[Arker]

On the castle storming, there are some good tips here. More archers, mages if I have the big spells ready to go (I usually don't get many of the spells mentioned before I get killed, but I'll try to prioritise them now) and put my cavalry up front.

So far I've basically had two ways to lose it, I'd put my SC prophet in front, he'd get whacked, everyone would run. Or I'd put a couple good squads of heavy infantry up front, they'd get bottled up at the gate, fight for many rounds, with everyone behind them getting cut apart by archery and spells, then finally everyone would run.

The only way I've managed to take a castle that had any serious defenses (i.e. a pretender) was just to keep it bottled up, covered with preachers, and build temples in the surrounding provinces. But I'll give this a try.

Thanks for the tips on Ulm. So far I haven't used the scales much, not totally understanding them I've pretty much just left them alone.

As to beating a big army full of crappy troops with a small hardcore one, yes, I've done that, but there's just a point where it no longer works it seems. I mean, with Ulm, I'm fielding maybe 60 men, top quality, maybe another 30 cannon fodder javelinists... and suddenly here's 700 Mictlan slaves, or Emor's undead hordes... and my troops hit 100 fatigue LONG before they can hack all the enemies apart, and then they die. If they aren't properly backed up I can route them I've found, and run off a huge army like that without losing a man, but when they've a bunch of priests behind them buffing their morale, I'm just toast.

I got the snot kicked out of me on my Ulm game last night, while trying to finish off the Mannish pretender I had bottled up in his castle, suddenly on the other side of my domain this enormous army out of Emor appears, I mean just unbelievably huge. Sieged my pretender before I could get any significant army near, my high defense fortress with +fortress defense troops garrisoning it still crumbled in one turn. I think there were about 800 undead... I tried to distract them with an attack by my prophet and a dozen knights in another province, and even there I lost... there was only ONE enemy, but he was a badass necromancer, and he kept raising dead faster than my guys could kill them until they finally all turned tail and ran... anyway I gave up at that point.

Trying again, this time as R'lyeh. So far so good. Think it's the longest game I've played so far at the moment. 52 Turns in. I have all but one underwater province (Ermor has the one I don't have, and I've avoided attacking them so far as I want to be completely built up and ready, I know they're by far the meanest under AI, especially against R'lyeh since the illithid mind blasts don't affect their troops.) Atlantis was destroyed by Emor before I ever got to them, not sure how, as their capital was not occupied, Emor only took one underwater province, and an Island bordering Atlantis. So I cleaned up the independents, got three free fortresses.

One AI declared war on me, not Mictlan, the other 'm' with the spiders. They only attacked once, though, and have left me alone since. I've focused on taking all the underwater provinces from the independents and building up a good base. Also expanded my terrestrial holdings a little, like 7 provinces with two fortified I think, but only at the expense of independents. Grabbed a couple shoreside provinces in random places that fell to independents too. So right now I have a HUGE army in the fortress next to Emor's capital. Forging stuff as fast as I can. Huge problem keeping these buggers fed, for some reason. I have gift of health up, and acashic record on every province I hold, so pretty good gem income. Really really hoping I can take out Emor with a surprise attack, if that works I reckon I might have a chance.

BTW, advice on Equipment? At the moment I've got two traitor princes with the endless buckets of slop and moon blades. The endless buckets are a pain, only my pretender can make them, but the wine just wasn't doing enough. In fact even with the buckets I still keep getting starvation warnings. I only have *maybe* 300 troops there... anyhow. I've been making the anti-fatigue items, the girdle and boots, I can't remember the names. Boots are easy, but a lot of my commanders can't wear them. Girdles I only have one or two mages that can make them. I have some spell focuses (do they help with priest-casters against undead?) and I've been making the spears that shoot solar flares and giving them to my starchildren since their mind blasts will be useless. Umm, the flameshooting helms - fire blasts should be good against undead, right?