Let's play Sacrifice (Completed)

[Jaedar]

Aww, are we locked with James forever now? That makes me sad.

 

[Excommunicator]

He can do another LP when this one is done considering how different a play through can be

K spekk.

 

[spekkio]

Aww, are we locked with James forever now? That makes me sad.

Do not underestimate the power of the Dark Side...

 

[spekkio]

Helios <--- Link

You have done everything in your power to prevent anyone from stopping the rise of Marduk and you call others shortshighted?

Marduk, ha! If James has won you over with that bit of fiction, then you are an even greater fool than I thought.

Yup, we're against two enemy wizards this time...

An enemy gnome shows up!

Why not?

Magni-what?

Oh, that...

Ed creates first manalith and some creatures

Destroys Sorcha's manalith (she didn't mind) and continues to a mana fountain nearby. There are some enemy peasants there:

They're not hostile, but Ed's creatures attack them... Well, war is hell, people!

Sorcha shows up, but doesn't attack

We move to another manalith. This one is guarded:

Luckily for us, our Boulderdashes have bigger range than enemy Bombards. If we keep safe distance, that is...

After some casualties on enemy side, we rush in and finish remaining guardians off

Our sac-doctors at work, Sorcha's altar in the background:

Why haven't she attacked us yet? Let's pay her a visit:

Our expanded army destroys the guardians

Ed creates a temple to make converting faster

We start desecrating Sorcha's altar, she destroys one of our manaliths

Ed takes Gammel with him and they pwn Sorcha on their own

You can see Sorcha's Warmonger dying after his mistress was banished. Anyway:

That was fucking pathetic! Last time killing her took me a couple of hours and a cup full of RAGE!
Ed harvests all souls and goes back to his units

His army destroys another manalith

And expands even more. It's time to take out these Magnifryer thingies

I mean, how dangerous can they be?

Ed reaches the base of 1st fryer and creates two Frostwolves who destroy it

"Rushing it with lesser creatures" is bullshit IMO.
The best tactic is to use only Ed, who should use "Speed Up" and "Shield" to reach the base of the device and create some units to destroy it.
Buta shows up:

Ed picks up souls of all fallen creatures (7 Giants, 2 Manahoars, 1 Auto-regen Bug, 2 Frostwolves and even some Boulderdashes - poor bastards moved too close)

He gets fried in the end, but resurrects in no time.
Buta decides to pay us a visit. He destroys one of the manaliths and moves close to Ed's altar.

I would normally wait for Boulderdahses to move close and rape him from a distance, but since our sac-doctors decided to go to the altar with enemy souls (it's probably closer than the temple) I decided to intervene

He goes down much faster than last time. Since he died away from his manaliths and we killed all his manahoars, he has to go back all the way to his nearest manalith to resurrect. That means - more souls!

He tries to attack one of our manaliths, but we teleport there and pwn him

One of our sac-doctors working in hazardous conditions:

It's time to destroy all remaining magnifryers

Ed reaches them first (speed-up + shield). Buta's altar and two manaliths in the background:

Where are our units?

Luckily for them, there are only two fryers left. We destroy them both:

Buta tries to steal some of Ed's souls, but he gets owned by our snipers and Ed himself

Ed rushes after enemy sac-doctor

And chases him away

Our Storm Giant comes back to life (with 1/2 of HP).
It's time to attack Buta's altar:

Ultimate? What does it mean?
We destroy one of his manaliths on the way there:

His main problem is the lack of souls - he probably spent most of them on guardians, so he doesn't have enough left to actually create an army.
What a n00b!

On the other hand, his line of defense looks respectable:

Oh well, we should be fine. Let's simply rush him!

Fuck! Bastard has his "ultimate" creatures at his disposal?

Our melee units could do shit against a Phoenix
Even our snipers were unable to kill him!

Ed moves to nearby manalith to resurrect. When he goes back, all of his units are dead (and Buta started building an army using souls of his dead guardians)

Let's try again... (Loading Time).
This time we should make it slow. Our snipers kill all units that tried to rush us and keep Buta from re-taking their souls.

I don't understand why he's so passive - he should use speed up and shield to harvest souls...
Well, if he's so shy, we should take them:

Remember kids - always pick up all souls from the battlefield!
Here you can see our sac-doctor with some big catch (a Warmonger)

Another sac-doctor working in life-threatening conditions (As you can see Ed casted Wall of Spikes on enemies, which did jack shit):

After a while Ed decides to finish the Phoenix off

It takes a long goddamn time to convert such bastard, but it's worth it (5 souls). One of our sac-doctors with the biggest catch possible:

Buta's final manalith is guarded by Bomabards. Thanks to their range, they are as dangerous as the Phoenix was.

Let's concentrate on desecrating. This altar looks indeed... different:

Our giants and snipers do their job after a while

Victory at sea!

Gods can be slain?

"My actions had not gone unnoticed"

I can see you're a decent fellow.

The Chasm Widens <--- Link

Well, that learns Pyro, all right.

I shall send Rangers to scry for Marduk in Pyro's lands.

You probably noticed:

Where's your POWER now, bitch?

At this point, other gods won't speak to Ed at all. He can only continue his work for James:

"She is certainly not"

Also, he might know something more that'll help us out.

Let's see what did we miss...

Most gods get a rain spell here (like Persephone's Rain of Frogs from level five), which are good for damaging areas or keeping enemies from moving through an area. Also note that these rain spells' projectiles will aim for any units or buildings in their target zone.

Persephone

New creature:

Ent

Ent (4 Souls): A large quadruped that looks kind-of like a spider, the ent is Persephone's heavy-hitter. Perhaps the best thing about the ent is its special ability, called "Protector". Protector puts a Life Shield (see Druid and Shrike) around the ent and every friendly creature nearby. Lowers enemy damage by a large amount.

New spell:

Vinewall

A wall of vines sprouts from the ground perpendicular to the direction the wizard is facing, centered on the target. Any enemies walking into the Vinewall will be grabbed by vines, just like the Grasping Vines spell. This is the only wall spell that has friend or foe differentiation.

James

New creature:

Jabberocky

Jabberocky (4 Souls): These creatures have a similar model to the ent, but more elephant-like, with the head and trunk of an elephant. The Jabberocky is really slow, so if you're going somewhere you can't teleport to, plan accordingly. "Quake" is the Jaberrocky's special ability, which creates a shockwave around them, damaging enemies and knocking them down.

New spell:

Bombardment

For this rain spell, huge boulders fly out of the ground from all around the wizard for a long time, flying very high, then crashing down on the area. The boulders knock the ground down a bit if they don't hit a unit or building.

Stratos

New creature:

Yeti

Yeti (4 Souls): Sharing a similar model to the netherfiend, yetis are Stratos' heavy-hitter. Unlike the other heavy-hitters, yetis have no special abilities, instead having a couple innate abilities. First, they have the same innate ability as the storm giant (see Storm Giant) regarding getting hit with lightning. Second, when the yeti attacks, there is around a fifty percent chance that the target will be frozen (just like the freeze spell), as well as taking the regular massive damage.

New spell:

Fence

A late wall spell, this spell causes little bubbles to float above the ground in a line perpendicular to the direction the wizard is facing, centered on the target. These bubbles shoot lightning between each other periodically, and if any unit gets to close, they will get zapped by electricity for good damage.

Pyro

New creature:

Warmonger

Warmonger (4 Souls): Prancing about on tentacle-like legs, warmongers carry shoulder-mounted machine guns with a fuse. At short to medium range, these guns mow down enemy units. "Firewalk" is the warmonger's special ability. Firewalk allows the warmonger to teleport to the target destination, which takes very little time (their progress is shown by a line of fire moving along the ground). Firewalk is good for retreating and getting to ranged units.

New spell:

Rain of Fire

Another rain spell, rain of fire creates a cloud above the target area that rains down fireballs on the area. Note that these fireballs do a small area of damage.

Charnel

New creature:

Styx

Styx (4 Souls): Like the warmongers, the styx sport a fused gun on their shoulders. The gun of the styx shoots an exploding projectile that leaves a trail in the air. The range is about the same short to medium range as a warmonger, but the explosion does area damage. Styx have a special ability called "Rend Soul" that targets a blue souls and shoots it, causing the soul to explode. This soul explosion deals massive damage to anything in an area around it, and the soul is gone forever. The more souls in the group (2-Soul creature, etc.) the bigger the area and the greater the damage.

New spell:

Plague

A rain spell that drops plague-ridden blood, which causes damage over time.

Alright, let's go!

 

[Jaedar]

A few notes. The Ai generally doesn't guardian units, it starts with them. Probably so they can have an advantage, but not a movable army that outnumbers yours by 5:1. It gets frickin annoying later, when their "final" manalith is guardianed by almost 30 souls.

And later, there's a manalith guarded by at least 20 souls(and high tier units to) worth of units which is a frickin pain to bring down.

And on wall of spikes: It is actually quite good. You can walk through the spikes, but if you do a spike comes up from the ground to surprise buttrape you after which you suffer reduced movement speed.

Oh and Boons don't stack so +15% health twice is meaningless That's it for this edition of Jaedar's happy phuntime hour.

 

[lightbane]

Such an awesome game, unfortunately, the end is near. Also, a protip: You don't need to kill all of the guardian creatures to destroy a protected manalith, instead, target the building directly (prefrably with artillery if possible), the creatures will die as they absorb the damage the manalith was supposed to suffer.

 

[Erebus]

I really like the designs of the creatures and characters in this game. Very imaginative.

Kind of strange that we can't work with 'phone or Stratos anymore, considering they appeared to be allied with James so far.

 

[Excommunicator]

Ah you missed out on Styx and Warmonger. They are some of the most fun units to use.

At least you have all the big stuff still to come

James' big unit is totally overpowered and for cheaters

 

[Azira]

James' big unit is totally overpowered and for cheaters

 

[spekkio]

A few notes. The Ai generally doesn't guardian units, it starts with them. Probably so they can have an advantage, but not a movable army that outnumbers yours by 5:1. It gets frickin annoying later, when their "final" manalith is guardianed by almost 30 souls.
And later, there's a manalith guarded by at least 20 souls(and high tier units to) worth of units which is a frickin pain to bring down.

I'll demonstrate how to deal with such things in next update...

And on wall of spikes: It is actually quite good. You can walk through the spikes, but if you do a spike comes up from the ground to surprise buttrape you after which you suffer reduced movement speed.

I know, I just wanted to cast it to show people how it looks. It's gonna be super-effective in final missions.

Oh and Boons don't stack so +15% health twice is meaningless

I didn't know that.

You don't need to kill all of the guardian creatures to destroy a protected manalith, instead, target the building directly (prefrably with artillery if possible), the creatures will die as they absorb the damage the manalith was supposed to suffer.

Yeah, I know. Most of the time I order one group of creatures to target guardians and other group to target manalith itself.

Also: did any of you play the game in MP back in the day? Shit was p. cash I think (not that I did). I know there's still an active MP community, but I think they will pwn a n00b without mercy...

 

[spekkio]

Crossroads of Abaddon <--- Link

"Old man?"

How will we find him?

Zyzyx introduces a Jabberocky

Seerix attacks right away

Ed doesn't have many souls available, so defending the altar and harvesting some enemy souls should be priority.
A single Sylph can do wonders sometimes. Especially as a guardian:

A combination of good units, a guardian and a powerful wizard leads to our victory

Seerix decided to leave her souls for Ed to harvest

She attacks again (this time she created some Abominations)

Loses more units, withdraws

She shows up again, but is pwnd by Ed and a Jabberocky

Since the wizard is gone, Ed attacks enemy artillery. Jabberocky can be slow, but Abominations are even slower. And Ed can use Halo of Earth:

Sacrifice 101: if artillery is giving you hard time, rush motherfuckers with wizard.
Ed converts some enemy souls, sadly Seerix shows up this time and takes some of them back

Shortly after that she gets killed by our guardians (yeah, I've created a Boulderdash too)

That leaves her units at Ed's mercy:

Moar converting

Another retarded Syrix's attack: a single Abomination and two Deadeyes.
A single Halo of Earth kills them all.

Seerix gets killed by our guardians - 7 new souls coming right up!

Damn, she sucks bad in this mission.
Seerix stops her attacks (she probably doesn't have any souls left) - I think we've just won.

Her altar is pretty damn close - behind our own:

Ed waits till sac-doctors finish their work

Creates more units and attacks. The problem is - the map is huge, but mostly empty.
After some scouting, Ed finds a heavily-guarded manalith:

While waiting for his snipers and melee units to move close, Ed tests his new spell:

That's right. Ed killed 7 Styxes without loosing a single hit point.

He orders massive converting, Seerix doesn't mind (WTF is wrong with this bitch, why didn't she show up to grab her souls is beyond me):

Ed teleports back

Explores another path. Seerix is waiting close to an unguarded manalith. Ed softens her up:

Creates some Ikaruses and pwns her

He continues forward. Mithras is being held somewhere to the left:

Ed decides to attacks another heavily guarded manalith:

He orders converting. Sadly, his sac-doctors decide to pick the shortest route - close to the enemy altar:

Let's fucking end this before they drop all units bringing them back to life!

Ed is able to cast a Bombardment before enemy Abominations rape him

He loses all flying creatures and one of the Jabberockies, but his snipers murder all enemy survivors

Ed converts all possible souls

And orders a desecration - we can rescue Mithras later.

Seerix isn't even able to go back to her altar

"Banishing her was the best way to ensure a safe rescue."

"My apologies. I did not mean to make any false accusations."

Interlude - Respite <--- Link

We get another scene from the "present":

Mindfuck time!

Ed, Zyzyx and Mithras continue their journey through the post-apoc wasteland:

Mithras stops close to some Marduk's idol:

(We should excuse the blind bastard )

Oh, look at that.

The area behind the idol crumbles...

Of course.

Hold yourself blameless. It is the gods here who have pre-destined their own destruction with intolerance and suspicion.

I concede they have not been reluctant to war on one another.

You surprise me. I know you have cause to resent the gods, but what of all the innocents who have suffered?

You cannot blame yourself for speaking the truth!

The truth? The truth is we are doomed to repeat our mistakes time and time again. It is the world's only constant.

No.

As you wish.

[/mindfuck]

No Mercy <--- Link

What if he tells me you're a villain?

Don't believe anything else he has to say.

His vision's been bang on so far.

Come, come. We've all sent false visions before to further our own ends, have we not? His must come from Marduk!

Oh really now, Charnel. I'm gonna fall for that.

It's time for the "final" spells...

Level 8: At the eighth level, each god gives his/her two ultimate spells. The first spell is generally not as good as the second, and the second spell always costs more mana and has a longer cooldown time.

Persephone

New spells:

Charm

Target an enemy creature within a short range and hearts will fly out and around the creature. Soon the creature will just become yours, forever, even its soul(s) when it dies. Charm never misses, but if the creature dies before it becomes yours, then Charm fizzles.

MeanStalks

Four gigantic vines grow out of the ground and proceed to bend over, impale, and then fling way up into the air any unit within range. Each unit can only be impaled once per MeanStalks. These stalks last for a while, so you can use them as you would a rain spell, but don't squander them! Remember not to get to close to these, or you could be racking up a lot of frequent flyer miles (although the views are nice).

Mission 08:

James

New spells:

Bovine Intervention

A humongous cow (not a bull) flies out of the ground way up into the sky, and then does a swan dive onto the targeted creature. This diving cow never misses, and causes a shockwave when it hits the ground, knocking down nearby units.

Bore

A boulder just like the "mole" from Soul Mole spirals outward from the targeted ground, leaving a black line in its wake. About a ring inwards from the mole the ground starts falling away until it makes it all the way out to where the mole stopped. A short while after the ground have finished falling, it will reappear from the inside at roughly the same speed. Any units on ground that is falling away will die and their souls will be just like flying units shot down over empty space. Flying units will not fall unless killed. Wizards who fall will appear at their altar, and will not be killed even if they are being desecrated.

Mission 08:

Stratos

New spells:

Cloudkill

Close to a rain spell, Cloudkill creates a little cloud that shoots lightning at all within range for a lot of damage. Units and buildings can be hit multiple times from the same Cloudkill. If you target a building or the ground, the cloud will remain stationary. If you target an unit, the cloud will slowly follow that unit.

Tornado

A huge tornado comes down from the heavens and whirls all units that get close to it around its edges in an upward spiral. The tornado moves, so units can fall out before the spell is over. Units take a good amount of damage when they hit the ground, and can fly over edges.

Mission 08:

Pyro

New spells:

Blind Rage

Target a unit, and a red hand will seek it out and explode in concentric red circles when it reaches the target. Anything within the outermost circle (except for wizards) becomes berserked and attacks the nearest unit (friend or foe) with hand-to-hand attacks. Blind Rage is the only way to see many ranged and flying unit's melee attacks. Berserked manahoars have no attack, but don't listen to orders.

Volcano

Easily the most destructive spell in the game, Volcano creates a volcano that makes the ground swell until it explodes. The volcano then proceeds to spew a huge stream of lava into the air for about a minute. Anything in or near that stream takes huge amounts of damage and will be lucky to get out alive. Fireballs also fly out of the stream of lava, firing in a very large radius and targeting any unit or building.

Mission 08:

Charnel

New spells:

Intestinal Vaporization

This Charnel spell causes a pulsing mass of intestines to fly at the targeted creature. Once the mass reaches its target, little intestines orbit the creature as it grows more and more bloated until it explodes.

Death

You summon Death, a large cloaked figure with bloody blades for hands. Death will go for the nearest creature and kill them with one swipe no matter how much health the creature has. Death lasts for a large number of killed creatures (not sure how many) or a long amount of time, whichever comes first. Make sure Death doesn't turn on you.

Mission 08:

Alright. We have a choice this time (at last!).

Somebody is going to die in next mission. But who?

Should we choose James and attack Charnel, or maybe we should pick up Charnel and go after Persephone?

The Worm

or The Great Butcher

DISCUSS!

 

[Ulminati]

Two words: Bovine Intervention

 

[ghostdog]

Side with Charnel

 

[Erebus]

I would have been ready to switch to Tits or to Airhead, but not to Charnel. Let's stay with James.

Besides, Bovine Intervention sounds awesome.

 

[lightbane]

Odd, in one of my last playthroughs I was at the same situation but Charnel refused to offer me a mission. I suppose it's because of the alignment thingy. Still, this time I'll vote for Charnel, because I did not finish the game with him. Besides, Persephone is so much of a giant whore that

Spoiler

She dies no matter what you do ingame, even if you serve her

 

[spekkio]

^ I was able to complete the game with her being alive AFAIR...

 

[silver crowaxe]

Charnel.

 

[Jaedar]

Charnel. More interesting that way. Even though his final unit sucks ass.

 

[Excommunicator]

I would say that Bore is the most destructive spell even though it doesn't take flying units simply because all ground units caught in it have their souls permanently removed from the game. Massive area too.

At this point James will play a lot easier to conclusion than Charnel

So on that basis I vote Charnel.

And don't be so sure about that Jaedar. Sucks at doing damage but let one eat a soul or two and easily the toughest unit in the game.

If I remember right you should be able to 1v1 one against any unit after eating a soul or two and it will win. Can't remember specifics though

 

[Cenobyte]

I would have been ready to switch to Tits or to Airhead, but not to Charnel. Let's stay with James.

Besides, Bovine Intervention sounds awesome.

Seconded

 

[Conkrete Knight]

I would have been ready to switch to Tits or to Airhead, but not to Charnel. Let's stay with James.

Besides, Bovine Intervention sounds awesome.

Thirded.

You do not kill The Tits.

 

[lightbane]

^ I was able to complete the game with her being alive AFAIR...

If I recall correctly,

Spoiler

The only ending where it's unclear if Miss Tits dies or not is James' one.

 

[spekkio]

^ There's a chance that we will find out.

 

[Azira]

BOVINE INTERVENTION!!!



Ahem, I vote for James.

 

[Black]

Go Charnel. Tits are for fags.