[Gregstrom]

I guess I could put up an AAR.

Lemme see...

I started expanding with (IIRC) blessed Black Hunters, for the most part. The bless was D9, because it's generally a bit funky and it's cheap with a PoD pretender. This worked surprisingly well, as even small squads of Hunters can splat many indies. I could even bundle a few archers with each conquest squad for extra power.

I soon found my empire was in a naturally defensible region, with choke points every which way. Sadly, this also limited expansion beyond those borders (especially since there was another nation bordering every choke point).

Being stuck in a (thankfully very tough) defensive posture, I set about turtling and punting up my research levels. I was getting along well with Abysia who were to my north (and south too, as I was soon to find). Bandar Log were to the east, near my capital, but I had good control over the choke points there. To the west, there was Ermor, and I could live with that - hordes of undead don't like magma and massive firestorms any more than anyone else does.

All progressed well until BL randomly decided to go to war with me. Well, I say randomly, but they only had two choices for expansion really. The other choice was TC, and they were a lot bigger and scarier than I was on the graphs.

Problem was, this turned into a big and expensive stalemate. BL couldn't invade me because whenever an army of theirs entered one of my choke points it would catch fire and/or drown under a tidal wave of magma. I couldn't invade them because they had a SC Ghost King with full immunities and a big list of buffs, and I didn't have something that could effectively counter it within their dominion.

This would have been fine - I was researching up, and had found site mages that covered up my worst weaknesses. Hiring the A2 merc mage for site searching found me a castle full of illusionists, a bit of Water found me Azure Mages, and Adepts of Pyriphlegethon were a less useful addition (except for the F1 mages who were worthwhile researchers at 60g each). The Couatl mercenary had even turned up just when I researched Con 8, which let me get the Chalice unexpectedly. After that, he was a good way to forge boosters for my Lizard Shamen, who were my only source of Astral in the game.

So, in the middle of my interminable and costly stalemate with BL, Abysia (previously good trading partners) suddenly go nuts and decide to go to war with me. This is awkward - I'm just putting together the sort of thugs who can take out BL's SC and suddenly I have a second and third front opening up. This triggers a mass redeployment of mages from my capital in Phophtasia to a handy fort in Dragon Ridge, a little further to the north.

I set up a bunch of troops and a well-equipped Giant Mummy (yeah, Hunter Lords turn into Giant Mummies - I blame it on very creative needlework by the women of Machaka), and pitch them into Abysia's armies. They might have worked, but Aby has ungodly numbers of Demon Knights. Still, the thing about mummies is you can generally rebuild them and they're no worse off the second time around.

Suitably chastened, I set up for the following rounds of engagement and swamp big chunks of Abysian army in lakes of magma. Quite why this works against beings who are made of magma themselves, I'm not sure... but I'm grateful all right. The Demon Knights buy it in swathes too, but I've lost territory.

At this point, my Tarts start to come online. I'm not doing brilliantly for D income, and I spend many turns hovering about the zero level in Death gems and whimpering gently to myself. However, I have the Chalice and Tarts, so I can put out a decent number of SCs.

While this is all going on, BL goes AI (presumably it had emptied most of its capabilities into me to little effect) and TC, who have grown into a bloated monster with noone paying enough attention to them, promptly start eating monkey territory like it's going out of fashion. I still have that damnable Ghost King SC in the way of my armies and an ongoing war with the magma men on my north and south borders, so I can't do much to stop it.

Ermor are suffering a serious invasion around this point, and decide to put up a Burden of Time. This would be very unpleasant for me, except that I have a small yellow cup in my labs. Soon all my Black Sorcerers are clustered round it sipping frantically at the contents while occasionally giving a few drops to the nearby Tartarians. I don't know about C'tis, but TC seem to suffer very badly from EMS (Elderly Mage Syndrome) at this point - their research graph goes all squiggly.

On the plus side, Abysia are about beaten and they turn AI too. I can get a few territories somewhere. I'm even churning out clams at a fair old rate. On the minus, a new period of peace is starting and... oh look. T'ien Ch'i has the Arcane Nexus. Well that's just dandy, isn't it?

So... I start on a period of enforced fasting. I keep summoning and GoRing Tarts, and I keep clamming as well, but that's pretty much it. Oh, and my nice Chalice gets stole. There is a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. TC are busy putting up more and more globals instead of making war, which I can just about live with. So, I put up the Pyre for the extra F income, and churn out Fetishes and Blood Stones (many thanks to Abysia for the blood slaves that let me start on that path - even if they did go AI owing me a bunch of F gems) as well as the aforementioned clams.

All goes well, until I break out the thousand-plus gems I've saved up, alchemise like crazy and put up an awesome level of Nexus. The empowered Lizard Shaman who did the casting promptly wishes for Power, so he can't get wiped out by stray artillery magic. I then frantically wish for gems to recoup everything I'd put into the Nexus. Overwriting other globals isn't so tough after that, which is nice.

Then, having dealt insult after insult to TC, I drop in the straw that breaks the camel's back. I wish for the Chalice they stole from me some time earlier, and for some reason this is what they choose to go to war over.

It starts off badly, with squads of Seraphs appearing all over the place, Tartarians rampaging over the hills and big armies of cavalry besieging me.

However, I spot some slight flaws in the kitting of the various SC squads and set out with some tailored hit squads of my own. I lose a couple of forts, but I gain a couple of Seraphs and kill a few more. I can Earth Attack with quite a few of my Black Sorcerers by this time, which helps against sieges. So I settle in and start breaking siege forces with SCs while trying to build armies. This is made a little more difficult by the fact that I have a negative income at this point, thanks to TC's early gains. However, a massive gem income can be handily leveraged into armies of summons if you need it to. I already have a load of Green Lions (Sorceresses, don't'cha just love'em?), which deal a very unpleasant and extremely terminal surprise to the Tartarians besieging one particular fortress and then move on to relieve sieges elsewhere. By the end of the game I have ~150 of these lovelies in various parts of the map.

When I can afford it, I also create Summer Lions, Mechanical Men and Banefire Archers for invasion forces. These take quite heavy losses, but there always more where those came from.

Towards the end I started doing things like using Wish to selectively kidnap uniques I thought should be working for me. I'd already been using it to take key unique items off certain enemy SCs - it's a trick that can occasionally upset a carefully thought out battle plan.

I'd have been wishing more near the end, but I wanted to have enough gems to reestablish a Nexus if anyone dispelled/stole it from me. I had a bit over 450 Astral in reserve, and nearly 100 coming in per turn after Wishing. I was setting up to hit TC's capital with 5 Flames from the Sky, a Murdering Winter or maybe two, and perhaps a few Crumbles on top, to see if I could nail their last global and a few Celestial Masters. Heck, just the Flames should have hurt a bit as I had a Shroud on each of the casters.