Turns 14-15
Turn 14
Victory!
Well, in the initial fight, anyway. The plan worked out pretty well. It was just the province defense, which meant 5 infantry, 20 crossbows, and a commander and a priest (which last I'd forgotten about. The infantry did their job of soaking up crossbow fire, although the undead took a bit of a hit, particularly the longdeads, and somehow or other I ended up losing another two hunters, although their spiders are doing just fine, thanks. One infantry died, and they ended up routing, but not before the PD was pretty much history.
Ulm (actually, on this map it's "Helshov", and Machaka is "Viddlanden") has only one black candle - I think I can probably preach them out once Cirin gets home, if they don't manage to break the siege first. I set my prophet to preach, instead of call god, since I have enough excess capacity to get Cirin back in two turns anyway. I also have enough excess capacity to be able to use my Tax Man of the Lord to shuttle back in the routed infantry along with a couple spare Hunters who arrived last turn. That puts me to 10 total spiders, which is nice. I reorganize my army setup on the theory that future battles will be fought against lots of infantry and practically no bows, since Ulm somehow arms its province defense with nifty crossbows but doesn't think it's a fitting weapon for a mobile soldier. Or something.
My scout reports zero Ulmish troops in the immediate vicinity. They all must be inside. In the meantime, Pythium has a 100+ strong force sitting on my border, and nobody on their Abysian border. Don't they understand how dangerous those smoky firey guys are? I hire a mercenary, Gynter Blukraft's Sonnenkinder, to my capital to give me some kind of reserve, and so that Ulm doesn't get them - I bid their asking price plus 5, which has yet to not win me a mercenary against a computer opponent. I also forego new Spiders to pick up a Black Sorcerer, and edge my province defense in Midkrona (bordering Pythium) up to 12, which is pretty pathetic, but I don't feel like looting my gem supplies again when he might just be going after independents.
Provinces: 7.5
Income 571 Upkeep 168
Research: Evo 37 (15 to level 2), Construction 12 (12 to level 4). Also Alt 2 Ench 1 Thaum 1
Gems: F 8 (+1) A 5 (+1) E 17 (+6) D 3 (+1) N 15 (+5).
Call 30/40
End Turn. Host.
Turn 15
There was a battle in Helshov (Ulm).
They killed all but 1 of my undead (a single Manikin), all but 3 of my Hunters (but I still have a bunch of unsaddled spiders) 5 of my hoplites and a couple of my archers who ran out of arrows and decided to be helpful.
The Behemoth did indeed come out to play, but it was too small to stomp on my spiders, so it wasn't as grim as I had feared. Also as expected, the Ulmites brought no archers to the game, and had to walk all the way across the field through a peppering of fire darts. Then it was a pure infantry shield-wall-to-shield-wall struggle, and my guys managed to pull through. In the meantime, the vamp queen (paths W6 E7 D9 B2, lots of gems, no other magic stuff) was spending all her time casting raise dead (the one that brings back half a dozen or so at once) and sending them up to the line, and my priests kept banishing them. I think I lost at least as many of my undead to friendly fire as anything else. Anyway, ultimately the Machakan forces prevailed in the infantry clash, cleared the field of skeletons, and hopefully left the immortal vamp queen with a nice battle affliction to nurse while she sits on the inside.
In the meantime, Pythium apparently did concentrate its troops to attack independents. Now I worry that they might go after the longbowmen and knights that I've designated for MY sphere of influence next. But I can't worry about that just now. Gynter Blukraft shows up at my capital (I now wish I'd hired him to Ulm - oh well) and will head down to the Pythian border to show the flag (or the big shaded X, in this case). My new Black Sorcerer shows up - it's Muyaka, known to his friends (and us) as "Nature Boy" Muyaka for the third-path Nature magic at his command. This gives me visions of Gift of Health and other fun 5-nature magicks down the road. We'll see.
There's a troop of 20 more Infantry of Ulm, but I'm not worried. The Armored Fist of God is up for hire, so I hire him, more to keep him away from Ulm than anything else. I hire a new commander in Gula Kursten just on the off chance some of my sodiers rout there again, and then I'm stuck with a choice: more spiders, or more magic? With 160 gold left, I could hire a spider and a few indy archers up at Gula Kusten. Or I could get a sage and a witch doctor. I opt for the magicians, since I need someone to start forging bags o' wine, and would rather have a low-research peon take care of it. I also put one of my sages to making a crash helmet for the new dragon. He *****es about manual labor being a waste of his talents, but needs must.
I make my first bag o' wine, since I'm a bit worried about supplies what with the mercenary force showing up at the siege. I figure the dragon can fly it in with him.
Provinces 7.5
Income 588, Upkeep 157
Research: 42 Evocation (Evo 3 needs 38. Yay! Magma bolts! - I erase most of my sorceresses' and sorcerer's scripted spells, hoping that they know a good thing when one is handed to them.)
Gems: F 9 (+1) A 6 (+1) E 18 (+6) D 4 (+1) N 15 (+5).
Call: 41/40. Yay!
End Turn. Host
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