Turn 5:
No messages this turn, since I went back to get reinforcements. The fact that I still have my Amazons is slightly surprising, and very welcome.
Here's what my army looks like now. Four times the melee units, and another pile of ranged units.
My new commanders are ready, so I start making them men to command. That's 42 BCs in one turn, if you're curious.
Finally, another useful merc band. Dante's Stingers are a group of 30 heavy infantry; not as good as my Amazons, but good enough to take me some provinces. I overbid massively on them, of course- more expansion is more important than more gold right now.
(Sliiiiiiiiiiight problem with this.)
Orders are to move the scout onward, send the main army to fight bakemono, and bring in the new commanders. If I get the Stingers, they'll be assaulting that province I skipped next turn, otherwise, I'll send one of the new guys over there.
I'm not showing graphs this turn- the only interesting bits were that Abysia and Fomoria are pulling ahead in provinces, my army is now the biggest out there, and Pan's dominion and Caelum's research are insane. Not too worried about the dominion part of things, but I need more mages (and better mages) soon.
Research is still going apace. Two turns to Thaum1, four to Thaum2. Let's see how next turn goes.
Turn 6:
As expected- a random event (no turn feels right without one of those), and a battle. Let's see what I've got.
The event is something I couldn't care less about. Brigands increase unrest, which I can just let the game cure by automatically lowering taxes. I'm in the mountains, so none of my provinces are really worth anything. 80% of almost nothing is still almost nothing, so this is worthless.
Now, the battle is MUCH nicer. 144 Marv infantry is hard to beat, and seeing a fight with no casualties just warms my shriveled black heart.
(Two things here. First, this event is a LOT worse for me than you might think I'll realize this later. Second, 100+ Marverni troops is a fairly decent critical mass. Not enough to handle a real army (of a similar size), but enough to wipe the floor with indeps without huge casualties.)
Isn't it pretty?
Uh-oh. That purple banner is Fomoria, one of the races of giants in this game. Big, strong guys with good armor. I'm not enjoying the thought of fighting him, and he's partially in what I've decided should be my territory. Let's hope I can isolate him quickly enough to get my share of the map.
( *snort*)
No new mercs yet, and Fomoria stole Dante's Stingers. Drat.
Recruiting another mage and the last men for my next expansion group. 60 BCs and 20 Slingers. I'm also getting an independent commander, who will be sent over to where my primary army is. His purpose is to reach Faran, sit there, and build a fort. It should pay for itself right quick, both in recruitment and in the funds you get out of it.
(For those who didn't know, forts increase the taxes you get from surrounding provinces by their Administration value. I'm strapped for cash, so that's REALLY important.)
It looks like Helheim is recovering, and what's this? Why's my income dropped so far?
OH. Those bandits are in my capital- the source of ~90% of my gold. The AI automatically dropped my taxes to 50% to deal with that.
That takes care of that. The taxes are back where they belong, and my patrolling troops will deal with the unrest. Glad I caught that before I lost ~100 gold.
(See? I'd set the game aside in the middle of this, so I was rather surprised to come back and find the treasury so bare.)
Pan's army size has leveled off. He must be losing fights, or not have any Pans. Otherwise, he'd be gaining Maenads.
Let's all say it again. Maenads.
Turn 7:
(AKA "Why was I worried again?")
Well, now THIS is interesting! I've got Thaum1 as predicted, but let's see about the rest.
Magic item. Huh. It could be useful, or it could be utterly pointless. Gold would've been better.
(It ended up being Black Steel Armor, which is basically useless for me. Might be used on a Boar Lord, if that.)
This is what was so interesting. I only had one scheduled battle, so a second one meant either that a bad random event fired, or Fomoria hit me. No bad random event, and I got the province as planned. Let's see how badly I lost.
O_o
I... won? Against 30 giants!? Wow. Even managed to inflict more losses than I took! Let's see who got mauled in my army.
Okay, so it was BCs. Good to see nobody important was lost. Now, let's watch that battle.
So this is what I'm fighting. 21 Fir Bolg Slingers, a FB Champion, what looks like his starting commander prophetized, and 15 FB Warriors.
Lessons learned:
- FB Warriors are hard for normal BCs to hurt.
- Berserk is my friend- it was really hurting the FB.
- Slingers die FAST.
- He didn't throw any real giants at me.
Looking at the area, he's spread rather thin. I think I got his major expansion army. He doesn't get glamour, so I should see any units he's still got, and I see nothing. I've split my armies into three parts, and am going to try and push him back quickly. Also sending my new army down to conquer the next province.
(Anybody who knows Fomoria should see the problem with this. Anybody who plays Dom3 should be able to see the other huge flaw here.)
I figure that Corinthian has a few different options here. Either he tries for that indep province with his four Unmarked in the forest, in which case I'll have 80 men (and, after a bit of thought, a mage) there to block him; he heads up and take my province (in which case, I'll dogpile him from three directions); he retreats (running straight into my assault), or he stays right there (and get attacked next turn anyway). I like those odds!
(Again, not factoring a few things into my analysis.)
No new mercs, recruiting some more BCs and vectoring in a commander for them, set my tax down to let unrest drop (since patrolling did little last turn), got another Gut ordered for Thaum2, and am otherwise finished. Let's see how things go.