CoE3 AAR: A Chronicle of the Interregnum

[Edi]

One month's travel to the west from my previous farm I added a farm and a hamlet to my holdings. The lone spearman who tried to bar my way was incinerated in flash of bane fire.

Unfortunately immediately after, a herd of more deer stampeded through the fields of the farm and someone needs to go and put it back together.

There is a coal mine close to the hamlet, but it is guarded by some kind of large monsters and I dare not confront them now, with so many threats around.

I also made a very interesting discovery nearby. There is an absolutely colossal stone statue standing in the middle of the plains. I will investigate it soon. I wonder what secrets it may reveal?





In the north near my citadel, the lack of knowledge of the surroundings is a serious liability. Childerik took two of the longdead with him and set out to explore the region. He discovered a very lightly guarded coal mine, where there are only three dwarves in residence. Two longdead and one apprentice aren't enough to handle that, but as soon as I have funds to recruit more troops, Childerik will secure the mine with their help.





It was a good decision on my apprentice's part to scout out the terrain, because no sooner had he discovered the coal mine than he made contact with an enemy. Some kind of cultist accompanied by two spearmen came over the mountains, but holds the high ground and my apprentice must retreat to a more favorable position. It seems like one of Bellania's allies, those responsible for the horrors Childerik's scrying revealed.





This one has an aura of the same strange magic that surrounded the monsters in the destroyed Capitol, so there is no telling what he can do, weak as he seems to be. Caution must be the order of the day.

Elsewhere my ally Pantariste has explored a substantial tract of wilderness, but has discovered nothing of note. She did catch a glimpse of an organized band of those Bakemono that marched under a strange standard, but they were gone before anyone got a close look at them. They may have been minions of the rumored Bakemono Sorcerer.

[sansanjuan]

Edi
Nice work on the AAR. I'll buy this dang game.

Seem like a nice balance of risk/reward regarding expansion. Will take some time to figure out what can be tackled and what is best left for another day...
ssj

[Edi]

I ordered Childerik to retreat back to the gallows, where he has soulless to reinforce his longdead. From that position, he can keep an eye on the enemy cultist and possibly strike him down if opportunity presents itself.

I myself ignored the deer that are ravaging my crops, I have better things to do. Come to think of it, why by all the spirits of darkness am I worrying about crops and farming?! I have more important things to do, but the problem with trying to build a power base is that competent minions are hard to come by and so I need to take care of even trivial tasks myself. It's going to be venison on the menu again at some point, though...

Instead of indulging my craving for fresh venison, I set out to examine the great colossus on the plain. It was standing on an equally massive pedestal and though worn, it was covered in runic inscriptions.



A better part of mid-autumn was spent studying the inscriptions, for they offered tantalizing hints of possibilities that could solve all of my problems at a stroke! If the implications were, after all, fact... If the statue could be brought to life... Bound to service...

At the last I had managed to glean enough from the inscriptions that I could proceed. All the preparation, the painstaking assembly of an incantation, checking and checking again that here was no mistake, was brought to a culmination!

I recited the calling ... and nothing happened!

Then...





With a rumbling and groaning of stone, the great head turned, the massive limbs flexed and the colossus stepped from its pedestal! My troops scrambled back to avoid being crushed as the giant kneeled before me, its weathered face rugged and ravaged by time, but there was a gleam of...not awareness...but something, in the eyes that had been blank stone before.

It spoke not, but there was an understanding that passed between us, that it had in me found a master and that it would serve me, its liberator, from henceforth.

It would be a trivial task now to conquer the nearby mines and defeat the immediate threats, with this giant of stone towering over my army and fighting as my vanguard!




I ordered the colossus to proceed north, but to my shock, it was as if speaking to a deaf-mute. No answer, no response. It ignored me, as if I and my troops did not exist! And then it began to move, not where I directed, but somewhere else entirely.

The magical bond was still there, is there even now, so I know this creation, this golem, serves me, but I have neither control nor direction over it. It will do as it wills in my service, though never will it turn against me.

I had expected so much more, but alas, such is the hand of fate.

It was already well into the late autumn when we were able to depart the site of the colossal base where the stone giant once stood. I led my troops north to slaughter the herd of deer that had done so much damage and to intercept the enemy cultist who had moved south of Childerik's position.

The last I saw of the colossus was as it entered the forest into the southwest, crushing and splintering thick trees in its wake as if they were kindling.





It was at this time that a scruffy creature calling itself Aun presented itself at the gates of my citadel and offered my steward its services for hire, in return for 37 gold coins. This goblin chieftain further offered the services of his followers, a contingent of goblin archers, for 50 more coins.





Just the goblin chieftain alone would have bankrupted my treasury and the creatures are notoriously unreliable, even if they can be surprisingly effective sometimes. His services were declined. I intend to buy troops of higher quality when I get the opportunity.

A quick review of the disposition of my troops tells me that I am spread frightfully thin. The main force accompanies myself, a light guard of longdead defends the citadel and the rest of my meager undead follow the command of Childerik at the gallows while the Colossus works under its own unfathomable direction.




(F1 opens Unit Overview. Childerik has not used any AP in late autumn yet, so the remaining AP are shown as diamonds)

(The reason that the Colossus cannot be placed under anyone's command is that it is a Stupid unit and will move under its own direction)

[Jack_Trowell]

What did it cost you exactly to activate the colossus? Only a mage turn ?

Do you really have no control to the colossus? He move randomly each turn ?

Oh, and thanks again for the AAR.

[Edi]

Disaster looms!

Winter has come hard upon us and dried the streams of gold flowing to my coffers. On eve of midwinter, the north winds have blown an army before them, led by the master of the sea cultists. This atrocious upstart threatens my citadel, where Childerik has retreated with all the forces he could muster.





He came from the northwest with a force of spearmen, accompanied by creatures that were born nowhere on this land, tall shambling monstrosities like unto a cross between a man, a fish and a crab.






The thing itself, for it can no longer be called a man, looks like a creature from beneath the waves itself and it has the same stench of magic as the abominations in the fallen Capitol.





My troops and I have force marched through the winter, but snow and blizzards hinder our progress and slow us down. Even the fastest routes take twice as much time as normal and trying to go through the forests is out of the question. I had to flee in such a manner one winter long ago and it is even slower going.

I only hope we can relieve the citadel in time, or that Childerik and his inadequate squad of undead can hold the attackers off.

(Winter increases movement costs by 1 AP for all terrain and reduces gold income by 80%)

[Edi]

Activating the Colossus costs only one commander turn, or more precisely, it costs 3 AP. That'swhy moving into teh square was 1 AP, activation 3 and only 2 AP left for movement next turn, which you can interpret from the narrative.

Any commander can activate it. It cannot be controlled, because it can randomly appear even right next to a starting citadel. If it were controllable, it would be an instant "I win", which is why it was changed to being a stupid unit that cannot be led.

[Edi]

Spring has finally arrived and I am in time!

The High Cultist T'yog, for that is what that creature calls itself, left my citadel alone instead of assaulting it. He probably did not feel confident that he had sufficient forces to overcome the defensive advantage the walls gave Childerik. I had to cut straight through the forest to my fortress after all, because a massive migration of more uncooked venison first blocked my way on the plains and then headed toward the citadel, still on my chosen path.

However, we managed to join forces and I left three spearmen and a crossbowman to guard the citadel along with one scout who presented himself belatedly and did not manage to join us in the assault on T'yog's forces.

Even as I began to position my forces, my mind's eye was drawn south, where my giant stone minion had climbed the hills where all those months ago the ferocious monsters blocked our access to an abandoned coal mine.

The Colossus feels no fear and it did not consider the beasts anything of note. They boiled out of their lair to do battle.




The clash was terrible and the monsters would have trampled normal infantry underfoot like yesterday's grass, but the golem was unfazed. The giant monsters bounced off the stone limbs of the Colossus with little effect and then it swung that massive granite sword.



The monster that would have taken a score of infantry to bring down was cleaved in two at one stroke! A moment later the second of the monsters lay broken on the ground and the third shared its fate soon after, though it managed to avoid being killed on the first blow. Severely wounded, it was not fast enough to evade again.





The contact with the Colossus faded as it began to put the mine in order and I was brought back to the grim reality of facing my own battle with an enemy whose forces were at least the equal of mine if not superior.




The fell creature spoke words that told of the vast gulf between the stars and of worse things best left unnamed and sent many of my men reeling, stunned and unable to do anything other than cling to their weapons and trying to recover as his troops charged mine.

We were lucky, for even though we sustained losses in that first exchange, my men and undead gave better than they got and slew many of his troops while some ran away in terror before the nightmare images I set on them. My apprentice conducted himself well, weakening his frontline and reducing their effectiveness.

More words of power struck at us, but we were prepared and weathered them better this time. Then, the thick of battle swirled away for a moment and I got a clear view of my enemy, long enough to do something about putting a stop to his fell enchantments:



I drained the life right out of that abomination, leaving its withered husk on the field. With their leader gone and no magic to support them, his remaining troops were quickly slaughtered or routed. Now I need to hunt down his wretched apprentice to make sure I can stamp out their repulsive cult once and for all.


My realm, such as it is, is in complete shambles. Half of my holdings have been ravaged by brigands, herds of wild animals or the depredations of that wretched sea cult. My forces are a shadow of what they were and I need to regain control of the gallows and hang some more rabble to resume collecting the all important Hands of Glory.

One piece of good news is that there is a battlefield in the vicinity of my new coal mine, even though heavily guarded by longdead and soulless under the command of a wight. If the Colossus should chance to wander there, it will make short work of them, because the wight cannot drain the life of something not alive and the lesser beings will not be able to do much damage, if any at all.

And then I would finally have a proper source to replenish my sadly decimated troops.

[shatner]

Other than winter increasing travel costs and decreasing gold income, are there any other seasonal effects?

Furthermore, does the Colossus move in a completely random fashion or does it's AI direct it towards enemies and sites of interest?

You mention in your battle with the cultist that "Then, the thick of battle swirled away for a moment and I got a clear view of my enemy, long enough to do something about putting a stop to his fell enchantments". Does this mean your spells can't target the back rows without the front rows being destroyed? Does this mean there has to be actual line-of-sight between your caster and the target? Or am I just reading too much into your choice of prose?

[Edi]

It is now early autumn.

After the defeat of T'yogh in early spring, Childerik animated some replacements from among the dead and then moved to regain one of my farms. He then moved onward in search of the missing cultist and fortuitously discovered him even as I was reorganizing the rest of my forces at the citadel and taking back the gallows.

Childerik prepared for a long chase, but the fish cultist doubled back toward the citadel and once more raided the farm. My apprentice and his numerically superior soulless engaged the wretch and his two bodyguards, but unfortunately the apprentice was greater than the master.

All I would learn later was gathered from the impressions of one of the soulless minions, of how the cultist called out to the night and piercing white light lanced down from the stars, spearing Childerik and burning him to a cinder. His victory was shortlived, however, as the soulless tore him and his men limb from limb before they ran out of instructions and reverted to standing guard.

Childerik's victory from beyond the grave was the final annihilation of this disturbing new cult, which with the death of both master and apprentice is no more.

With no minions under my command and reduced to doing everything myself, I spent the next three months gathering nearby resources before yet another herd of venison steak once more disrupted my gallows and I had to head back. At least the treasury is somewhat on its way to recovery, what with taking the nearest coal mine that the cultists had thoughtfully cleared and adding a village beyond it to my realm.

I even had to resort to reanimating dead myself, and I hope I do not need to do it many more times.

The Colossus still roams the vicinity of the southern mine and my ally is buried up to her ears in wildlife and patrols of dwarves have been skirting her territory. We received reports from spies that the Druid has been defeated, all his strongholds lost to hostile forces.

Pantariste also discovered the citadel of the Bakemono. It is disturbingly close to her own tower, though fortunately there is a lot of difficult territory in between.





The Bakemono citadel was discovered in late summer and now it looks like Pantariste's apprentice Androdameia has attracted the attention of the master of that forbidding fortress. She may follow Childerik to an early grave.




I need more minions and even one of those scruffy goblins will do right now. Anyone who can spare me the tedium of administering more farms and similar things is more than welcome. I would summon something to bolster my forces, but the current situation has left me no choice but to hoard the Hands of Glory so that I can summon something more powerful later.

[Flop]

Did the AAR end, due to a new version, or is it just that real life is intruding?

I've been enjoying it, so far, and would like to see more.