AAR: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)

[LDiCesare]

TURN 6:
Abysia was indeed friendly enough not to attack this turn.
I conquered the southern province, losing 30 chaff on the way.
I found a S1F1 site with my pretender and got a lucky 300 gold event with increased faith.
Helheim's income comes back to a decent level (about mine, which means it still sucks) while Marverni plummets.
There are f*** elephants in Tir na n'Og. They can be panicked easily but if they don't rout they'll just slaughter anything I can put in their path. I'll have to send my pretender, with awe and fear it should be a piece of cake, but meanwhile my army will be rather useless.
I stop recruiting Pans for now, they cost too much. Dryads suck at research but they're still my best option for now upkeep-wise (110 sacred for 4 pts vs 320 for 10 pts).
I recruit some minotaurs and centaur archers to expand north later. The commander moves to my capital to fetch them, then northwards. There's one mountain province which is bothering, with longdead and archers, maybe a mage inside that I'll have to check, maybe send a dryad to banish?

TURN 7:

I take the province which remains with little losses (14 maenads). The kraken comes say hello. Nasty being. I also get the visit of a short-lived Caelum scout, Caelum being to my north far away. That's good for me, they have the worst expansion so far.
Abysia is being obnoxious. I mean, I tell him 30 is a war declaration and he sends his troops 1 province to the south, where it has nowhere to go, while he still has room around his capital. The guy is a pain. I'll be ranting againt Abysia a lot from now on, sorry about it, but from this point on it's quite clear he's been planning a rush and I'm his target. It's also a very bad strategy for Abysia, as he hasn't even taken the provinces by his capital, has pitiful strategic move, no research, and leaves himself open for his other neighbour to slaughter him. And noone can take down Pangaean forts early in the game, except maybe R'lyeh with their chaff, so rushing EA Pangaea is always a very bad move.
I just hope R'lyeh won't try to get out of the pond just near me. I hate the fact they have amphibious units everywhere. Never understood why people thought fish had to get out of the water. I should stop ranting against water nations one day. Now, I'll try to single handedly tame elephants with my pretender. That's probably a recipe for failure, but it should make a nice story.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

There's one mountain province which is bothering, with longdead and archers, maybe a mage inside that I'll have to check, maybe send a dryad to banish?

Longdead and archers? That can mean only one thing, invasion! No wait... wrong movie.

Usually that contains some sort of death/blood caster. And 25% of the time (in my experience at least) those *******s have the devil a turn summoning item. A lone banishment priest isn't going to cut it.

I could be wrong of course, but I expect devils and imps, with some skelly spam for good measure in there.

[jotwebe]

R'lyeh ~~ Turn 6

Half a year has passed, and R'lyeh's grasp is ever expanding. Our battles are victorious, and our knowledge of the mysteries of what the uninitiated call "fate" provides richt bounty.



The pictures in this update are a little messed up, either because I set my formating script to first transform them to indexed colors and then scale them or because some unknown force messed with them. Take your pick.

The two events in Baptizer?



One. Thousand. Pounds of. Gold. That's R'lyeh pounds, notoriously difficult to translate into other systems of measurement. But it's a lot, more than regular our monthly income.

So what's the item then? Some boots of long strides?



Not quite. This is awesome, never mind that none of my mages can use it, and that the aboleths don't even have heads.

It is immediately spirited away to R'yeh, where it now lies on a pedestal of dark stone, its unquenchable flames fitfully flickering in the darkness of the deep guarded by lumbering shambler thralls incapable of even conceiving the concept of treason.

Meanwhile, Helheim has noticed Yöt-Webbogoth's progress and sends the following message below the waves:



To such bluster, a memorable reply is needed.


~~~
A fisher boat returns days late. Of the crew, only a young man is left, but his once red-blonde hair has turned white. He refuses to look upon the sea, and continually mumbles to himself. After some time, it was determined that the phrase he repeated incessantly was this: "That is not dead which can eternal lie. Yet with strange aeons even death may die."

Only when brought before the local herse does the fisherman snap out of his daze. "Under the waves, R'lyeh will go where it will. Over the waves, the death-gulls may fly."
~~~


Same reasoning as with Fomoria, except while Fomoria as a nation with underwater capabilities is right on top of my hit list, Helheim is not. I doubt they'd actually commit to an underwater war this early, and it would be one if they attacked. Conversely, I have little to gain by feuding with a land power before it is clear who the big dangers will be.

Also, Fomoria is a scales build while Helheim tanked his scales. That means Fomoria will get more dangerous over time, while Helheim's bless (presumably) is most powerful in the early game.

Meanwhile, in the Hungry Sea, off the fog-shrouded Fomorian coast, the Grand Army of R'lyeh, having crushed the second of the Amber Clan Kingdoms, now expands into and area dominated by barbarian triton tribes. The champions of these tribes ride huge sharks, and the tribes have suspended their usual internecine warfare to confront the invaders from the north.



There have been strange voices in the astral currents, incorporeal spirits seperated from the Shadow Shore by incomprehensible gulf of space and time. Lately their mad gibberings has grown more urgent, perhaps stirred up by the Pantokrator's disappearance.

One especially, So-Y'wsyrr, has even achieved a semblance of coherence, warning Auluudh of some dire fate should he continue to lead the army from the front. But the strange power that has come with Yöt-Webbogoth is stronger, compels him to risk himself in the clash of battle, even in the face of the terrible shark knights of the Hungry Sea.



Auluudh bends his mind-force on the sharks' streamlined predator souls, even as the gibodai gathered behind him follow his example.

In the midst of their charge, the sharks are stunned and drift aimlessly, one even turning against the triton infantry following in its wake. It is to weak to fight effectively. The tritons stab it to death, but they have been distracted.



From their left flank, a fast-moving force of tritons, some of them freshly enslaved Amber Clan warriors, falls upon them, even as the line of troll warriors meets their van.



It is too much.

In R'lyeh, meanwhile, the first of the mind lords apart from dread Auluudh swears unconditional obedience to the Kraken Cult:



He's kind of sucky. His picks are earth and astral, I'm hoping for double earth, double death, or double astral, as those will give me path diversity. He cost 420 gold, and as a non-holy unit, that's 28 gold per month as upkeep.

Strategically, the next moves are simple. Yöt-Webbogoth continues south along the east coast



while in the west, Auluudh and his army advance into Underhome.

[Mightypeon]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

TURN 6:
Abysia was indeed friendly enough not to attack this turn.
I conquered the southern province, losing 30 chaff on the way.
I found a S1F1 site with my pretender and got a lucky 300 gold event with increased faith.
Helheim's income comes back to a decent level (about mine, which means it still sucks) while Marverni plummets.
There are f*** elephants in Tir na n'Og. They can be panicked easily but if they don't rout they'll just slaughter anything I can put in their path. I'll have to send my pretender, with awe and fear it should be a piece of cake, but meanwhile my army will be rather useless.
I stop recruiting Pans for now, they cost too much. Dryads suck at research but they're still my best option for now upkeep-wise (110 sacred for 4 pts vs 320 for 10 pts).
I recruit some minotaurs and centaur archers to expand north later. The commander moves to my capital to fetch them, then northwards. There's one mountain province which is bothering, with longdead and archers, maybe a mage inside that I'll have to check, maybe send a dryad to banish?

TURN 7:

I take the province which remains with little losses (14 maenads). The kraken comes say hello. Nasty being. I also get the visit of a short-lived Caelum scout, Caelum being to my north far away. That's good for me, they have the worst expansion so far.
Abysia is being obnoxious. I mean, I tell him 30 is a war declaration and he sends his troops 1 province to the south, where it has nowhere to go, while he still has room around his capital. The guy is a pain. I'll be ranting againt Abysia a lot from now on, sorry about it, but from this point on it's quite clear he's been planning a rush and I'm his target. It's also a very bad strategy for Abysia, as he hasn't even taken the provinces by his capital, has pitiful strategic move, no research, and leaves himself open for his other neighbour to slaughter him. And noone can take down Pangaean forts early in the game, except maybe R'lyeh with their chaff, so rushing EA Pangaea is always a very bad move.
I just hope R'lyeh won't try to get out of the pond just near me. I hate the fact they have amphibious units everywhere. Never understood why people thought fish had to get out of the water. I should stop ranting against water nations one day. Now, I'll try to single handedly tame elephants with my pretender. That's probably a recipe for failure, but it should make a nice story.

Actually, Rushing EA Pan can work for some nations, but the most likely unusual rusher would be MA Ulm, which would need an all ages game. Bottomline, Sappers (siege Bonus 5 yadda yadda) can actually siege down Maenad Spam on occassion, and Black Plates laugh at unbuffed Maenads, and Ulm has quite a motive for kicking out earth powers early on, which may perhaps be what Abyssia is trying to achieve.
Although I would propably rush someone else with MA Ulm if I had the choice.

[dojango]

Originally Posted by Mightypeon

Actually, Rushing EA Pan can work for some nations, but the most likely unusual rusher would be MA Ulm, which would need an all ages game. Bottomline, Sappers (siege Bonus 5 yadda yadda) can actually siege down Maenad Spam on occassion, and Black Plates laugh at unbuffed Maenads, and Ulm has quite a motive for kicking out earth powers early on, which may perhaps be what Abyssia is trying to achieve.
Although I would propably rush someone else with MA Ulm if I had the choice.

I rushed EA Pan as EA Mictlan in New Years New Game. Basically, I hit him about turn 10, popped his forts under construction, then sat on his capitol with 40 jags or so. My plan was to domkill him with blood sac rather than siege him down, but he got impatient and tried to see if 300 maeneds can kill 40 jags backed up by imps (they can't) so the s iege was able to conclude before the domkill.

But basically, if aby can park on your cap he can blood sac you to death rather than tear down your walls. Obviously it's a pain to have so many resources tied up in a siege, but it's oft times the only way. Keep in mind, Pan's in a really desirable corner position, so taking him down should be Aby's first goal. hopefully (for Aby) R'yleh won't poach the island while he does.

[jotwebe]

R'lyeh ~~ Turn 7



SOUNDTRACK

Andrey Avkhimovich: The Sound Theory: 01. Pulsar (Deep Space Theme)

~~~

An uneventful month. Auluudh survives yet another battle at the head of his army, again crushing a province of brave shark riders under his slimy abdomen. The battle goes more or less exactly like the last one.



On the other side of the world, Yöt-Webbogoth falls upon yet another triton province, by the name of Blue Water. Here he fights neither the noble amber clan tritons nor the barbarian shark knight tritons: This is a triton republic of coral-towered city states. The forces they muster as they put aside traditional enmities are large, but not large enough.



They die to clouds of poisonous ink and crushing tentacles.

Above the waves, Yöt-Webbogoth's eldritch senses detect a great place of supernatural power: a forest in which time and place are... strange, and where great numbers of strange beings live, somehow without crowding it.

Pangaea.



In the west, Auluudh notes from scouts sent above the waves (imaginary scouts, there are no independent scouts underwater, and fort turns are dear. My scouting is abysmally bad) that the coast is held by a centralized empire. A few mind-probed fishermen identify it as the greater dominion of Arcoscephale.

Messages are dispatched to the beastmen and the philosophers, yet no proof remains... Time and the Dominions 3 messaging interface conquer all.

In the tumbled ruins of Moon Sea, diligent slave mages find the strongest current of them all.



A temple is built, for it is expected to have a beneficial effect on the aboleths' procreative efforts. No more shall be said.



In the uttermost north, a different sort of construction begins:



Deep under the eternal ice, enslaved tritons labour to erect a fortress. The foundation is formed by cyclopean stone blocks, but soon it will be overgrown by the twisted polypal forms of the aboleth mothers.



In R'lyeh, under the two mind lords Eshu Saath and Vkt'Ebph, another army has assembled. Yet the sea is almost completely subjugated. Originally earmarked to attack Koromoo (which the barbarian goatfaced Fomorians insist on calling "the Isle of Balor"), they have a new target that avoids political... complications.

Of course, a different rationale is given...

("We have always been at war with Eastasia")

[LDiCesare]

I rushed EA Pan as EA Mictlan in New Years New Game. Basically, I hit him about turn 10, popped his forts under construction, then sat on his capitol with 40 jags or so. My plan was to domkill him with blood sac rather than siege him down, but he got impatient and tried to see if 300 maeneds can kill 40 jags backed up by imps (they can't) so the s iege was able to conclude before the domkill.

But basically, if aby can park on your cap he can blood sac you to death rather than tear down your walls. Obviously it's a pain to have so many resources tied up in a siege, but it's oft times the only way. Keep in mind, Pan's in a really desirable corner position, so taking him down should be Aby's first goal. hopefully (for Aby) R'yleh won't poach the island while he does.

EA Mictlan can rush anybody. They even have freespawn troops (slaves) so they could counter whatever maenads one could get.
Blood sac is a viable strategy provided there's no other blood nation in the game. I mean, if Aby tried to blood-sac, I would ask for blood slaves to counter-blood sac. This would result in a stalemate during which their expensive wizard priests wouldn't be researching, and thus it would be a distinct advantage for whoever lent/gave me blood slaves, unless they were allies with Mictlan.
Also, Abysia has a very low dominion score, while I have a very high one. At this stage, it should be clear that his dominion is so low he would require a lot of energy in order to domkill me (plus building a temple, preferably protecting it with a fort). Mictlan usually has a very high dominion in order to produce ****loads of its cheap sacred units, and they also have to blood sac, so it better be effective. The situation is very different here. Abysia has a low dominion score, so is unlikely to domkill me without a lot of investment and time. Such a blood sac would inevitably piss off its other neighbours. One-on-one, the strategy would definitely work. In a game with several opponents, I predict that it may be far too expensive, as it would mark Abysia as a target for all its other neighbours.

[LDiCesare]

TURN 8:
R'lyeh sends me a silly greetings. That's ok as long as he doesn't attack me.Sorry, I didn't copy the fluff and don't care at all about messages which are not clear, and since this just ment "Hello".

My pretender proves that a lich is superior to 4 elephants:
Tir na n'Og province 12 allows the recruitment of toad shamans (amphibious, W magic, sacred). That's nice.
Looking at the dark candle in 13, I bet that Abysia's demonbred prophet is there. I move to take 30. Not that it's useful, but just to make sure Abysia doesn't try to get there for some reason. I also try to take the archers/infantry/undead province in the north. I hope longbows + minotaurs + maenad decoys + one dryad will be enough, but I'm likely short on numbers.
I recruit only 1 Pan this turn, and a scout. I hope to start building a fort next turn. I'll never be able to by the way. So far noone has a second fort but that will not last long and I'd like to lock the entry of the island.
In other news, Abysia, Helheim and Caelum didn't expand this turn. Which kind of proves Abysia is moving all its troops towards me but I wanted that not to happen so I remained blind.

[Roland Jones]

Turn VII: Man, **** Elephants



Let's see, a response from R'lyeh and me taking on the elephants. We'll read what the sea-dwellers had to say first.



Hm. Purple prose. Translated into basic English, he's saying he'll stay under the water and I can stay above it. Besides that, as we'll see on the map screen, his kraken has moved on, which was my real concern.

Time to go off on a tangent here, at this point I've only made diplomatic contact with three nations.

Marverni: I wanted to make early negotiations with another player right off the bat, and since at the time he was the only person who used our IRC channel regularly (Immac got on now and then but for some reason wasn't on for the first few days of the game), he was my only option. Between that we were starting near each other and that he was the only guy I had to talk to, we agreed to not murder each other just yet, even though we were also open to that we would eventually try to plant knives in each other's backs. However, I thought his starting position was in the northwest part of the map; instead, it turned out that he was more or less right outside of my peninsula, cutting off one of two ways to expand.

R'lyeh: No real talk with them beyond "you stay below the sea, I'll stay above it". Works for me; the less I have to deal with his mindblasters for now, the better.

Caelum: We talked a bit into the game, he revealed that he was south of me and also knew where I was. We decided not to fight each other; while he said in his update that his archers would mess up my glamour troops, I honestly cared more about his mammoths, since I can cast Air Shield on my Vanir to stop arrows, but trampling would break the glamour. Either way, we agreed to not kill each other as well, although we didn't talk much after that.

So, I have someone to my west I'm not fighting, and someone to my south I'm not fighting, and the only ways to go are to the south and the west. I decided that I would expand southwest, between them, and go from there. Can you guess the problem with this plan? It took me a couple of turns to realize it.

Answer: Southwest leads right into an impassable mountain range. After claiming my territory I have nowhere to expand to, since I don't want to kill either of my neighbors just yet. Whoops.

Anyway, let's take a look at that battle. There's no way it could have gone bad, right? I mean, we got past the horrible failure phase of this game for me-



...Dammit. Okay, let's see exactly how this utter failure occurred.



Here's what I'm fighting. Two elephants and a lot of jerks with slingshots. The battle starts normally, with Finn buffing himself and the huskarlar moving in. Something of note is that, despite his Hall of Fame ability being Heroic Precision, absolutely none of Sir Slicer's castings of Frighten hit either elephant.



In addition to that, despite their shields the serfs wind up getting really messed up by the slingers, eventually breaking ranks. This leaves the elephant free to go right for my huskarlar, and, as I've stated numerous times, trample breaks glamour even if it misses. They get stomped into the dirt.



The death of multiple huskarlar and most of the serfs causes a HP rout, and my army flees before Finn and the Helhirdings have even entered the fray. All in all, this is an utterly terrible battle for me.



Okay, you know what? Screw the elephants. I don't care. I'm not going to deal with them. Sir Slicer, Finn (who is in the southern province with two of the Helhirdings), and the new Vanjarl I hired are all going to ignore them entirely.

See how the movement arrows are gray rather than orange, like my prophet's movement has been? That's because they're sneaking past; I hadn't had to make use of it before this, but as I showed in my first post, the Vanjarls and Helkarls and, well, basically everything I have besides the serfs and dwarfs, are stealthy, meaning they can just move right past this province and conquer whatever is past it instead (that's why my prophet is moving back, so I can see exactly what is in that province again; I forgot and didn't feel like bringing out my old turn file already). I will deal with the elephants later.

Graphs don't show anything particularly interesting this turn. Fomoria's keeping up its three provinces a turn, Abysia and R'lyeh both get too again, and everyone else but Caelum and I got one. Wonderful. I've fallen behind again.

Next turn: Nothing happens, again.

-------

Bonus: Research, magic schools, and Blood magic explained

So, you may have noticed that a lot of the updates so far have mentioned research. You may be wondering what that is; while I commented on how research levels are determined for mages in my unit explanation post (for those who don't remember, it's total magic path levels (not counting priest levels), plus two, plus or minus any inherent bonuses and exp), but you may not know what it's for. Well, wonder no longer, for I shall tell you: Research is what lets you use more and better magic.



This is the magic research screen. It shows all seven magic schools here, how you're currently allocating your research points (I have none yet, since I have no mages researching, but that green bar and the numbers beside it show what you're putting your research in and how much in each school), your progress to the next level for each school, and your total progress. There are ten levels or magic in each path, starting at zero and ending at nine. The amount of research points it takes to get to the next level is the amount of the previous two levels combined; under normal research settings (at the start of the game the host can change it to less or more), this is forty, then sixty, then one hundred, one hundred sixty, and so on.



This is a look at one of the schools. When you reach a new research level, you unlock all the spells in it. Of course, you still need the appropriate paths to actually cast them. For example, I won't be summoning many sea dogs, since I have no water access. Also sea dogs are kind of useless. Whatever.

What each school does is as follows; while there are a few oddities in each one, this is more or less how they generally are:

Conjuration: Summons things. Almost every spell that creates units is in this school. From mundane animals to weird monsters to units that are stronger than most pretender gods, if you're summoning something, you're getting it here.

Alteration: Changes things. Most of the buff and debuff spells are here. Making your units ethereal, immune to various elements, all that. It's also where the super-powerful Wish spell is, something we may see later in the game.

Evocation: Uh, evokes things? Basically, this is the "blow stuff up" school; almost all of the really damaging battlemagic is in this one. This is the school for hurting things.

Construction: Builds things. Unlike most schools, every even level of Construction doesn't unlock any new spells. Instead, it unlocks a new group of items for you to make, with the level eight ones all being the unique artifacts; only one of each artifact can exist at any given time. Odd-numbered levels here are for the most part summons, but with the theme of things that can be made, like clockwork soldiers and Frankenstein-like monsters.

Enchantment: Enchants things, obviously. The buffs that aren't in Alteration are mostly here, with things like flight and whatnot. A few summons are in here as well, mostly necromantic ones, with the idea being that, instead of calling things, you're enchanting them. EDM (a mod that was combined with CBM, mostly modifies endgame spells and summons) put the Great Kraken spell here, for some reason, though. I dunno, its description even describes it as calling the thing, not enchanting an octopus and making it into a supercaster version of the pretender R'lyeh has.

Thaumaturgy: ...Yeah, I dunno. This is sort of a weird school, seemingly a catch-all for anything that didn't fit into the other ones. Lot of useful stuff in here, though.

Blood Magic: This one is a bit different from all the others. Best way to show it off would be to let you see the list of spells in this school.



Yep, that's right. Every single spell that requires Blood magic is in here. Blood summons, blood battlemagic, blood anything. If you don't have Blood access, you can ignore this school entirely. But having its own school isn't the only thing that sets Blood magic apart from the rest.

Remember our talk about magic gems, and how I mentioned Blood magic being different? Blood magic doesn't use gems, it uses slaves. Blood slaves. Virgins that you sacrifice for power, basically. While a few sites generate blood slaves, you will never find enough of these to satisfy your casting needs. The real way to get them is through blood hunting. To blood hunt, you have a commander (usually one with levels in Blood magic; those without it can find slaves, but are really, really bad at it) hunt in a province, taking from the local population. This raises unrest in the region and kills off some of the population; normally people focusing on Blood magic counteract this with Growth scales to balance out the population they lose, while setting the province's tax rate to zero to control unrest and prevent it from making it harder to hunt. If a province doesn't have enough population, there is a penalty to hunting there, too. However, once you get your "blood economy" going, you will have far more slaves than you have gems. Good blood economies regularly bring in over a hundred blood slaves a turn. This allows for some really nasty things, as you may or may not see later in the game.

(Blood slaves also show up in battle, unlike gems, as units around the commander whose inventory they're in. While they won't do anything themselves, they can be hit and killed by enemy attacks. Can be kind of inconvenient.)

In case you haven't caught on to Blood magic being kind of evil, it's also the school used for summoning demons and stuff, and all but two spells in it require you to kill at least one slave to cast it (and the ones that don't basically need you to use one to cut down the fatigue cost anyway). It's not exactly a nice school of magic.

So, that's that. Look forward to me using at least a little of all these schools, and marvel at me trying to deal with making a blood economy while my dominion hastens everyone getting killed instead of balancing it. It'll be hilarious. For people who aren't me, at least.

[Bluemage142]

Turn 5:



No messages this turn, since I went back to get reinforcements. The fact that I still have my Amazons is slightly surprising, and very welcome.



Here's what my army looks like now. Four times the melee units, and another pile of ranged units.



My new commanders are ready, so I start making them men to command. That's 42 BCs in one turn, if you're curious.




Finally, another useful merc band. Dante's Stingers are a group of 30 heavy infantry; not as good as my Amazons, but good enough to take me some provinces. I overbid massively on them, of course- more expansion is more important than more gold right now.

(Sliiiiiiiiiiight problem with this.)



Orders are to move the scout onward, send the main army to fight bakemono, and bring in the new commanders. If I get the Stingers, they'll be assaulting that province I skipped next turn, otherwise, I'll send one of the new guys over there.

I'm not showing graphs this turn- the only interesting bits were that Abysia and Fomoria are pulling ahead in provinces, my army is now the biggest out there, and Pan's dominion and Caelum's research are insane. Not too worried about the dominion part of things, but I need more mages (and better mages) soon.

Research is still going apace. Two turns to Thaum1, four to Thaum2. Let's see how next turn goes.

Turn 6:



As expected- a random event (no turn feels right without one of those), and a battle. Let's see what I've got.




The event is something I couldn't care less about. Brigands increase unrest, which I can just let the game cure by automatically lowering taxes. I'm in the mountains, so none of my provinces are really worth anything. 80% of almost nothing is still almost nothing, so this is worthless.

Now, the battle is MUCH nicer. 144 Marv infantry is hard to beat, and seeing a fight with no casualties just warms my shriveled black heart.

(Two things here. First, this event is a LOT worse for me than you might think I'll realize this later. Second, 100+ Marverni troops is a fairly decent critical mass. Not enough to handle a real army (of a similar size), but enough to wipe the floor with indeps without huge casualties.)



Isn't it pretty?



Uh-oh. That purple banner is Fomoria, one of the races of giants in this game. Big, strong guys with good armor. I'm not enjoying the thought of fighting him, and he's partially in what I've decided should be my territory. Let's hope I can isolate him quickly enough to get my share of the map.

( *snort*)



No new mercs yet, and Fomoria stole Dante's Stingers. Drat.

Recruiting another mage and the last men for my next expansion group. 60 BCs and 20 Slingers. I'm also getting an independent commander, who will be sent over to where my primary army is. His purpose is to reach Faran, sit there, and build a fort. It should pay for itself right quick, both in recruitment and in the funds you get out of it.

(For those who didn't know, forts increase the taxes you get from surrounding provinces by their Administration value. I'm strapped for cash, so that's REALLY important.)



It looks like Helheim is recovering, and what's this? Why's my income dropped so far?



OH. Those bandits are in my capital- the source of ~90% of my gold. The AI automatically dropped my taxes to 50% to deal with that.



That takes care of that. The taxes are back where they belong, and my patrolling troops will deal with the unrest. Glad I caught that before I lost ~100 gold.

(See? I'd set the game aside in the middle of this, so I was rather surprised to come back and find the treasury so bare.)



Pan's army size has leveled off. He must be losing fights, or not have any Pans. Otherwise, he'd be gaining Maenads.

Let's all say it again. Maenads.

Turn 7:
(AKA "Why was I worried again?")



Well, now THIS is interesting! I've got Thaum1 as predicted, but let's see about the rest.



Magic item. Huh. It could be useful, or it could be utterly pointless. Gold would've been better.

(It ended up being Black Steel Armor, which is basically useless for me. Might be used on a Boar Lord, if that.)



This is what was so interesting. I only had one scheduled battle, so a second one meant either that a bad random event fired, or Fomoria hit me. No bad random event, and I got the province as planned. Let's see how badly I lost.



O_o

I... won? Against 30 giants!? Wow. Even managed to inflict more losses than I took! Let's see who got mauled in my army.



Okay, so it was BCs. Good to see nobody important was lost. Now, let's watch that battle.



So this is what I'm fighting. 21 Fir Bolg Slingers, a FB Champion, what looks like his starting commander prophetized, and 15 FB Warriors.




Lessons learned:

1. FB Warriors are hard for normal BCs to hurt.
2. Berserk is my friend- it was really hurting the FB.
3. Slingers die FAST.
4. He didn't throw any real giants at me.

Looking at the area, he's spread rather thin. I think I got his major expansion army. He doesn't get glamour, so I should see any units he's still got, and I see nothing. I've split my armies into three parts, and am going to try and push him back quickly. Also sending my new army down to conquer the next province.

(Anybody who knows Fomoria should see the problem with this. Anybody who plays Dom3 should be able to see the other huge flaw here.)

I figure that Corinthian has a few different options here. Either he tries for that indep province with his four Unmarked in the forest, in which case I'll have 80 men (and, after a bit of thought, a mage) there to block him; he heads up and take my province (in which case, I'll dogpile him from three directions); he retreats (running straight into my assault), or he stays right there (and get attacked next turn anyway). I like those odds!

(Again, not factoring a few things into my analysis.)

No new mercs, recruiting some more BCs and vectoring in a commander for them, set my tax down to let unrest drop (since patrolling did little last turn), got another Gut ordered for Thaum2, and am otherwise finished. Let's see how things go.