Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

MR27 can be penetrated with many castings, once I had MR30 pretender who was paralyzed in the first few rounds. The battle was interesting and probably Corwin is right that low precision from darkness played the major role in spell selection due to heavy friendly fire in test castings that are used to get spell scores. But I think it wasn't wise to script WB in first rounds because it has lower range.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I've had battles against dozens of SC's with up to 30 MR which got disintegrated by vampire spaming them.
I'm sure if they had continued casting it they would have eventually done it. Besides, the communion gave a +2 penetration and I was hoping on a numbers game, percentages.

All the soul slays they used were scripted by me I think.

You're probably right about splitting my forces. I should have moved that whole army to the fort, I kinda expected the AI would at least cast a raise something now and than to support me.
With 2x undead chaff I might have actually won it. And the damn tartarian who was supposed to AoL my army was stuck crazy.

In any case I was rather disappointed at the battle results to say the least.
Corwin, the problem with large battles and the 5 spell rule is that the first 2-3 rounds you end up buffing yourself and the troops are still out of range as you *have to place mages behind as to not get killed by attack rear or archers. Quite often so it happens that mages can't cast scripted spells due to range and you have to rely on long range spells, or, in my case now, the AI casting something that can actually kill.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Meh.Semantics.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Woah! DrP on the rebound. That was truly impressive.

And Corwin, why are you attacking my swamps? I told everyone I was just going to sit there. If you make me mad though, I will go ahead and send out the Tarts. Get your *** out of there.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

And still Sea of Ice at this time? Guess I'll have to knock it down myself. That sucks.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

So the story of the Last Legion ends, and I fear it was the last chapter of Vanheim's history. The only thing that still interests me here is if I manage to heal my rainbow crone from that stupid mute before I get crushed. SHe got it on turn 5 from desease that she got from hidden site on the first turn of sitesearch run. So there were no ember lords and other high-path stuff when I needed it..

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Dimaz, Ulm shall not last long and, in fact, may preceed you into the great beyond. The stories of your last legion have very much intrigued me (I did not get to view any of the battles), so I'm hoping that after the game is finishd (in total) you'll agree to share the files that depict some of these epic battles. :)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Heh. One should not anger DrP, Dimaz. That was a true butt-kicking.

My intel is suffering, and I can't see much that is going on these days. But, it appears that Corwin should probably win it. Ermor has the numbers now... he needs to get those battlefield breaking armies into the fray to have a chance.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Well, that was quite a story. When I have managed to prevail after brutal struggle with your forces during the invasion of your northern homeland, little I've expected that a small group of exiles in the far away south would refuse to go quietly into the night, and instead would cause so much uproar and chaos in the south, crushing an allied Tien Chi empire in the process, and dealing a stunning blow to Jotun's mighty juggernaut.

But as with all stories, it must end at some point. Empire of Pythium salutes its brave enemies.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

An update from frontlines with Ermor:

The global war with Ermor is heating up. There were two huge battles this turn with Ermor forces, in additions to dozens skirmishes across the realm.

The smaller of these two battles was a clear victory for my forces. In a pitched battle they have destroyed large Ermor's communion and about half thousand undeads, with minimal losses.

However the larger and much more important battle did not go so well for my forces. It was the most important frontline on the war, and Ermor has committed a lot of troops and resources into it, trying to break through my bottleneck castle. I knew the battle was coming, so I have committed many valuable troops and units there as well. Nevertheless, the Ermor has prevailed, they have routed my forces destroying many of them in the process.

Ermor got very lucky during that battle - for some reason my antimagic spell didn't go up as it was supposed to. That resulted in death of few of my SCs, that were going to be critical for this battle, as well as making the rest of my army much more vulnerable to the barrage of neither darts and astral spells from ermor's necromancers. I have no idea why it wasn't cast, but it was not because of ghost riders Ermor casted before the battle - in that skirmish no gems were spent by my forces. With that spell the outcome of the battle would be much better for my troops. Oh well... ;(

Anyway, ironically I have won the battle, technically, thanks to few paralyzed and regenerating SCs who would refuse to die despite being surrounded by the sea of undeads and few SCs. Ermor had to retreat. They have also suffered losses as well, in particular all slaves of their communion were wiped out. Nevertheless I consider the battle to be a clear defeat for the Pythium Empire, my losses were significantly more severe then those of my opponent. Well played Executor.

The only good (for me) outcome of that battle is that the bottleneck border castle still stands and is in my hands.

Doubtless our dark Ermor brethren will be back next turn in even larger numbers, the tidal wave of 3000 undeads is about to crash into that castle again. I am rebuilding and preparing my defenses.

(NOTE: BTW what I see in battle replay for that huge battle does not match the outcome(my survived forces are different from what they should be according to replay). I've seen such problems with Dom3/2 several times in the past in other games. Any ideas what maybe causing it in this particular case and if there is any way to fix it? )

Also Ermor has succeeded in killing two of my fully healed and equipped tartarians outside of these armies engagements.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I need a 2 day delay, haven't even looked at the turn yet.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ok, delay has been added.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I admit, the delay is something of a relief to me, as well.

But we should end this thing in short order, yeah? Mene mene tekel upharsin, and all that.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

:) :up:

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Guys, we may have to put the game on hold for a little while. BL has stalled last two turns, and Ianuki just told me that she will not be able to continue playing do to RL issues. :( She is going to made a post "looking for a sub" for her BL nation on this board. Let's give it 4-5 days, if nobody will come forward we will switch BL to AI. How does it sound to you guys?

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

That was one mighty fine battle there Corwin, congrats on crushing that large army, I didn't think you'd have the guts to teleport on in front.
The other one went significantly better, doe not as much as I'd hoped. This is the first I've seen 2 ghost riders not trigger battlefield spells.
Regarding AM, I've had a similar thing happen to me too in this battle, one of mine battle globals was not cast either, although much less significant, I blame it on the AI.

Oh btw, nice one with the Pangaean anti MH strategy with all those scouts. Also, it seems a MH killed a some scout named Gem Carrier or something like that, was he carrying anything? :)

In any case, do we play? Do we wait for Bandar? Do we switch AI?
Lay it down for us good sir admin.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

As Prepo2 that took most of my d3 time is finally over, I can try to sub BL if nobody objects and if you still need a sub.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I think that would be a great solution Dimaz, thank you. I have no objections personally. I trust that you'll be able to rule that nation independently, without carrying over your Van diplomatic relations. And since Vans are doomed to be gone in the next few turns, and BL are on the other side of the map, I see no possible conflict of interests.
What do you guys think, are you ok with such move?

Unless there are objections from other players, Dimaz could you please contact Ianuki and get her nation password and perhaps last turb file? Once you are ready, send me your email and I'll change BL email address to yours. And thank you for your offer, it would be much better then having to set it to AI.

I'll add more time to the current turn if needed.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Maybe you just change the email to mine and request turn resend, I think it's common practice not to pass protect in PBEM?

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Thank you Executor. Yes, I have thought hard about that teleporting move. But at the end I've decided that giving my overall situation, and relatively small and weak northern army and foothold you've already gotten on our northern front, I had to take some risks because I couldn't allow a collapse or even limited breakthrough at that area if our frontlines. It worked well, pitched battle went as I've planned it.
But you have outplayed me in our central front, winning that huge battle despite all resources I've thrown into you there. I underestimated the force of your strike there, and your battlefield tactic was very good.

About gemcarrier - no, sorry, he wasnt carreying anything, but he used to - I just haven't bother to rename him. Recently he was just part of the massive scout forces I am usibg to screen my MH vulnerable targets from MH, as you have correctly guessed.

I guess you and me are about to open 4th Ermor-Pythium front, are we? ;)
Answering your question -looks like we have found a sub for BK - Dimaz, unless there is an objection. As soon as the situation is sorted out new turn will host, hopefully in the next day or so.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ok, we could try it. Send me your email in PM pls. I'll wait 24h to let any other players voice any possible objections. If there are none, I'll change email to yours and resend turn. Sounds good?

Just in case, if you could drop by in dom3 IRC (best way to reach Ianuki based upon my experience) and doublw check password thing with her, it would be great.

Again, thanks a lot for your offer Dimaz. It would be a pity to set such relatively small but very potent nation to AI, most of all at such middle-late stage of the game. And the chronicles of Van Last Legion shows how good are you in playing underdog. ;)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I object to Dimaz taking over Bandar Log. He had his chance, and he failed.

BTW, I'm out of town and out of any internet access until December 29th.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

OK then, more free time for me :)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I asked Karnoza and he seems willing to help, I PM'd his email to Corwin.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ok, I've changed BL email address to Karnoza's, let's see how it will work.

Karnoza - welcome to the Song of Ice and Fire game. Please drop by here when you'll have a chance and write a line or two introducing yourself, if you are ready to take the mantle of leadership of BL nation. And thank you for offering to sub for our game.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ok, looks like we are about to host tonight, despite delays due to BL and holidays. New BL owner's turn is in as well as other nations turns. The only missing turn is from Ermor.

Executor, do you think will you be able to make your turn before hosting? Or do you need a bit more time?

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Turn in!

The holidays haven't even started here, they last from January 1-14, and on the 15th my exams start and last about a month (two terms squished together), so I might need an extension every once in a while.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

God dammit Kurtiza! That was horrifically annoying. Please stay out of my war with Pythium.
Well Corwin, looks like BL saved your ars on the south front this turn. My plans got quite spoiled by BL's little stunt. It was sort of a continues plan, that initial wave was a suicide run.:) It worked well enough I might add, although, once again, the AI failed to cast a spell for me, riggor mortis this time.

Not a bad turn overall. Not quite what I expected but still. I don't think either of us lost anything important this turn. Oh, you beat me to the uniques, I really wanted the Scepter of Corruption.

BTW, that's what, 1,2,3,4,5... 6! fronts for me ATM. :)

Oh, Ulm, that's quite something you've got in your capital, can't wait to take a better look.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

That's Karnoza not Kuritza. Two very different people.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

What did I say? I meant Karnoza, don't even know a Kurtiza...

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Hello everybody. As a newcomer pretender god I'd like to suggest peace to each other alive pretender except Ermor who seems to be fond of undead. :)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yeap, I've seen BL going armageddon on your a*ss south of the island. ;) A bit of overkill but nicely done. :) Its a pity all your troops were undead in that battle Executor, your battlefields have always been an important source of death gem income for my nation in this game, delivered by my little ravens... :p

However I am not sure how did it save my *** in the south. Your initial undead wave that you've thrown at me this turn should not have been unaffected by BL actions farther south. And I have wiped out that wave with no real losses on my side, except transformning 100+ of my chaff wolfes into chaff soulless. Which means your important bottleneck castle would have fallen anyway, as it did this turn. Your next wave of undeads, if it will arraive, will be delayed by one turn due to BL raiding island castle this turn, but one turn doesn't really make a difference in that particular local military theater now that I've secured a bottleneck castle on our southern front.

Really? Interesting. Because I am pleased with this turn myself. I am on offensive on 4 out of 5 our fronts, and have captured two of your castles this turn.

Of course it leaves our 5th and the most important central front, where situation is very different and where you are on offesive. Frankly I am very surprised that you haven't attacked with larger force there, after you have delivered a heavy blow to my troops there last turn. The troops that you have moved forward this turn are barely able to scratch my castle's walls that are being repaired by my defenders, while you have 4500 undeads sitting next to my besieged castle, according to my scouts. But I am not complaining if you are ok with giving me time that I badly need to regroup and rebuild my defences there that you have managed to shatter last turn.

Nevertheless overall I agree with you, neither of us lost anything important this turn. And both your regenerating SCs have managed to escape after either killing number of my troops, while your 3rd SC has routed my small communion.

Yeap. :) You have beaten me to the Pocket Lich though.

Well, I hope to kick you out from the northern continent in the coming turns. If I will succeed in these efforts, it will eleminate 2 of our fronts, making things easier for you. ;)

Of course, should Jotuns decide to jump on me, as I suspect they will sometime soon, or should you manage to achieve a breakthrough on our central front, where you are pilling a tidal wave of 4.5K+ troops against my weakened defences, things could get ugly fast for my nation.

One thing for sure - next few turns are going to be very intense...

P.S. BTW can Dom3 engine handle 4K+ units in one battle?

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

The army lost in BL's lands was of no importance, I expected as much, doe I hoped he wouldn't rush in blindly, or at least try to invade former Ulms lands.

The raiding Yaksha or whatever that was is what's annoying me. That one turn set back really hurts me, and I almost lost all those mages and a Tart who retreated from the battle cause of it.
You have indeed secured that one fort, yes, however there are still 4-5 forts around that one and an immense army on the border, while you have no back up.
In any case, the suicide run achieved what is was supposed to do, I only lost half a K of useless chaff.

As for the water fort, I can't even count that as a loss, water forts represent nothing to land nations. I had hoped to kill those SC's of yours with my Tartarian, however that Troll King proved more than I could chew. I'm still not sure how he managed to almost kill the Tartarian, he did have very high defense but that shouldn't have mattered that much with the 12 attacks from the gloves, and stone bird I think?

The north does worry me a bit, but I don't think your forces are sufficient to win you that front, hopefully. :)

As for the central front, I do not need the fort to overrun your lands.
Perhaps I should have sent more troops but I couldn't risk my forces retreating due to chaff again. I wanted to be sure your SC's would get dealt with if they decided to make yet another stand.

And I like it this way, if you go in this turn you go in blind, you can't teleport on top of me, I have the first round so I'm rather confident, doe I welcome any attempt to storm, it would be much easier than for me to try and squeeze trough a bottle neck castle gate.

I guess you didn't try to make the Tartarian Chains, :(

So far you are clearly winning and have a much greater lead on me, but perhaps things can still change. ;)

I see. You are right, BL did screw your plans there. But as you said, I have no incoming reinforcements in the south, so one turn delay would not make much difference. And unfortunately 1 turn is not enough for me to break your lightly defended castles there, before your next undead wave would arrive from the south-west.

However I can and will teleport in whatever troops are needed to meet your huge approaching army, as I've been doing there for the last few turns, to replaces losses your continuous attacks have been dealing to my forces there. Without these replacements you would certainly break through on that front by now. And indirectly it contributed to your major victory on our central front last turn, since I've decided back then that my central front with all its artifacts and SCs will hold, and I've diverted some of the resources to the south. The bonecrashing blow from you there last turn has proven that I have underestimated your forces and your tactic on the central military theater.

Man, with total war such as ours it's as much about global strategy and managing various resources between multiple fronts as it is about tactics and troops. :) It can be quite time consuming but it is a lot of fun, especially against great opponent such as yourself. :)

As for our water front - I understand that you are not counting it as real loss. I would probably feel the same in your shoes.
For me however it's a important step to solidify my tentative hold on the water realm, since now I finally control my first underwater castle. (I do not have nature gems to spare to conjure it underwater like you did with dozen of your castles, not since you have overwritten my Oak global long time ago)

I can use this castle as a base for my further UW operations, or as a defensive stronghold should Sea of Ice melts and seas would be crawling once again with your hordes of undeads.

I think your tartarian with all its crazy attack would have a decent chance of killing my Sea King on 1 vs 1 battle. But he was distracted by all my other troops, and my Sea King had support of nearby Water Queen who has joined the battle a bit later, IIRC. Perhaps next time?

About central front - I understand your reasoning, it makes sense. Still I am glad I have one more turn to prepare for the tidal wave of your main army, before it breaches the walls of my castle. Trust me, I would love to make another stand under the castle walls this turn, but I simply didn't have enough troops and SCs available to meet you at the walls, your "loss" there last turn has obliterated or scattered my defenses I couldn't afford another defeat or another Pyrrhic victory, should you've decide to send forward all your legions this turn, as I thought you are very likely to do. So instead I have chosen to let you regain initiative and besiege my castle, while bringing in more troops and resources from across my realm. That tiny army of undead and mortal chaff backed by 5 tartarians and various mages that you have send forward this turn is clearly not enough to break through my nearby eastern army, especially not with all nearby flying and teleporting SCs that I have been scrambling to bring there since your last turn attack, and that will be arriving this turn. Although you are welcome to try. :)

And with castle walls barely scratched, it looks like I will have another turn there to prepare my defenses, before major showdown with your forces. (I only hope that dom3 engine will be able to handle the load of your 4-5K undeads, once you'll decide to send them forth. Will it? )

BTW your most recent communions seem to come in significantly less numbers than they have been showing in the beginning of the war. I can only hope we are approaching the bottom of the almost endless barrel from which you pulled these scary half-hundred strong communions, are we? ;) My own communions have suffered badly as well in our battles but I had less communion mages to begin with. But then again you can rebuild your communions faster since you have managed to castle your entire realm and you have shorter lines of cummunications.

Oh, and btw it was nice move intercepting some of my reinforcements by teleporting your carefully equipped tartarian on the heads of my approaching communion and their troops. Didn't think you had guts to attack it blindly, but you did and you have managed to pull it off. Fortunately no mages were lost, and almost half of them have retreated to the castle where they were heading before attack, but it was very annoying and it will certainly delay some of my reinforcements. Congratulations, well planned and executed. From now on I will make sure to protect all my magical convoys against your protected-vs-all-elements teleporting tartarians.

Oh, and damn you for suddenly deciding to raise PD on all your lands to significant level! :mad: It cost me two provinces and bunch of wolves and principles. Someone has way too much money on his hands... :)


All in all - I agree with you, I do seem to have an upper hand in this war so far. But as you've said it can certainly change and change quickly. Both gains and losses on both sides have been relatively limited so far. And the largest and tides-changing battles are yet to come.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Executor obviously does not know how to play Ermor. Heh. ,I guess I saw that when I saw his bless. Good game Corwin, and congrats on the win.

And oh yeah, I am back from holiday. I will play my turns out.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Thank you Lingchih. But as for Executor - I think he is doing very well, considering that the odds were against him from the beginning of this war. Since the beginning of hostilities I had lead on him in everything except gold income, number of castles, and armies. Ermor also has to fight 3 nations at once. (And BTW I have been secretely providing cost-free support to BL since the beginning of this game - on a limited scale, about 50 gems worth total of items that BL really needed in their defence against undead invasions, but still it must have helped)

Nevertheless despite all that Executor has managed to inflict significant damage on my forces since the beginning on the war, and he de-facto won our largest battle so far. Not to mention he has killed 4 of 5 my SCs, and I have yet to nail a single one of his. (this is partly due to him mostly using his SCs as part of the huge armies rather then as raiders, and also him being less agressive then me with their depolyment overall, but still). Finally Sea of Ice really screwed Ermor, both on our fronts and on all Ermors fronts against Ulm and BL.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yeah, I could be wrong about Executor. My intel is not great anymore. Still, I haven't seen him use the battlefield breaking thousands that Ermor should use.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Lingchih, I didn't start in this game, I took over around turn 5-10ish. And than again I was absent from about turn 25-35, so I'm not sure what to think of your remarks. I think I did reasonably good.

As for game breaking numbers, that all falls into water once you get stuck at 3 choke provinces such as I did, and can't even use the seas. I can't risk using more than 500 undead per battle to try and breach the fronts. Ermor is kind of a one trick nation, and I didn't get lucky with almost any indie mages.

Well **** me, that was a dreadful turn a? I guess you got some hurting too there Corwin, I assume that didn't go as well as you'd hoped? I got a load of your items and artifacts from the central front. Good thing I set all my units to guard commander or the results might have been far worse for me. And a fairly lousy decision to cast army of lead, but I didn't expect wrathful skies to be honest...

Who escaped btw, only the water queen or did I miss someone else?
I hate those damn things with their crazy regeneration, they are far superior to the rest of the ERoys.

I sure as hell didn't expect that crazy Tartarian landing in the back, also, why did you give an S2 Tartarian the forbidden light?

Heh, and gate stone? I guess you aren't holding back any more, when you bring it, you really bring it huh?
Not sure I can match all of that stuff...

Oh, and that damn mage of mine used up 3S gems for soul drain, not two, so the Tartarian and himself died instead of casting VoR... sigh
At least they took a fair amount of your troops and mages with them. ;)

BTW, did you really have to steel my mercs? You expected I'd storm Ulm didn't you? Luckily I forgot some gems. :p
Not sure what happened to the other mercs doe..?

Well, 11 forts under siege this turn, thank you BL and indipendants, and presumably another one about to fall in the water front...

It seems we'll have to take control over Ulm and Bandar fast, they're on the upraise.
I think I preferred the old, more peaceful BL leader. :)

P.S. Did you like my boxing gang? :) I think they're pretty awesome

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yes, Executor, I would knock out BL and Ulm as fast as you can. Gives you a fighting chance. Pyth is going to raid you... no stopping that. I would probably pull back from the eastern continent... you can't do much there now.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

The proud nation of Ulm shall never fall!

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Why specifically 500? I understand that you are probably concerned that massive casualties among your undead chaff may force your SCs/mages to rout, but I am curious how did you come up with that particular number.

Yes, that was... intense. ;)

No shi*t, I certainly got some hurting. Lost 5 SCs and several battle artifacts in the main battle on our central front. Also lost tons of mages to your tartarian ambush in another battle on the south-east front. At least I've got sob tartarian and his grand thaumaturge lackey who killed so many mages.

Good news - these 5 SCs managed to take a lot of ermor troops and mages with them to their graves. And castle walls still hold strong, while castle defenders keep teleporting in and summoning more SCs&troops. Bad news - all your anti-SC SCs have survived the battle while defeating my ambush team. And I've hoped to catch around 4-5K of your undead troops in my ambush, not 800. More bad news - I was really hoping to catch your two tartarians in that swamp province. But you have vortexed them away, damn you. :mad: In hindsight I should have concentrated on castle defense and its ambush battle rather then trying to do too many things at once.

Two words - Gate Stone. It was the only possible way for me to forge it without spending a lot of gems on empowering.

Yes, that guy knew how to party. :) Won two battles without taking a single scratch, and has cut off an important supply rout for one turn.

Of course his primary goal was to destroy your entire routed army, should I win the main battle, but alas that was not meant to be.

:D Yeah, no holding back. I've decided it is time to fire all secret guns I've been saving for the special occasion. The idea was to deliver Ermor a stunning blow that would take you a while to recover from, and to break you siege on my central castle, restoring the original border.

Instead the results were much more mixed that I have hoped, and I have lost the main battle.

I certainly hope you won't be able to. ;) But you have been very resourceful so far, and this turns you have escaped from one carefully laid ambush and broke through another.

Ah, that what has happened. Why casting soul drain in the first place? It would unlikely kill anything in 1 or 2 turns while it was in effect.

Yeap, you have guessed correctly. :) After taking a look inside Ulm's capital, courtesy to your scout last turn, I decided that I should try to relieve pressure on Ulm's capital as much as I can, to help their brave defenders. Not sure about your other merces - I've only bid on one team - air mage and his minions. Perhaps you have forgotten to renew your contract for the 2nd team? Or perhaps they just got bloody tired of you - you had these poor lizards sitting in the mud under Ulm capital's walls for like 10 turns now. ;)

Way to go Ulm and Bandar! Raise and kick undead menace from your ancients lands while they are preoccupied in the northern continent.

Heh. :smirk:

Yes, your boxing team surely has kicked royal as*s. :mad: I've lost more SCs to them this turn that I have lost total SCs since the beginning on our war. Well done.

But let's see how they will fare in round two though. I am adjusting my tactics and equipment... ;)

P.S. And how did you like my forbidden light/medusa wielding crazy tartarian? :) Of course he can't defeat a strong army by himself, but I expect he will be a real bit*ch to kill... ;)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Lol. It's really funny. You guys are fighting a war of words, and Dr. P is about to kick all your asses.

I might come back out. It's getting pretty boring just watching battles. Let's see who the highest bidder is on my forces.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

We, we are more like writing mini AARs and trading war stories rather then waging war of words. :) But you may very well be right about Dr. P - his forces are almost completely intact after all, while Ermor and I are bleeding each other dry.

It's funny how such highly magical nations like Ermor and Pythium have successfully managed to destroy most of each other battle mages since the beginning of our war. Ermor's huge scary communions seem to be the thing of the past, at least for the moment, and my own battle mages have been suffering badly. If this trend will continue for few more turns, I expect we will be reduced to mostly fighting with sticks and stones, rather then with advanced magery that we both have in our disposal. ;)

Of course Ermor still must have a large reserve of mages, since their research is still going strong. Not to mention all their mages on summoning duty, since despite huge losses of undead chaff on ermor's various fronts since the beginning of our war, ermor's army charts simply refuse to go down. :(

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I may need an extension in order to organize some armies for to die...

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I've never seen Ermor win with communions. Ermor wins with huge numbers that break the battlefield. The most I have seen/heard of, in this game, is 5000 troops, which breaks the battlefield, but not badly. Show me a 15,000 troop army, and I'll declare the game over.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ok, let me know once you will know for sure if you will indeed need it, and if so, how long, and I will abjust the timer accordingly.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ok, I've added 48h to the current timer, as requested.

Happy New Year everyone!

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Heh, good call on the delay, haven't got a clue as to what to do this turn, kept staring at the turn for quite some time now...
This is a very tricky turn you know. I don't fancy you whipping out the gate stone... and the aegis... and forbidden light... aaaaand the boots with the sickle... and all those others of course.:(

BTW, just out of interest, when did you hit const 8? How the heck did you menage to snatch all those uniques? Even blood ones. How did you even branch into blood? I noticed lammia queens, but that's very expensive and not so reliable. Regular commanders? But that takes too much time and effort?

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yeah, well, most of that heavy artillery have missed the target, at least during the last turn. I was hoping you will finally try to do something with those two raiding tartarians of yours, rather then just evacuate them.

And now you have some of the unique battlefield artifacts yourself, congratulations! But perhaps I will have a chance win some of them back in the coming turns. ;)


And yes, I agree, this is going to be a tricky turn.

Long time ago. Mostly by carefull long-term planning. Con8 has became my primary goal pretty early in the game and I had to sacriface a lot to reach it quickly, considering that I was in the middle of active war with magically-strong Agartha when I switched to this reseach goal.

Still I was clearly not the only one in the race to grab uniques. At least one nation - TC has beaten me to Con8, possibly others but I am not sure. TC has succedded in grabbing some of the best uniques by the time I hit Con8. However I was able to grab quite a few from what was left in the next few turns. Gatestone I only got few turns ago - 6s6e mage is a bi*ch to get.

Yes, it does, so I haven't bothered with regular commanders. I've dedicated some SCs to boring blood hunting duty early on, to kick-start my blood production. (I can share more details after the game if you like ) I was too late to the blood party to grab any of the blood SCs though - Jotuns had them all by then. I've tried one that I thought has the highest chances of being still available but only lost about 100 bloodslaves for my troubles. I did grab some of the blood uniques though, once I had enough bloodslaves to do the forging.

BTW you didn't answer my question about not using more then 500 or so undeads per battle. I am still curious. ;)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Well, so that my armies would still be on the rise even when I have dreadful casualties. It has a nice psychological effect don't you think, for you as well. Like me killing your mages and SC's but your army size not dropping due to the Soulstone and the free spawn. ;)

Although, I've been under a lot of sieges these last few turns and alas those mages of mine don't reanimate under siege so my army size keeps still.