1 player AAR - Machaka

[Tom_Scudder]

(I just remembered that I'd taken a screen shot after Turn 11, which I'll attach to this one if I can figure out how.)

Turn 12

No messages. Whew.

A smallish legion (more of a squadron, really) of the undead has been summoned, big enough that I need 2 of my death mages to ferry them to the front, along with the giant spiders. Kimya searches for magic sites as long as he's there, and Mjima the Tax Accountant of the Gods continues his long march to the front. The entire army should be assembled next month.

Meanwhile, scouts are reporting that Pythium has five provinces, and none of them border any other empire besides mine. This is disturbing. I would feel much better if they had another border to worry about. Pythium is also massing troops directly south of my border, but they might well be trying for the independent province just west of them. Another scout moving into position next turn should be able to give me a sense of how big Ulm is (and thus, how big a threat).

I recruit a Voice of the Lord and an independent priest, although at the last minute I realize that my previous calculations were off: If I'm going to invade next turn, I will need to have my level 4 Priest along, blessing my troops and giving them courage. If half my troops end up routing, leaving the other half to be fed to my esteemed opponent, it won't much matter if I get my god back in 4 turns rather than 5. The old math, starting this turn, went 7 + 14 + 19 = 40. The new math for continuing to recruit on the same plan, assuming Most Holy doesn't get killed in the attack, and that he can distribute his troops to some other commander for the siege, goes: 7 + 10 + 19. If I leave out the independent priests, I get 7 + 8 + 15 which still gets me my god back by turn 16. If I leave out the independents and the second votl, it goes 7 + 8 + 12 + 12 which doesn't quite cut it. If Most Holy gets killed or is otherwise unavailable, we get 7 + 8 + 11 + 14, which is exactly 40, with the voice of the lord plan. But. It occurs to me that having a bunch of independent priests casting banishment might be really handy when it comes to sieging a death mage. And that Ulm seems to have pretty piss-poor dominion, which would indicate that I might just be able to preach them out. So, after all that, we'll stick with plan A.

I also recruit two more hunters, alchemizing two more earth gems to do it. Shujaa can bring them up next turn.

In the meantime, I'm feeling pretty stupid about having kept my research in construction last turn. I have a pretty sad assortment of spells for my mages right now, and could use alteration 1 (barkskin), 2 (stoneskin) and thaumaturgy 1 (dust to dust). I can get alt 1 and thaum 1 this turn, and put 9 points toward alt 2, which I can get in time for the assault, if not in time to script spells for it. So that's set. I'm not going to talk about taxes again unless it's funny, but you can assume that I'm doing the little geeky alterations, basically dropping tax for provinces with unrest of 10 or more and then raising it back to 100 when unrest drops to single digits.

Provinces 7
Income 545 Upkeep 152
Research 49 (29 Alteration, 20 Thaumaturgy, both will be level 1 next turn) also Evo 1, Const 3, Ench 1.
Gems: F 6 (+1) A 3 (+1) E 6 (+4) D 1 (+1) N 5 (+5)
God calling: 7/40

End turn. Host.

Turn 13.

Kimya found another magic site - so far, he's 4 for 4. I sure hope he doesn't get killed in the battle. It's another Earth Blood Seepage, which puts me up to 6 a month Earth income. Me likes. I get my level 1 in thaum and level 1 in alt, so I'm a happy camper. In the meantime, Ulm seems to have pulled almost all of its troops out of the capital. But I'm sure they'll be moving them right back in next turn. Pythium keeps shifting its stupid army back and forth on my border. On the plus side, they've made contact with Abyssia on their south, so I'm no longer the only front they have to worry about.

The various bits of my army have now all converged on Gula Kusten. It consists of:

20 Manikins
10 assorted Longdead
17 Machaka Hoplites
8 Black Hunters plus 1 Spider
8 Machaka Archers plus 1 independent (nearly identical, except the independent is wearing a bit of armor)
2 sorceresses (F E D)
1 witch doctor (E D N)
1 black sorcerer (2F 2E D N)
plus 1 level 4 priest (and prophet) and 2 level 2 priests.

Heck with it, I'm going in (with my prophet). I ditch 1 hoplite who has battle fright, but decide to keep the one spider who does also. Ulm province defense of 25 means lots of crossbows, so I need to get my spiders on them right quick. I put the hoplites front and center with their big arrow-absorbing shields, set to "hold and attack" and set the spiders back a bit and to their left with "attack archer" orders. The undead are stationed on the hoplite's right with "attack nearest" orders. The archers are back a bit with "shoot large monsters" (just in case the behemoth I've seen puts in an appearance - if so, I think I remember that they don't have much defense, just a whole lot of hit points. I refuse to consult references on this.) I'm leaving one unscripted "cast spell" as the first spell slot and hoping my wizards take the clue and use it to cast stoneskin, and not fire shield. Then it's bombs away with the fire darts. I'm half tempted to leave them completely unscripted so they can cast dust to dust if the behemoth comes to play. But I don't

Okay, there's the plan. Now let's see you do it.
In other news, I shuttle 2 hunters to the front with Shujaa, recruit a voice of the lord, an independent priest, and 2 more hunters, and tell my scouts to do scouty things.

Total income: 536 Upkeep 165
Research: Alteration 31 (31 for level 2), Evocation 18 (33 for level 2) also const 3, ench 1, thaum 1.
Gems: F 7 (+1) A 4 (+1) E 11 (+6) D 2 (+1) N 10 (+5)
God Calling: 17/40

End Turn. Host.