Turn 4: Exponential expansion happens.
Only two events happened this turn. Two expected battles battles.
Victory was a forgone conclusion given the expected opposition of shieldless militia and Crystal Amazons, but the fact that neither expansion party took any casualties was unexpected news. This makes the second battle that my prot 7 Fir Bolgs make it through without losses. Combined with the experience stars they are getting they are becoming a stronger force without me having to do anything.
As my spoilers showed last turn, one of my unmarked still managed to receive two afflictions from the enemy mindburn assault despite his 6 HP/turn regen. Making 3 afflictions from the battle as a whole. Their mothers wont be happy once they return. I can tell you that.
Back in the capitol another expansion force already stands conscripted. Due to the continuing resource shortages I only managed to get four giants and a short guy last turn. Well down from the six that I wanted. Probably enough to take out the group of militia that guards the desert to the south east of my capitol though.
Every expansion force continues to challenge themselves. I'm mainly moving north east to block off whoever starts up there from getting a foothold in my direction. I have already decided that the three provinces to the east belongs to me due to their proximity to my capitol. If I can also grab the desert and the forest beyond them then I am happy.
Although the picture here dont show it too well, the province located directly to the south of my cap contains barbarians. And although giants normally dont fare well against barbarians I have a plan for how to fix it. Next turn I will finally get my allotted 6 giants per turn.
These gents will provide cover for these gal's:
Once I get them that is.
A useful thing to do is to look at the provinces adjacent to the ones with your dominion in it each turn. Although you do not have any candles in them you can still tell their scales and this can allow you to deduct weather there are any interesting magic sites in them. Looking at provinces early, before they have had the chance of having any dominion in them will also prevent the results from being tainted by yours our others scales.
I look at ???(64), witch have luck scales. Jackpot! As far as I know there is only one thing in the game that can cause luck scales in an indy province without dominion in it: The site “Totem Collection”. It gives the owner 1s and 1n per turn and increases the luckscales in the province. Not a super site by any means, but it gives me an S income that can be used to remote search for further sites and it only requires S1 to find. And I have just found S mages!
The other interesting province have growth scales in it. Not in itself quite as interesting as the luck due to the fact that there exist random events that cause growth, but it could potentially be something much more spectacular. One of the best non-mage, non-discount sites in the game increases growth scales. Namely “The Shrouded Lands” that gives, on top of growth: 2s 2a and 2n gems. I could not actually find it even if I got that province though because it requires N3 to find and Fomoria only ever get N1 on its mages. It might be one of two other sites but neither of them are very interesting so I wont contemplate those possibilities.
Meanwhile, the Druid Eingeach have been busy figuring out how to read in the last couple of turns. Once he accomplished that feat he was immediately told to explore the possibilities of the construction of magical equipment. With his quill he is researching almost as fast as a respectable mage!
The focus on construction this early will leave me without any early battle magic. But seeing the state of my mages, that probably does not mater. Almost all the things I want out of construction is located at construction 4 so we wont be seeing any use out of it for a while.