[Keir Maxwell]

I'm up to turn 24. 30 provinces magic alt1, evo3, con4, ench2, thaum2. I'm over twice the nearist opponent in gold and provinces, equal top in gems, well back in research and ther abouts in dom.

Things have been busy with lots of pressure from AI's as the starting to position is in the narrows on the dragon eye map. I've been attacked by Caelum at one end, Arco in the middle and lately C'tis at the other end.

The war with Caelum was the first one and Caelum is simply to far away from my main area (eastern section of the Eye map) for me to want to commit against. I drove off their intial attack and grabbed 3 provinces but since then have only fenced with them as Arco in the middle was a far more serious threat.

Arco jumped my castle in the mid lower western rich area despite my best attempts to leave them an expansion route around the bottom of it. They had a big army with elephants and I had sent my prophet and n.1 hero east vs Caelum so they got to break down the walls before I could get a releaving army there. Attacking someone an assault is really strong in dom and thats what I did. I saillied forth with ~7 giant axemen/spearmen, one Gode and 4 Herses and a relieving army of 7 woodesmen, a herse, and a Norna with mind burn charged in. Twas brutal. The Norna took out the elephants on morale but the Axe/Spear unit broke reasonably early (they got to retreat to - is that a gliche). The main weight of my blessed troops fell on the Arco left and as these were berserkers nobody ran. By the time they were killed off Arco had lost all bar 2 commanders and 60 odd trooper out of their army of 120. And then the assualt. I only had a scout holding but their assualt force ended up being two commanders so it was an easy repulse. Two turns later I have relieved the Castle and Arco has been jumped by Tien Ch'i and is in big trouble - I will leave them to it.

C'tis must have suffered from an ego rush as they decided to jump in on the fun and have a go at me at my western extreme. As this is the area I had only just finished conquering indies in I had a fair few Heroes around , two castles and a moderate number of troops. C'tis was pretty weak and is taking a good thrashing. This is good as its acutally the most logical direction for me to develop as I won't have any land borders with other players from the newly captured territores. Unfortunately Caelum is running around in the northen Sea with a Wyrm (Shad Foth the n.1 Hall of Famer) but its got no real troopers and I've got Seithkona and Totems shields waiting for it.

Mind Burn is great vs elephants, Healing light is good with Seithkona backing Giants and I'm going to throw in some nasty shooty spells. I have a couple of fire2 air1 enchantresses out searching but once they find some fire gems I'll use them as battle mages with aim and fireball for starters.

In terms of future research I'll go evoc 4 this turn, con 5 to try Mandragora's, then its either thaum6, conj6 or evoc7. Research will go better if I can find some more death gems - income of 2. Once I do it should flow naturally enough.

Item wise Pendants of Luck have been replaced by Lucky Coins as my staple and Rainbow armour for Seithkona is awesome (gets all my air gems) and Totem Shields are working well vs the big nasties starting to abound. I've built a couple of Frost brands for serious damage dealing and one of the Herses with one butchered a slightly damaged elephant in one blow.[paragraph edited for mistakes]

Its a good game with lots of challenges and requiring extremely carefully strategic play. My starting position made long borders inevitable and I have worked hard not to be to greedy and make them longer than necessary, I'm having to keep my best army in reserve which is a pain but also has been a life saver.

My two best hero's are my first Herse, Grodvitner, who has tough skin and a prot of 23 and the Herse Gymer who has quickness. However the Jarls are close behind and there ability to bless and fight saved me from taking a heavy blow when C'tis first attacked as they attacked on a wide front and I sent the Jarls off with a couple of Woodsmen each, on guard commander, and they did the job. Their flexibility is really great and they save you from making the mistake of ending up with a big stack of Herse's and only 1 (or none) Gode. I really wish the Gode looked more different from the Herse. You end up with alot of commanders.

I've had a go with Manikins but as I only had one squad with an army they proved banishment bait. Still could be good with lots in one army deployed behind the giants and coming through them to support.

I will try Mandragora's but I will need to empower my present pretender to be able to really abuse it. As you say Hummer getting little guys to support the big guys is the big question. I suspect having some armies with undead and some not is a good idea as you will need alot of undead to be worth it.

Lamia's are still going to be useful vs heat nations as with a low dominion there is a lot of heat around.

The Iron Woods theme would be cute and the extra points could get death1 for Mandragora abuse. However Seithkona are awesome mages - one of the best in dom. The amount of things you can do with one astral1, nature1, or with death1, astral1 is really crazy. The only major weakness is fatigue and this time round Rainbow armour is doing a good job there - yay for the Enchantresses. Norna's are not bad but need a way of moving faster. Do boots of long strides increase strat movement? Boots of flying for a few key character is probably next.

Anyway I got visitors so its bye for now,

Ciao

Keir

[ January 09, 2004, 00:28: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]