Nations - MA, CBM 1.6, max lvl 6, NI, Assimilation - Olm/Man and Louist/Ulm win!

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Elanaew

Hi All, Elana subbing for louist/ulm. What a wild game this is! Louist has given me directions about what he wants done.

Welcome, Elana! And quite a way to kick things off - that was some brutal evocation spam. The first time viewing a battle I like to just watch it and not click on various units and that was a fun one. I thought maybe, just maybe, my berserkers would pull it off (it's always nice if your side routs but your berserk troops keep fighting and end up winning the battle ) but point blank magma eruption wiped out those hopes. If only your mages had been a bit more fatigued at the end...

The stale the previous turn cost me - not because I could have won the fight if I hadn't staled but because I could have gotten enough troops inside the fort to withstand a siege and thus avoid the fight (Olm is quite familiar with that strategy ). As it was, Ulm ended up besieging an almost empty fort and I was lucky the walls weren't breached the first turn. Although with the way things turned out maybe that would have been better as I wouldn't have had a chance to get forces in place to try to break Ulm's siege. As it is, I lost a lot of my best troops this past turn.

It looks like Arco is the place to be for action packed fights! We'll see if Ulm can break the curse of the place and hold on to it (in my time controlling it I only recruited one mystic since it took several turns to bring down the unrest caused the presence of my revelers and by my foolishly overtaxing while besieging Arco).

Btw Elana, I'm sure Louist mentioned the big change with this game regarding limiting magic to level 6 but, in case he didn't mention it, another change is that you can recruit some units from a conquered opponent's capitol. The big prize with Arco's cap is mystics (you can also recruit some of his troops). Not as big a deal to Ulm as to the other remaining nations since you have some astral magic already (that was obvious from the gifts from heaven castings) but still a nice bonus.

Originally Posted by Olm

You put up quite a fight in Arcoscephale. I thought you had no chance, when I saw the lineup, but you nearly pulled it off! But I have to say I was happy to watch this carnage just as an observer. The losses were grave for both of you.

I felt confident about the combination of curse of stones and iron bane against Ulm's troops. Where I made a big mistake was forgetting that it isn't really about his troops but about the cheap mages. And for some reason I didn't think he had quite that many mages in that army - and, frustratingly, they all survived.

Originally Posted by Olm

Now do I observe correctly, that your ancient ally Eriu has betrayed you and now lays siege to the castle of Griphons Spires. If thats so, I really have to think what consequences this has diplomatically.

No, that's not an attack. That fort and Arco's eastern provinces were always intended to go to Eriu. But you are right that my fate is in Eriu's hands. If he sides with me then we'll have a 2 vs 2 fight and there's still hope for Pan. If he sides against me then I'm history. If he keeps out of this round of wars I'm likely also history but there's still a small chance.

In any case, this is fun stuff. I really like mid game battle magic more than SCs or late game magic.