"A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...

[karnoza]

Hello everybody. As a newcomer pretender god I'd like to suggest peace to each other alive pretender except Ermor who seems to be fond of undead.

[Executor]

The army lost in BL's lands was of no importance, I expected as much, doe I hoped he wouldn't rush in blindly, or at least try to invade former Ulms lands.

The raiding Yaksha or whatever that was is what's annoying me. That one turn set back really hurts me, and I almost lost all those mages and a Tart who retreated from the battle cause of it.
You have indeed secured that one fort, yes, however there are still 4-5 forts around that one and an immense army on the border, while you have no back up.
In any case, the suicide run achieved what is was supposed to do, I only lost half a K of useless chaff.

As for the water fort, I can't even count that as a loss, water forts represent nothing to land nations. I had hoped to kill those SC's of yours with my Tartarian, however that Troll King proved more than I could chew. I'm still not sure how he managed to almost kill the Tartarian, he did have very high defense but that shouldn't have mattered that much with the 12 attacks from the gloves, and stone bird I think?

The north does worry me a bit, but I don't think your forces are sufficient to win you that front, hopefully.

As for the central front, I do not need the fort to overrun your lands.
Perhaps I should have sent more troops but I couldn't risk my forces retreating due to chaff again. I wanted to be sure your SC's would get dealt with if they decided to make yet another stand.

And I like it this way, if you go in this turn you go in blind, you can't teleport on top of me, I have the first round so I'm rather confident, doe I welcome any attempt to storm, it would be much easier than for me to try and squeeze trough a bottle neck castle gate.

I guess you didn't try to make the Tartarian Chains,

So far you are clearly winning and have a much greater lead on me, but perhaps things can still change.

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Executor

The army lost in BL's lands was of no importance, I expected as much, doe I hoped he wouldn't rush in blindly, or at least try to invade former Ulms lands.

The raiding Yaksha or whatever that was is what's annoying me. That one turn set back really hurts me, and I almost lost all those mages and a Tart who retreated from the battle cause of it.
You have indeed secured that one fort, yes, however there are still 4-5 forts around that one and an immense army on the border, while you have no back up.
In any case, the suicide run achieved what is was supposed to do, I only lost half a K of useless chaff.

As for the water fort, I can't even count that as a loss, water forts represent nothing to land nations. I had hoped to kill those SC's of yours with my Tartarian, however that Troll King proved more than I could chew. I'm still not sure how he managed to almost kill the Tartarian, he did have very high defense but that shouldn't have mattered that much with the 12 attacks from the gloves, and stone bird I think?

The north does worry me a bit, but I don't think your forces are sufficient to win you that front, hopefully.

As for the central front, I do not need the fort to overrun your lands.
Perhaps I should have sent more troops but I couldn't risk my forces retreating due to chaff again. I wanted to be sure your SC's would get dealt with if they decided to make yet another stand.

And I like it this way, if you go in this turn you go in blind, you can't teleport on top of me, I have the first round so I'm rather confident, doe I welcome any attempt to storm, it would be much easier than for me to try and squeeze trough a bottle neck castle gate.

I guess you didn't try to make the Tartarian Chains,

So far you are clearly winning and have a much greater lead on me, but perhaps things can still change.

I see. You are right, BL did screw your plans there. But as you said, I have no incoming reinforcements in the south, so one turn delay would not make much difference. And unfortunately 1 turn is not enough for me to break your lightly defended castles there, before your next undead wave would arrive from the south-west.

However I can and will teleport in whatever troops are needed to meet your huge approaching army, as I've been doing there for the last few turns, to replaces losses your continuous attacks have been dealing to my forces there. Without these replacements you would certainly break through on that front by now. And indirectly it contributed to your major victory on our central front last turn, since I've decided back then that my central front with all its artifacts and SCs will hold, and I've diverted some of the resources to the south. The bonecrashing blow from you there last turn has proven that I have underestimated your forces and your tactic on the central military theater.

Man, with total war such as ours it's as much about global strategy and managing various resources between multiple fronts as it is about tactics and troops. It can be quite time consuming but it is a lot of fun, especially against great opponent such as yourself.

As for our water front - I understand that you are not counting it as real loss. I would probably feel the same in your shoes.
For me however it's a important step to solidify my tentative hold on the water realm, since now I finally control my first underwater castle. (I do not have nature gems to spare to conjure it underwater like you did with dozen of your castles, not since you have overwritten my Oak global long time ago)

I can use this castle as a base for my further UW operations, or as a defensive stronghold should Sea of Ice melts and seas would be crawling once again with your hordes of undeads.

I think your tartarian with all its crazy attack would have a decent chance of killing my Sea King on 1 vs 1 battle. But he was distracted by all my other troops, and my Sea King had support of nearby Water Queen who has joined the battle a bit later, IIRC. Perhaps next time?

About central front - I understand your reasoning, it makes sense. Still I am glad I have one more turn to prepare for the tidal wave of your main army, before it breaches the walls of my castle. Trust me, I would love to make another stand under the castle walls this turn, but I simply didn't have enough troops and SCs available to meet you at the walls, your "loss" there last turn has obliterated or scattered my defenses I couldn't afford another defeat or another Pyrrhic victory, should you've decide to send forward all your legions this turn, as I thought you are very likely to do. So instead I have chosen to let you regain initiative and besiege my castle, while bringing in more troops and resources from across my realm. That tiny army of undead and mortal chaff backed by 5 tartarians and various mages that you have send forward this turn is clearly not enough to break through my nearby eastern army, especially not with all nearby flying and teleporting SCs that I have been scrambling to bring there since your last turn attack, and that will be arriving this turn. Although you are welcome to try.

And with castle walls barely scratched, it looks like I will have another turn there to prepare my defenses, before major showdown with your forces. (I only hope that dom3 engine will be able to handle the load of your 4-5K undeads, once you'll decide to send them forth. Will it? )

BTW your most recent communions seem to come in significantly less numbers than they have been showing in the beginning of the war. I can only hope we are approaching the bottom of the almost endless barrel from which you pulled these scary half-hundred strong communions, are we? My own communions have suffered badly as well in our battles but I had less communion mages to begin with. But then again you can rebuild your communions faster since you have managed to castle your entire realm and you have shorter lines of cummunications.

Oh, and btw it was nice move intercepting some of my reinforcements by teleporting your carefully equipped tartarian on the heads of my approaching communion and their troops. Didn't think you had guts to attack it blindly, but you did and you have managed to pull it off. Fortunately no mages were lost, and almost half of them have retreated to the castle where they were heading before attack, but it was very annoying and it will certainly delay some of my reinforcements. Congratulations, well planned and executed. From now on I will make sure to protect all my magical convoys against your protected-vs-all-elements teleporting tartarians.

Oh, and damn you for suddenly deciding to raise PD on all your lands to significant level! It cost me two provinces and bunch of wolves and principles. Someone has way too much money on his hands...


All in all - I agree with you, I do seem to have an upper hand in this war so far. But as you've said it can certainly change and change quickly. Both gains and losses on both sides have been relatively limited so far. And the largest and tides-changing battles are yet to come.

[Lingchih]

Executor obviously does not know how to play Ermor. Heh. ,I guess I saw that when I saw his bless. Good game Corwin, and congrats on the win.

And oh yeah, I am back from holiday. I will play my turns out.

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

Executor obviously does not know how to play Ermor. Heh. ,I guess I saw that when I saw his bless. Good game Corwin, and congrats on the win.

And oh yeah, I am back from holiday. I will play my turns out.

Thank you Lingchih. But as for Executor - I think he is doing very well, considering that the odds were against him from the beginning of this war. Since the beginning of hostilities I had lead on him in everything except gold income, number of castles, and armies. Ermor also has to fight 3 nations at once. (And BTW I have been secretely providing cost-free support to BL since the beginning of this game - on a limited scale, about 50 gems worth total of items that BL really needed in their defence against undead invasions, but still it must have helped)

Nevertheless despite all that Executor has managed to inflict significant damage on my forces since the beginning on the war, and he de-facto won our largest battle so far. Not to mention he has killed 4 of 5 my SCs, and I have yet to nail a single one of his. (this is partly due to him mostly using his SCs as part of the huge armies rather then as raiders, and also him being less agressive then me with their depolyment overall, but still). Finally Sea of Ice really screwed Ermor, both on our fronts and on all Ermors fronts against Ulm and BL.

[Lingchih]

Yeah, I could be wrong about Executor. My intel is not great anymore. Still, I haven't seen him use the battlefield breaking thousands that Ermor should use.

[Executor]

Lingchih, I didn't start in this game, I took over around turn 5-10ish. And than again I was absent from about turn 25-35, so I'm not sure what to think of your remarks. I think I did reasonably good.

As for game breaking numbers, that all falls into water once you get stuck at 3 choke provinces such as I did, and can't even use the seas. I can't risk using more than 500 undead per battle to try and breach the fronts. Ermor is kind of a one trick nation, and I didn't get lucky with almost any indie mages.

Well **** me, that was a dreadful turn a? I guess you got some hurting too there Corwin, I assume that didn't go as well as you'd hoped? I got a load of your items and artifacts from the central front. Good thing I set all my units to guard commander or the results might have been far worse for me. And a fairly lousy decision to cast army of lead, but I didn't expect wrathful skies to be honest...

Who escaped btw, only the water queen or did I miss someone else?
I hate those damn things with their crazy regeneration, they are far superior to the rest of the ERoys.

I sure as hell didn't expect that crazy Tartarian landing in the back, also, why did you give an S2 Tartarian the forbidden light?

Heh, and gate stone? I guess you aren't holding back any more, when you bring it, you really bring it huh?
Not sure I can match all of that stuff...

Oh, and that damn mage of mine used up 3S gems for soul drain, not two, so the Tartarian and himself died instead of casting VoR... sigh
At least they took a fair amount of your troops and mages with them.

BTW, did you really have to steel my mercs? You expected I'd storm Ulm didn't you? Luckily I forgot some gems.
Not sure what happened to the other mercs doe..?

Well, 11 forts under siege this turn, thank you BL and indipendants, and presumably another one about to fall in the water front...

It seems we'll have to take control over Ulm and Bandar fast, they're on the upraise.
I think I preferred the old, more peaceful BL leader.

P.S. Did you like my boxing gang? I think they're pretty awesome

[Aethyr]

Originally Posted by Executor

It seems we'll have to take control over Ulm and Bandar fast, they're on the upraise.
I think I preferred the old, more peaceful BL leader.

The proud nation of Ulm shall never fall!

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Executor

As for game breaking numbers, that all falls into water once you get stuck at 3 choke provinces such as I did, and can't even use the seas. I can't risk using more than 500 undead per battle to try and breach the fronts. Ermor is kind of a one trick nation, and I didn't get lucky with almost any indie mages.

Why specifically 500? I understand that you are probably concerned that massive casualties among your undead chaff may force your SCs/mages to rout, but I am curious how did you come up with that particular number.

Well **** me, that was a dreadful turn a?

Yes, that was... intense.

I guess you got some hurting too there Corwin, I assume that didn't go as well as you'd hoped? I got a load of your items and artifacts from the central front. Good thing I set all my units to guard commander or the results might have been far worse for me. And a fairly lousy decision to cast army of lead, but I didn't expect wrathful skies to be honest...

Who escaped btw, only the water queen or did I miss someone else?
I hate those damn things with their crazy regeneration, they are far superior to the rest of the ERoys.

No shi*t, I certainly got some hurting. Lost 5 SCs and several battle artifacts in the main battle on our central front. Also lost tons of mages to your tartarian ambush in another battle on the south-east front. At least I've got sob tartarian and his grand thaumaturge lackey who killed so many mages.

Good news - these 5 SCs managed to take a lot of ermor troops and mages with them to their graves. And castle walls still hold strong, while castle defenders keep teleporting in and summoning more SCs&troops. Bad news - all your anti-SC SCs have survived the battle while defeating my ambush team. And I've hoped to catch around 4-5K of your undead troops in my ambush, not 800. More bad news - I was really hoping to catch your two tartarians in that swamp province. But you have vortexed them away, damn you. In hindsight I should have concentrated on castle defense and its ambush battle rather then trying to do too many things at once.

I sure as hell didn't expect that crazy Tartarian landing in the back, also, why did you give an S2 Tartarian the forbidden light?

Two words - Gate Stone. It was the only possible way for me to forge it without spending a lot of gems on empowering.

Yes, that guy knew how to party. Won two battles without taking a single scratch, and has cut off an important supply rout for one turn.

Of course his primary goal was to destroy your entire routed army, should I win the main battle, but alas that was not meant to be.

Heh, and gate stone? I guess you aren't holding back any more, when you bring it, you really bring it huh?

Yeah, no holding back. I've decided it is time to fire all secret guns I've been saving for the special occasion. The idea was to deliver Ermor a stunning blow that would take you a while to recover from, and to break you siege on my central castle, restoring the original border.

Instead the results were much more mixed that I have hoped, and I have lost the main battle.

Not sure I can match all of that stuff...

I certainly hope you won't be able to. But you have been very resourceful so far, and this turns you have escaped from one carefully laid ambush and broke through another.

Oh, and that damn mage of mine used up 3S gems for soul drain, not two, so the Tartarian and himself died instead of casting VoR... sigh
At least they took a fair amount of your troops and mages with them.

Ah, that what has happened. Why casting soul drain in the first place? It would unlikely kill anything in 1 or 2 turns while it was in effect.

BTW, did you really have to steel my mercs? You expected I'd storm Ulm didn't you? Luckily I forgot some gems.
Not sure what happened to the other mercs doe..?

Yeap, you have guessed correctly. After taking a look inside Ulm's capital, courtesy to your scout last turn, I decided that I should try to relieve pressure on Ulm's capital as much as I can, to help their brave defenders. Not sure about your other merces - I've only bid on one team - air mage and his minions. Perhaps you have forgotten to renew your contract for the 2nd team? Or perhaps they just got bloody tired of you - you had these poor lizards sitting in the mud under Ulm capital's walls for like 10 turns now.

Well, 11 forts under siege this turn, thank you BL and indipendants, and presumably another one about to fall in the water front...

It seems we'll have to take control over Ulm and Bandar fast, they're on the upraise.

Way to go Ulm and Bandar! Raise and kick undead menace from your ancients lands while they are preoccupied in the northern continent.

I think I preferred the old, more peaceful BL leader.

Heh.

P.S. Did you like my boxing gang? I think they're pretty awesome

Yes, your boxing team surely has kicked royal as*s. I've lost more SCs to them this turn that I have lost total SCs since the beginning on our war. Well done.

But let's see how they will fare in round two though. I am adjusting my tactics and equipment...

P.S. And how did you like my forbidden light/medusa wielding crazy tartarian? Of course he can't defeat a strong army by himself, but I expect he will be a real bit*ch to kill...

[Lingchih]

Yes, Executor, I would knock out BL and Ulm as fast as you can. Gives you a fighting chance. Pyth is going to raid you... no stopping that. I would probably pull back from the eastern continent... you can't do much there now.