AAR-Neophyte with Caelum

[Wyatt Hebert]

Turn 3 Aftermath

No events have popped up (at all, yet). Strange, to me, actually... does positive luck affect rate of events in 2.08? (I usually play positive luck with high Order, and I think I'm used to seeing more events than this).

No new research... only real report are the two battles.

Prophet/Seraph/Urgek vs. Barbarians.

Friendly Commanders 3/0 (Start/Died)
Regular Units 54/26

Enemy Commanders (2/2)
Regular Units (24/24)

As you can see, Urgek did his job. Provided the speedbump to slow down the Barbarians. However, I learned something else. If I was to do that again, I'd put the Spire Horn Warriors (of whom I lost 6, I believe) on Guard Commander, so they wouldn't have gotten creamed along with the Mercs. Learning to change the tactical options for a given combat will take some time, I believe. No losses to the Missile group, so that's good.

Burelk vs. Independents

Friendly Comm 1/0
Regular Units 54/5

Enemy Comm 3/3
Regular Units 21/21

Actually, I think I got off lucky! Come to find out, the enemies had 3 Heavy Cav (w/ Lances), 6 Light Cav, 12 Militia of their own, and 3 Mounted Commanders. It should have been a lot worse, imo.

Anyways, that's all for aftermath (other than finding out Arco has their Hero already, and he's now their prophet).

Orders coming up!

[Wyatt Hebert]

Turn 4 Orders

The Unrest died out in the two provinces I took previously, so I brought the taxes back up to 100%. My two new provinces are at 15 and 10, so I lower their taxes to 50% and 60% respectively.

My total income is 323, with an upkeep of 55.

Gem income is 3 Air, 2 Water (nothing has changed.)

My Scout, having found no local defense and no Province Defense, elects to attack the province Ulm took on turn 2, as their army moved west to take the province just north of my capital. Knowing that Ulm could reinforce, I put my Scout on Retreat orders, so that if there is some opposition, he will not be lost (and yes, I'm adjacent to a friendly prov ).

Urgek, being all alone now, is going to go west to get himself killed... I mean, to get accurate intelligence on the plains defenders to my west.

My prophet, with all 18 of my Archers on the right wing of the army (and staying behind them), moves to the prov NE of my capital (which supposedly has some good income), to meet up with the new Storm General, hopefully to take it out.

The Seraph, taking command of the 6 Wingless, is moving directly north to come up against the Flank of Ulm, and to help shelter the Scout if he needs to retreat.

The new Storm General, who has the following 3 squads:
(1 Mammoth/8 Wingless in Forward Middle)
(2 Horn Warriors on Guard Commander with the Commander)
(10 Archers (Fire Archers order) on left Flank with the Commander)

moves to meet up with the Prophet who is bringing a heavy force of Archers to support taking the NE Province, which is supposed to have ~(40 Archer/Militia).

The Pretender and one Seraph in the capital are Researching (and should finish Evo2 this turn).

Dante's Stingers are up for hire, and, liking most of the HI Mercs, I decide to hire them in the capital, to possibly aid in a strike against Ulm. A good bulwark unit to supplement my Archers is about what I need.

With my meager remaining Gold, I hire another Seraph in my Capital.

Burelk is moving SE against ~50 (Militia/HI). Since I don't have the money to rehire him (assuming I want to further my research curve), I'm hoping I can get a pyrrhic victory, and get him nigh massacred while still taking the prov. Burelk has some experience, but is allegedly outnumbered. It'll be bloody, either way.

Ulm's army, just north of my cap, looks to either go due north (away from me), or possibly to the east, which is the province my main army/ies are converging on. I'm hoping he moves first, gets bloodied (or bloodies the indies), and I then swoop in to mop up. That's another reason the Scout is attacking this turn... if I'm going to have a good possibility of being at war, I'd like to maximize my chances early on.

Ulm's capital has the dubious distinction of being exactly 3 Provinces to the NW-N-NW of my cap, which brings him range of a paradrop that could wipe him up. I just have to make sure I can take his PD of 20 Arbalesters, 5 IoUlm, Priest (woo), and CoUlm. I may be capable of that soon.

Checking on Ulm's pretender, I notice that it is:

Ninsaba, Devourer of Sins, Lady of Flames. Points to Fire Magic, as well as blood? or Death? In any event, her Dominion doesn't seem to be too high, so I might have a good chance of just preaching him out (as it seems he only came towards me early). A Vamp Queen would be annoying, but that could very well be my opponent.

Lastly, to the west of Burelk's position (and almost where I sent him) is a bunch of woodsman types, basically screaming Druids. That'll be very nice to get, as it adds another stealthy priest to the arsenal, but more importantly gives access to a double Nature mage inherently, so I could possibly start getting Supply items, which I think I'm going to need.

That's the info for this turn.

If I need to add anything in here, please let me know. I'm trying to give all the pertinent info, without boring everyone.

Have fun, and comment away!

Wyatt

[Wyatt Hebert]

Turn 4 Aftermath...

Geez, I have a bit to learn about proper tactics, it appears. Though it could have been worse.

Alright, Messages start off with Level 2 Evocation being finished. Then I find out Pythium has made a Serpent Lord their Prophet (could be playing Serpent Cult, which might make things easier (if I can dominion push on them and make him fight in the cold). OTOH, fighting a Sacred Hydra is never easy.

Burelk, despite my best intentions, pulls off an easy win attacking his province. He lost 4 men defeating an army of 26+4 Comm (so the estimate was very high, it appears), and then to add insult to injury, goes off to join Ulm (at their capital, I discover). Oh, well... rule I think is that if you have more provs the merc can take, seriously consider keeping him an extra set of turns.

Urgek does his job, and dies horribly discovering that the defenders at one of the plains consist of 26 units (13 Archers, 4 HI, and 9 Militia). Should be a fairly easy win if I set it up properly. But that's a future concern.

The prophet's army, however, gets rather mauled. I lost 16 regular units, predominantly archers (as that's predominantly what I had). One Mammoth, I've learned isn't effective enough. Two or three may have been good, but onle one got routed too quickly. I lost roughly 3 of the Wingless (one before the route, and 2 during, I think). Then the infantry got up to my archers, and it got rather ugly... and it didn't stop, because when I finally routed the enemy, my archers decided to harry them continually, and that meant stopping them from retreating... which got even more killed. At least I didn't keep everyone clustered in the middle, or the Mammoth would have lost the battle for me. Live and learn I guess you could say. I learned to split the formations the hard way (from my previous attempt to use Mammoths).

The Scout did manage to take Ulm's province (and I got a Wild Forest), which I suppose starts a war with Ulm. I think he's less prepared than I am, but I may just be hoping and grasping at straws. I may be dead very quickly. If I can get a High Seraph or two up and running, tho, I can probably make mincemeat out of the tinboys.

Anyways, as I mentioned, Burelk went to Ulm, and I bought Dante, who will be very, very useful. Like Experienced HI with Spears.

Anyways, that's the aftermath... I'm going to take a small hiatus (an hour or two, I think), and play a completely different game, while I wait for feedback over my latest blunder.

At least I took the province.

Wyatt

[Scott Hebert]

Bad luck, there.

Anyway, if Pythium has Serpent Priests, he's playing Serpent Cult. You probably won't have much to worry about, as Hydras are just a little worse than Mammoths routing, and your archers should be able to cause a rout before they get to you. Unless they're like me and play with Berserking Hydras...

As long as you have your High Seraphs and they can at least cast Thunder Strike (or whatever it is) or Orb Lightning, I really don't think you'll have much to worry about. High Seraph vs. Ulm -> Sauron vs. Dunedain... piles of men flying everywhere.

Keep up the good work.

Bayushi Tasogare

[Wyatt Hebert]

I said Serpent LORD not serpent Priest. I think that's the Serpent Cataphract commander, so I'm not sure which it is yet.

And the comp would have to be stupid not to have Nature 4 when playing Serpent Cult (not that it's necessarily known for intelligence).

[Edit: I'm not sure it was bad luck. I should have known better, I think, than to send in a lone Mammoth (even with a backup squad of Wingless). As I said, two or three Mammoths probably would have done much better.]
Wyatt

[ March 29, 2004, 19:42: Message edited by: Wyatt Hebert ]

[Endoperez]

Bless always gives that +3 morale, so sacred hydras of the Serpent Cult are much better at staying in the field than the ones of base Pythium, even without blessing effects.

[Kelan]

You can add me to the list that has learned something so far. I never knew you could "steal" the gems from mercs. I will have to remember that one. I have tried to take their magic items before with no success and figured the gems worked the same way.

I am sure it has been mentioned before, but another thing that can help in controlling how many gems your commanders use each battle is to store them on a non-spellcasting commander in your army and just hand over to your casters the amount you want to allow them to use before each battle. This helps reduce waste and extra trips back to a lab to replenish gems. I played some Man for a while and it finally occured to me to try this so they wouldn't burn up all the gems in one battle casting Wind Guide, Swarm, and other spells.

Good luck with the rest of the AAR .

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Wyatt Hebert:
Ok, I'm going to try and post this kind of like Arryn's later Posts. A post for results of my orders, then a post for the new orders for the turn. I'll post it like (Turn 2 Aftermath) and (Turn 3 Orders) or something.

hehe. It appears that I'm setting new "standards" for AAR style. Imitation *is* flattery. Thanks!

I'm pleased to see that you're having fun with your AAR and that you (and others) are learning from the process. Having fun and learning is what AARs are all about (IMO).

Keep up the good work!


Cheers,

Arryn

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Arryn:
I'm pleased to see that you're having fun with your AAR and that you (and others) are learning from the process. Having fun and learning is what AARs are all about (IMO).

I thought the point of an AAR was to try and cause an argument as various other forumites bicker over the relative merits of your choices?

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Arryn:
I'm pleased to see that you're having fun with your AAR and that you (and others) are learning from the process. Having fun and learning is what AARs are all about (IMO).

I thought the point of an AAR was to try and cause an argument as various other forumites bicker over the relative merits of your choices?

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That *is* part of the learning process: you learn who's sincerely offering useful (and polite) advice and who's just being a jerk trying to score cheap shots at the expense of someone's (like the AAR author's) hard work ...