In case anyone's the least bit curious:
Having killed the Caelum pretender in his fort (though routing before my victory was complete), Caelum's 4 global enchantments went
poof. Yea! But my cheers were premature. This just freed up the slots for my nemesis Pythium to divert his gems to putting up his own spells. Lovely. Not. I am reprieved and no longer suffer monthly hit-n-run raids from Imprinted Souls, but I have to avoid coastal zones due to Lure of the Deep. Still, it's a trade I'm happy to make, mixed blessing and all (yeah, I know, bad pun, but I couldn't resist -- which is another pun as well, hehe).
I just now, finally, took the Caelum citadel (turn 80), so I'm free to at Last devote the not-so-loving attentions of my Niefel pretender, his angelic hosts, mages, and whatnot to crushing Pythium, exacting my vengeance along the way.
With regards to the Imprinted raids, I discovered empirically that a defense value of roughly (n/2)+1, where 'n' is the expected size of the attacking force, tends to dissuade (ie, slaughter) the invaders. Bumping my defense from 20 to a new value of 21-25 did the trick. Expensive, but I have lots more gold than I need, so what better to spend it on? I've since started boosting my border provinces to 30-50+ and Pythium's attacks are hitting a veritable wall of giants he's breaking his teeth on. Assuming he doesn't lose his head completely ...
This game is
GREAT!
Cheers, all!
[ January 13, 2004, 03:23: Message edited by: Arryn ]