Err, it would be best of me not to mix up ooc and ic comments into the same post, I should think. In any case, I am happy as well, that battle took two turns in maneuvering to make and finally I got the battle I was looking for. If only I could have gotten a few of your mages as well. I was a bit disturbed by how easily my immortals were banished on that first turn. In light of this I am very happy with the bless I chose, frustrating as it is that it makes my own priestly spells so much less useful. In spite of my success though I suspect that the next turn or so will go rather more poorly for me. Certainly you will not make the mistake of weakening your own armor for my buried this time around
I do wonder a bit about the sacred lizards though. They seem to me to be worth a bit more than their cost, when compared against ogres. Basing this solely on stats, rather than anecdotal evidence of any sort, temple guards seem to be reasonably equivalent to the weaker ogres without a bless, cost less, and require far fewer resources. With a bless, which I find very hard to see Itza not taking, they're definitely superior and being recruit-everywhere I think is very powerful for them. I haven't actually fought it out to see how it goes, but any impressions on this? That said it doesn't feel so far from my end as though llama's armies are that excessively strong, but I have a number of mitigating factors working for me and I don't think I've faced quite the worst of the magic itza has to offer me just yet. Whereas he pretty much has faced mine.
Please ignore if I'm talking strangely, I just spent ~12 hours with my nose buried in a book and I tend to be somewhat spongelike about speech. Plus I lack sleep.