Turn 2:
Here's what happened at the beginning of the turn. All the 'proclamations' are nations making prophets. Looks like six of the eight players chose to prophetize either of their starting commanders, which is interesting. I also got the band of mercenaries I wanted, which is good.
Speaking of mercs, there's a new band up for grabs. 60 Militia. You know what? No. Just no.
Here are my neighbors. The unit types that these pics give are (mostly) accurate; the numbers attached to them can be wrong by quite a bit. Still, I like fighting Militia as much as I dislike the thought of ever using them. Heavy Inf is doable, the undead I'll discuss in a sec, and the bakemono should die easily enough. The Amazons will be a pain- best leave them for last.
(You don't know how right I ended up being. On BOTH levels.)
So here are my new troops. I have a prophet, 30ish melee guys, and 35ish ranged guys. This is what I want them to do.
Now I have the melee troops screening my archers and javelineers, everybody ready to charge, and my commanders safe enough. My prophet is set to toss out Strength of Boars, a buff unique to Marverni- it'll boost strength for all my guys, which helps the BCs on the front line and the javelineers behind them. He'll follow it up with some morale boosting, and Banishment, which should cut down ghouls and soulless en masse.
Let's look at the score graphs. Here, we see that R'lyeh struck out first-turn. This suggests that they took an awake combat pretender- I bet it's a Kraken. Now income, and what do we have here...?
Looks like Helheim got hit with a painful event. Just looking at it suggests some population loss, but which one? The player was kind enough to tell me...
Code:
Roland_Jones Look at the income graph.
Bluemage142 What.
Roland_Jones That is the effect of a famine event, -1/5 population, on turn two.
Roland_Jones 103 unrest on my capital.
Roland_Jones Less than 100 gold in my coffers because the event cost 100 in addition to the unrest and pop cost.
...but I really need to learn to tell on my own.
The only way to get research is to have an awake pretender with magic paths, so I know Caelum and Pangaea have done this. Don't know if they're rainbow pretenders or combatants yet, since most people don't move until Turn 2, but I'll know next turn.
Army size is basically what I expected. I'm near the top, beaten only by Pangaea (who gets free infantry), so this is all going according to plan.
(Maenads.)
Recruiting a mage, some slingers, and some BCs. The infantry is dual-purpose: replacements for casualties, and some of my next expansion party.
Plans for the next turn. Attacking the undead, and scouting the next turn's target.