Re: Game write-up
Turn: 4
How nice! In Lombaria, a handful of magic astral gems have been found on a starry night. Always nice to see stuff like that.
While just doing a quick check of what ritual spells can be cast and what magic items forged by Sun-pi the prophet, and the new Kui-xing the Master of the Way. I realize that Sun-pi with his single level of death magic can create a Skull Talisman. This really is one of my favorite low level items. It's great for non-magical commanders, because it gives them something to do during battle that is both useful and keeps them out of harm's way. I've even had battles won in past games because all the regular troops ran off, but one or two commanders just kept cranking out the undead until the enemy broke and ran. I set Kui-xing to researching and put Sun-pi to work building a skull talisman. This means that Di-ya will have to wait around T'ien Ch'i for an extra turn, but I suppose that will just give him a chance to collect a few more of the tougher troops.
Meanwhile, up in Lombaria (120), Tai is assigned to search for magic sites. He's all alone up there, but I not particularly worried at this point. The one adjacent enemy province only has an estimated 4 men. I really don't expect them to attack.
This turn I purchase a Master of Rituals, a Red Guard, and two Imperial Footmen. The Master of Rituals will accompany my single army to provide blessings and other holy support. Next turn I'll get back to generating more mages for additional research.
I thought I moved Naggor into Keban (111) Last turn, but it looks like I canceled his order somehow, as he's still hanging around Iron Range (106). I get him moving again, and dock him one month's pay for his laziness.
Unrest has risen to 1 in T'ien Ch'i. This is quite acceptable. I'll leave the tax level at 110 for now.
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Turn: 5
Unfortunately, Tai has discovered no magical sites. I'll send him back to T'ien Chi to continue researching.
Keban (111) is a plains province, and contains 40 heavy and light infantry. I'll send Naggor north along the coast to Acyste (125). This is just east of Grey Mirks (3) which you might recall is occupied by Pythium troops.
Ru Shou is my new Minister of Rituals. He joins Di-ya the Eunuch and the freshly filled army as they head south to Bithyre (102). Occupied by a smaller number of Heavy Cavalry and Heavy Infantry, this should be a tough fight, but winnable.
Unrest is down to 3 in Lombaria (120), so I raise the tax back to 100. T'ien Ch'i's unrest is up to 3, so I drop the tax there back down to 100 in order to give the people a break.
Sun-pi resumes research work. With his help, level 2 construction magic will be reached next turn. A little bit of remaining effort will be put into Thaumaturgy.
Being very short on gold, I am able to recruit one Master of the Way, one Red Guard, and one Imperial Footman. Boy, I need to grab a few gold producing provinces quick here...
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Turn: 6
The Battle for Bithyne
It looks like I'm up against 6 Heavy Infantry, 10 Heavy Cavalry, and two mounted commanders.
Normally against armies with no archers I'd have had my melee troops hold back and let my archers fill the enemy with arrows. This time though, I knew there were Heavy Cavalry which would hit my line pretty quickly. Therefore, I set my melee units to attack, hoping in particular that my cavalry would take out an enemy leader quickly.
Once again, my mounted troops are dropped quite quickly (grumble... might start spending less on them). I fear for the safety of my Imperial Footmen, as they take the brunt of the enemy's Heavy Cavalry charge. Somehow though, they stand firm, and within a couple rounds, the enemy cavalry turns and flees.
With just a couple more rounds of fighting, my troops are able to chase off the remaining enemies. Victory is ours! At the final count, I lost 6 men (mostly cavalry) while killing 2 enemy commanders and 16 regular units. I am definitely not pleased with the performance of my Red Guard, although I will admit that even after losing two thirds of the men in their unit, they still fought on bravely...
I set Yu (my new Master of the Way) to researching, while tai moves south to Bithyne (102) to search for magical sites. Di-ya, Ru Shou, and the First Army will move back to T'ien Ch'i to acquire fresh troops.
I switch over all of my research focus to Thaumaturgy. Unfortunately, I will be left just two points short of reaching level 1 next turn.
I drop taxes in Bithyne (102) to 90 to reduce unrest from its current level of 8.
Up in Acyste (125), I see that Naggor is now able to see one province north to Pythium (5). Interesting. I think I'll send him in and see if I can raise unrest to keep his gold totals low.
I decide to forgo purchasing a Red Guard this time. I think I need to assemble a larger unit before I send them into battle. With such a large savings, I am able to purchase another Master of the Way, three Imperial Footmen, and three Archers... Hmmm... nice. Sometime I do need to get back to those Red Guard, but it'll have to wait until I've got more gold available.
Oh yes, I also increase the defense in Bityne (102) to 4 (as much as I can afford).
While looking around the map for any Last tasks, I sudden realize that the two bordering sea provinces to my west are now owned by R'lyeh. Yikes! Despite our nations' common interest in names that include apostrophes, I think I'm going to need to keep a very close eye on them.
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It appears that three turns is a nice number of turns to play in one sitting when writing up details of this sort. I might get a larger chunk of time to play this weekend. We'll see.
I'm relatively pleased so far, although I do think that I should have held off building the Red Guard for now. They need to be used in a larger block I think, and I don't yet have to gold to put that together. It's certainly too bad that so many of my surrounding provinces seem to have a low population (and thus supply minimal taxes).
Tune in next time for Turn 7.
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