Turn VI: Not Much Happens
So this turn opens up without me seeing that message screen. No random events, no battles, no messages from other nations. Straight to the map screen.
And here we see, not much has changed. Still have four provinces total, still only have two commanders. Both are moving into the last province adjacent to my capital; for those who don't remember, this one has about sixty units total, mostly slingers (weak projectile throwers who nevertheless will be annoying to my men because projectiles ignore glamour and any damage, no matter how weak, breaks glamour), heavy infantry (heavily armored enemy units, can be a bit tough to kill but aren't a huge problem), and two elephants (the real issue; elephants can trample smaller units, and trampling seems to ignore glamour, meaning these guys can trample my armies and be really, really annoying to my bigger guys).
Here's my plan of attack. Modified form of the pincer strategy, with the serfs furthest forward to draw slinger attacks and make the elephants go for them first, while the Huskarlar and, after buffing, Finn and his Helhirdings run in to get them form the side. Sir Slicer, rather than joining the charge, will be spamming Frighten, a spell that lowers enemy morale; elephants have low morale normally, so hopefully he can get them to rout before they hit my army. If this works, they'll run right through their own army, trampling them instead (this is also the main risk in using elephants of your own, since if they are routed they may trample your commanders on the way out). We'll see how it works in a turn. I also am recruiting another Vanjarl and three more Helhirdings, for more expansion.
Since there isn't much else happening this turn, I'm going to spend extra time on graphs. May as well have some content here.
Provinces, Pangaea and Arcoscephale (their line is behind Pan's) are still gaining a single province a turn, while R'lyeh, Abysia, and Fomoria are just rocketing ahead. Abysia "only" gained two provinces this turn, while Fomoria's keeping up the pace with three. There's a real divide forming now.
Income is about what you'd expect, apart from something bad happening to Marverni. Caelum's still feeling the overtaxing their cap and not gaining much new stuff, I'm actually making money, and everyone else is still going up.
Research, Caelum's just leagues ahead of everyone else. I'm almost entirely sure that he's just recruiting Eagle Kings now, since he's not expanding, his army line is almost static, and he's getting tons of research. Everyone else, going up at a slower rate; Arco's philosophers are going well for him, putting him ahead of everyone who isn't spamming Eagle Kings. Meanwhile I haven't researched at all yet because I haven't been able to recruit my researchers. Bah.
Army size, not much of interest here, apart from Pangaea flatlining (did they lose a lot of people to counteract their freespawn?) and Fomoria rocketing up. Caelum actually seems to have recruited some people, and then lost most of them, probably in the attempt to grab their new province. Abysia and I have the lowest numbers total, although this is to be expected; Abysia has expensive but effective units, and I, even in a normal game (like my test game, where I was able to claim four provinces a turn in the first year; I got such a bad start here) rely more on commanders with small groups of troops rather than large armies. Don't expect to see either of us at the top of the army charts, at least until we get our blood economies going and start summoning massive amounts of demons. (I don't know if either of us will actually do this. Demons are pretty awesome though.)
Alright, that's enough padding for now. At least for the actual turn. Didn't do much this turn, but hopefully I'll resume my rise to glory when we come back.
Next turn: I hate elephants.
-------
Bonus: Magic site and gem explanation
This one's pretty simple, but there's a lot to it. Nothing hard to understand, but this section's going to still be a bit long.
Magic gems are a vital part of the game. There is a type of gem for every path except Holy, although Blood is a bit different. You use gems in magic, as you might expect, although the ways you do it vary.
First is for ritual spells, or spells a mage casts outside of combat, at a lab. Pretty much every ritual spell requires gems, which are always of the primary path; a spell with two paths, like a Water-Nature spell (like the one for summoning naiads) would use Water gems, for example.
Second is for forging items; unlike ritual spells, an item that requires two paths uses both gems types. Otherwise, it's exactly the same as casting ritual spells.
Third is for battlemagic. Some spells require gems to cast in battle, meaning that, if the mage does not have the proper gems on their person, they cannot cast the spell. Mages can also use a single gem per spell, whether or not the spell requires gems otherwise, to reduce the fatigue the spell costs them; depending on what you have them doing, this can make a huge difference in battle, as mages who are too exhausted to cast spells are useless.
You get gems from three sources: Random events, magic sites, and certain spells. There were items that made gems, too, but they proved to be unbalancing (you had to make them or you'd be at a huge disadvantage) and unfun micromanagement, so CBM and most other balance mods make them into artifacts, so you can only get one of each, not worth it. (Other people can also trade you gems, but since they get their gems from one of these sources, anyone who was going to try to argue that I should have listed it with the above needs to put their hand down and think long and hard about their life.) A lot of gem events require the proper scales; Fire and water gems can be gained in Heat and Cold scales, respectively, for example. Magic sites are covered in more detail below, so I'll skip to the spells.
Several spells are what are known as "gemgen spells", meaning they generate gems. They're a variant of global spells, spells which there are only five slots for (casting one after they're filled will try to overwrite one of the existing ones) and that persist after they're cast. They have a high cost, and can be boosted beyond that to resist being dispelled or overwritten, and after they're cast, they give you a certain amount of gems a turn. They're pretty great, really, and frequently hotly contested; other people will try to overwrite your casting with their own, or just outright dispel it if they're at war with you.
There are a few other spells that make gems, but they're a bit odd and either not worth casting most of the time or part of a much bigger spell that only actually makes a gem profit in a fringe situation. Therefore, we're moving on to magic sites.
Magic sites are, well, just that; special sites of magic (most of the time) in a province that affect it in some ways or provide you with things. Every nation has at least one magic site in their capital, providing them with their starting gem income and their cap-only troops. Here are Helheim's two capital sites.
Something to note, while most magic sites that enable the recruitment of certain units work for whoever owns them, national sites only work for their nation; someone capturing my capital wouldn't be able to recruit Hangadrotts or other units. They still get the gem income, though.
Where magic sites are is determined at the beginning of the game, but most of them are not visible to begin with; you have to reveal them. All sites have two qualities that determine how you can find them. The first is their path type; this aligns with the various magic paths, including Holy magic. The second is their level, which is ranked from zero to four. This is the path level required to find the site; if it's higher than zero, you need to search with at least that level of the right path to find it. A Death 0 site will be revealed the moment you take the province, but a Death 4 one requires a skilled mage searching there. There are two ways to find sites:
Manual searching: This is moving a mage around and having him search the province, which reveals all sites up to the path levels they have. While this is useful in the early phases of the game, most mages have rather low path levels and will thus miss some sites. Also, they have to move to a province, then search, meaning it takes two turns for them per province. Depending on the mages you have (some with a large variety of paths, high paths, or both), you may manually search a lot, or almost not at all; if your pretender is mobile, awake, and has good magic, searching with them may be worth it as well.
Site-searching spells: The other way to find magic sites. This one is faster than manually searching, as it involves a mage just casting a spell, but they have certain limitations as well. For one, you need to research the spells, which aren't all in the same school. Secondly, almost all of them require two levels in the path to be cast, so mages with only one level can't cast them; since I only get F1, I'm going to have to manually search for Fire sites until I can get a booster for a mage, for example. Thirdly, they cost gems, although not many; most are just two gems. Fourthly, they're limited in which sites they can find; Augury, the fire-searching spell, will find all Fire sites in a province, but it will
only find fire sites, unlike how a mage with Fire may also have other paths. There are some spells that search for more paths, though; Voice of Tiamat, a Water spell, reveals all elemental sites (Fire, Air, Water, and Earth) in a province, but it only works on underwater ones. Acashic Record, meanwhile, reveals
all sites in a province, even Holy ones that are otherwise annoying to find (especially the rare ones that require three or four levels to find), but it's also rather expensive and requires a moderately-skilled mage to cast it. (You can also find magic sites through a certain global, but it's a fringe case not worth covering here.)
So, what do these magic sites
do? Well, they can do quite a bit. The most common thing they do is give a small income of magic gems per turn; this is also the main reason people seek them out. Some of them allow you to recruit units, like the two sites I found a couple turns back; the usefulness of these units can vary immensely, from some awesome things to outright detrimental to your cause. Some sites affect the scales in a province, drive the unrest up or reduce it, cause disease to units in the province, or do other weird things, but generally these things just clue you in to a site being there (such as finding a province with three Heat scales in the middle of your land when you have Cold dominion). If a site will disease your units or something, though, you don't want to be there, generally.
There is, however, one other major thing sites can do: Lower the gem cost of spells cast there. These sites, which sometimes have other effects, sometimes not, are game-changers. While a site that offers a discount on Thaumaturgy spells won't make a huge difference, and a Blood discount site is nice but not a big thing, a Conjuration or Construction site is enormous, and if you're fortunate enough to find a site that gives an Alteration bonus then you may as well have found an "I Win" button if you can properly use it. You want to find these sites. They are just the best.
Anyway, that's both magic gems and magic sites covered there. Hopefully we'll be seeing a lot of both these things, at least in my updates. Screw those other guys.
Some people may remember me saying that Blood is a bit different from the other paths, gem-wise. Curious as to what I meant? Well, you'll have to wait for my explanation of that. Blood magic is a whole other thing, and deserves its own one of these updates. Something to look forward to, I guess.
Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
Hybrid Mode
