Turn 2 – Lets take a look at the world.
There were no important events this turn other than that various nations declared their pretenders. Everyone prophetized their starting scout except for Marverni, who prophetized his starting commander instead.
I did not think much of this at this time but later this knowledge gave me vital clues as to Bluemage's personality and playing style.
One event that was easily overlooked was that there was the proclamation that my patrolers reduced unrest by 2. To bad my overtaxing caused 12 points of unrest. Despite my praise of them last turn! How could they! Anyway these things happen. Overtaxing will always give 2 points of unrest for every 10% above 100%. Patrolers on the other hand are quite random in how effective they are and can fail even with great numbers given some bad luck. 2 points of unrest seem to have disappear by itself due to friendly dominion though.
Having a look at the world at the start of turn tells me one important thing. Crystal Amazons to my north east! Jackpot! I was wondering what I would have to do to get astral. With R'lyeh ever close by, astral magic is a must. I worried that I would have to wait until conj 6 and specters until I would get astral. Instead I find astral indies right outside of my door. Lucky!
Actually I was expecting to find astral from indies so it was part of my plan. Crystal amazons and lizard tribes are common in the Early Age. But its nice to find one so soon so I no longer have to feel any any pressure about it.
I was planning to recruit another Druid and four Unmarked, but as I lost some resources due to unrest I had to settle for three and a Nemedian Champion.
The first druid spend the turn building an Owl Quill. Some people consider these things to be a waste of Air gems. And they have a point. 5 Air gems for 3 points of research is not a good exchange. But it is also true that the power of a research booster depends on when you build it. At turn 2 that quill will produce research for a long time. Also in CBM Owl Quills have the additional effect of giving its wearer – 2 to enc. Witch to a spellcaster, or a quickened thug, is slightly better than having reinvigoration 4, due to the enc bonus counting double for spells and count once for each action. I will use them like this later, so really, they are actually just thug items that produce research while they sit in storage.
Nevertheless, the keen eyed among you might have noticed a red arrow going north. That arrow represent an ambassadorial group of Fir Bolgs that will visit the province of Vath to the north and my prophet to reveal to them the joyous words of Snakey. The army is my starting army plus the ten additional Fir Bolgs that I produced last turn. The opposition consist of 20 troops. Mainly of shieldless militia and light cavalry. There might possibly be a few heavy cavalry also that is not shown, but I am confident that my prophet could just smite them if they exist. Light and heavy cavalry often comes together.
I could also have attacked the barbarians to the south as barbarians are dangerous to giants. But I wanted my prophet to move north to strengthen my dominion up there. Already I can see the dominion of R'lyeh in the waters to the north west of my capitol and I would like it if the lands stayed under my my faith at the very least. Although I took dom strength 7 on my pretender, he is imprisoned and cant help inspire people on his own just yet. R'lyeh's pretender on the other hand is awake according to the graphs and could pose a significant threat to my dominion if he would chose to expand to the south. He is either a Wyrm or an Ancient Kraken. Both are viable though I suspect that he is a Ancient Kraken due to thematic reasons.
Oh right, lets take a look at this picture again.
No, I dont know why some of the pictures have a white border beneath them.
Anyway, lets talk about my build. Other players that look at my pretender would be excused if they though that I took the standard earth+nature bless. Because I did!
This is a E4N8 bless that, as the picture shows, allows my sacreds to regenerate and makes them last longer in battle without tiring. What the casual observer would have missed however is the fact that this bless only compromises a small part of my overall build. Most of my points were spent on my scales. As you can see above I took Order 3 for money, production 3 for versatility and because fomoria is one of the few heavy armor nations in EA. And for money of course. This is CBM after all. I also took Growth 2. Not because Fomoria in anyway need growth, but because growth is really powerful in CBM. Magic 1 is something that everyone takes so nothing strange there.
Only negative scale I took was heat 1 because I wanted to experiment a little. I have tested it a bit and it have given me the theory that temperature scales might not be as bad as it say on the tin. Yes, even with multipliers multiplying multipliers or whatever. The thing I have noticed is this: even with a base heat of 1 the heat will never get above 1 in the summer despite the fact that temperatures will go up then. This means that heat is free points in the summer. It will also often go down to heat 0 in winter making it the same in winter. Had I known Abysia would be in this game I would have chosen cold, but I designed my pretender before Excist even announced his choice of nation and I could not be arsed to change it.
There were mercs available but none of them were very appealing to me. I did not have the funds to bid on the Amazons when they were available and they are neither able to expand on their own, nor did they compliment the rest of my forces. Not worth it.
There were also city guards up for bid, but they are something of a joke that mainly new players recruit by mistake. They consist 60 militia and in a fight, militia can actually be worse than nothing due to them routing easily and taking the rest of the army with them in the rout. It is true like Mightypeon say, that they makes for adequate patrollers for overtaxing your capitol. But even there they'll just barely do. Remember that buying 60 militia for permanent patrolling would cost just 300g. Or 9 months for the mercs at minimum bid. Well, +40 for a commander. Whatever.
Turn 3: The 300 five warriors go forth to take the mountain pass.
I rarely get random events because of Order 3 and the lack of both luck and misfortune scales. Thus, only two events happened this turn. A battle and the fact that Abysia declared a demonbreed assassin to be his prophet. Such an odd choice. But I did not pay any more attention to this.
I should have.
The other event was a battle.
An excellent and highly improbable outcome what with Fir Bolgs having only prot 7. Turns out that there really *were* four heavy cavalry in the province. But despite that, my Fir Bolgs did not take any casualties. One of them received a never healing wound, but he was immediately put on the famous fomorian health regime of “suck it up you prancy princess!”
Other interesting thing happening is that my second expansion force is ready.
Normally I like to have at least 6 giants in an expansion force, but you use what you get, and today I stand here with only five giants. They will have to do.
So whats up with these guys? Well with my blessing and the power of bad math they becomes an unbreakable wall of spears that will also stab people pretty well with its atk12, dam24 weapons. The bless will let them regenerate 6 HP every round. How exactly 15% of 35 turns in to 6 HP is a mystery but it has probably something to do with how awesome Snakey is. Or maybe dominions always round regeneration numbers upwards. Whatever.
I almost skipped over the earth bless part of the bless in favor of more scales, but it turns out I need it in order to make my quickened kings fatigue neutral. For the Unmarked it has the power to make them last 67% longer in battle without fatiguing out. Witch is good enough I guess.
Anyway, the bless also has another purpose and that is to prevent afflictions. No one knows to what extent regeneration protects against afflictions, but two things are known: One: The tool tip that it prevents 7/8 or all afflictions is wrong, and Two: more is probably better. 5% gives rather little protection, 15% gives rather a lot. This is also thematic as fomorians put great importance in avoiding afflictions as social status is depending on being healthy.
Soon these fearsome soldiers will be adorned with experience stars from expanding and unlike other elite troops they wont gain the complimentary afflictions.
Moving out!
Although I only brings 5 giants with me this time I have no doubt that their heavy armor and shields will be able to overcome almost any amount of archers and mindburns and take neither afflictions or casualties.
Next turn spoilers:
Got drat it!