[DragonRider]

Well, I think that's probably just about game right there. Jotunheim is officially impenetrable even split between two immensely distant fronts. He's got well beyond a critical mass of vampires and will only get stronger the more he turtles. I don't even have meaningful access to my own national mages anymore thanks to Burden of Time (it might not yet be impossible to take it down (again), but I've lost so much over the past couple dozen turns while inflicting close to zero damage against Jotunheim that it'd surely be impossible for me to catch up anyway). I'm way at the top of the charts in gold and gem income and I still feel totally unable to make any further progress.

The sad thing is that my brilliant and/or suicidal plan to make a decapitation airstrike against the capital with my sky pirate army never had a chance because it got intercepted with incoming troops before it got to move, resulting in being crushed with Jotunheim's full force this turn (I hadn't even allocated any gems yet, so I could save them for next turn). Which is really unfortunate, because other than that the enemy did basically what I was hoping they'd do, namely move army AWAY from the capital instead of towards it, making it impossible for non-flying troops to get there in time to break the siege (I wasn't even attempting to storm Black Alps with any seriousness). Though to be honest the vampire army might have beaten me even with zero support from anything else at this point.

Speaking of which...if I HAD managed to get that entire army to Recenna unopposed, and had been ready to storm it immediately, and all those vampires flew in to defend it the turn after...would I have had to fight them TWICE, once outside the walls and again inside? Or would they not be able to come back to life? I don't really know how immortality works in that circumstance. If it's the former I'd have surely had no chance anyway. Probably something I should have found out about beforehand, but I'm pretty much out of material over here anyway.