Hahaha
HAHAha! My DIABOLICAL plan to have the last word on turns has FINALLY succeeded!
...wait, no. I've just been busy, distracted, and had sore typing hands. Also, I'm lazy. Here's five turns.
Turn 13:
200 gold, some magic gems, another winning battle, and a mercenary group hired. Oh, and Alt2. That's what we have here. I'm 495RP to Alt5, my next goal, so that'll take a while. Seven turns, if I keep getting Druids.
This is the state of the empire. Notice the red flag down south? We've finally found Abysia. I'm sure I'll hear from him soon enough. Fomoria has a fort now (curse them and all they stand for), and mine is a turn away from completion. WE NEED TO CLOSE THE FORT GAP.
That'll help.
Now, R'lyeh and I had an agreement that could give me that land province up north, so that army will just wait there. Sending mercs up to grab that next eastern province, too. Once I confirm the state of things, I'll move it, one way or the other. For now, have some better news.
Our first Druid. Isn't that nice? Look at those paths! I'd've preferred to have two water or two nature, but eh. You get what you get. Druid #2 is under recruitment, and I have some mercs after the fishmen to the east.
Final orders.
Turn 14:
Curses. See that? Two battles in the same province? Helheim and I invaded at the same time. Well, not technically- he went in first- but close enough. I'm actually rather shocked that I killed one of his thugs (you don't send out six men if they aren't thugs- well, thugs or an insult) with those mercs.
(The names should be a tipoff. Jake and Finn are quite definitely part of RJ's naming scheme, so yeah.)
By now, you've read all about glamour. Combine it with the bless in that final pic (E9S4B4, if you don't have dom3wiki open and/or the effects memorized), and six men can do a ridiculous amount of damage. Oh, well.
I've got a fort up near Fomoria, and I have no intention of sending a Gut out of my capital to set up its lab and temple. Why? Because of the effect on my research. It'd take two turns to get there, and two more turns to build the thing. That's 20 RP lost, and at seven turns from Alt5, there won't be enough time to really make the effort worth it yet. When I get closer to the goal, I'll reassess my priorities, but I REALLY do not want Alt5 delayed!
The message from Abysia is rather a good thing. Perhaps a future ally? I send him a response, hinting lightly at my goals, and offering a rather stronger peace than he suggested.
I also move into R'lyeh in the NE- jotwebe offered me the southmost of his land provinces, and I took it. It gives me another link to the southern border with Fomoria.
Final orders.
Turn 15:
No clue what's going on here. Let's look.
Nature gems. Yay... actually, that's sort of useful. I haven't had time to worry about gems yet, and I need them for berserking. Next!
Good. jotwebe was honest when he told me what to expect there.
Here's the state of the empire. Building a lab down south, to go with the castle. Up north, I've settled into a rhythm of cranking out 40 Marv BCs, a Druid, and an indep commander to lead them. Also starting to stockpile Carnute BCs to the west- when war with Fomoria breaks out, I'll need them.
Alt3 down. Two turns to Alt4, and another three at my growth rate to Alt5. Speaking of growth, it occurs to me that I've been totally remiss in one of my must important duties this game.
Much better.
Turn 16:
Ooh. Not fun. I did take a province, but it was rather expensive. 30ish BCs isn't the sort of loss figure I'm used to seeing. I'm also slightly annoyed at the loss of my Scout. It probably won't damage Fomorian relations, since scouts are generally treated like eccentric foreign tourists, but I sort of wanted to know more about where he was.
I do have my third fort up, and that's worth accepting this turn as headcanon. On to spending gold!
I end up buying a bunch of BCs to replenish my southern and western forces. Oh, and a Druid. And a temple. That pretty much wipes me out.
Still 240 RP to Alt5, once this turn is done. I don't have the cash to get my mage production up (more on that in my Mistakes post, later), so I'm stuck at a paltry 78+9RP a turn.
My two main forces are too mauled to do much, and my mage corps is sort of busy becoming effective, so that's all I can do.
Turn 17:
Huh. The random event was immigration- apparently, somebody else had 1/5 of a province's population up and leave, and they settled in one of my southern provs. Good for taxes, I guess. As for the death match, it's well worth TOTALLY IGNORING, as I don't have a single commander worth throwing in there, and the reward isn't all that great.
Now, if you squint hard enough at this, you'll see that the third fort finished! PROGRESS! Also, because of having a mage/priest along with that army, I've already got it fully equipped for production. I queued up a pile of BCs and a Gut for research there. More BCs at my capital, and a few in the west. I've almost got my armies restored to full... which'll mean I'll need to recruit a few more commanders. It never ends.
(If you're filling out armies/commander, you've got too many men, and you're not fighting enough wars. Also, I did just repeat myself about that third fort. More proof that the me of the past wasn't doing enough thinky.)
Three more turns to Alt5. After that, I think I'll turn my attention to Evocation, for reasons you'll see at the end of this post.
Now THIS province is interesting. You always want to examine which units you get out of independent provinces, just in case something like this comes up. It's an Amazon province.
New players might ask what I mean by that. Simple. Look at this.
Here are the units it produces. The Amazon is a decent archer- useless for me right now, since its bows do 10 damage flat, but better than most of my troops at range. The first of those commanders, the Crystal Priestess, is also fairly useless- a basic priest with a 50% chance of Air 1 and a 10% chance of Astral 1? Sign me up- wait, no. Don't.
This is the Pegasus Rider. Fairly weak, except for a couple of saving graces. First, its defense. 19 is quite impressive- it'd take some thugs or a real mob to hit one of them. Second, see the wings in their list of attributes? Yep. They fly. Set some of these ladies on an Attack Rear order, and they can (with the right placing) end up right where people tend to leave their commanders. Finally, they have lances. The Light Lance is Damage 3, equivalent to a javelin, but it has a special property. The first attack made with a lance does double damage. Yes, you read that right. Strength 9, plus Damage 3, plus a semi-random number (usually 2 to 12), TIMES TWO. Twenty-six MINIMUM damage. That could ruin a well-armored human commander's day... or do some hurt to a giant.
Last, but CERTAINLY not least, is the Crystal Sorceress. It's a mage with a bow- one level of Air, one of Astral, and 10% chance of Astral 2. Not that strong, and 4 RP for 180 gold is sort of bad. I will love these ladies to DEATH.
Why, you ask? Well, it's quite simple. They have Air magic, which I don't get naturally. They ALL get enough Astral to join a communion, which allows me to boost that measly A1 to between A3 and A7, and do a fairly good job casting Orb Lightning. Orb Lightning is a fairly nice Air battle spell, which only requires Air 1 to cast, and deals 10 damage, ignoring any armor (Protection) the enemy has. Thing is, for every level of Air you add beyond the A1 needed to cast Orb Lightning, your mage throws another ball of lightning. At the same square. For ANOTHER 10 armor-negating damage. Oh, and the fatigue cost of Orb Lightning is RIDICULOUSLY low, to the point where a base Sorceress can throw nine of them in a row. Add in communions, and I can have them throwing Orb Lightning until the end of the battle.
"Now, 30 guaranteed damage is nice, but how do you make sure they actually hit somebody with it?", you ask. Simple. These ladies have 14 precision, out of the box. I can boost that to 19 with either Aim or Eagle Eyes, two spells I have right now, by adding a Druid to the mix. The average unit has 10 precision, and most mages have 11 or 12. Same for archers. SEE why I'm happy I found this?
(Also, Precision over 10 counts double. Effective 28, anybody?)
Imagine twenty Crystal Sorceresses, each of which can throw an Orb Lightning a turn for 30 damage a shot. They can ignore all that protection that Fomorian giants carry around, kill the weaker ones in one shot each, and nearly kill his Unmarked in a hit. Figure I can dependably get off eighty of those in a battle... while my barechests are doing what they do best. That's my vision for the future... a boot stamping on a dead giant's face, forever.
(As lovely as that is, I overlooked the gold costs of this are impractical for me right then, and would be better off spent on Druids. Oh, and the time commitment makes it rather impractical. Still, it is a LOVELY theory.)
Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
I'll post more AAR when I'm back home to make up for the lost time, sorry.
Linear Mode
