Turn III: A Startling Lack of Progress
Okay, let's see here. Abysia made a Demonbred (winged assassin demon thing, pretty awesome) their prophet, there was that attack I made, and there's my ongoing attempt to get rid of the unrest from that one event. Let's take a look at the battle results, I want to see how badly I beat those-
Wait, what.
What. I lost? And a Hilhirding died in the process? What the ever-loving f... Okay, okay. Let's just watch the battle and see what happened.
Started off well enough. Finn followed his orders exactly with self-buffs (since the blessing got him and his Helhirdings in the first cast, he cast something else afterward; Holy Avenger is a spell that, if the person who cast it dies, will smite several enemies, which is useful but not something I hope comes into effect). Let's take a look at the result of this.
(Weird extra images of my units are the effects of glamour; they have mirror images, as explained in my first post, which reduce the chances of them being hit as enemies strike at the wrong images.)
We see several new icons here; astute viewers familiar with Dom3 will notice that one that should be here isn't, though, since I watched the battle again when I took this and thus the Air Shield icon isn't here. Anyway, the lit candelabra means the unit is Blessed; sacred units can be blessed in battle, and your prophet and anyone who is wearing a certain item receives the effect of your blessing whether or not they're sacred. The little hydra signified regeneration, meaning he regains health every turn, and the earth elemental guy is for reinvigoration, which reduces fatigue every turn.
And here's the bless itself. Wow, that's quite a bit. While the increased morale is a part of every bless, the other parts come from my god's magic. The reinvigoration and protection both come from Earth magic, the former being the minor bless (activates at level 4 and increases from there) and the latter being its major bless effect (activates at level 9 and doesn't increase, what with 10 being the max possible that you can put on your pretender). Meanwhile, the magic resistance comes from Astral magic, the regeneration from Nature, and the strength from Blood. So, what this means is, my god has nine in Earth, and four (or five) in Astral, Nature, and Blood. I'll admit now that only the Earth and Blood parts of this are important; the other two are nice, but I mainly have those magic levels for other reasons. My god may have other magic, but none of it higher than three. Based on the information presented in this and earlier updates, can you figure out my god's paths before she is revealed?
Anyway, now that I've explained that, let's get back to the battle. Finn's buffed himself and his minions up, and is charging into battle.
The three of them wade right into the midst of the enemies and begin kicking butt and taking names. At first things are going pretty well.
Soon, though, a lucky soldier manages to hit one of the Helhirdings, breaking his glamour and allowing his allies to also hit him, soon felling him. Not only that, but soon after the other Helhirding takes some damage too, causing him to flee.
He runs like a coward, leaving Finn alone to fight the horde. Finn, meanwhile, doesn't even notice at first, and continues slaying the foes of Helheim.
After the Helhirding leaves the battlefield, though, Finn finally realizes that he's alone and runs after him. (Or, mechanically, the total health of my army, after the Helhirding left, fell below a certain percentage of what it was originally, causing a rout.) He makes it off pretty fast; the enemy soldiers stand no chance of catching him, and in fact I missed him myself trying to screenshot it.
Okay, this is ridiculous. That horrible turn two event? That was sort of funny, in a "wow that's just unbelievable" way. This, though? This has me pissed off. I'm almost out of money, I have gained no provinces, and my nation's capital is still basically useless. I have missed out on two turns of mage/thug recruitment now, and will lose at least a third after this turn too. All because of a lucky shot by a dang independent troop. Bah. Let's take a look at the score graphs.
Here we see provinces, where
every nation but me has managed to take land this turn. Heck, some nations got
two. This is ridiculous.
And here's the income graph for this turn, where we see that my income has hit rock bottom. While almost every other nation has also lost income overall, this is just the effect of them no longer overtaxing their capitols, although I'm curious as to whether or not something happened to Arcoscephale there. Either way, though, it's turn three and one of my graph lines has hit the bottom. This is absolutely horrible.
However, not
everything that has happened this turn is bad. Those who were paying attention would have noticed a new icon in the map screen on one of my units. Let's take a closer look at the person in question...
Okay, there are two icons here that normally aren't on a Vanjarl. There's the reinvigoration icon again, even though he isn't blessed, and the star. The star signifies a "Heroic Ability", what units gain for entering the "Hall of Fame", which basically is a record of the units with the most kills and experience; non-gods get an ability that increases in effectiveness the longer they stay there.
And here's the ability in question. You know, that sounds a lot like reinvigoration...
Yep. Finn has innate reinvigoration now. While this may not seem like much, it's actually one of the best abilities he could have gotten. It stacks with his bless, and it will only increase the longer he stays in the Hall of Fame (which, since he got in early and is a pretty powerful unit, may very well be the whole game); eventually he'll be losing fatigue each turn instead of gaining it, excluding when he casts his spells at the start of a battle. This is pretty great, really.
Speaking of the Hall of Fame, here it is. Only units above Finn at the moment are two gods and the mercenaries Marverni bought; since mercs start out with exp, Finn here is doing pretty well for himself. Expect to see a lot of Helheim flags here in the future, too; powerful thugs soloing provinces rack up exp and kills like it's nothing. As I stated earlier in the thread, I have made it my goal to completely take over the Hall of Fame eventually. It might be difficult, but it's far from impossible.
Anyway, looking back up at the map, as you can see I'm attacking two provinces this turn. Finn is going back to finish off the soldiers that drove him back, and Sir Slicer is leading his army to take on that cavalry there. Screw patrolling down the unrest on my capital; I
need to get some land now. It's do or die.
Next turn: Finally getting something accomplished.