V9: Chapter 1

…

Manipulating the AI into doing what you want is easy, even on the most unfair difficult setting.

Set yourself up nicely, win fights, and don’t fuck up.

There you go.

The problem is that there’s more than one AI.

Do all of that and you basically get to enjoy getting every enemy faction allying with one another and cutting you down to just your starting region.

Dataminers on the forums could get more into the specifics, but the general theme is that the enemy AI looks at what you have on the board, but doesn’t react to your ‘hand.’ Having resources in the bank or higher stats for your cities doesn’t count. The enemy looks at your assets. The number of tile improvements you have, the number of buildings, and how many armies that you have. Naturally, the AI needs to research the right techs and scout, before they can act on that information.

So, playing against the game in the highest difficulty setting i.e. non-bitch mode, requires knowing the game like the back of one’s hand, being able to mitigate any bad events that occur, and knowing when to capitalize on an advantage with overwhelming force.

Play enough matches, and you see the habits of the AI, how they react to what you do, and you generally start to understand their timings and strategies.

Unfortunately, when the AI decide to fight each other, everything starts getting real fucky and hard to predict. Any competent player can play out the one-v-one against an AI. The game devs, though, had fun setting up different rules for their AI to fight against one another and randomize things a lot. A normally aggressive faction will turtle and work on their economy. A diplomatic faction will start mainlining combat tech trees and pumping out units. The economists will start breaking down their tile improvements and start building up high-upkeep military defenses.

Once the AI stop interacting with each other, you look at them, and they’re nothing like you expect.

In short, the AI in the game interact and randomize each other the longer the game goes on. Couple that with the randomized nature of events after the tutorial section, the different results of the questlines each different Faction Leader has, which Champions survived or died, and things naturally get weird. No game is the same, because the circumstances with each game is different, and every faction develops differently from the start up until the finish.

That’s what makes the game fulfilling and repayable.

Every start of a new run, you’re not sure who you’ll be facing off at the end, and once you reach the end, they’ll be different from the normal faction you expect. If enough events trigger, and enough questlines pop, you might even look at a wholly different faction than you faced off at the start. Sometimes, they’ll even have a different leader, perks, and units.

It makes every run of the game different and interesting.

Unfortunately, different and interesting are both fucking horrible to deal with in reality.

…

Good news: the Children of the Elm were flocking all over and consolidating under the Goddess of Life that we’ve found. This in turn has led to a large increase in our population, and that population being surprisingly truthful and planning long-term rebellions according to our Iterant agents in their population. They were happy to just focus on helping their goddess gain power, started cultivating forests, and participating more in agriculture. All things that led to increased outputs in our forestry industry and our food industry, which allowed me to shift workforces around to other areas, since our storages would be filled in months if we kept everything the same.

The Children of the Elm were also very interested in becoming more productive members of society and interacting more with everyone. It was probably linked to the Goddess of Life. Maybe, there was some lore about them having a strong connection to her, or maybe being in her presence revived the portions of their genetics that stopped them from being genocidal maniacs. I was still going to watch them, and have the knives ready to slip just in case, but by all means it looked like the elves were going to be a significant force in the future.

By that, of course, I hoped that they’ll give actual bonuses, offer me their special units, and give me access to their technologies. As they were now, they were just people slightly better at managing and working in the agricultural centers. If I could get the massive production bonuses they get from forests, their long-range units, and maybe even their Champions, I’d say that the Goddess of Life is a good find instead of a suboptimal one.

However, as always, there’s always a negative reaction to major events like this one from the AI.

“Guess Celia pulled the trigger.” The Undead in the game were specialized towards low upkeep units and high production. Their in-game questline decides if they’ll continue fielding massive amounts of decent Undead units, or if they start fielding specialized Undead like Vampires and Liches in the late game. The Noble path or the Revolutionary path. It looked like Celia picked the latter. “That’s going to be a big problem.”

“You don’t believe she’ll be able to sway her supporters to her cause?” Khanrow was hanging around, so we had the meeting in the massive surveillance center under the Citadel. All around us, there were hundreds of Iterants interacting with the terminals of the Citadel. They were monitoring anyone outside of their homes. Most people just warranted a quick scan, to see if they’re doing fine, but some people were always watched. Scholars that were top of their fields with access to valuable information. Craftspeople that were manufacturing armor for our flying castles. That sort of thing. “So far, her changes have brought only praise.”

“Praise from the common people. After all, they’re benefiting from it immensely.” Off the top of my head, the revolutionary reforms were semi-Soviet in style. The new factories manned by skeletons and zombies output ridiculous amounts of goods and food. Many people will never have to worry about food, housing, or goods needed for daily living. The problem is that’s a massive slap to the face of the meritocracy espoused by the nobles of the Guardians of the Moon. Nobles who happened to have immense amounts of wealth, power, and influence thanks to being immortals who’ve lived for centuries and who are also the cornerstone over Celia’s monopoly over violence. “The nobility of the Guardians will recoil from it, they will demand it shut down, Celia will refuse, and there will be blood.”

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No matter what happens, no matter who wins, at least ten percent of the Guardian population will be gone before it ends.

Most players think it’s a decent price to pay for specializing into either route, but those are people playing with pixels.

Here?

Now?

History is going to be scratched out of blood-soaked pages.

“Hm. I’ll have my agents there keep an eye on things. Perhaps, you’ll be wrong for once.”

“I hope so, especially since we have our hands full with the Wardens. If something happens there, we’re not able to move.” Our resources for espionage were tied up with the Wardens. We could squeeze the treasury and get people over there to see the revolution end in our favor, but that squeeze would be on our budding war chest. We can’t afford it without shooting ourselves in the foot, therefore we can’t afford it all. “If your agent there is good, I want you to keep Celia alive. Or, at the very least, her cause.”

“Affection for your old schoolmate?”

“The ideas she’s proposing now are needed. Undead working in factories, masses of Undead taking the field, and using the hundreds and hundreds of years of corpses at our feet to our advantage? That’s something we would be grateful to have.” Khanrow’s eyes widened at my statement, as he saw the picture. In-game lore for the Undead collectivists stated that they changed the paradigm of war around necromancy completely, practically to the point where they can send a Lich with some support and establish bases that spew forth Undead nonstop at their enemies. That was a paradigm shift towards real-time strategy where only the number of corpses in a region mattered along with the energy lines in the region. Basically, a commander-style RTS, but with Undead. “At the very least, we need them to discover and encode their ideas, and maybe take in a splinter faction adherent to them. It’s basically a line of thinking that we can’t afford to ignore, because of the benefits that they offer.’

“I see. I’d want a few hundred thousand Undead swamping my foes as well. At the very least, it’ll slow them down while we get big enough guns on them.” Khanrow agreed, and pretty much outlined one of the best strategies to use with such a force. Swamp the enemy with shitty, but free units, then pour artillery on the enemy. Sure, it’ll get rid of some of your own troops, but why would that matter when you can just keep pulling up more remains from the ground and shunting them towards the enemy? The only way to stop it is with incredible micro, target fire with artillery, or some air units if the enemy doesn’t have defenses or their own air units. “Right. I’ll get that assignment figured out.”

I gave the guy a nod, before moving onto the next move we were set to make.

Sending an expedition out into the ocean, since we had a greater chance of finding the War Goddess floating around there than over here.

And, honestly, any of the Ancient Wonders from the seas will be a great help in keeping our coastal regions secure against the squids.

Man, I hoped that the Forgers were dealing with the early events of those guys.

Otherwise, they’re going to get everyone killed by giving the squids a population boom.

…

Interlude: Grimnar

…

The village stank of rotten fish and corpses with burst torsos.

“We’re too late. This place is lost. Set it aflame.” I dedicated my life to hunting these creatures after my failure to save the Trueborn. My betters understood my method of penance. They took from me my luxuries and gave me a cell and cot and fed me nutrients. Outside of my work, I only trained to kill more of the creatures, and at work I furthered the cause to kill them. Now, I led the foremost organization dedicated to killing the creatures. We pursued them outside the tunnels now, having routed them from our home. “If there are any survivors, have them be seen by physicians. Guarded physicians.”

“We should not waste time.” Henrick growled. He was born for war and conflict. He stood nearly as tall as a descendant by was as wide as Trueborn. He gave his body and mind over to our people after learning his genetic inferiority. He could no longer father children with his enhancements, and his life will be only a decade or two longer, but it was a small price to pay. He can give his all to the Trueborn. “Any alive no longer have minds of their own. They are infiltrators.”

“It is likely, but there are some who could have hid and escaped their powers. This size of an attack means that there is a hive in the region. Even a faint direction will be of use.” Henrick gave a guttural grunt at my words. His visage and body were entirely encased in armor. The hissing of pipes and valves informed me that the machines keeping him alive were at work. The pain must have been immense, but he bore it all for the Trueborn. The pain relievers he was given would rob him of combat potential, so he did not use them. Only for rest and sleep. “Loretta, have you found a trace?”

Loretta was carried on a palanquin by re-educated undesirables clad in black. They had no tongues, and their ability to reproduce taken from them. Their eyes were glassy and bereft of will. Two had fresh scars beneath their eyes signifying that their induction was recent. There were many such flesh golems now. There were many who tried to betray the nation and flee to other lands. Cowards and traitors all. That their flesh could provide some penance was a mercy that they did not deserve.

Loretta was confined in a great machine held by the flesh golems. Like Henrick, she gave her body to the Trueborn. Her machine was meant to replace the use of a staff and artifact. Her visage was lovingly crafted onto the vessel. That of a beautiful Trueborn, stoic, and passionate with a vengeful glare. It was the only face the she will have after being sealed in her machine. The machine hummed as it collected magic from the air and gave her far more power than any mortal could. Her magic was strong and sent a tingling sensation across the surface of my skin, despite my defenses. It was sent from her and probably reached the horizon.

There was a moment, then through magic script she spoke to us from where she rested forevermore.

Few were as valiant as her, willing to give everything to the harvesters, until naught but a head remained and kept alive by magic to remain in service.

I read her report and relayed it to the others.

“Loretta has found none in this area, but be aware that some may be hidden.” They could burrow swiftly into the ground and wait in there for weeks without movement. They barely needed to breathe and think while comatose, but still their tendrils could detect while covered in dirt and ground. If someone got too close, if they entered the range of the abomination that dared use even Trueborn as hosts for their eggs, they would be swiftly killed and used by the creature to further its own ends. “Henrick, I want you on patrol. Keep an eye out for any survivors. Trust your nose.”

“Very well.” Henrick’s voice was guttural and his gait heavy, but he moved forward into the destroyed town. In each hand, he carried sheathed great axes whose metal surfaces were coated with metals that emitted invisible rays. Cuts by his weapons ensured death even against people with strong regenerative properties, such as our foes. His toughened hide and organs and armor protected him, but few could fight in his presence. He was a solitary figure, fighting alone, for the Trueborn. He had my utmost respect. “I will find these creatures and kill them.”

He moved forward while Loretta stayed close to continue passively providing scanning the region.

More and more attacks were being aimed at our Resource Extraction Hubs by the creatures, targeting the servile populations of mortals who acknowledged the might of the Trueborn.

Though these people were not Trueborn, they were above me, Loretta, and Henrick.

They were allowed to have children, multiply, and serve the Trueborn by working at these Resource Extraction Hubs.

They deserved our protection, even if was at the cost of our own lives.