[baruk]

Here's my LA Abysia AAR, I've tried to trim it down to a few useful nuggets of information.

Good stuff that happened

• Getting crossbows and Jade amazons.
  
• My non-Air nation successfully grabbing an air mage (using a Succubus).
  
• A victory in a major battle (against LA Man). I used my usual flaming arrows army with a surprise arrow fend (from my Titan) along with what I'm calling the fatigue triple whammy: heat from hell, rigor mortis and curse of stones.
  That meant I took the MA Abysia capital province, which I would hold for 30 turns or so (rebuilding the castle in the meantime).

Not so good stuff and mistakes with tragic consequences

• The fight with LA Man produced one of those spurious battle recordings. I still won, but it turned out my Titan got muted (ouch!), diseased and lost an arm (rather than getting away unscathed as he did in the replay).
  
• Watching the final battle for your capital and realising that COMMUNION SLAVES DON'T GET TO CAST SPELLS. That little nugget of information had sadly passed me by, so 12 of my 13 paralyse casters sat around doing nothing for the whole battle. Not ideal against an enemy front rank of ~20 thugs.
  
• Rain of stones eventually bulldozing any of my elaborate battlefield magic strategies.
  
• A cramped starting position (due to an awkward lake) combined with slow expansion meant I only got 6 indie provinces initially. Eriu had a similar start, but managed to do pretty well out of it - being small you need to have a successful war early on to have much chance of survival.
  
• Getting into the water too late when I'd had the possibility of water breathing assassins for quite a while (thanks to my amazons). Eriu ended up grabbing the entire lake.
  
• Inner furnace is an incredibly stupid spell for the AI to cast when your army is largely made up of (soon to be unconscious and on fire) indie archers and crossbowmen.
  
• Splitting up my experimental bane thug squad, and not giving them enough magic resistance. 3 out of 4 got killed within a couple of turns - blindness, banishment and drain life accounted for them.