[darth vader]NOOOOOOOoooooooo!cos(0)!!11![/darth vader]
On the fields of Borale a great battle was fought today and stakes were high: continued existence of Jomonese people. Jomon army was impressive, samurais numbered in hundreds, and they were commanded by their master lich false god. On the other side were armies of Ulm, vast numbers of rangers and creatures of night totaling about twice the size of Jomon army. Ulm was commanded by no other than Ixil, the dreaded Prince of Death who holds crushing grip over will of the living and unliving alike. At his side was Burchard Nachtzehrer, the legendary vampire general of the Great Keep, who was ready to unleash the power of blood to the heathens (Burchard's entourage of 20 blood slaves was freshly collected from the previous Jomon province of course

).
As the battle started Jomon formed a communion lead by the master lich Shek-Dimmu and archers fired at the ranks of Ulm. Samurais stood still, waiting for the command to attack. In return Ulmish troops advanced and Blood Marshal started to evoke the blood magic. Then, despite of all the careful planning and anticipation, the unthinkable happened : Ixil failed to call upon the power of the underworld, which was meant to Dust to Dust the master lich and end the fight before it started. After that Shek-Dimmu initiated the dreaded mind duel and actually beat the Prince of Death. This was the crucial moment.
With the their god gone, Ulmish troops were no match for the highly skilled samurais, while Shek-Dimmu was raining fire on them. Ulm suffered massive defeat and the hundred or so survivors retreated to the safety. And so the siege of Borale was ended before it started.
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This battle was more or less a slaughter of my troops, which I could hardly watch. I think my initial plan to Dust to Dust Jomon pretender before the mind duel (I knew it was coming) was sound because without the lich Jomon would have stood no chance against my army. Heck, I'm certain my pretender could have taken the remaining troops alone, I just wanted to maximize Jomon casualties before mass routing. Anyway, my PoD refused to cast the said spell(probably because of range) even though I had calculated the distance in army placement screen. So into mind duel we proceed, which I lost. However there's more to this one. I was ready to take the mind duel because to my knowledge my pretender was equal to Jomon's in astral power , so 50% chance of winning was good enough for me to take the risk. As winning would have meant wiping Jomon out of the game. BUT Jomon had just empowered his pretender on the previous turn just for this purpose, so he had an advantage on the duel (big props to Wazooking for this one, it certainly paid off for him this time). With my god dead I stood no chance and lost, end of story.
Annoying side fact: Jomon archers were extremely happy to target my blood slaves in this battle regardless of abundance of other targets. Needless to say my blood magic didn't work out as well as I had planned either.
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@James243: I think you have misanalyzed the power relations of nations or had insufficient intel available. Mictlan has huge lead in this game. And to be perfectly honest now that I failed to capture Jomon capital I don't think I can challenge Mictlan later on. I've had a nice research boost lately but I don't seem to be able to catch Karlem. In addition I'm going to suffer a big reduction in power because of the failed war effort, while he powers up even more. And my analysis of other nations (may be wrong of course) is following: Jomon is wrecked because of the multifront war. Patala is boxed in pretty badly and has fallen behind in research. Marignon is too small and too far away to challenge Mictlan (also falling behind in research atm). Arco is same as Marignon but even more behin d in research. Midgård has good research but is small and has quite likely big upkeep problems. Mictlan is #1 in territoty, forts, income & research, which is pretty back breaking. In addition his army is small but efficient and has low upkeep. Plus he is gathering SCs. Mictlan also has good gem income and blood income, which doesn't even show in the graphs.
So if things continue on their current course I'm rather certain Mictlan will simply win by a large margin. If a large alliance against Mitclan suddenly forms, I will join to it in order to make things a bit more interesting but not before my NAP with Karlem honorably expires. Otherwise I will continue to maintain status quo and entertain any army invading Ulm, which makes Mictlan even stronger.
Wow, that was quite a long post. I wonder how many grammar/thought errors I made there.
EDIT: I almost forgot: Jomon, I'm still coming for you!