[thejeff]

Even after all these years the ways of the surfacers remain strange. The pretender of Vanheim believes he has the advantage and yet is willing to gamble it away for time. What is time to such as us?

Still, our ascension is not assured. These battles on the surface do not go as well as we had hoped. With the Nexus draining our very magics to fuel Vanheim's power and too many other pretenders following him to their dooms, we could even be driven back into the water. There we could hold out long, but Vanheim would only have to take capitals from his allies and his victory would be complete. This gamble gives us a chance. If it fails we can always sink into the ocean depths and sleep away another age.

What if he is bluffing, though? What if his hold on the Nexus is not as strong as he claims? We will make trial of his words. If the Nexus falls to a casual attempt, then his bluff is revealed. If it stands, we shall send our champion.

Atlantis


OOC: Well that's what the old squid thinks. Personally I'm a surfacer and the time is big factor for me. I'm ready to be done, one way or the other. His estimate of my chances is pretty much on target, but I never thought I had much chance. The Sea of Ice was really what crippled me.

I am going to throw away any pearls I don't need to equip a Champion on a Dispel attempt. Why not? What happens if it does drop is up to everyone.

A couple of things I'd like to know, just out of curiosity. How many gems were in Sea of Ice and how much did you get from the Nexus? (Obviously you may want to wait until after the battle to reveal that.) I'd also be curious what everyone had for clams or other gem gens.


Pan: The fire gems had been storing up for awhile. There really isn't much else to do with them in late game and neither Vanheim nor Caelum presented good targets for mass ritual damage. Water gems are more useful, at least as long as clamming makes sense. Scraping those up was harder. I wasn't impressed with either FftS or Murdering Winter. ~1500 targets, mostly Maenad chaff and I'm getting reports of around ~100 killed? They're supposed to hit half the army and either should have a good chance of killing chaff. The Earth Attacks were more effective, especially the first round. They're cheap. The main limitation was casters, not gems. That was the only real use I got out of R'lyeh's Conjuration discount site. Not a lot of underwater conjuration spells that are useful for a land war.

Also, if we do go ahead with this contest, do you want to attack the fort you've got sieged? I've been lousy at storming this game and I'd like to see how my defense works out.