Day 43
MDef NW 12 Shaft
image [https://imgur.com/BZFjLdm.jpg]
MDef NW 12 Magma Reservoir
image [https://imgur.com/euxYdZj.jpg]
Mountain 1 surface
image [https://imgur.com/fQI3onp.jpg]
Lake report:
100% of shore claimed to nine spaces and planted with grass. 91% of shore claimed out to ten spaces and planted with grass. 20,319 total shore spaces.
100% of water-side shore claimed to nineteen spaces deep. 68% claimed to twenty spaces deep. 33926 total underwater spaces, 9285 with grass (30% of lake floor claimed)
status Day 43, Size: 73,880, core 42, One hundred twelve upgrades available
Mana: 23,908/36,940, Water: 9485, Ice: 753 Fire: 0 Lava: 187
Ah, the Roc has spawned. Now I just need to wait for first color change and I can see how effective it is against the invaders. If fifty giant eagles did some damage, I can’t wait to see what fifty giant eagles backed by a Roc can do.
Intruder Detected Intruder Detected Intruder Detected Intruder Detected Intruder Detected
Wait, what?
My eagles!
They are killing my fire and acid eagles in the nest!
How do they even have the people to do that?!
They have depopulated and de-nested MDEF NW 8-13.
They also pulled up all of my fire grass. That is going to get expensive if I do not plant more in some of my MTravel areas. They do not seem willing to enter my acid areas however, so at least there is that.
And now they are starting to dig at MDef NW 13, with the lava shunt in place and everything.
So why do I feel the need to present them with a chest?
I do *not* want to reward or help them, no matter how clever and effective they are being!
Well, if they are going to dig at two sites, I can put that magma shield at the second site as well. Oh, nice, I have enough lava mana being generated by the first one to fill the second one without paying the higher cost of converting to a higher level element.
If they are attacking two, they will no doubt try to attack to others, so I think I need some local defenses in my defensive sites. Perhaps some giant elemental wolves supported by bat scouts to alert of incoming invaders? I will want to wait for first color change so I can make sure they are not destroyed immediately, but that seems like a good start, along with putting back my destroyed eagle nests.
Which was very clever, even if it is inconvenient, so I should - No! I do not need to reward them for that!
Hmm, when I try to add giant wolves to a spawner, it wants to become Dire wolves instead. How about giant dire wolves? Those work, but need bigger dens for spawning. I can do that.
Ok, apparently a giant dire wolf is as big as a giant shark, but with legs instead of fins. For a defender that is not expected to be seen by anyone not already near the elemental grasses and eagles, that does not feel overly exposing. I did need to expand the elemental area to avoid replacing grass, so I should probably expand the claimed area as well. No sense making it easy to attack my defenders from outside my domain after all.
Now that my defenses are fortified, let me see if the Roc can chase off these invaders.
They seem to have the barrier back up, and also have one in place at the MDef NW13.
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They are not even bothering to try to drive off the Eagles at long range. Possibly because they have every single one of the invaders under the barrier, and with that lava shunt in place, I cannot even throw lava at it to bring it down again.
Hmm, Eagle claw strikes do nothing but draw fire from inside the barrier, so that does not seem to be effective, not unless I want a lot more spawners at least.
The Roc does not seem to want to take orders the same way the Eagles do. Perhaps that is what is meant by being a legendary creature? It is willing to take an attack run against the shield however.
That… was not nearly as effective as I was hoping. Sure the Roc tore a sizable hole in the shield, but it also took a lot of hits from inside the shield to do so, and they fixed up the hole very quickly. I ask the Roc to make another run against the shield, but it just ignores me and tends to its injuries.
I hope it is willing to take a more active role in defense should Mountain 1 come under attack, but I suppose it just does not see much point in getting roasted for no lasting gains.
Ah, the first swift has returned with a good spot for MTravel 14, so I’ll establish that so that the swift locating the next step can get back faster. Not as tall as I would prefer and less than a hundred miles, but still a lot better than tower jumps.
Intruder detected
Oh, more core killers? Apparently not, just some interlopers at MTravel 7. Not sure what they are looking for, it is just the highest place in the area. They do not seem too keen on the fire aspected area, but they are excited about something.
Are they going to harvest my grass? I hope not, but if they do, I’ll just switch to fire trees for that step.
Found a spot for MTravel 15. Still less than a hundred miles and not very high up, this could take a while if things keep getting closer and shorter.
Intruder detected
Oh, the MTravel 7 invaders are back, or at least one of them. They seem to have resistance to the fire region now, and are pulling up firegrass.
You know, if fire protection is so readily available, then giving an item like that as their reward would be both fitting and all but useless. It would also stop those annoying intrusive thoughts.
Putting thought into action, I put the chest next to the pile of extracted stone in MDef 13.
They do not trust it, of course, but they do take the eagle-winged helm of fire resistance. It does *not* protect against lava, but they already seem to have a way to deal with fire, so it should not be much of a help in their efforts to destroy me.
Scouting Report
North and west of MTravel 15 is mostly flat with various groups of structures. 110 miles northwest of MTravel 15 is a body of water that is more than 100 miles wide, but is only 20 miles across in the narrowest area. There is an elevated area on the far side of the water that should be targetable from the near side of the water with a tower of reasonable size.
The far side of the water is also mostly flat for the 60 miles between the water and the target.
The scouting party consisted of two giant fire eagles and three fire swifts.
All scouts returned safely.
Well that is really unfortunate.
There is still some time though, I could send a swift to go and find the places on either side of that water where I can cross it, then I just need to build some towers and take lots and lots of steps.
Actually, could a stone tower be taller with less reinforcement than an earth tower? That could change the most cost-effective tower height for stepping across a large area. I’ll need to check that out after second color change and whatever Extra-Mana-Perception that my birds and the invaders seem to be using becomes less useful. I will still need to be wary of the bat-like EMP, but that seems to have a much more limited range, and I can at least detect that something is happening if I watch for it.
Fortunately, it looks like the digging operation at MDef NW13 is not going any faster than the one at MDef NW12, so I will have lots of time to tweak the defenses should the magma reservoir not prove to be an effective defense.
Oh, nice, Rock can stand five floors tall before it needs reinforcement from the sides to keep it stable. That is almost twice as tall as the dirt. Harder for invaders to dig through, stronger and more stable supports, taller towers; I am starting to wonder if there is any real reason to use dirt instead of stone. Perhaps a floor of dirt is less remarkable for an invader to notice than a well formed stone floor? Even that is a bit of an edge-case.
If I am going to have a trail of steps instead of jumping from hilltop to hill top, I think I should go back to water and ice water. It is not as effective as lava and fire, but it also seems to be less obvious, as the invaders seem mostly to have gone after the fire and acid more than the ice and water. I guess I should also forgo the eagles and elemental swifts. I am sure Common Swifts are much less notable than elemental swifts after all.
First I set up Travel 1 as far as I can reach from MTravel 15, then I need to start making tower steps. Travel 11 gets me to the place I need to be to (hopefully) cross the water, Build a fresh tower, place the targeting core, and, yep, I can reach the area where the scouting swift landed. Now I am just six hops away from the core-killer nest. I can make the first five of those hops tonight, but I want swifts to scout out a good place to place a core near the nest, so I can be well concealed as I prepare to collapse the whole thing into a deep chasm filled with deadly environments. I may not be able to tear apart a nest like they demonstrated on my eagle nests, but I can make it fall into a toxic pit and then destroy everything that survived the fall…
I think I will want to have some Giant dire wolf dens on the sides of the pit I dig under their nest, just to make sure nothing can escape. Hm, might want to observe them for a it to see if and when they would all be in the nest before I actually destroy it. I would not want to get bit by the core hunters using their hammer against my sub-core just because I had nothing to use against them if the initial trap was in sufficient.
And that leaves me with just over seven thousand mana, a thousand to hold in reserve, six thousand to plant four thousand more grass around my lake, and then use my water mana to claim another sixteen percent of the lake floor.
There, now all I need to do is wait and watch as they dig the last couple levels to the magma reservoir shortly after the day change.