks to the tower above it would be easier to hold the Caldera below.

while taking every tower and securing it one it the time will be slow and let the enemies at the far ends get ready (Karag Yar is the worst place for Eshin to be. we will be dealing with their saboteurs and assassins for the whole campaign if we go the slow route...

I would pick the Caldera as the next push when (if) it happens. just because I prefer the momentum and the ability to pick the fight we want rather than having to go one by one in a very obvious and predictable way.

Edit: oh, and my problem with taking Karag Zilfin is holding it if it really is that massive.

 

[Reynal]

Queekish is something that would be excellent long-term, but right now I think it is far more important to work on picking him for general intel on the Skaven civil war.

As things stand general intel about the force distributions of the "traitor clans" is both tactically relevant to the forces of order and something he is likely willing to share. Good and timely intel here will potentially have a real impact on how successful the coordinated strikes the Empire and its allies are making against them, both increasing the likelihood of causing lasting damage to the Skaven and reducing the attrition on the forces of order. However, the value will drop sharply as our prisoner's intel becomes more dated and engagements are won or lost without it to tilt things in our favor.

The other issue is that he clearly has some significant loyalty to the Skaven as a whole. Combined with the fear of what the Horned Rat would do to a traitor, it is extremely unlikely that he will actively cooperate with something he has any reason to believe is damaging to the Skaven as thing stand. Teaching a known and dangerous enemy infiltrator/assassin the language is well past that line—remember, this is a Skaven who we need to tease relatively innocuous details about non-"traitor clans" out of carefully to avoid him clamming up, and even information about the "traitor clans" was gathered from emotional outbursts or in bits and pieces.

Him actually deciding to deliberately share intelligence with us would be a big step, and I would much rather we try to make him take it here on an enemy he despises than in pitting his loyalty and fear of the Horned Rat against his self-interest and fear of us.

Yes, we can hopefully use the Deceiver side of the coin at some point to make teaching us or otherwise helping us decipher Queekish as more necessary for him or less of a betrayal to the Skaven as a whole than it is, but even then I view the gambit as a hard sell and likely to risk his cooperation going forward. Better to go for what is a much higher probability play that actually sets us up for the Queekish attempt with a better chance of success.

 

[Abhorsen]

I really think it's a waste to make plans before we determine who else is in the other peaks. Then we can figure out who we want to set against each other, then continue. Getting rid of Eshin in any way possible is very important no matter who is aided, then we want to eliminate Mors.

Other important things are killing off any Grey Seers.

 

[picklepikkl]

Those are all reasonable points.

We don't know if we'll have the same options that we did last turn, since our "get to know him" action might have opened up new possibilities. I do think that compromising him bit by bit -- getting him in the habit of sharing information with us about the traitor clans so that he sees us as an ally -- is the long-term thing likeliest to work. But we can't be sure how much time we have, and I'm not sure how to balance those priorities.

I really think it's a waste to make plans before we determine who else is in the other peaks.

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Hopefully Dreng will have an update for us about that at the council meeting.

 

[REAPER35]

Mor is holding Eshin and Skryre in check. pushing them out from under the citadel is a good idea, but taking the caldera isn't. let the rats focus on each other. Eshin and Skryre are desperate to kill Mor before a cease fire is called. they are going to try to focus down Mor instead of going after us.

Pushing Mor out from under the citadel to force them to exert more pressure everywhere else underground would help up the attrition between the Skaven. after that hitting the sentinels and the Trolls, while the Skaven continue to bicker. work our way around the south to the west gate. Then take out the Skaven. Preferably in one hard push.

This plan has the advantage of attracting quite a few Slayers since we will be fighting a mountain full of trolls. They may stick around afterwards to help with the rest, if they don't all die.

 

[Garlak]

[Max's Gyrocopter Adventure: 12]

"Nothing?" you repeat.

"Not a thing," the pilot confirms. "West to Morgheim, south to Azgal, nothing. Karag Dron, the Ulrikadrin have the Dragon Ogres keeping their heads down. Iron Rock, not a peep. Even went all the way out to Crookback Mountain. It's like all the greenskins and Skaven have decided to stop plaguing the world."

You consider Mork's recent weakening, and the unseen civil war among the Skaven. "Ah."

Maximilian haunts Karag Nar like a sulky ghost for weeks afterwards, pouting and periodically obliterating a target with the Silver Arrows he never got to fire from a gyrocopter.

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You know, thinking about it, I had a funny idea about Max. Not a serious we-should-do-this idea, but a joke.

We sent Max on a gyrocopter at the Battle of Karagril, and he got nothing. We sent Max along gyrocopter patrols/mail/whatever, and he got nothing. Clearly, there is only one way to get Max some way to shoot greenskins...

Because, you know who else has a ranged weapon and likes shooting Greenskins? King Kazador.

Yes, that's right. I'm saying that next, we need to have Max tag along with King Kazador and exercise his Silver Arrows shooting there. He can't possibly run into nothing that way...

*next turn*

"Nothing?!"
"Nothing. King Kazador has not found a single grobi or thaggoraki or even wandering troll, in over six months. He went from being surprised, to annoyed, to frustrated, to angry, to shocked and disbelieving. He's so flabbergasted that he's stopped being upset."
"How is that even possible. I mean, worst comes to worst, he can literally head for one of the occupied peaks..."
"We think they all start running away from him as soon as they hear him coming. Just, entirely abandon position and relocate."
"Run away. All of them. Unbelievable... First he taught his Throng to climb. What is he going to do next, teach them all to be sneakier than a ranger?"
"Y'know, it's funny you should mention that..."

 

[Quest]

As things stand general intel about the force distributions of the "traitor clans" is both tactically relevant to the forces of order and something he is likely willing to share.

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This is assuming he actually has that kind of information. He's an expert against the chaos dwarves, not the other skaven clans.

Even if he did have useful information, I still think learning Queekish is more important. It's strategic victory that changes the whole game.

Right now, you need a skaven who speaks khazalid or Reikspeil to interrogate. This is rare enough that we never even heard about the civil war before now.

Learning Queekish means that you can interrogate any skaven you pick up for information. Remember how we basically walked into clan Mors without them understanding what was going on?

A grey wizard could pick up a dozen skaven and interrogate them for information now without anyone realizing it. It's not something that would be possible before now.

 

[jjffjhjf]

Gotta agree getting Queekish out of this dude is the best option we have. Its the kind of thing Great Deeds are made of.