I don't think anyone else will keep posting their turns by now. It's a pity since all I have to show is a map where Pangaea fortresses stand alone under a tide of red...
TURN 28 :
R'lyeh's god has been killed by a 20-strong(?) Fomorian PD with 3 druids inside. I think he must be somewhat gutted. Helheim is joining the fray against Fomoria. However, the equation is: R'lyeh + Helheim + Marverni < Fomoria so far.
Arco lost 2 provinces, but I do'nt know to whom. He brought in 2 armies - one of chariots in the north, one of archers and ichtyids in the south. Hopefully, Abysia may be killed soon. Marverni only has 2 provinces left.
Definitions of soon may vary here.
I'm striking at my fort and the province to the south.
TURN 29 :
Abysia asked Arco to let him live so he could dom-kill me. I'm laughing at the thought. Why would Arco do this? At least I can provide him with gems, while Abysia would always want to take their capital back, so he can't seriously let them live.
I freed my capital. That lets me blood hunt there.
Abysia has something like 3 candles left. If he doesn't preach in 33 - which he certainly can do efficiently - he runs the risk of dominion death next turn.
I didn't dent the southern PD with my wolves. This was quite pitiful in fact.
In other news, Marverni is reduced to a single besieged fort. They may well die before Abysia or I.
I keep a scout eating popcorn in Marverni, waiting to look at the storming to come.
Oh, and my research is skyrocketting. I have reached Conjuration THREE by turn TWENTY-NINE! Fear, you heathens. No, seriously, this is pitiful.
The map is now clearly divided.
R'lyeh holds the waters and most of MY island. Abysia and I are tiny coloured patches in the south-east. Arco holds the south. Helheim the northeast, Fomoria the west and center. Caelum holds the east, but they are still mostly uninvolved and building their typical armies of Frankenstein monsters.
Arco warns me that he can soon cast Mother Oak and offers a shared investment so we share the benefits. I'm in no position to refuse. I have few gems, it will take me forever to reach Alt 5, and by the time I could try to overcast it, Immac would have stored lots of N gems and could overcast it back, so I accept the principle.
TURN 30 :
I get 19 blood slaves in Pangaea. Enough for 6 turns of dom spread with a prophet. But... 1/5th of the population is unhappy and decides to leave
Ouch. I already don't get much gold, that's a permanent 20% reduction in my capital.
Lions prove to be much better than wolves at beating abysian infantry:
Caelum comes say hello to Abysia where they are strongest. I leave it up to either of the contestants to make a screenshot. Basically, 8 anointeds of Rhuax plus an uber-prophet > a few eagle kings with some mammoths and corpse constructs. This was suicide from Caelum from the start. He achieved nothing there, except maybe kill a few infantries, but most of the infantry is PD anyway. Caelum also attacks the province of Renthale with 2 squads of archers. Against Abysian PD? Seriously? Did you even scout them? If a markata could take the province, I'd have taken it back long ago. Of course he loses too.
My scout dies in Marverni seeing Marverni commit suicide. He goes out with all (?) his druids, makes a mass communion and then, since his troops were not told to hold and attack, sees them rush straight ahead out of range of all the buffs he scripted. His druids cast a blade wind once. I mean. Communion Master + Power of the Spheres on the master; Communion Slave + Summon earthpower on the slaves. Everyone casts a buff while the troops are on hold and attack. Next, blade wind * 2. Sure there would have been losses to thunder strikes but at least the druids would have done something useful beyond the occasional vine arrow. Marverni is dead by now, the storming will be trivial for Fomoria.
Here's my diplo to Arco, who offers me to take back 2 provinces he just took:
Quote:
There are only black candles left in his province of Deadlands. 5 of them. I have 2 dryads preaching there, one in Renthale (36) who preaches one more turn and then will go to Deadlands too. I also start blood sacrificing in my capital. Not with my prophet yet, I prefer to have her smite the last abysian province in the island, but she can do that soon if the dryad doesn't prove efficient enough.
I'll also send a dryad there every turn to counter-preach. Still, there are 8 H3 priests in that province, along with a prophet and maybe a H2 (I think he is just PD).
You may not have seen the battle, but Caelum tried to take Deadlands with maybe 20 corpse constructs, 5 mammoths, 3 or 4 eagle kings and a few yazatas. He lost all and caused no casualty beyond some PD. He also attacked 36, a 20-strong abysian PD, with 2 groups of 20-so spire horn archers. Of course he got his *** kicked.
I'm taking these provinces, thank you.
Oooh, and I lost 1/5th of Pangaea population this turn to a bad event . Thanks luck scale for not working.
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TURN 31 :
2 Unexpected events in Citala:
1. A local lord has built a fortress to defend his lands from revolting peasants.
Woohoo! Free fort!
2. Local defence improved by 10.
Woohoo! + 50 gold worth of PD.
I retrieve 2 provinces from Arcoscephale and take one from Abysia. I decide to leave Tir na n'Og alone for the moment and not worry about R'lyeh immediately but rather about Abysia remaining provinces. This is partly due to the Astral window in the province where I fought Abysia. I would bet R'lyeh put it up to see what was coming so it could counter me if I attack him, so I'd rather not waste troops on someone who can counter attack when there's a lone demonbred and some PD waiting for the kill in the south.
I plan to build a temple next turn in Citala.
Abysia's prophet wasn't in the battle that happened in Deadlands (a lone Arco scout got killed), so I suspect he moved it somewhere else to preach. Maybe to my capital, which would suck as he could happily assassinate everyone there. This is why I bring an indie commander and a black harpy, to act as assassination decoys. I also give bodyguards to my mages, with little hope that it will help them survive. Anyway, with a second temple next turn, protected by walls, I will be able to blood sac twice as much and maybe build more dryads.
TURN 32 :
Fomoria has killed Marverni.
Abysia's god has broken free.
I lose 1/5th population in Carnag (argh, I'll have noone left) but gain 200 gold there. Abysia also moves to take Rim Mountain. Great. He doesn't preach during this time so I get rid of one of his candles. I build my second temple, and blood hunt some more on my capital so I'll have enough slaves to blood sac. Next turn: dryads + preach + blood sac.
Whoever suggeested winning by blood saccing. Abysia's dominion is utterly crap. Like 3 or somesuch. But he's got H3 priests. It's a helluva pain to get rid of that. Of course, if I had 10 temples, it might work, but it's still painfully slow and inefficient. I dare say it's not even seriously possible without jade knives.
TURN 33 :
5 blood slaves and a lucky event for 200 gold this turn.
I lose quite a lot of vinemen, maenads and a few lions to Abysian PD but take out their southernmost province at last:
However, Arco tells me he's signed a NAP with Abysia, as he is rightly concerned with Fomoria's growth.
I'm slightly concerned about Caelum's next move personnally. If I were him, I'd certainly try to get rid of Abysia and then of Pangaea, and that's not good.
But actually, he's just a turtle so I fear little.
Since Abysia refused my truce last time we talked, I see no point in asking again.
Silly me forgot I needed to give some blood slaves to my dryad so she could actually do some blood sacrifices. Duh! Wasted one turn.
As a result, I build 1 lab and 1 dryad this turn.
There are 2 black candles left in Deadlands (33), but I only have 1 in Rim Mountains (21). I bring a preacher there. I still preach in 33. Next turn, with my lab, I should be ablee to get both a second blood sacrificer and one more dryad. Although I may lack gold for the latter. As a result, I will overtax my capital. That is, I will patrol and tax normally while blood hunting.
According to Helheim, Caelum should be joining the war against Fomoria. Things will be difficult for giants. I think they're a bit overestimated, since a 2 to 1 war isn't easy to win, and with Arco joining the gang, it'll be hard for them.
TURN 34 :
I found some fire and death gems to lucky events. I've lowered Abysia's dominion to 1 candle in 33 but he grew to 5 in 21. I can start blood sac'ing in my second temple, though. It will take forever... I will be buying 2 dryads per turn every turn until the end comes... I also try to take out the one province with a lone anointed one to my north.
Helheim is near dead. They have as many provinces as Abysia, but more income. Less gold than I earn, which means really not much. They have their forts, however. That, and Arco has started attacking Fomoria. It doesn't show much, as Fomoria is still rocketting in provinces count.
TURN 35 :
My army sent north is slaughtered by abysian PD.
Even with some Armor of Achilles cast at abysians, swarms of maenads are worthless and I didn't have enough lions. Vine men also suck.
I got a lucky event for a hero:
Not that I'll ever be able to kit him and use him, mind you.
I may think buying minotaur lords for their berserk bonus is usually a bad idea, but I must say that berserk +7 is kind of impressive. Plus he's a good mage, even though he provides zero magic diversity. He'll help me research Destruction and then some summoning in order to maybe summon lions and use them to fight Abysia with decent numbers without having to waste tons of gems to give supplies to mostly useless black hawks, spiders and wolves (useless against Abysia that is).
I'm also going to send the rest of my army against R'lyeh. He just didn't have to take my lands. I'll probably lose all those maenads, but that doesn't really matter if I have even a slight chance of seizing one province.
In other news, Helheim controls zero province but retains 3 forts. Arco lost a bunch of province this turn and Fomoria is generally thumping everyone around while Caelum jsut sits there idly.
Abysia still has 5 black candles, but his dominion shrank this turn (?) while mine grew. More preachers every turn. Yawn.
TURN 36 :
Fomoria has cast Mother Oak. Well, not like I could compete.
I've got a lucky siren event, along with a nice one : 3000 pounds of gold, a huge amount of fire gems and a magic item. Nice. It's but a marble armor, but I won't spit on anything.
I take out R'lyeh's PD with surprising ease. I mean, unsupported maenads beat them!
Caelum attacks Abysia once again, in the province I failed to take last turn. That's intersting. This time he brought a lot of wizards.
9 thunder strike casters slaughter abysian PD without problem.
I also witness Fomoria's mercenaries storm a Helheim fortress.
Graphs show Fomoria lost all that he took last turn. Arco got some provinces back, and so did R'lyeh. Caelum is still not participating in the big war. I suppose he wants to kill Abysia, then me, and then tackle Fomoria.
I bet for Marmor the white wizard. I mean, he could site search or research, whereas Fomoria is only going to get him killed, so he should really come and help me instead.
I start building another fort. The idea is to have as many as I can, much as R'lyeh. I don't care about resources. I want fort + temple + Pans inside + blood sacrifices.
TURN 37 :
Unrest in Pangaea, air and water gems through luck event.
I take over one R'lyeh province with heavy maenad casualties. This gives me a lab and 2E,1S income.
Abysia is reduced to 3 candles only in its only province left.
Arco lost half his armies this turn, but I didn't see what happened. Too bad RL doesn't let me ask about it.
TURN 38 :
Just some gems and 200 gold from lucky events. Helheim lost its next-to-last fort to Fomoria. Still 3 black candles for Abysia. I preach with 2 more dryads there this turn, and build a temple in the province south of it, where a fort will be completed this turn. I also bring in 4 blood slaves to start saccing next turn.
In addition, I summon some animals on the island in order to attack R'lyeh next turn and take back the whole isle.
For the first time, there's a clear dent in Fomoria's army graph. They still seem to be trampling everyone else, though, and they send some remot ghoul attacks against Arco.
TURN 39 :
Conjuration 4 researched.
Some air gems found.
Still 4 black candles left for Abysia... I have a new blood sacrificer. I blood hunt some more, recruit one more dryad and watch R'lyeh and Arco fight Fomoria while Caelum still sits idly. I'll also attack that last R'lyeh land province on my island.