The Forge

I'm forging another Robe of the Sea and a Skull Mentor for Ulm.

I'm going to start summoning Bane Lords next turn. For maximum effectiveness, I'll need flying shoes and fire immunity items (dragon helm/fire plate). I'm also going to need quite a few death gems for summoning and a few water gems for swords of swiftness. Chainmail of Displacement would be worthwhile as well.

Unfortunately, I think our team Air income is still a little weak. I certainly haven't had much luck with my site searching yet. Have any of the other non-Air powers generated any income you're not using?

Well, time for my own request - Can I get one or two Snake Rings? I will soon have Gift of Flight (maybe 2 more turns), and I'd like for my Arch-Theurgs to be able to safely cast it on multiple Hydras. Might give those Vanir SCs and thugs something to think about (since the ones up north don't have poison resistance yet).

Well, I can't spare a researcher this turn and still hit Conj-5; if I forge them next turn and send them after that, will that be too late?

Raiel wrote:Well, I can't spare a researcher this turn and still hit Conj-5; if I forge them next turn and send them after that, will that be too late?

I appreciate it! And no rush, like I said, it'll be a couple turns before I get the necessary research in. Plus I haven't bought the actual Hydras yet (I've got 6 left out in the field, but who knows where they'll be in two turns, if they're even still alive - that damn Father of Winters has already killed one). And since Hydras are map move 1, this is kind of a long term plan anyway

Just as a note about how important those defense items I want are, if I get them, I can send a couple guys into a battle, cast earthquake x2, and kill an entire army.

melnorjr wrote:Just as a note about how important those defense items I want are, if I get them, I can send a couple guys into a battle, cast earthquake x2, and kill an entire army.

Do defensive items protect you against Earthquake? Or is it protection?

Anyhow, I can't help, as I'm still at Con-0

If it's critical (and it sounds like it is), I'd suggest PMing any and all teammates who just might have the ability to make those items for you. I think it's easy to ignore the needs of others (even on a team - shit, just look at any professional sport! ), when you'd rather focus on yourself, at least when it's sort of semi-detached, like it is on a forum. But by sending a PM, you're making your request personal, and thus harder to ignore/neglect. Might get you better results.

either one actually works. defense helps avoid damage like it does with trampling. protection reduces damage taken, but it takes a lot of prot since its 8 armor piercing damage.

I think I may go ahead and send some pms. I'm not counting on this earthquake attack plan - I've got other things going. Its just in the works as a possibility that would really help.

and btw, if anybody cares enough to work on it, if I had some anti-sc gear, and 5 fire and water gems(to make frost/fire immunity rings) I could go kill vanheim's SC - my pretender is a titan so has good stats(200 hp and such) and I have 6 more defense than he does attack, so he ain't gonna hit me(thats base defense too, + defense items and it would just be cake) and I have astral so I can teleport. I'm not gonna push this, because I'm doing a lot of stuff right now, and those defense items for my earthquake casters are more important to me right now, but just putting it out there that this is an option if anybody really needs that guy dead.

In a few turns I should be able to start research on construction if things go well in my little corner of the world, but I'm not sure what all items I can forge regardless, and I would love to be able to just run thaumaturgy up for enslave mind or, eventually, master enslave.

Any requests for Marshmaster-forgable items? I'm going to bed soon and will do my turn about 7-9 hours from now.

Raiel wrote:Any requests for Marshmaster-forgable items? I'm going to bed soon and will do my turn about 7-9 hours from now.

what's your construction level?

I can forge fire immunity items. Do you guys want only fire prot rings, or sets of dragon helmet + fire plate?

I have 8 air gems. Do you want me to send them to you, Twobits, or is there someone else I should send them to?

As I said in the turn 19 thread, I have a shield of gleaming gold for whoever needs it. I can spare a dwarven hammer too if someone needs it for non-earth or fire forging.

I am currently forging the following to send to you guys next turn, let me know if I need to mix it up:

2 dwarven hammers
fire protection ring
fire plate
dragon helmet
snake ring
main gauche of parrying


FYI I got lucky with an astral pick on one of my mages with 25% forge bonus built in, so as the game progresses if we start wanting to forge lots of 2S/3S/4S items and you can give me boosters and gems for it, I can do it cheaply.

As I said elsewhere, I will certainly take those Air gems and a Hammer for Eyes of Aiming. And I could use some cheap S1 gear if you can start forging them (Spell Focus and Eye of the Void) with your new guy. Should I start sending you Astral gems? How many per turn would you like?

I see the gems and hammer are on their way! Thanks Stretch!

BTW, since I'm asking for stuff, can anyone forge me a cheap missile weapon or two (for reverse communions)? Anything will do, as long as it has decent range and plenty of ammo and/or a slow rate of fire.

Stretch wrote:
I have 8 air gems. Do you want me to send them to you, Twobits, or is there someone else I should send them to?

Caelum could probably do with some of those as he can use them for Seeling arrow and searching.

Stretch wrote:
As I said in the turn 19 thread, I have a shield of gleaming gold for whoever needs it. I can spare a dwarven hammer too if someone needs it for non-earth or fire forging.

Jotun could definitely use this if there are no other takers.

And I have sent you a Thistle Mace.

Bandar is on the look out for hammers.

He is also available for forging cons 4 astral and nature (mostly) stuff. So Rings of Regeneration, Boots of the Messenger, Anti Magic Amulet, Shrouds etc.

melnorjr wrote:

Raiel wrote:Any requests for Marshmaster-forgable items? I'm going to bed soon and will do my turn about 7-9 hours from now.

what's your construction level?

Construction level 4, but I'll be channelling my research into construction for acquiring artifacts starting this turn.

LumenPlacidum wrote:Ooh, I'd love a Robe of the Sea. Then I can remote site search for water.

On it's way this turn.

I'd like to outfit one of my pans as a battle mage. With some good defensive equipment, he might be able to get in close with a giant or SC, and possibly have a chance to use those point blank but decent spell songs as well.

Hmm, perhaps everyone who can forge brands, rings of resistance, mentors, and/or anything else of value should just forge em and hand-em out to everyone.

I would be a happy to get anything from anyone. Especially some decent shields, a robe of shadows, rings, and all that.

Sent out this turn:
shield of gleaming gold to jotunheim
hammer and snake ring to pythium
dragon helm and fire plate to C'tis
main gauche of parrying and fire ring to arco

Forging:
2x ring of fire
2x dwarven hammer
1x charcoal shield
1x dragon helmet (to be used with charcoal shield for 100% fire immunity)

I assume the shield and helmet are going to arco, whoever wants me to send the rings and hammers after they are done next turn let me know.

Note: If you guys want me to step up the forging (with my built-in 25% cost reduction forgers) then send me earth and fire gems. My guys are very good at forging items on the cheap. My research sucks because Ulm mages are bad and I don't have skull mentors. Oh, and I'm operating in drain-3 dominion. For the love of god send more skull mentors, and if someone can loan me another thistle mace (thanks for the first one) I can do even more nature site searching for the next few turns. My income is at 3N/turn now!

Note: I can forge elemental armor instead of charcoal shield if it will help more.
Also: I have a frost brand that I took off of some dead Sidhe. Who needs it?

Thank you very much for the main gauche and the fire ring. I'll have to go figure out what I want to have for SCing my God at some point, but not tonight - its getting late.

AS a note, I could really use 5 water gems to make a frost ring to go with the fire ring since both would be needed to fight vanheim's God.

Incidentally, does anybody know what it's been doing lately?

If anyone has any Astral or Nature forging requests please let Bandar know. I also have Earth & Water but only at a low level and joint paths between the above.

Bandar could do with a hammer or two to make the forgings cheaper and is on the look out for spare nature gems.

Jotunheim has spare Death gems if anyone wants them. Jotun's death income is about to be extinguished So these 20 or so are the last you'll get from him for some time....

Hey Stretch, I got the Hammer, thank you very much. You say you sent me a Snake Ring? If so, I didn't receive it. C'tis has offered to forge one or two of them (via PM), so it sounds like he can take care of me there.

Anyhow, with the Hammer, I will start forging Eyes of Aiming. Shinuyama has asked for them previously. Is there anyone else who might like one (might be a few turns)?

I'm still looking for a ranged weapon (I don't have the Air gems to forge those and Eyes). Can a fire race (Abysia?) forge a Just Man's Cross, or a death race a Black Bow, for me? Like I said though, anything with decent range and ammo should be fine.

Also, I will soon be desiring Penetration items. Spell Focus and Eye of the Void are cheap, and I can certainly forge them myself (especially if I had another Hammer some day), but I remember Stretch mentioning he had an S1 Smith. Or are you using him to cast Arcane Probing (an excellent idea, and if so, do you need Astral gems to do it?)?

Bandar, if Stretch is occupied, maybe that's something you could do if you have the time and gems (and a Hammer)?

TwoBits wrote:Bandar, if Stretch is occupied, maybe that's something you could do if you have the time and gems (and a Hammer)?

I have the time and gems But it is horribly inefficent to forge with no hammers

Again I will appeal for a couple Or even the Earth gems to forge my own....

I know the team is doing well but I really think we are missing a trick with forging. We are potentially wasting a lot of gems and have a lot of nations (seemingly?) considering going in to Construction, potentially duplicating research.

This is one area where we really can help each other by having a few nations forging for everyone - saving on duplication of research. And letting some of the nations with better battlemages or simply those fully engaged to concentrate on that and research for it.

For example Shin has suggested he might go in to Construction. Although he would make a good forger the nations already in construction should be able to make anything he needs. While he concentrates on battle magic for his excellent battle mages or summoning thug chassis (which again others can fit out for him). Remember it is not just the research of getting to Construction 4 but also the cost of having several mages dedicated to forging when a nation like Shin currently is doing a lot of fighting (and therefore could do with some mages on the front lines) and has excellent summons (who also cost a lot of mage time and research).

Currently we have Ulm heavily in to forging. This is good He is our most efficent forger apart from any Forge Lords we have (do we have any?). Basically if one of his smiths can forge it he should do so rather than someone else. If Caelum has already gone in to Construction he also has a forge bonus unit, but with very limited magic (Just Water I think).

We should establish who has decent Construction research already and what paths they have. What paths do the Ulm smiths have? And the other forging nations? And if there are any paths or useful joint paths we are missing which might mean that we need another forger nation.

Bandar - without boosters - has Astral 4, Nature 3, Water 1 & Earth 1 with joint paths of all except Water & Earth. Plus his Pretender with Earth 9, Blood 2 and a couple of other path 1s. Mages and if necessary the Pretender are available for forging.

Jotunheim - without boosters - has Blood 3, Water 2, death & nature at 1. But only Construction 2 and unlikely to research further in it now....

We should also establish what gem types we have a lot of compared to what we have little of. Many items have alternatives using other gem types so this is important. A classic example would be shields. You can get crowd control shields out of several gem types.

Neither Jotunheim or Bandar has significant income and most of Jotunheims will go with the Capital in a turn or two But Jotunheim has a stock of Death gems and Bandar has a small Nature and Astral income and a fair stash of astral pearls (being saved mostly for later summons).

We appear to be short of air gems as a team. Anything else we are short of? Also anything we have a lot of income wise? We are spending 50 nature gems to empower one guy to be able to cast Rain of Toads once a turn. So I assume we have plenty of spare nature gems Anything else?

Hoplosternum, thanks for the summary. I admit I don't have a good global feel for the game yet. Shinuyama is a good forging nation, but indeed, it is also good at summoning and evoking. Ashdod seems to be hurting at the moment, I hope that together Pythium and I can enhance that feeling, so I'm diverting some resources from warfare to building up my gem economy. I'm not researching construction for next turn (I'm moving mages forward into combat and devoting them to site-searching spells), instead picking up thaumaturgy 2. However, after that, if you don't want me to go construction, please tell me so I can start running up enchantment, evocation, or conjuration.

In terms of items, I really need 2 kinds of things right now: boosters for site-searching and evokers, and eyes of aiming for evokers. Basically, I'm not using particularly high-precision spells and it's nice to not land my AoEs on my own troops, so eyes are a great help. For site-searching, the best way to do nature sites is to equip some ubas with thistle maces and cast haruspex; the other thing I would like to do is gear up two 2F2W2E2D bakemono sorcerers with a skull staff, fire helm/skull face, robe of the sea, earth boots, and water bracelet/blood stone/fire skull, then send them out to search the land. Eventually, I will be able to forge almost all those things myself, but if I am not to go construction I will need someone else to get them for me. For the evokers, the best boosters are water bracelets, because that way I can start using acid rain instead of rusting mist to put the hurt on Ashdod, but I can put to immediate use in combat any water/fire/earth/death booster, in addition to their utility in site-searching. I haven't faced any serious attempts to go after my mages yet, but I suspect that is only a matter of time so a longer-term need will be protective gear for my mages and thugs, when anyone can spare stuff to get them. I don't have many gems right now, so any contributions are appreciated though of course not expected.

Hoplosternum, that's a damn good post. Hope we all read it and pay attention.

I too was kind of curious about the 50 N gems to empower an Abysian. Pangaea, can't you cast that spell on your own with sufficient research? Or do you require far off Blood boosters to get there, and this is just the fastest way to get the spell into play? Anyhow, I hope you and Abysia are PMing fully on this one (he's going to empower a B3 guy, right?).

Ulm does have a lot of forging duties, but his scope is limited. His Smiths with a forging bonus have F1E2 native, plus only a 10% chance of another A1, F1, or S1, and another 10% chance of E1. He's got the lucky E3 guy, and a lucky S1 guy (who should probably be spending his time casting Arcane Probing until he gets another lucky S1 guy, or finds some Astral indies). The E3 guy seems to be banging out hammers, but he's only one guy, and to get other Smiths to forge hammers, he needs to forge them Earth Boots first - all in all, a slow and expensive progression, although eventually, I'd like to see him throwing out hammers like crack to a baby I'm sure he could use all the spare E gems we have.

Also, Ulm is fighting. He's got a big empire, engaged heavily (especially with Eriu?), and he's been crying out for research boosters. Yeah, our Air income seems weak (Arco had Obscuro for a while, not sure what he found, my own castings of Auspex haven't come up with anything yet , and I don't know what anyone else has got going), Lightless Lanterns are Con-6 (and do we want Abysia or Machaka to go for that now? maybe, I don't know), so he'd really like Skull Mentors. But who can forge them? Do they have Hammers (Mentors are expensive)? Do we have the Death gems (I'm getting 3 a turn now - who can use them best? who can use them to forge Mentors?)?

Yes, Shinuyama certainly has to maintain an immediate presence on the battlefield, but we do eventually need their forging capabilities. I've been asking about Penetration items - well, Shinu can forge the best of them, the Rune Smasher (F2W2 I believe), so they of course should take care of whatever combat magic they need, but not neglect Construction too much (other things, like Elemental Staves, are well within their capability, with the necessary research and boosters).

Also, Caelum indeed has a W1 mage with a forge bonus. With boosters, that means things up to W3 can be forged with a bonus. But they seem hard pressed by Vanheim at the moment. Perhaps we'd best be sending our W gems to Shinuyam, and maybe Agartha, for casting Tiamat?

Regarding Tiamat, and other remote searching spells, I think we need to be doing our best to search for everything possible! We've been pretty good about handing out Thistle Maces so more folks can search for N sites. In the not too distant future, I will want to start summoning Angles, and will need Astral gems in huge numbers - has everyone done all they can to get going there? Conquered any Lizard Tribe shamans you've forgotten about? Well, if so, you need to build a temple and a lab there now - if you have them, I will gladly give you the gold to build the necessary infrastructure, but also the shamans, and give you the gems to start casting Arcane Probing.

I think we all need to look into ways to get everyone to start site searching as much as possible - if you're short of a booster and some starter gems, that's easy enough for your teammates to handle.

I don't know if the game will go on long enough to think of empowering a lot (especially in Astral and Death, the easiest paths to site search in), but we may want to keep it in mind, if we wind up awash in gems at some point.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts on the subject

I can sitesearch astral(have been doing so for awhile), water (If I had any gems), fire(again, gems) nature(if I had a thistle mace) and earth (am doing some atm).

I do currently have some income, though its lower than it will be next turn when I take a few provinces back.(I do have a small death income)

Regarding construction: I'm about to sink everything into it until I hit level 8. Anything WSDN will be within my grasp.

Regarding Site Seraching: I should have thought of this earlier, but that Gateway currently held by Machaka makes Acashic Record the BEST means of Searching available - of course, I don't think you can use it on enemy provinces, can you?

I have a few death gems left, but I've been using them to summon Bane Lords... should I delay thug production and switch back to mentors for Ulm?

melnorjr wrote:I can sitesearch astral(have been doing so for awhile), water (If I had any gems), fire(again, gems) nature(if I had a thistle mace) and earth (am doing some atm).

I do currently have some income, though its lower than it will be next turn when I take a few provinces back.(I do have a small death income)

melnorjr, I'll send you my 2F gem a month income. And as soon as I have any luck on my end with Water searching, I can send you those as well. But I see Viccio or someone in another thread had a lot of Water gems available - maybe you can PM them for some starting income?