TURN 3:
World information:
Abysia has appointed a Demonbred for its prophet. Nasty demonbreds. I just hope we aren't neighbors.
Like, yeah, I wrote that. In retrospect, I would write it again, demonbred or not.
My pretender routs a weak enemy thanks to Frighten/Fear/Awe.
Unfortunately, he gets a never-healing wound along the way. It will heal, but it'll take some time.
Other news include satyrs being wimps. They run from weakling deer tribe warriors but we take the province no matter what.
This turn's result is ok. I got 2 provinces, my dominion expanded to the south and noone is in sight yet. Typhia, northeast of my pretender, sports an army of statues, led by Antatus the Golem and some gargoyles. This province will be a pain to conquer, so it will be left for later. I might send a harpy to check if there's some magic item to loot from Antatus at some point.
Note that 20 turns later, noone dared attack this province yet.
The swamp lets me recruit scouts, so I'll likely get some soon, but right now I pick an indie commander there while Thorion searches for magic sites. I might get air magic from a lucky deer tribe shaman in the northern province, but at 10% chance for Air 1, I'm not going to dwell too much on it.
My new Pan came with 20 maenads all for himself. That's great. He builds a raw hide shield for Thorion in order to celebrate the maenads'lust. That's why I need an indie commander. I'll be ferrying archers and maenad fodder to the nearby provinces, and I need commanders for that. Pans could lead the army, but I'll want some to do some research soon.
Now let's look at the graphs. R'lyeh took another province. I took two. Everyone else but Helheim took one. I think Helheim is dead already. Their income is simply zero!
Well, they got back in the game better but I still think these initial turns will cost them a lot in the long run. Arco's income, along with Caelum, also suck. Even at 200% tax in my capital and with 2 more provinces, I'm still 5th out of 8 in income. Gold will be rare with my scales, but I knew that. Caelum is skyrocketting in research, while Arco starts strong too. Noone else researches yet, which is a bit surprising. Well, I won't be researching this turn either.
Dominion-wise, Helheim is still dead in the tracks. If he's unlucky enough for me to find him with my harpy prophet, I'll preach him dead.
Caelum could have done the same, by the way, but his dominion is not that strong. But then seraphines are stealthy, and had I been Caelum or where Caelum is located, I think Helheim could be dominion dead at this point.
I don't understand how Finn of Helheim appears in the HoF with 4 kills and not dead despite the nation's province count. My Minotaur lord got a Heroic agility, which is nice.
Minotaur lords aren't really good fighters, but they have some hit points. They don't perform very well in fights so I don't think I'll ever buy more of these since even a black harpy is usually better. Indie commanders are also arguably better since they don't waste fort-time (thus mage) to build.
Abysia bought Burelk's city guards. Man, do these mercenaries suck. I'm not sure why he's wasting gold on that, but maybe they can beat some Markata province by his capital?
I'm just regrouping and searching this turn. Next turn, my prophet will keep scouting while I'll invade the southern province to reach Tir na'n Og island. Thorion will either attack indies or go fetch his shield. It would be better to attack and then have a Pan come give him the shield and site search afterwards. After all, if my attack fails, I just come back to the capital uninjured so it won't matter much.