move along, nothing to see here: turn 12
Midgård contacted us offering a NAP. The player seems nice enough, almost hurts to remain dead silent. No response from Caelum nor Marignon, on the other hand. Now that I think of it, the elements and forces of asymmetry might prove working well for our benefit – while not mongering direct war for now, not responding enhances confusion among our enemies. I am not sure if the body responsible for the general strategy - Joint Chiefs of Starspawn Staff - have ever heard of Clausewitz or Sun Tsu, but chaos, friction and fog of war is good status quo for all mad cults in the world, no matter the origin.
This turn also showed that while the population dies quickly (hope the domkill effect reaches beyond our borders!!!!11), luck scales should keep us funded.
To strengthen the domkill effect, and especially for the reach, we decided to start a temple building project the first additional temple coming up already, and 2 additional temples being built next month. Of course, this is gonna have some implications on the research and economy... how dramatic, remains to be seen.
For conquest, we face two options.
Divide our host first time and march to the North and to the East, or concentrate all the troops against the East.
We chose the latter for two reasons. The chances of taking two provinces next turn are dim with divided forces – I came to the conclusion after evaluating the chaff calling them selves cultists – and when the whole army marches East as one we can ensure a victory, and hope ensuring two simultaneus victories turn 14, after fielding even creater force of cultists next turn.
The victories we expect to achieve turn 14 are even of greater importance: when we march East now, we can take the population center located in the East turn 14, and move North the same turn with smaller force – at least we hope. The special battle markers point out the city and the Northern province where our tactical aim lies. However, when studying the current tactical situation, we can be pretty sure Caelum has taken the the city already.
About the mad prophet, Robert Olmstead... to serve the initial goal of spreading domkill we decided we let him stay near vicinity of the city called Glimmering Fields. The population center appears to be a prosperous location with population of 19270 (Census Bureau, turn 12). The province is away beyond my physical reach, surrounded by strong provinces of Midgård. As a method of punching the Midgård's nose him even not knowing it, Robert Olmstead should stay around preaching, and we will see how low the population will die before Midgård actually secures the place, and roots the cult out.