Abysia CB 5.0 AAR

[RedRover]

TURN 136-140
The whole western continent has fallen, except some forts and two wooded provinces down near the henge in the southwest quadrant. But I have strong forces there, and it’s just a mopping up operation at this point.

I can’t stand waiting. I attack Caelum’s Pretender just to get rid of it. Why should I give Caelum the 55 gold tax income every turn?

I steadily grind down my other foes. I take one of Man forts (south coast, Hervewood), and put another coastal fort under siege. The second fort turns out to be his capital. It's very tough; aquatic troop assaults bounce twice here with murderous losses. However, in a few turns, my fort assault group will arrive from the west, and that will finish things. I use a Doom Horror to break up Caelum’s big aquatic force and walk into his Sea provinces virtually unopposed.

On the eastern continent, I have counterattacked Ulm and taken the entire continent. (I actually got the southeast corner, a wooded province, with Impress Soul, followed by a Druid [via Faerie Trod], who built a Lab, summoned Dryads, built a Temple, and generally made a nuisance of himself.)

I take the island between the east and south continents with aquatic troops, and these provinces become the anvil on which I smash Ulm’s last forces on the eastern continent. I then push on across the island to the fertile south continent coastal provinces of Ulm.

Along the north shore of the southern continent, I expand my holdings westward—there is still an independent province between Ulm and me to the east, so I leave it alone. I use aquatic forces to hit the coast east of that, however, and I will run as far into his interior from there as I can, burning Temples all the way. A force of Devils arrives from the north.

On turn 138, the Manticore finally recovers his wits (at least that’s what we tell the faithful) and pops off the Arcane Nexus global spell (drat, I got this spell and the Strands of Arcane Power global confused—only noticed the difference when I started getting Astral power instead of magic sites—comes of playing too late at night).

In the north sector of the west continent, Caelum has been holding onto a lake. I clean it out with a Doom Horror and discover his Prophet. Unless he hid another priest underwater off the west coast, this should end the god callbacks.

On turn 140, Caelum is snuffed, after being killed eight times. Man is reduced to two small field forces and a besieged fort. I am making inroads on the southern continent: many temples destroyed, a fort (capital?) under siege (Ashdown, northeast quadrant southeast of a henge special site).

Ulm counterattacks onto my eastern continent (I missed a connecting route between ports—sloppy), but his forces are contained and will probably be driven back this turn. My combat-thinned forces in the southeast area of the southern continent have gone about as far as they can, but the northern force on this continent continues to chew up Ulm's backfield.

In the western half of the south continent, I cross a river line and start building a fort as a base for expansion here. Ulm has enough local troops to block and maybe counterattack here. I decide to finish Man before pushing further on this front.

By this time, I’m building a Demonbred and Sanguine Rod every turn in my capital to expand Blood production. The Philosopher’s Stone has been long built, and I’m burning a significant number of gems to supplement my income for end-of-turn Temple building. Also, except for one Mound Fiend casting Leprosy each turn, I’m converting most of my Death gem income to Astral.

Incidentally, an Income vs. Treasury note. Until turn 50 or so, my army costs topped out around 310 gold (not counting mercs). From that point, it has slowly grown to about half the Income figure, or a little more. Total income in the late game now is in the 5,600-5,700 range, upkeep around 2,700-2,800.

Just for fun, I cast Gift of Reason on a Summer Lion. I’d like to raise a unit of Summer Lions, led by a Summer Lion. Unfortunately, Summer Lion Commanders can’t command magical creatures, and they only have two misc magic slots, so there’s no way I can use a Crown of Command to work around this. (Hmmm, it would be nice to have an Amulet of Arcane Authority that enables command of 10 magical creatures; enough for a raiding force, for example.)

Scores (turn 140):
For provinces, I dominate; Ulm 25%; Man 2%.

For income, I dominate; Ulm 20%; Man 3%.

For gem income, I dominate; Ulm at 23%; Man at 0%.

For research, Man leads; I trail at 95%; Ulm 20%.

For dominion, I lead; Ulm 90%; Man 3%.

For armies, I dominate; Ulm 50%; Man 5%.
(Note: I have been using the word "dominate" when I lead and the next highest score is 50% or less.)

Hall of Fame: No change. I hold six positions with living heroes. Ulm still has the prophet, Hildegarde. Two dead Pretenders and dead Orion round out the field.

Treasury: 3,170; gems 40F/20A/30W/26E/26S/34D/32N + 79B this turn. Schools: Conj 8, Alt 8, Evo 8, Cons 8, Ench 9, Thaum 7, Blo 8. Currently researching Evo 9 at 285 RP per turn (usually 299, but I’m doing some special forging and wizard movement this turn); completion in two turns.

[RedRover]

TURN 141-145
Something unusual. For most of the game, I have been unthinkingly pooling Blood Slaves each turn, then manually doling them out one at a time to temple priests for blood sacrifice.

This last turn, I went totally manual, collecting and assigning Blood Slaves by hand. When I processed the turn, all Priests with Blood Sacrifice orders from the previous turn had, on average, been automatically assigned three Blood Slaves each (even though I expected the previous turn’s allotment of one slave to have been reduced to zero). Wow...

There’s no question that Blood Slave assignment is a little fiddly, but apparently it fiddles both ways (at least in the Concept Balance mod). Immediate pooling each turn isn’t necessarily the best move, as I had reflexively assumed--that would disrupt the automatic assignment of the optimal (?) number of Blood Slaves to sacrificing priests. Another new thing discovered in this game.

On the west continent, turn 143, Man dies as I take his last Fortified City. Next turn his Pretender (Green Dragon) comes back to the capital, and besieges it, and is destroyed.

On the south continent, my minion, the arch devil Furcas, flies blindly into an Ulm province far to the southwest. Defeated, he is banished to the Abyss and his devils are destroyed (he wasn’t really stupid, he was just played that way).

Two turns later, the pocket lich Carcator, carried by Furcas, is found in the possession of a minor Ulm infantry commander who is slain by an Earth Elemental (love that Earth Attack ritual spell, Evocation 8).

Another Earth Elemental locates the Ulm Prophet Hildegarde in a fortified city, but she slays it with six mighty blows. I give up Blood research in favor of Alteration—I wonder if you can Wish for population? If the game goes another half dozen turns, I may find out.

East continent, the Manticore pops off the Strands of Arcane Power (the twit finally got it right this time). This is my sixth global spell. Oddly enough, this blows away the Arcane Nexus. I really expected it to replace the Wild Hunt, which was cast at minimal gem cost; the Arcane Nexus was cast at a substantial premium. Oh well...who knows what really goes on in the black box of AI operations--incidentally, Arcane Nexus was the last global cast before the Strands of Arcane Power.

I meet another milestone turn 145, all of my land PD is at 10+ and all of my Citadels are at 25 PD. I have been in the course of this game developing a personal discipline for solo play that gives magic sites a 15 PD minimum, and increases high-income province PD by 5 per 25 gold (so 10 PD up to 25 gold, 15 PD to 50, 20 PD to 75, 25 PD to 100 gold, and so on. I use disciplines of this type to create administrative "drag" that increases the challenge level of a solo game (such disciplines are unnecessary for multiplayer games, IMO).

Gold income: 6,407. Treasury: 3,935; gem income 44F/20A/36W/35E/40S/38D/38N + 108B this turn. The huge increase here is because the Strands of Arcane Power global has been turning up 3-4 sites per round on average. However, it doesn’t flag or identify them, which means I have to go to the Province screen and try to figure out which site listings are new.

This turn (#145), I get to pick the three new sites out of 201 listed sites. This is busy-work, and it is annoying. It’s not so bad if the sites are all vanilla, but really cool stuff can be buried for turns and turns.

Schools: Conj 8, Alt 8, Evo 9, Cons 8, Ench 9, Thaum 7, Blo 8. Currently researching Alt 9 at 313 RP per turn; completion in four turns.

I have become bored with Ulm; the question of Wishing for population consumes me. I find the 0 population provinces left by C'tis irk me and mightily offend my sense of divine order. All my remote casters are directed to turn their efforts to research Alteration. Revised count: 481 RP per turn, completion in 3 turns. I also order 13 more Temples to be built on turn 145, which will bring my Temple count to 141. I burn off most of my Fire and Earth gems to do this, but it’s all rather moot at this point.

However, I have now discovered THE QUESTION. Stay tuned.

[RedRover]

TURN 146-147
The west continent, east continent, and oceans are mine. All that remains is the final conquest of the south continent. Aside from two forts under siege, Ulm has been pushed west of the central river. I have used the Faery Trodding Druid and sea forces to open a new front in the southwest corner of the continent. I have erected a new fort in a wooded province several provinces inland to consolidate my gains, and have started squeezing the surviving Ulm field forces from this side.

Hildegarde, guarded by a Crusher, has fallen to my Devil hordes, and on the far west coast, the Ulm hero Ratik has perished as well. The only thing of interest left in this war is to get my Manticore to the old C’tis capital (population 0), and see if a Wish will give me some population here.

A surprise reversal on a castle assault—Abysian forces destroyed by the Ulm Pretender (an Oracle) holed up with a pile of Clockwork Horrors and six (!) Crushers. Its Blade Wind is truly impressive (and I tried to clean him out with about 20 Sea Trolls, a few fanatics, and two Angels—not). Well, at least he isn’t going anywhere.

Note: The capital is in fact the fort just southeast of the henge special site in the northeast quarter of the south continent. I have enough troops nearby to bottle him up, but I will wait for the massed Devil horde to launch a final assault.

Turn 148 may be the next to last turn. Ulm has four Temples left unprotected by forts, and I will raze all of them next turn. All his forts are open to assault (though the capital is strong beyond the abilities of my local forces there).

Forgot to pay the Couatl merc again (that’s the fourth or fifth time now—one of these days it isn’t coming back).

Recalled Furcas and equipped him with a Hell Sword, Chain Mail of Displacement, Flame Helmet, Chi Shoes, Ring of Regeneration, Ring of the Warrior, and sent him out with 21 Devils. My Hound of War has returned.

Somewhere along the line I have summoned a Heliophagus and ordered it to the front. There was a time when I would have considered that a significant milestone--it is interesting how impending ascension changes your perspective. Such a powerful creature reduced to an insignificant, half-forgotten footnote to a successful campaign. Ironic.

The Warlock Demogorgon is now 3F/2A/2W/4E/4S/3D/4N/4B. Even though he was scheduled to empower Air this turn, things change. The Manticore spotted the Crown of Overmight on the available item list--and insisted. This, despite the fact the item is cumbersome and will screw up his flying and defense, and cost him an Astral level until he can empower. But…what the Manticore wants, the Manticore gets (the twit). We may even see if people “flocking” in can cause immigration into a dead province (I don’t think so—more likely it has the same dominion effect as the Juggernaut, if anything—I’ll check the documentation after I’m done with the game).

Just for the record, I set up the Wish with a single key word “population.” We’ll see what develops. The caster is in a fort in a province with no population at all.

Income: 7,064; Treasury: 8,667. Gem Income: 49F/21A/40W/39E/40S/40D/41N + 102B this turn. Even though this is late game, it seems like an awful lot of magic for a low-magic map.

I can hardly wait for the results of the great experiment.

[RedRover]

TURN 148
OK, Wish message: “A bunch of people just showed up in Minto Strait.” That's one of my Sea provinces. Current population 7,140. I have no idea what the previous population was, could the Wish have added as much as 5K?

I’m going to try the Wish again and see if I can target the effect in North Galenwood. Hold everything...there’s also a weird battle report: Six Ulm woodsmen showed up in Minto Strait (underwater!?) with no leader, didn’t down, and routed as soon as the battle started. Coincidence? Or what?

Another weirdness, if I was managing the province like I usually do, the Unrest last turn would have been under 10, but the current reading is 103. I don’t know whether this is part of an anomaly, or whether the province is just recovering from one of those “several hundred” Unrest points I tend to end up with when taking aquatic provinces.

I raze four temples and initiate two assaults. Only the Ulm capital survives to await the arrival of the Devils. I’m not tracking cash anymore—with 9,740 gold unspent this turn, and an income of 7,219, there’s no point. The Wish is the only thing of interest. I try again, wording: “population in North Galenwood.” I also do minor administrative stuff like some builds and troop movements, but only one thing seems important now.

I wonder what will happen.

[RedRover]

TURN 149
Well, that didn’t work. People showed up in Vankara Sound, another ocean province; population 10,840; and this time I know that Unrest increased from 0 to 72. My guess at this point is that the Unrest is a simple function of new population; maybe either 7,200 or 3,600 people were added. Again, I’m not fanatic enough to have all my populations recorded and tracking for each province each turn. But I’m going to try it one more time, with the province number, and see what happens. That will be it for the program; at 150 Astral gems per Wish, I’ll be alchemizing heavily to do it again this turn, and…CRAP!

South Halewood just lost its entire population!?! #$@#%! It even wiped the PD down to 0! Looks like the Wish spell, if used for population, is heavily crocked, in addition to being uncontrollable. I’m not a happy camper this turn.

Next try: “Move population from province 44 to province 107.” Hope springs eternal. Province 44 is Ulm’s capital, province 107 is the old C’tis capital I’m trying to repopulate. I’m copying the turn before resolution in case I want to go back and play with the Wish spell some more. This has nearly sucked my gem reserves dry.

[RedRover]

TURN 150
Nope. All the Wish did was teleport the entire population of The Pit (mine) into the Ardahan Bog (also mine). I find the names of the involved provinces suitably ironic.

So, the effect of wishing for population is a totally random population teleport that cleans out a friendly province, sending the destination province into major Unrest (125 in this case). What a waste of 150 Astral gems!

I am so frustrated I try to end the game immediately by wishing the Ulm Pretender dead. I get a flat refusal—in fact, any command I try (and I try about a dozen) that includes the Ulm Pretender name is refused outright.

OK. So I default to plan B. The Manticore puts on the cursed charm-beanie (aka Crown of Overmight) and empowers Astral to make up for losing his Astral Cap.

The Devils will arrive at Ashdown Castle in two turns. Time for the Oracle to DIE! DIE! DIE!

Nuts! I just realized that with two more turns of Blood empowerment, my top Blood mage could summon one of the three nasty blood ubersummons. I get right on it. (Easily distracted? Who, m…what did you say?)

[RedRover]

TURN 151-152
All quiet. I mess around with busy work while empowering my Blood mage. My forces close in around Ulm's capital at Ashdown.

On turn 152 I decide I’ve had enough and set up the last assault. Screw the uberfiends. (Hey, I’m going to be a god. What are they going to do?) Maybe I’ll bring in the unholy trio next game.