Turn 4 Aftermath...
Geez, I have a bit to learn about proper tactics, it appears. Though it could have been worse.
Alright, Messages start off with Level 2 Evocation being finished. Then I find out Pythium has made a Serpent Lord their Prophet (could be playing Serpent Cult, which
might make things easier (if I can dominion push on them and make him fight in the cold). OTOH, fighting a Sacred Hydra is never easy.
Burelk, despite my best intentions, pulls off an easy win attacking his province. He lost 4 men defeating an army of 26+4 Comm (so the estimate was very high, it appears), and then to add insult to injury, goes off to join Ulm (at their capital, I discover). Oh, well... rule I think is that if you have more provs the merc can take, seriously consider keeping him an extra set of turns.
Urgek does his job, and dies horribly discovering that the defenders at one of the plains consist of 26 units (13 Archers, 4 HI, and 9 Militia). Should be a fairly easy win if I set it up properly. But that's a future concern.
The prophet's army, however, gets rather mauled. I lost 16 regular units, predominantly archers (as that's predominantly what I had). One Mammoth, I've learned isn't effective enough. Two or three may have been good, but onle one got routed too quickly. I lost roughly 3 of the Wingless (one before the route, and 2 during, I think). Then the infantry got up to my archers, and it got rather ugly... and it didn't stop, because when I finally routed the enemy, my archers decided to harry them continually, and that meant stopping them from retreating... which got even more killed. At least I didn't keep everyone clustered in the middle, or the Mammoth would have lost the battle for me. Live and learn I guess you could say. I learned to split the formations the hard way (from my previous attempt to use Mammoths).
The Scout did manage to take Ulm's province (and I got a Wild Forest), which I suppose starts a war with Ulm. I think he's less prepared than I am, but I may just be hoping and grasping at straws. I may be dead very quickly. If I can get a High Seraph or two up and running, tho, I can probably make mincemeat out of the tinboys.
Anyways, as I mentioned, Burelk went to Ulm, and I bought Dante, who will be very, very useful. Like Experienced HI with Spears.
Anyways, that's the aftermath... I'm going to take a small hiatus (an hour or two, I think), and play a completely different game, while I wait for feedback over my latest blunder.
At least I took the province.
Wyatt