First a disclaimer; this is only my third game of dominions 5 so don't expect superb gameplay and I don't regularly post on the forums so bare with me as I figure out a good format for this.
Opponents and Pretender design
Our group is playing a single nation throughout the ages, or a nation and one of it's successors. For this game we'll be in the Middle Age as Abysia with our opponents as Vanheim, Agartha, and Man. Since not everyone here plays this game I'll give the game's description of them here as well inside the spoilers.
Man
The realm of Man is a feudal kingdom. Their kingdom was established by conquering a race of tall and magically powerful beings known as the Tuatha. When the Tuatha were destroyed, their greatest treasure was found: the magical Forest of Avalon. Hidden deep within was great magic. The Witches of Man entered the forest, learned the old lore, and helped Man to grow in power and influence. The infantry of Man is limited and lacks heavy troops. Their regular armies most often consist of powerful knights and skilled longbowmen. The Witches train their own special troops, the Wardens and Knights of Avalon. These troops are very skilled and are also magically enchanted by the witches. The monks who serve the God of Man are divinely inspires scholars who gather and record knowledge in the monasteries scattered throughout the land. Descendants of the Logrian people displaced by the Witches and their servants dwell outside the fortified castles of the nobility.
Alrighty, so Man is listed as relying on infantry, longbowman, and knights along with their special troops. They are skilled in Nature and Air magic with some access to Water and Earth and have weak priests. They seem like a generic military nation to me. The biggest troop threats likely to be their calvary. They have lances and high defense and their Knights of Avalon are even more skilled. It looks like their only sacred unit Sacred units can be blessed by priests for buffs that the player designs before the game begins
For commanders I note that he has a stealthy preacher. That could be a problem if he tries to push my dominion out. Dominion represents what god has the worship of the people in a province. Fighting within your god's dominion gives some boosts and if you every lose ALL of your dominion in the world then you are out of the game.
Overall I think dealing with his knights and archers are the big sticking points, Abysia has strong melee troops and I'm willing to bet they can easily take on any infantry he throws at me. The knights mean I'll want a second line of units so they can't use attack rear orders to bypass the fighting and murder my commanders and mages. The archers.. I do have access to shielded heavy infantry so placing some of them forward to draw archer fire should be a reasonable plan.
Agartha
In dark caverns under the Roots of the Earth a strange kind of one-eyed humanoids has evolved. Untouched by the sun, they have become known to humans as the Pale Ones. When humans first met these pale giants, it was in war. With the destruction of the false god of the Pale Ones, an ancient Seal was broken and vast powers of destruction were released. The Pale Ones were almost wiped out of existence and humans could move down into the caverns of Agartha. Here they found fabulous riches and ancient secrets. The humans replaced the Pale Ones and now most of Agartha's inhabitants are pale-skinned humans with large eyes. Everything left by the Ancient Ones has become subject to worship by the humans. Ancient statues are enchanted and given life by Golem Crafters, priest-mages of the Agarthan Golem Cult. A few surviving Oracles lead the Cult and keep the memories of past ages alive.
Agartha has strong Earth magic and some Fire, Water, and Death as well with very powerful priests. Any constructs within his dominion get additional hit points.
Agartha is a mix of humans and pale ones. They all have darkvision and can move through water (but are bad at it). Caves give them bonus gold and resources. They can recruit giant Ancient Ones in their capital that are sacred. Troglodyte slaves will also prove a problem as they're even larger and have the ability to trample units smaller than them to death. At his non-capital forts he can recruit various types of human infantry. Overall he seems weak on ranged options.
For commanders all of his mages look like they're sacred. He has a cheap priest and a priest/earth mage at the lower end. Earth/Fire/Water on his mid tier and a level 3 priest with very strong earth and some death magic at his capital. It's slow to recruit though so maybe he won't be spamming them.
My infantry's heavy armor should help a lot against any earth evocations he casts in combat, but he'll likely be using several strong defensive spells that I think earth gives access to. 1-1 I think my infantry can still match him but I'm not sure how much his giants and troglodytes will come into play. I don't like my soldiers' chances against a size 4 trampling troglodyte and I don't have access to ranged weapons to keep him from reaching me. With all the talk of constructs and crafting I think they are maybe a late game power? I almost missed the fact that one of his soldier's (capital only recruitment) carries a weapon that can curse on hit. I will need to take care to keep my pretender all player gods are pretenders. The winner ascends to true godhood
Vanheim
Vanheim is a land of misty moors and bitter forests. Humans compose most of the population, but the rulers of the land belong to a tall and inately magical race known as the Vanir. The Vanir once fought the giants of Jotunheim, but with the coming of Man, they have turned their attention elsewhere. Now only a precious few of the Vanir remain and humans are no longer slaves. Humans compose the basic infantry units of the Vanheim. The Vanir have blessed some loyal humans with superior fighting skills and the ability to enter a mental state of wild rage or wolven shape. The Vanir are masters of illusion who fight while mounted on exceptionally fast horses. Female Vanir are called Valkyries and have the ability to fly. This ability was a gift from a dead god who used them as messenges of death. During those days, blood was sacrificed. The old ways have not been used in ages, but the oldest of the Vanir remember how to sate nature with blood. The Vanir are very skills sailors and can sail the oceans.
Ah Vanheim. My bane from the Early Age game we just completed. Vanheim is strong in Air, Earth, and Blood magic with weak access to Fire and Death. They have illusions and glamours to help sneak armies through enemy territory and make themselves hard to hit in combat and they have shapeshifters and beserkers to make their troops that much more deadly. They also like their lands to be cold, which of course in unacceptable to those of is in Abysia!
Their sacred Van cavalry is likely the biggest threat. He definitely used it to great effect in the previous game. He also has access to Valkyries which are sacred and can fly to strike my rear lines immediately. His skinshifters will regenerate and his beserkers will become stronger in combat and never retreat. If he plays it like the previous game he will create his bless so they are nearly impervious to fire - which sucks for me.
His Vanjarls and Vanadrott are good air and blood mages and all of his vanhir commanders are sacred as well as being priests of some level. He also has dwarven smiths with earth magic that can forge items more cheaply but I would guess he only has a few of them since they compete for recruitment spots in his capital.
I think my best bet against them is to get deeper into blood magic before war breaks out. The glamours make him hard to hit so the wide aoe's there and the mass summons of chaff will help to pop the glamours and start causing some damage. I'm planning my pretender largely around fighting off year two-ish attacks from them as well. I'm not sure my plan will work but it sure as hell should work better than my previous attempts with fire magic! Since they also have blood magic access I'll need to make sure they don't outpace me in it.
That took a lot longer than I anticipated so I'll do Abysia's intro and pretender design tomorrow.
Edit: I just noticed the child board. Should this be moved there? If so can a mod move it or should I repost it there later?
How do I add images from my pc or clipboard? The img tag looks like it wants a url - do I need to drop them on imgur first or something? Also when I click the attachments button at the bottom of the editor there is no option to add attachments.
Opponents and Pretender design continued
Abysia, Blood and Fire
Abysia is a hot wasteland, at the center of which lies a great volcano whose lava-lit caverns are inhabited by magma-born humanoids. Their flesh radiates heat and they are not harmed by flames. Abysians are stronger than humans and prefer heavy armor and weaponry. Bows are not used, as they would burn to cinders in the glowing hands of the Abysians. The war machine of Abysia also includes salamanders, lizard-like beings composed of the same hot lava-born flesh as the Abysians. Abysian Warlocks are very powerful Blood mages and skilled crossbreeders. The Anathemant Priests of the Flame Cult practice blood sacrifice to strengthen the power of the Awakening God . Abysians prefer to live in extremely hot places. They do not farm or hunt for a living, so their income and supplies are not affected by the Growth or Death scale of a province. However, population will still die slowly in Abysia-controlled provinces with Death scales.
Heavy infantry with no missile support. My infantry are all strongly fire resistant and also give off an aura of heat that will tire out nearby troops that aren't resistant to it. The aura waxes and wanes with the temperature scale of a province. Strong in Fire, Blood, and Astral magic with some Earth magic as well. I'll rely mostly on heavy infantry or sacred infantry for early game expansion with support from a few of my powerful fire mages. However fire is easy to counter by other players so I'll be focusing heavily on the blood and astral paths of magic as soon as I can comfortably bring them online. My commander units will be a mix of Blood/Astral warlocks and Fire/Holy priest mages with a heavy focus on the warlocks.
Pretender design
I've chosen to design my pretender with two purposes in mind. 1) To provide basic elemental resistances to my sacred troops. 2) To be able able to hold the center of an army against Vanheim's strong units.
I went with a titan chassis, the Ilahat of Might.
(https://i.imgur.com/JFJh5q8.png)
She's dormant and should enter the world around the beginning of year 2. Earth and nature magic gives me the resistances - the fire isn't useful to me but it's cheaper to get shock resistance this way than to raise her air magic skill. The plan is to craft her very protective armor and improve her attack skill so she hits the dodgy elves of Vanheim more easily and let her wade into combat after self buffing with earth and nature spells. I chose my scales because I'm afraid to go below Dominion 6 after losing 2 single player games due to dominion loss. Turmoil doesn't bother Abysia too much and since our units are very heavy infantry they are also very expensive on resources, hence the production 3. Heat 3 is default for Abysia and I left it alone. Growth would be nice to have but Abysia only gets half the benefit of it but still pays full design point cost. If I could afford to bring it to level 3 I would but at level one I'd rather that point go into magic. Luck scale of 3 is just a personal preference. I love the good events and want as many as I can get.
That's pretty much it. We're generating the map today so if there are any name requests for our goddess to be now's the time to get them in. She's got the preliminary name of "The Veiled One" but I'll take votes and submissions until the host starts our game up and I have to lock it in. Could be as soon as this evening or as late as the beginning of next week.
Edit: Game started up so instead of naming our pretender our first Warlord (general) is up for naming as is our first Slayer (scout/assassin). First turn will be posted shortly.
Turn 1
(https://i.imgur.com/8og0l0u.png)
The world our host generated contains roughly 20 provinces per player. The map wraps in both n/s and e/w directions so the best way to get your bearings is by seeing where things duplicate. (My dominion lands center and west, the trio of caves center and south). There are 13 thrones on this map. 8 level 1s, 4 level 2s, and a single level 3 for a total of 19 ascension points. The first player to control 8 points wins the game.
(https://i.imgur.com/ucXBGQc.png)
Pretenders:
The Veiled One, God of Abysia
Lifebringer, God of Man
The Second Stone, God of Agartha
Udainsakr, God of Vanheim
The way the map put us against a mountain range means that our capital only has 3 adjacent provinces. That's going to hurt our resource income quite a bit. Any province with a fort (castle/palisade/etc) will pull in a % of the resources from all neighboring provinces. That means our capital will be behind anyone with 5 or 6 neighbors by default. Agartha most likely started near those caves. They get bonuses for them and can fight in the darkness without penalty. If he didn't start here he will be expanding in that direction rapidly. None of our nations are underwater nations in this game, but Agartha does have some natively amphibious units that they can make use of. There's a single throne in the water but I don't expect there to be too much water play in this game.
I don't have any researchers yet but went ahead and set up my research queue. Conjuration 3 is for early conflicts. My Salamander and Dragon mages can summon fire elementals easily and at conjuration 3 we will have unlocked the spell for lesser elementals. Blood 1 just to get us the intro level blood spells for our warlocks then to construction 4. Construction 4 lets us make sanguine dowsing rods for our warlocks that will aid them in hunting for blood sacrifices. It should also unlock some basic gear we can craft for our pretender when she awakens. Blood Magic level 3 is the next milestone because Abysia is known for it's skilled crossbreeders. We have a unique blood spell at blood level 3 that lets us create a handful of semi-random units at the cost of blood slaves being sacrificed. Many of these units are somewhat decent and they also have no upkeep cost.
(https://i.imgur.com/vWcpvWV.png)
Our starting commanders and troops:
(https://i.imgur.com/BASTlhR.png)
Alecto the Warlord is our starting army commander. Name up for grabs if anyone wants him.
(https://i.imgur.com/788fK29.png)
He's leading our starting army of 30 heavy infantry units. I take a risk here and give him orders to march on Polgrave to the southeast without waiting on a scout report. It's a calculated risk, unless it's an unusually heavy defended independent province or has somewhat rare mage support his army should be able to take care of it relatively easily.
Maskim the Slayer - name also up for grabs - is our starting scout. Our scouts also do double duty as fairly good assassins. Assassins can be moved into enemy or neutral territory and then attempt to attack a commander in a 1 v 1 battle. Maskim isn't going to take on the cream of the crop but with his speed and twin poisoned daggers he will likely take out several targets before one gets him.
(https://i.imgur.com/X9dWWXK.png)
His initial orders are to head northeast to quietly scout Dothian. Depending on what we see he may try to take out the commanders there or advance further towards the caves to spy out our opponents.
(https://i.imgur.com/vCfsIqF.png)
The only other activity we perform in this turn is to recruit new units in Abysia. Warlocks will form the core of our forces later on, but for leading these initial armies I'll be recruiting a few Anathemant Salamanders. The weaker but cheaper of my fire mage/priests.
Anathemant Salamander:
(https://i.imgur.com/CXPs8K4.png)
Something I forgot to mention is that our entire race has a short lifespan. Hence why the Salamander we're recruiting will be 33 years old and have the Old Age trait already. Old Age gives them a chance to develop random injuries and diseases each turn of the game with the odds increasing as they get older. This Salamander will be leading our second expansion army once it's ready to go and his name is also up for grabs! We also have enough resources to recruit 4 of our sacred lava warriors this turn. Another round or two of that and they'll be the troops in our second expansion army. These guys trained in lava pits. They dual wield morningstars, go beserk when injured, and become more powerful the hotter the temperature is as well as being sacred, so our priests can bless them for stat boosts.
(https://i.imgur.com/RRfnhXd.png)
That's it for turn 1. Expect turn 2 to come in a few hours or the first half of tomorrow. If there's anything specific you guys want me to include or do that I'm not then let me know and don't forget we have 3 names up for grabs at this point with many many more to come as the game progresses.
PTW
How do I add images from my pc or clipboard? The img tag looks like it wants a url - do I need to drop them on imgur first or something?
Yeah, pretty much the only way and a bit of a hassle.
Man lends itself well to playing like a one big Maginot line. They have good castles, stealthy troops (wardens and foresters) that one can move in and out of besieged forts as needed, the tower guards have castle defence, while longbowmen during assaults are protected by walls - which makes them that much harder to counter. Together with the multitude of nature mages (to take care of supplies) makes conquering their lands a royal pain in the neck. If they take good scales, they'll likely build castles everywhere, so think ahead of ways to quickly break the walls and kill the defenders.
Agartha may rely on regular troops and some mostly manageable summons until mid game, when you should expect supercombatant statues rolling out. Should they have any time to prepare, they'll likely be tailor-geared to counter your troops. One thing I learned the hard way, back in dom4, is that they have one eye and rely heavily on armour, but there is a crossbow item that hits eyes and ignores armour. It's super effective (unless protected by air shield, and even then it's not too bad).
Vanheim is bad news for Abysia, unless you chance upon some recruitable air mages to reliably cast thunder resistance on your regular troops. Otherwise it's going to be a war of attrition.
If all else fails, there's always diplomacy - i.e. convincing somebody else to help you fight them or allying with them to fight somebody else.
As MA Abysia, learn to love the horror.
I'd like the warlord to be named Steve, if I may.
Turn 2. Late Spring year 0
We now have Steve the warlord leading our grand first expansion army.
Turn opens up with a proclamation from Man.
"Launfal the Castellan shall hereby be known as the prophet of Lifebringer, August Prince, the Divine Architect, Lord of the Soil, King of Metals, The Compassionate." Think his god has enough titles?
Since I never mentioned it, ours is The Veiled One, Goddess of Abysia. Mistress of the Wildlife, Queen of Nature, the Hidden One. We'll be declaring a prophet very soon as well. Steve lead his army to a very sound victory in his blind advance into Polgrave.
(https://i.imgur.com/QrNilh8.png)
Our new Anethemant Salamander, Ogorol is ready. This turn I give him orders to perform the rites to declare himself our prophet. Becoming a prophet immediately increases their holy magic level to level 3. The biggest part of that in my opinion is access to a Divine Blessing so he can bless the entire battlefield at once instead of the default small area of effect bless. Another 4 lava warriors are queued up as well. The plan is to have Ogoral lead a force of lava warriors out next turn to continue our territory expansion. For commander recruitment, I order our first full Warlock (name available).
(https://i.imgur.com/xPhAPiU.png)
These guys are our most expensive and powerful mages. Their army leadership is mediocre at best, and even then they prefer to lead magical beings or the undead than standard infantry but they are very powerful blood and astral mages and have a chance to spawn with earth and fire magic as well.
(https://i.imgur.com/TTO86vk.png)
This is what the yellow ? in his stat screen expands to. He is guaranteed to get a level of either fire/earth/astral/blood and has a 10 percent chance to gain another level in one of those 4 paths.
Looking at where to send Steve off to conquer next.
(https://i.imgur.com/kAeTWli.png)
I would love to move to that province directly northeast of our capital (which is where our slayer Maskim is currently) but barbarians are notoriously difficult independent armies. Once they enrage they will fight to the death and hit extremely hard. Steve's forces might be able to take them but not without heavy losses. The blue movement lines show river crossings. Steve's army is neither flying nor amphidious so he can't cross those unless the river freezes. Which it won't since one of the benefits of living in our god's domain is a permanent heatwave. To freeze over a river needs cold temperatures on both sides of a crossing. In fact looking at this river further, we have to go north and east to the nearest bridge then move back down to get to the other bank here. Anyway, I don't want to have Steve just twiddling his thumbs so he moves west to the Stone Grave Mountains to battle the horse tribe cavalry forces located there.
The last orders I give this turn are risky. Maskim the slayer is ordered to try and assassinate one of the barbarian commanders. This has probably a 30-40% chance (I'm making up numbers but it FEELS that way) of resulting in Maskim's death.
(https://i.imgur.com/xiLNmAO.png)
As I'm the last player this turn I'll be immediately playing turn 3.
Turn 3. Early Summer in the year 0
Two proclamations this turn announcing prophets. Ogorol is now our prophet (and I forgot, once a unit becomes a prophet, arena champion, or enters the hall of fame their names become locked).
Vanheim also proclaimed their prophet:
Sigverk the Vanherse shall hereby be known as the prophet of Udainsakr, the Merchant of Souls, Lord of Might, King of Many Names, Master of Dirt, Eater of Children.
Sounds like a lovey guy.
Maskim caught one of the barbarian chieftains alone at night and made his move.
Rare capture of a professional assassin in action!
(https://i.imgur.com/x3wzD7L.png)
Maskim strikes first with his dual daggers, hitting his target in both the leg and the arm and getting the poison into his system. The chieftan parries a rapid third strike and then barely misses with a swing of his own greatsword. Maskim strikes one final time into his opponents body for a lethal blow.(https://i.imgur.com/tQ70FcU.png)
On Steve's front the battle again goes in our favor. Though the lances of the horse tribe did take their toll. It was only a small portion of Steve's forces and he's prepared to continue his conquest.
(https://i.imgur.com/vlSd6DS.png)
Maskim the Slayer is ordered to test his luck again on another of the barbarian chieftains nearby. If he kills all the chieftains in the province then the rest of their forces will retreat at the first sign of battle. Independent armies don't replenish outside of special events so when he reports that he failed to find a target is a reasonable assumption that the area is ripe for the taking. Steve again only has one real choice of paths to take. He prepares his troops and moves into Boddern Weald, a mountainous forest.
(https://i.imgur.com/WmpYTXe.png)
Our second expansion army also prepares to move out under the prophet Ogorol. He takes our 8 Lava Warriors with him and moves northwest into the Spires of Ascension. Mages can be ordered to cast specific spells up to 5 times before they perform their generic command. You can see I've ordered him to cast divine blessing over the battlefield then use the Holy spell Word of Stone. This smites one heathen with a divine bolt of power. If that person survives there's a chance that it will petrify them. Since our research hasn't gone anywhere yet this is likely far more useful that the lone fire cantrip that he knows.
(https://i.imgur.com/HGhAFwZ.png)
Azazel the Warlock (name available) has joined our forces. He has 1 level of earth magic, 2 astral, and 3 blood. His primary duty for the time being is to sit in Abysia and advance our research. For recruitment this turn we have 5 more lava warriors and another Anathemat Salamander. This one will also be put on research duty until we have enough warriors to send him out leading another army of them, probably in 2ish turns. I would have preferred another Warlock since they are better researchers and the army will be a few turns recruiting anyway but my treasury isn't full enough to get one of them.
I appreciate the advice! I'm open to advice and suggestions from anyone that has something to offer as I'm still learning this game. How is the text:screenshot ratio for yall? Should I do more pictures, less pictures or just keep going as I am?
Edit: And thanks mods for moving this for me to the appropriate place!
Turn 4. Summer in the year 0.
The first report for this turn is Maskim's second assassination attempt.
Maskim rushes at his target during the daylight hours. Agid the Barbarian Chief parries one strike while Maskim whiffs with the second. Agid's return blow slammed into Maskim's body hard enough to instantly kill him.
(https://i.imgur.com/DHoD3sQ.png)
RIP Maskim.
Prophet Ogorol's attack in the Spires of Ascension was successful. His force of 8 warriors slew all 42 of their opponents and didn't let a single one retreat, but lost 6 of our own number in the process.
(https://i.imgur.com/uFsot43.png)
Steve once again lead his troops flawlessly. Conquering the Boddern Weald in the name of The Veiled One without suffering a single loss.
(https://i.imgur.com/DUO7qnH.png)
I immediately give the order for him to advance into The Obsidian Waste which is defended by a force of undead. Ogorol on the other hand is being given orders to return to Abysia and replentish his troops. The nearby forest scouts report have 140 defenders in it and with Maskim's death someone will also need to deal with the barbarian tribe adjacent to our capital.
Another Warlock and 5 Lava Warriors are recruited for next turn. This Warlock will also likely be a researcher. If he happens to random his way in to level 3 astral magic he will also be used to search for magical sites in our conquered lands. Magic Sites provide various effects, most often gem income. Gem's come in the form of each of the magical paths and are used for all out of combat ritual spells as well as by mages in combat to boost their strength. They are also used when forging new equipment. Most sites start off hidden and have to be searched out before they provide their income. To find one, a mage with at least 1 level of the magical path matching that of the site needs to search in that province. Odds are improved for each additional level up to 3, where I believe they have a 100% success chance. There are also rituals that can be used to search for sites in nearby provinces but these cost gems to use and won't be my primary method of finding them.
We also have Alijan Ba'al, the Anathemant Salamander joining us this turn. He's going on research duty initially, to be moved to leading a force of lava warriors when we are prepared to have a third group of them march forth.
(https://i.imgur.com/U8I6Eic.png)
I'm certainly interested, both as an LP enthusiast and as a Dominions MP veteran.
Didn't realize this was contemporaneous. I guess your opponents promised not to peek.
One trick I use for temples and prophets is to not place them in border provinces with other players, at least not until they build temples bordering me. Don't want them to think we're trying to kill them, when those mean and nasty players over there are far more dangerous.
Of course, I dump temples all over the provinces BEHIND the border provinces, outside of their sight. And the prophet might very well be preaching one province away from the border.
You seem to be doing a good job overall, especially with expanding around your homeland. You should work on getting a second army going, and send out scouts. What have you gotten from the new provinces?
How does blood sacrificing work with your nation? Dominions 4 was the last one I played, and never got into it as much as Dominions 3, which is no reflection on the game but rather the state of my freetime.
Thanks for the comments and advice EuchreJack. The game is against friends and I trust trust them not to peek. I renamed the thread from AAR to Let's Play because you're right, that was the wrong title for a game in progress.
My second army lost almost everyone last turn and had to return to replenish unfortunately. It's going to slow me down a lot but not much I can do about it after the fact. Abysia does have blood sacrifice but I have never used it before. I believe I can do 1 blood slave per level of the priest and only once at each temple in a given turn. So far nothing too interesting from the conquered lands. One horse tribe province, the rest is generic commanders with some combination of infantry/scouts/slingers available.
Turn 5. Late Summer in the year 0
A couple of things of note happened this turn. Steve continues to prove unstoppable and defeats the undead without losing any of his troops. He immediately reports that his troops are starving from lack of supplies. Being a mountainous wasteland I can't say I'm surprised.
(https://i.imgur.com/P0IiKx1.png)
Unfortunately I think he's going to have to make a U-turn and spend several turns marching. The only way forward is blocked by a frightening strong force and due to the river and mountains it's a pretty linear path back out. On the bright side, the army found 2 Nature Gems after the battle. Abysia doesn't have much use for those but they could end up useful later or as trade goods.
(https://i.imgur.com/HIhbxeN.png)
The next event in the queue reminds me of something important. I haven't been setting province defense as I go (numerous cheap but weak troops that you can pay gold for and they defend your provinces if attacked).
(https://i.imgur.com/XXnYwIS.png)
Since I never added any PD, they took it without even a token resistance.
Prophet Ogorol collects the lava warriors from the barracks and moves back out to the Spires of Ascension. He'll be able to attack the lightly defended Umidor the following turn. I'll let Warlord Steve deal with the small bandit infestation on his way back around. I also give 2 of our Fire Gems to Ogorol. Some spells require gems to cast in combat, important spells such as summoning a fire elemental. We don't have the research for that yet but it's not too far off and I'd rather him have the gems on him if it's needed. More Lava Warriors are recruited and this time a Warlock Apprentice to go with them. Our treasury can't quite support another full warlock and we already have a spare Anathemant Salamander on deck.
(https://i.imgur.com/Nb4cZ3w.png)
I was the last player this round so straight to
Turn 6. Early fall in the year 0
The only event this turn is our research reaching Conjuration level 2. Here's all the available spells that this unlocks for our nation:
(https://i.imgur.com/8PEjXYY.png)
The only one of these we have the mage's to cast are Summon Ogres. However, we don't have a steady income of earth gems to be able to afford to cast it. The Summon Spectral Infantry is supposed to be decent for Abysia but we don't have access to death magic or death gems. This is really just a step on the path to Conjuration 3 where we get a few different useful spells. Regarding gem income, we're currently gaining 5 Fire Gems every month due to the unique sites located on our capital. Until we discover and conquer more sites those are the only gems we'll be getting.
For orders this turn Steve continues his long lonely march back and Ogorol prepares to attack what the scouts say is about 30 militia and heavy infantry in Umidor. Umidor isn't a mountain province so we should be able to get a noticeable bump to our gold income. For recruitment, 5 more Lava Warriors and another Warlock Apprentice. I spend the leftover gold to add 6 levels of Province Defense to each of the areas we control since even though I talked about it last turn I STILL forgot to do it! Since this turn was light on activities here's a wider view of our portion of the world.
(https://i.imgur.com/hrtLeD6.png)
Diplomacy happened after I submitted the last turn. Man's lands are just north of ours and we very nearly had our armies accidentally engage in fisticuffs over Umidor. After some negotiation we agree on a non-aggression pact and a border that satisfies both of us.
(https://i.imgur.com/R4N3s4P.png)
Of course things can and likely will break down at some point but this at least lets us focus on expansion and maybe hunt down the dreaded Vanheim first. Presumably wherever Agartha started, they are bee-lining for the cave complex since they get bonuses from caves.
Ogorl's army had no troubles at all in capturing Umidor and is ordered to move east to Lorborough next. After that both Steve and Ogorol can converge on the barbarians camped near our home if needed.
(https://i.imgur.com/Neu62zo.png)
I can't help but notice that man has a Temple bordering out lands and a high dominion score there (the black and red candles indicate hostile dominion).
(https://i.imgur.com/YVj7RAp.png)
Given how strong I think his sacred units are it's not unreasonable for his nation to have strong dominion overall. I'll need to find the money for a border temple to counteract it and soon. The fact that Ogorol is there and is our Prophet is likely the only reason his dominion hasn't already eased its way into our territory.
For other events, we found a couple of extra fire gems in Abysia as well as two Death Gems. In Boddern Weald a witch was caught and cursed the province during her execution. That province has +3 Misfortune (bad) and +2 Magic (good) now. Steve will be able to reclaim Polgrave from the bandits next turn. I'm sure he's eager to fight after marching for so long.
I queue up recruitment of 4 Lava Warriors and an Anathemant Salamander. I went with the Salamander over a warlock because he's a priest and I may very well need to have someone preaching on my border with man. Maybe the blood sacrifice thing can help with that too once I learn how to do it and find a few blood slaves. Actually why not. I give one of the warlock apprentices instructions to go find me some sacrificial virgins. He may not be successful and will often cause unrest to increase. I'm not ready for a full on blood hunt to jumpstart my blood magic yet but a little may be useful. The last thing I do is order Alijan Ba'al the Salamander to move to the Spires of Ascension. I may sacrifice a recruiting turn to put a temple up there.
(https://i.imgur.com/rpKtcsa.png)
Turn 8. Late fall in the year 0
Paimon the Warlock Apprentice found 5 blood slaves for us in Abysia. Unrest in the capital went up by 2 but our province defense will reduce that back down next turn. I put him back on research duty.
Steve lost a single soldier shoving the bandits back out of Polgrave. Word of his exploits and his heroic quickness has spread far and wide and bards sing of him. Entering the Hall of Fame as a hero gives units a randomly chosen bonus. Steve's is Heroic Quickness. He can move and attack more quickly while in combat. Here's the current hall of fame:
(https://i.imgur.com/6wKZ39z.png)
Man has 3 units in there, though two of them are dead already. Lothar and Ferdinando are from Agartha. No sign of the sneaky Vanheim yet. Have we seen Agartha's god's titles yet? The Second Stone, God of Agartha, Master of the Oceans, King of Rain, God of Water. Guess he has some water magic on him. I'd say that bodes poorly for us but the only water spell that really messes up our armies is rain and it's a low level cheap spell that most players can cast. Anyway, congrats to Steve for being Abysia's first renowned hero!
Ogorol's battle in Lorborough also went extremely well.
(https://i.imgur.com/gA3SJIF.png)
Both Steve and Ogorol are ordered to converge on the barbarians. After that battle we'll finally have all of the provinces connected to our capital. Carniel, our new Salamander also grabs the Lava Warriors hanging out in the barracks and leads them in as well. This should be an absolutely overwhelming force here. Far more than is economical but with the layout of my territory they would all have to pass through it anyway to reach new lands to conquer.
(https://i.imgur.com/7kDfGrt.png)
On a second thought, this really is too overwhelming. I had planned for two armies to hit them, forgetting about the third that was ready to go in our capital. I leave Carniel and Steve's orders as is but command Ogorol to instead cross the river into Pholothras.
Our income this turn is spent getting a temple up in the Spires of Ascension. There's enough left over to train a single Lava Warrior but not enough for any command units at this time.
(https://i.imgur.com/ypHqnZC.png)
Winter has arrived. Our units don't perform as well in the cold, thankfully the power of our goddess will keep lands already in our control nice and toasty but the cold will make for a slightly more difficult time for our forces trying to extend our nation's borders. The Second Stone of Agartha contacted us. After some discussion we have agreed to hold expansion towards the caves and in exchange are being granted the lands south of the river without opposition, though I suspect we'll run into Vanheim as we proceed in that direction.
Current border agreement:
(https://i.imgur.com/0nzNXkM.png)
We also researched Conjuration 3 this turn opening up the basic elemental summons. Two of the spells here are in our interest. Phoenix Power is a combat spell that increases the fire magic ability of its user. Casting this first will ensure that our mages can cast more fire spells at higher strength. The second spell here of interest (and really the most important of the two) is Summon Lesser Fire Elemental. This spell costs a gem to cast but fire elementals are very strong in combat against enemies without fire resistance. The go-to strategy of our mages will be to buff themselves with Phoenix Power, summon a lesser fire elemental, then throw whatever evocation spells they can. For particularly nasty battles or when dealing with homeland defense I will have them summon multiple lesser fire elementals but one each should be sufficient against most things at this stage.
Conjuration 3 spell list:
(https://i.imgur.com/OTccCUc.png)
Next up on our research queue is Blood Magic level 1 to give our warlocks at least something to do if they are attacked. I'm considering changing the direction after that. Currently I have it set to construction (magical constructs and item forging) but a few points in Evocation will give our fire mages better spells to cast after summoning their elementals.
Agartha proclaimed their prophet this turn. Twoson the Oracle of the Ancients. Ogorol encountered almost no opposition in his battle this turn and is immediately ordered to continue south to Binophe. Thankfully The Veiled One's dominion has already spread here so we will be fighting in the warmth. The battle against the barbarians was also successful but was something of a bloodblath, at least compared to most of our fights so far. Here you can see the forces of Abysia lined up as the barbarians charge in.
(https://i.imgur.com/Grh5WtY.png)
Steve and Carniel are behind the two lines of standard infantry while our Lava Warriors are on the flank. Combat results:
(https://i.imgur.com/WfVYqUc.png)
We saw Steve enter the fray himself in this battle.
(https://i.imgur.com/W5vPsQz.png)
A maul wielding Barbarian immediately struck him in the head and burst one of his eyes. Steve retaliated with both of his axes. One missed but the other was swing so forcefully that he cleaved his opponents arm clear off. With his immediate opponent downed, Steve backed out of combat and fell back from the battle. Not staying to see it through, he made his way back to the cleared lands of Umidor where he could receive medical attention.
(https://i.imgur.com/iJJqZjc.png)
Glancing through his surviving infantry, many of them are in just as bad shape. Thankfully the no-longer barbarian lands of Dothian are fairly prosperous compared to most of the others that we have conquered. (https://i.imgur.com/FPg9LxT.png)
Work on the temple in the Spires of Ascension was completed. We're late for building a second fortress due to the nature of the terrain around Abysia so we order a generic human commander in Boddern Weald. Next turn, funding permitting, he can begin construction of Palisades there. (https://i.imgur.com/KVX6Bi8.png)
Alijan Ba'al also moves that direction. He'll be another turn or two arriving but once there he will see to construction of both a lab and a temple. Steve isn't ready to retire yet, one missing eye isn't going to stop him. He's ordered to move back to Dothian to retrieve his stranded troops and from there will return to Abysia to receive a new unit of Lava Warriors. Carniel begins marching towards our front lines with his 11 Lava Warriors.
We also had a couple of random events occur this turn. It rained toads in Boddern Weald, upsetting the population and causing the province to experience a Misfortune +3. Then we found new gold deposits in Abysia and began mining them. +60 gold income per turn there will definitely be appreciated.
Final note, Man built palisades in the province neighboring us. That's reasonable to expect from him but it does mean he's prioritizing fortifying the border between us.
(https://i.imgur.com/utU3Ijy.png)
I'm the last player this round so the next turn will be coming up very shortly.
Turn 10. Winter in the year 0
Do you guys like how I just talk about things as I decide and look at them in game to see my thought process or prefer I standardize the reporting order (aka. Research->existing unit order->construction->recruiting or something like that)? At the moment I'm going roughly in order of the message/event queue but mixing in some commands that I issue as a response to one event before moving to the next but I can see how that may make things more difficult to follow.
First research in Blood Magic level 1 is complete and research on Evocation begins. I won't explain every spell there that we can now cast but if one is of particular interest feel free to ask and I'll give you the details. What you will notice from the spell list is that almost every blood magic spell in the game costs some number of blood slaves to be sacrificed. Of note to us at blood one is any of our warlocks who gain a level in fire magic (about 1 in 4 will) can use Blood Boil without any slaves. Otherwise Blood Burst and Summon Imps will be our early game spells for our warlocks and apprentices.
(https://i.imgur.com/90RnBbX.png)
Ogorol had another victory against some humans calling themselves the Deer Tribe. They did have one barbarian chief among them and were able to pick off one of our Lava Warriors, leaving Ogorol with 10 remaining. Ogorol summoned our first Lesser Fire Elemental, though it was somewhat wasteful in this case since our Lava Warriors had routed the enemy before it got into combat. He also picked off one fleeing human with a fire cantrip. Getting this kill was enough to get him added to the Hall of Fame. Ogorol the Prophet is widely known for his Valor. He receives increased morale and leadership and all troops under his command will be less likely to break in combat.
A lucky event in Pholothras gave up +3 Dominion there as the people threw a festival to celebrate The Veiled One. A nice boost considering this will be a border province with Agartha. (https://i.imgur.com/wkiawM3.png)
As you can see from the map our goddesses heat power can't completely eliminate winter, especially on the border regions but she's keeping us warm in Abysia itself and neutral in most of our other provinces. The lower our dominion score in any province the slower the temperature heats up. The Warlock we recruited last turn (Forneus) spawned in with level 3 Astral magic. He's going on research right now but I'll have him go site searching soon along with a partner for earth and fire paths. In order to provide that partner, I order the recruitment of our first Anathemant Dragon. These guys are the oldest and wisest among our standard mages. They are also very powerful priests (level 3 holy magic) equivalent to that of our Prophet. He will take two turns to recruit and come with level 3 fire magic as well as level 1 earth magic with a small chance at additional levels.
(https://i.imgur.com/kknYAae.png)
This doesn't leave me enough gold to begin construction of our palisades this turn but given that we need both a temple and lab there to make it truly useful for our purposes I think the delay is acceptable. Or expansion armies continue their advance. Though we have resources and gold remaining, I only recruit 5 Lava Warriors in Abysia. I'm going to need 600 gold for palisades next turn and 400/500 the turns after that for the temple and lab.
During this turn we're contacted by Agartha. Confirming sighting of Vanheim to our east and warning that they have used ships to sail and conquer a throne already. Conquering a throne and claiming it are two different things in Dominions 5. Conquering it just means they own the province it is located in. They will need a level 3 priest, prophet, or their pretender himself to go to the throne and claim it in his name. When a throne is claimed all players are informed.
(https://i.imgur.com/pKc03uT.png)
The Second Stone has sent a plea for aid. He says many sacred elves have rushing into his lands during the winter. Our notes from an earlier age warned against the elves more strongly than any other and I think it is in our best interest to at the very least try and reach their borders to pull pressure off of our neighbor. I've asked for the exact location of Vanheim's provinces and army but the reality is that we are several turns from being able to directly effect things on their front regardless.
Evocation 1 was researched. There's nothing of significant note that this opens up to us other than some slightly improved fire spells.
(https://i.imgur.com/5jie0RC.png)
Ogorol only encounters very light resistance in Ba'an Dagor and takes it with no losses among his troops. He finds a handful of death and water gems after the battle and sends them back to our stores. In Lorborough a small gold desposit was found. Not enough for a mine but it did provide us a one time benefit of 112 extra gold.
There was no notification for it but I did notice that Carniel is in trouble. Due to his old age and the winter weather he's developed a disease. Diseases in most cases will spell doom for our units. He's incapable of healing and will lose some hp every month until he dies. Barring further injuries he should have several turns left before he keels over but we'll want to keep that in mind and have someone nearby to pick up his troops. Both him and Ogorol are ordered to converge on the nearby horse tribe in Bitra.
While I was giving these orders The Second Stone contacted me again with locations where Vanheim has been spotted and a prediction that their capital is located on the forested peninsula. Agartha's elf sightings in red, I added the green as Man sent a message informing me that they were planning to move into the marked province very soon.
(https://i.imgur.com/ZD6BFk6.png)
Next I order the palisades to be constructed in Boddern Weald which will take 4 months to complete. Our Salamander will arrive next turn to begin temple and lab construction. 5 more Lava Warriors are queued up in Abysia. I had originally thought to send Steve out immediately with the contents of our barracks but with a skirmish with Vanheim on the horizon I elect to wait and give him these 5 when they are ready and then send him out. Abysia's unrest is back to zero so we also order all of the Warlock's there to bloodhunt for one turn and will then put them back on research. I also give Steve 20 fire gems that he can ferry to the mages on the front when he sets out.
Here's a relatively 'full world' view of things as they currently appear.
(https://i.imgur.com/owC3cfY.png)
Edit: After further talks with Agartha it seems as though Vanheim has most of their army raiding his lands and marching on his capital already. I've decided to have our two expansion teams move east instead. Even if we don't directly combat Vanheim having 2 squads appear on his border could cause him to assume a defensive posture. His bless isn't active yet according to the Second Stone and without fire resistance from that our armies can probably take his. I also queue up a generic priest in the temple we build a few turns ago just to preach on the border with Man and ensure his dominion doesn't push into ours.
(https://i.imgur.com/YsTk7rJ.png)
The first notification on the table this turn is an announcement that the dormant gods are awakening. I'm not sure what the range on it is but this means that dormant pretenders will become available in the world as units over the next few turns. In particular, "The entire nation rejoices. The Veiled One, Goddess of Abysia, Mistress of the Wildlife, Queen of Nature, the Hidden One has awakened."
Our blood hunters brought in 37 blood slaves at the cost of 23 unrest in Abysia. Our advancing forces again suffer no casualties but they are now out of fire gems, severely hampering their offensive potential. (https://i.imgur.com/MuJaPtn.png)
While I mull that over, I send our new Anathemant Dragon, Harut, along with The Veiled One, and the astrally strong warlock Forneus to begin searching for sites nearby. I also give Steve the order to move out with his stash of gems and his new reinforcements. I also order the recruitment of a new unit that I haven't ever made before. The Demonbred.
(https://i.imgur.com/YpuQjMI.png)
The idea is that since he can fly it would be a good emergency method of transporting fire gems to the front lines. He also has enough fire magic to participate in combat himself if needed.
After pausing here for some thinking, I've decided to not attack Vanheim directly yet. Our goddess isn't ready to take the field and we don't have large numbers of fire mages or access to stronger evocation spells at this stage. I may end up making more of these Demonbred to replace my Salamanders for basic fire mage due to their easy of being able to reach the front lines but they are both expensive and slow to recruit. A few of them for rapid deployment will likely be sufficient.
I definitely don't mind the advice EuchreJack. As I mentioned earlier I'm learning to play this so it's good to hear the thoughts of more experienced players. I will limit how much of it I put directly into play so don't be offended if ignore much of it (I promise I'm still absorbing it!). IMO there's a fine line of accepting and exploring the advice and it still being me that my friends are playing against and not a collection of experts.
Turn 13. Spring in the year 1.
A light turn this time. Evocation level 2 is researched. Our strongest mages get access to the Flare spell here, which from my understanding is stronger than fireball and requires less research but a level 3 Fire mage to cast. Our level 2 fire mages can now Fire Blast, which is a weaker version of Fireball.
(https://i.imgur.com/NAByRZv.png)
A lucky event in Abysia. A spring fairy was sighted, spreading joy and laughter in the land. It removed the unrest from the province and gave us growth +3 and Luck +2 there. We also found a new copper mine in the Obsidian Waste (that wasteland Steve conquered long ago that he had the long march back from. The +20 gold income will be of great use to us. We also found a handful of air gems in Binophe.
I had planned to have Carniel and Ogorol hit the nearby horse tribe and then split up but Vanheim's border is expanding in front of us so instead I send them both to ensure that if we bump into their expansion party in Dumna we will have a larger force present. The temple in Boddern Weald is complete and we start constructing a lab there and our site searching party begins it's work in the Spires of Ascension. They will be making their way throughout all of my lands, I won't report on them unless something of interest is found. Another thing of note is the territory of Aenasia that we conquered last turn has a Slave Market located in it. This increases local unrest but will provide us +3 blood slaves every turn.
For recruitment, the Demonbred is still being worked on (takes 2 turns to recruit) but I do order another set of 5 Lava Warriors. I also order a generic commander recruited in Ba'an Dagor that we just conquered. This will be a good location for another fort and if I save up a little gold he can begin putting the palisades together next turn.
(https://i.imgur.com/WjgHTjH.pngn)
Now straight to
Turn 14. Late Spring in the year 1
Both Forneus the Warlock and The Veiled One found magical sites. Crystal Flames and Garden of Frozen Flowers, increasing our income of fire, astral, and water gems. The astral ones are of particular importance.
(https://i.imgur.com/Cgqfd1b.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/c7YTYG4.png)
Ogorol and Carniel did not bump into the elves in Dumna, but they did conquer the independent armies there without a single loss. We send both groups at the mid sized tribe of horsemen nearby. (https://i.imgur.com/7QBCC09.png)
Another Warlock is recruited in Abysia but after ordering the palisades constructed there isn't funding for anything else at this time.
Turn 15. Early Summer in the year 1.
As requested, Jack-of-all, the Fairy. Currently in the marked province and he finished building the palisades there this turn.
(https://i.imgur.com/Ee9kvtL.png)
Man was able to catch a battle between Agartha and Vanheim. They sent me reports on each of their Blesses. Vanheim's bless is Morale +1, Shock Resistance +10, Fire Resistance +10, Blood Bond (range 5). This is about the same one they used to such great effect in our previous game in the early age. Blood Bond means that any damage dealt to a blessed unit will be divided up and shared among other nearby blessed units. Last game he packed them tightly enough that this meant 0-1 damage being spread throughout his army from fire drake breaths and large fire evocations.
Agartha's bless is Morale +1, Shock Resistance +10, Fire Resistance +10, Quickness, Reconstruction. Again with the fire resistance. You'd think they didn't like how their early armies were affected by our units' heat wave aura or something. Quickness makes his units strike and move faster in combat, and Reconstruction lets any golems he makes have the ability to regain health.
I also inquired about trading for any earth gems he has but he hasn't uncovered any earth sites yet.
On to our events. Our expansion battle in Bitra was successful but the horse tribe cavalry forces were able to bloody us.
(https://i.imgur.com/tRfhfeP.png)
Carniel's down to 4 hit points. With his disease that means we'll only have him for another 3 turns. He's only given a single gem so that we don't forget about it and have him croak with a stack of them on him. Ogorol is given most of the rest while Ophis keeps a few on him for emergencies. Jack-of-all, the Fairy completed construction of his palisade in Boddern Weald. We've already gotten a temple and lab there so this place will be recruiting Anathemant Salamanders for as long as we can afford to do so and having them research. I won't mention that every turn unless I change the production to something else.
Jack's ordered to improve the palisades into a fortress. Among other bonuses, this will increase our recruitment speed so we can get a Salamander every turn instead of every 2 turns. Alijan Ba'al, the Salamander that was constructing the other buildings with Jack begins a practice of making blood sacrifices to The Veiled One every turn. I also order a generic priest to be recruited in the Spires of Ascension to be put on the same duty here. I think I'll need a lab or someone to bring him the blood slaves for sacrifice each turn. Probably the latter, I can transfer 20 to him and he'll be good to go for a while.
(https://i.imgur.com/PcIg8KB.png)
I consider trying to take this throne. Both the throne itself and the farmland it sits on are definitely tempting but I think it will wait. Maybe once Steve gets down here with reinforcements. Until then I instead send our expansion crew south to Kunal while Ophis heads northeast to Ba'an Dagor to construct the lab and temple there. (https://i.imgur.com/tOvdWvi.png)
The Warlock we recruited last turn has arrived with a Blood Magic skill of 5! That's by far the highest in our nation at this point. To celebrate, I order all of the warlocks in Abysia to blood hunt this turn. I'm sure our people will appreciate it. A warlock apprentice and 5 Lava Warriors are queued up for next turn.
Turn 16. Summer in the year 1.
A Stone Circle and a Garden of Pearls were found this turn, giving us +1 nature and +2 astral each turn. The Stone Circle also allows us to recruit Woodhenge Druids, stealthy priests with rudimentary nature magic, here. I would love to get a few of these going to help with both crafting nature based equipment (once we have the gems stockpiled for it) and perhaps to send into other dominions to preach. They do require both a temple and a lab in order to produce so the cost is a definite consideration at this stage.
In Abysia we rounded up 25 blood slaves at the cost of 31 unrest and apparently our efficiency was so impressive that a band of mercenaries swore off the mercenary life and swore allegiance to us. This gave us an army of 39 swordsmen and 18 heavy crossbows - which I didn't even realize existed in this age. The mercenary captain is named Bogliod, but I did check and he's still renamable if anyone wants to do the honors.
(https://i.imgur.com/kUXT8KD.png)
For now I put him to patrolling in Abysia itself. That should help to reduce the unrest from blood hunting much more quickly. Where can I see the patrol strength of his army? I know it's a stat but I don't see the display for it anywhere.
Our expansion into Kunal was very successful. Once again no losses to our own forces. Carniel's disease will kill him next turn or the one after. We are going to make a somewhat risky push here. I think that we'll have a chance of success but I don't think it will be easy. Steve's arrived at the front and he's being given orders to march on Dunheim to conquer the Throne of Ascension located there. Carniel and Ogorol will do the same from the south. I've adjusted the mage orders to summon multiple fire elementals. The enemy has crossbowmen which will be particularly deadly to our heavily armored but slow infantry. To deal with that I've pulled Steve and the mages back a little further and given two squads orders to try and get to the enemy's backline rather than engaging them on the front.
(https://i.imgur.com/urGObjB.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/s7IVSn2.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/mlFdsUF.png)
Meanwhile, Ophis the Demonbred begins construction of a temple in Ba'an Dagor. Next month he'll build a lab as well and Fenric should finish the palisades here at the same time. For recruitment, I'm going to be sticking with warlocks and apprentices in Abysia for the most part, maybe with a few salamander's once in a while but ideally just warlocks. Unless I have particular plans for one of them I'll stop reporting on that every turn. I'll also continue to pump out Lava Warriors as often as I can at this point. Depending on what types of forces we encounter among our opponents that could change to include Salamanders (the beasts, not the mages) or a shield line.
The final action for this turn is moving our new priest into Abysia where he can stock up on blood slaves to sacrifice to The Veiled One.
Turn 17. Late Summer in year 1.
Evocation 3 research has been completed. This unlocks 3 spells of interest for us, Fireball, Fires from Afar, and Magma Bolts. Fireball is our standard combat evocation for aoe fire damage and Magma Bolts is a hard hitting but inaccurate attack on a single target (it can scatter some of it's projectiles I believe). Fires from Afar is a ritual spell that lets us cause minor damage to forces in far away provinces. Primarily will be used to soften up large groups or harass enemy forces that are sieging a fort of ours.
(https://i.imgur.com/C62Kydx.png)
The Throne of Summer has been claimed by Man, and the Throne of the Moon by Vanheim. Next up we have our battle to conquer a throne.
(https://i.imgur.com/geAdcPt.png)
The battle went extremely well, far better than I had hoped with those crossbowmen. Either they're not as scary as I feared or they just need to be massed in greater numbers to be threatening. The throne here is the Throne of Spring. I immediately order Ogorol to claim it.
(https://i.imgur.com/F0qcG4b.png)
We seem to have hit Man's northern border here as well. In order to try and grab those last two available independent provinces all of Ogorol's remaining troops are transferred to Steve who will continue to advance while Ogorol performs the necessary rites to claim the Throne of Spring.
(https://i.imgur.com/CTJNcYp.png)
If we can grab these last two that will complete our national borders short of breaking treaties or going to war. The claiming of the Throne of Summer by Man has unleashed it's power, increasing Heat by +1 all around the world. Since we fight better in the heat I don't think too much complaining is in order. Jack-of-all, the Fairy finished upgrading Boddern Weald's palisades to a fortress as well.
Jack-of-all, being nicely faster than my other commanders, makes his way to the capital. Indeed, his purpose will be to ferry troops around for a bit.
Some end of turn discussion with Lifebringer of Man raises concerns about a surprise early Vanheim victory.
Vanheim almost certainly has these 4 thrones. The throne they claimed this turn was a level 2 one as well. Agartha also said they took a throne near the caves which could be the one in the farmland up there (unmarked on this image) in which case he as at a minimum 7 6 ascension points out of the 8 required for a victory. (https://i.imgur.com/2VzDAUY.png)
I began discussion with Man and Agartha about a joint attack to each take one of Vanheim's thrones. We'll see how it goes and I'll update in the next post. I'm still not prepared to face them with a fire resistance bless but if they are only one ascension point from victory then there isn't much choice.
Turn 18. Early Fall in the year 1.
Blood Magic level 2 research is finished. None of these are of particular note to us that I'm aware of.
(https://i.imgur.com/W7oqczm.png)
Ogorol successfully claimed the Throne of Spring, putting us on the scoreboard. I don't think there's a way for him to actually fail the claiming ritual unless he gets attacked by something. Steve's new expansion army drives forward crushing all resistance in the Gold Mountains and Carniel at last succumbs to his disease.
(https://i.imgur.com/ABwKfpN.png)
Steve continues on towards the last independent territory within our claimed borders. I order a Slayer (scout/assassin) trained up in our new palisades in Ba'an Dagor if anyone wants to claim him. I should use him as a scout but I will most likely give into the temptation to use him for his other vocation sooner rather than later.
Some clumsy oaf in Binophe broke a mirror, but 11 air gems spilled out of it somehow so we're not complaining, the Throne of Summer continues to heat up the world and the palisades in Ba'an Dagor are completed.
Turn 19. Fall in the year 1.
Uneventful turn all around. Steve laughs as his Lava Warriors kill nearly 50 "deer tribe warrios" with only a single loss among themselves, securing the lands within our borders. (https://i.imgur.com/6p96UbD.png)
Our nation in all of its glory:
(https://i.imgur.com/KBIbxYo.png)
A couple of positive events this turn; a good harvest in Dumna lowered unrest and doubled tax income this month and a small gold deposit in Binophe resulted in another 896 gold added to our treasury. I modified our research queue as well. First finish Blood 3 for Infernal Breeding, then work on Alteration 3 for Iron Skin on our goddess. I also remembered that alchemy is a thing and I learned the hard way that clicking the alchemy arrows back and forth is a great way to cause all of your gems to vanish.. Thankfully there's a 'reset turn' button that I promptly smash.
I'm not entirely sure what the best use of Ogorol is at the moment - probably to rejoin Steve's army to bless the troops but I'll leave him for now and do the rest of my actions. I queue up another slayer in Ba'an Dagor on the decision that getting scouts into elf lands is more important than gaining one more researcher every other turn. We have a couple of groups bloodhunting now, 3 in Dothian with Bogliod's ex-mercenaries patrolling to keep unrest down, and one in Abysia with Jack-of-all, the Fairy patrolling there with the Lava Warriors from our barracks.
In Dunheim (the throne of spring) we start recruiting a Mage of Spring. He'll take four turns to be ready and then finish building the fort there to help protect it from sneak attacks. We have another Astral level 3 warlock in Abysia now so I'm changing our site searchers into two parties. Demonbred and the new Warlock heading towards the wastelands southwest of Abysia, while the original party heads towards the bridge and the Vanheim/Agartha borders. This also decides what to do with Ogorol. He can start construction of the palisade and then catch up with Steve just as he reaches the border, allowing the mage to finish up his work.
(https://imgur.com/CUd0g4H)
Turn 20. Late Fall in the year 1.
First thing of note here is that the Anathemant Dragon, Harut, that we have site searching for fire and holy sites has contracted a disease. We should have him for another 10 turns or so but will need to remember to train a replacement for him at some point. Our new Warlock in Abysia has some rudimentary Earth magic skills. He's ordered to put them to use creating a magic item, the Blacksteel Helmet.
(https://i.imgur.com/xAvytxv.png)
It offers a large amount of head protection and will be given to our goddess next time she's in a province with a lab (giving gems or magic items to a unit requires them to either be located in a lab or to have another unit deliver them). There were a few minor events throughout the nation but only one particularly noteworthy one. We found a local wizard conspiring with Abysia's enemies. After his execution a wide variety of gems were confiscated.
(https://i.imgur.com/vBF0qmh.png)
A Vanheim scout was found and killed in Dothian. Dothian is very far from the Vanheim borders and is where we were performing blood slave collection so this is somewhat worrisome. (https://i.imgur.com/nGYPp2Z.png)
After ordering recruitment this turn we have quite a bit of gold remaining in our treasury. Fenric the Commander is ordered to upgrade the palisades in Ba'an Dagor to a Fortress.
Turn 21. Early Winter in the year 1.
Research to Blood Magic level 3 was completed as well as Construction level 1. Construction 1 doesn't really unlock anything for us but Blood 3 does. Infernal Breeding is a ritual unique to Abysia. It takes 25 blood slaves and returns a number of unique units of mixed usefulness. Bind Devil also becomes available here for 7 blood slaves. This allows any warlocks also skilled in fire magic to summon 1 devil per month. Devil's are decent combatants but not outstanding. They do fly though which means they can be given orders to attack the rear of enemy armies and try to kill their commanders.
(https://i.imgur.com/fgKOj9X.png)
I also change the research queue here. Instead of Construction 4 we will pursue Alteration 3 for self buffs for the Veiled One. Several Astral Pearls were found in Dumna and some kind of heat wave struck Aenasia, increasing unrest and killing a few hundred people. I order Abaddon the Warlock to forge a Blacksteel Kite Shield this turn and alchemised some of our astral pearls into earth gems in order to do so.
Agartha reports that Vanheim is striking him in multiple locations at once with small forces now while avoiding his larger armies. Man does not seem interested in joining this war and instead is trying to clear some thrones in their own territory. I notice while moving my site searching squads around that our Demonbred unit's naturally come with the magical skills needed to summon devils. I'm wondering if it would benefit us to spend 2-3 turns training these in the capital and just have them start summoning every month. I think it would be a great idea if these guys weren't slow to recruit, and when construction reaches level 4 we can build an item that boosts the wearer's fire magic skill, at which point some of our warlocks could do the summonings. Given that, we're going to keep producing warlocks in Abysia to keep the research train ramping up. Would love to hear you guys' thoughts on the matter.
Ogorol and Steve are meeting up in Dumna in preparation for our first strike against an enemy nation.
(https://i.imgur.com/y2AhBy8.png)
Edit: Almost forgot, the strongest of our blood mages in Abysia is ordered to perform the Infernal Breeding ritual. We'll see the results next turn. Turns are slowing down as Bannerlord steals the interest of a few of the players :)
Turn 22. Winter in the year 1.
Long event log this month. (https://i.imgur.com/iG3jdMD.png)
Man sent us the 1 earth gem because he got it from an event and had no use for it. He's pretty clearly not going to join in attacking the elves, instead focusing on clearing a throne or two in his own lands. The gem is a token show of support I suppose. Alteration level 1 research gives The Veiled One access to barkskin - I know that it's natural protection and that makes it different somehow from normal protection but no one that I've asked has bothered explaining it to me yet. Distill gold may be useful during gold shortages. It converts fire gems into 15 gold each with small bonuses based on the fire magic level of the caster.
Alteration 1:
(https://i.imgur.com/0xTK3Yh.png)
Infernal Breeding gave us 15 winged Hellspawn. The guys are 'part demon' and can fly. Presumably this means that they will sit in the back lines of combat with orders to wait a round or two and then fly to the rear of the enemy. Several of them have injuries or conditions of some kind, I think that's a side effect of the ritual. Anyway, let's go ahead and cast this ritual again!
(https://i.imgur.com/lC8HfSA.png)
The unexpected events, in order:
A crone cursed Aenasia, Misfortune +3.
A broken mirror in Kunal revealed 5 air gems.
A troll lair was raided in The Obsidian Waste. The troll escaped but we fold a mix of gold and gems.
The power of Rhuax (who's this guy? Old god? Hero? He has some spells named after him.) manifested, stirring a dormant volcano! 3000 population killed but the volcano gives us 3 more fire gems per turn and helps to increase the region's heat (which is already maxed out).
Steve and Ogorol will be invading elven lands next turn. Jack-of-all stops patrolling and begins moving his contingent on the long march towards the front. We do not empty the rest of the barracks. Those will form a defensive force if needed against either Vanheim or Man.
(https://i.imgur.com/lAwAt16.png)
Edit: Further concern over an early win by Vanheim after Agartha messaged me that most of his lands are gone and his capital is under siege. I counted up the potential thrones that Vanheim can access without having to war on Abysia or Man. Van has a a likely victory just from his + Agartha's thrones alone and an ensured one if you include the border thrones that we can see. To get more information I've ordered warlocks in Abysia to Astrally Project to the circled positions.
(https://i.imgur.com/JlOsYR2.png)
Turn 23. Late Winter in the year 1.
Alteration level 2 finished up this turn. There are several self buffs here that seem useful. The Veiled One will be able to cast Quicken Self, Ice Shield, Resist Lightning, Stoneskin, Cheat Fate, and Enlarge. Of course we're limited to 5 spells that I can script her to cast so I'll have to pick and choose.
(https://i.imgur.com/8Xv1l9N.png)
Our five casts of astral projection had results and none of our warlocks were mentally whammied by the attempt. I take it back, 4 of our warlocks are feeble minded or crippled and two of the sites we targeted are still un-scryed. Guess the failures just aren't reported in messages. The northernmost throne marked in the last post is controlled by Agartha still so that's good news.
Infernal Breeding was interesting this turn. It gave us a commander and 8 units. Introducing Soferic (name available!) the Hell Spawn and his squad.
(https://i.imgur.com/TLQCxv1.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/tCdBfSF.png)
Our first foray into Vanheim territory was successful. Steve led our forces to a flawless victory but the elves themselves did give us battle - instead we fought a handful of human cavalry and milita. (https://i.imgur.com/i35EqIa.png)
And now I see the messages about the astral cords of two of our mages being severed. They're just separated from the casting messages in the log. The last message of this turn is the completion of the palisades on the Throne of Spring and the successful recruitment of a Mage of Spring there.
As for orders, I'm not entirely sure the best way to run this war. With their units being stealthy Vanheim can choose when to engage my army or when to let it pass. They're also likely faster than me as far as map movement. Abysian armies are slow, moving only a single province in a turn and I suspect a mounted elven one could move 2 or even 3 with the proper terrain. Steve's force is also a small one by size and only has Ogorol as mage support so it wouldn't be a surprise if the main Vanheim army can crush ours if we sit down for a siege of one of his fortresses. For this month, I give the orders to try and catch a group of crossbowmen near by. After that, Steve can work his way back northward and meet up with reinforcements in a few months.
(https://i.imgur.com/XIV0FWK.png)
I give a couple of our slayers assassination orders and queue up more recruitment across the nation.
Turn 24. Early Spring in the year 2.
The big things this turn were two assassination attempts and one battle. Diplomatically speaking, Man contacted me with a warning that Vanheim is trying to coerce him into attacking me and reported my troop numbers in Lorborough. Maybe Bogliod's patrols will catch us another sneak thief soon.
(https://i.imgur.com/MDsnHlC.png)
Steve's attack on the Range of Shadow is our first contact with Vanheim's standing forces (other than province defense) but still the elves didn't reveal themselves. Instead we faced a hail of armor piercing crossbow bolts.
(https://i.imgur.com/A748Zsi.png)
They did take a small but noticeable toll on Steve's men before the Lava Warriors made contact with the enemy lines and completely destroyed them.
(https://i.imgur.com/XOI7pMY.png)
First assassination: Charygas tried to assassinate Fjolvar the Vanherse.
(https://i.imgur.com/cbg3nim.png)
He caught his opponent alone at night and ran in while Fjolvar cast Blessing and Air Shield on himself. He swings twice with his daggers, missing the first and having the second blocked by Fjolvar's shield. Fjolvar immediately countered, striking Charygas soundly with both his lance and a swift kick from his steed in the body. Charygas's next strikes were parried by his opponent's lance and again glanced off the shield. Realizing his time was up, Charygas turned to flee. The evil elf grabbed him with electricity pouring from his hands while missing with his lance. Another swift parry spelled the end of our brave assassin.
(https://i.imgur.com/x39HenZ.png)
Our second strike was carried out by Marou. I had expected him to kill some of the sages reported in the area, but he instead saw a chance at one of the mighty Vanadrotts. The most elite of the Vanheim forces.
Unfortunately this attempt, made during the daylight, was a very poor showing. At least Charygas got into melee with his target. Marou ran towards his opponent and a short distance away was struck by a magical lightning bolt, immediately ending his life.
Regarding marching orders, I considered for a little while where best to send Steve and Ogorol. Eventually I decide that getting the extra manpower to him sooner rather than later is more important and order him to move back northward to meet Jack-of-all with his reinforcements that much sooner. As much as I hate to abort site searching, I also request that The Veiled One make her presence known in Ba'an Dagor. She can forge herself a heavy blacksteel plate of armor next month and march with the army after that. The other site searchers will carry on as usual but we'll be lacking the water and nature entirely and have reduced capacity to find earth.
(https://i.imgur.com/k6g6RIS.png)
Perceval the Castellan claimed the Throne of Misfortune in the name of Lifebringer which immediately begins spreading misfortune across the world. That brings Man up to 3 ascension points.
Steve's force encountered an invading force of ape people flying Vanheim's colors. It was a victory of course, but a bloody one with most of our veteran Lava Warriors crushing their last skulls.
(https://i.imgur.com/UJeeXWY.png)
A lucky find in Bitra gave us a gold vein that brought in nearly 1100 extra coins this month. Bogliod's patrols found both a sneaking Monk from Man and a scout from Agatha but no sign of the elvish one that they expected. It seems everyone is insistent on violating Abysian sovereignty. We won't forget. The monk was killed on the spot but Agartha's scout managed to escape.
Steve moves back to Ba'an Dagor. He'll meet Jack-of-all, the Fairy with his reinforcements there as well as The Veiled One. Man agreed to produce an Eye Shield as a show of support (for the materials to be sent later of course) so that will save us the second turn of forging before she's ready for combat. Soon we'll see if all this guesswork pays off. The order was given for a palisades to be build in the northernmost point of our nation, where Agartha and Man borders meet ours. That leaves a little gold from the mine that was found this month as a remainder that may be used for a temple next month if possible.
Turn 26. Late Spring in the Year 2.
We finally received a missive from vanheim. Well a threat really. Their treacherous elven asses dared to accuse US of being dishonorable aggressors in this war and threatened to wipe us out completely if we didn't immediately cease. They seemingly have forgotten that it was their sneaking forces near Abysia itself that was the first violation of national sovereignty. We told them as much and they left a box in Abysia. Records of ages past have warned us to burn all such boxes without opening them, apparently the unleash some unnamed horror, and we did exactly that.
Enchantment research for levels one and two were both completed. That gives The Veiled One access to the Personal Regeneration spell that will help keep her alive in combat. Research continues towards Conjuration levels 4 and 5 to improve the size of our elementals.
(https://i.imgur.com/1EMIWeE.png)
The only other thing of note in our message queue was the discovery of 18 nature gems. That'll pay for the gear we're forging that uses them with some left over.
The Veiled One went ahead and geared up with what we have. It will be next turn before she's fully prepared. One of our feeble-minded warlocks begins building a spare palisade in Lorborough. The expense will prevent us from recruiting as much this month but any advance by the elves will have to cross one of the bridges to that province unless they come through Man or unclaimed lands. A palisade and some patrols here could help catch and slow down their advance if they try to sneak into our heartland.
Jack-of-all, now that he's delivered his reinforcements to Steve, begins moving back to Abysia to pick up another group. Steve patrols this turn to catch any Vanheim spies watching the Veiled One in Ba'an Dagor while Ogorol spends his time aiding our researchers.
Turn 27. Early Summer in the year 2.
Seems like Vanheim didn't want to wait to see if we would leave them alone or not. They sent a force of bird men to capture the Range of Shadow. 30 of them were really no match for the half dozen men we had there but in reality we didn't expect to hold it. Also now that we've seen he has a flying force we can adjust our battle lineup so they can't completely devastate us by flying into our rear.
Conjuration level 4 has been completed. The most interesting one for us here is the Fire Drake. A few of this should be able to burn any unprotected units alive. They've proven ineffectual against Vanhiem's sacred units in the past but so far we're fighting a lot of his auxiliaries so fire drakes could prove useful. I also noticed Strength of Gaia here which isn't a spell I'm familiar with but it casts Regeneration, Barkskin, and Strength +4 all at once for the same fatigue and in the same amount of time that we're currently spending casting Personal Regeneration. Seems like a no brainer to swap this in unless I'm missing something.
(https://i.imgur.com/G1dDhUv.png)
Here's The Veiled One, all kitted out with what we're capable of producing at this stage and her combat script.
(https://i.imgur.com/g5HGl1d.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/9WtGBy2.png)
Several minor event's this turn not really worth mentioning and then we had one of Abysia's hero units join us.
(https://i.imgur.com/VXB3phx.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/UtMSRo7.png)
The Fire/Blood combination on him makes him great for summoning devils and he also has a +8 bonus to Infernal Breeding. I think for now he'll do some Infernal Breeding for us. We may need a larger force if Vanheim comes at us in numbers and that's one of the fastest ways we can increase our army size. Steve reorganizes his army based on the new information we received regarding flying units last month. Roughly 1/3 of his Lava Warriors are put in a square formation and instructed to hold in the far rear of the battle line. That should hopefully draw any enemy fliers or flanking cavalry with attack rear orders into their formation instead of into the vulnerable mages that would usually be in the rear.
(https://i.imgur.com/KkrCpJ3.png)
All 5 fire adepts in Ba'an Dagor are ordered to summon Fire Drake's while Steve and the Veiled One continue patrolling for enemy scouts. I debated sending Steve and/or The Veiled One out either capture the adjacent Vanheim province or to defend another that is likely to be hit by the same flying squad but decided eventually to keep them in Ba'an Dagor until they're ready to march out with mage and firedrake support.
It's been a few posts since a wide map shot so here you go:
(https://i.imgur.com/9Xphjgf.png)
This turn opened up with Vanheim claiming the Throne of Stability. Man reports that it's the throne on their home peninsula. Infernal Breeding gave us a squad of 8 Hellbred Giant's this round.
(https://i.imgur.com/QNmbfv9.png)
I moved our blood hunters into research for one turn - that will let us finish Conjuration 5 next month instead of two months from now. Lightning struck an ancient oak tree in Bitra, turning it into a font of air gems and we found another 2 dozen assorted gems from other events throughout the nation.
A Vanheim scout was caught and killed by the province defense in Dumna.
(https://i.imgur.com/dDxsgw9.png)
As much as I'd love to wait one more turn for conjuration research, I'm sure I'd then want to wait just 2 more for blood and it would be neverending. So I've given Warlord Steve orders to take all of the Salamanders in Ba'an Dagor and move to attack Pustinia. We have to assume the elves are expecting this since it borders our fort and The Veiled One is large enough to be easily seen even above the palisade walls. There's some concern that we'll be revealing our battle plan against a light enemy force but since the entirety of the elven national army is hidden we have to assume it will be there and waiting for us. Each of the mages is ordered to summon two elementals then throw fireballs. That should allow the gems on hand to last for two battles and if we need to increase firepower for a fort or well defended province we can change those orders to summon 4 elementals instead.
Jack-of-all, the Fairy did arrive back in Abysia this month but rather than send him out with the contents of our barracks he instead just uses them to patrol for enemy spies locally so that the forces are still in reserve for homeland defense. Between Van's fast movement and sailing abilities and that we can see well over 100 longbowmen from Man massed on our border indicates that it would be wise to keep them here.
Turn 29. Late Summer in year 2.
Research completed for Conjuration level 5. This unlocks quite a few things but what we're interested in is Summon Fire Elemental. Immediately all mages in combat zones are ordered to do this rather than the lesser fire elementals.
(https://i.imgur.com/chyywKD.png)
Infernal Breeding this month produced another 5 of the hellbred giants. Then we had 2 battles. One was just a scouting run. One of our feeble-minded Warlocks is maintaining his usefulness by attack with the orders to retreat immediately. He revealed nothing but PD actively defending the location and escaped successfully. Steve, Ogorol, and The Veiled One also had a successful if uneventful assault. They encountered only province defense and well and defeated it without a loss.
(https://i.imgur.com/uRdpLqF.png)
The only other event of note this month was our sole Anathemant Dragon, Harut, finally succumbing to his disease. I debated on orders for a while. I wanted to send the army east another province but after looking in the manual what effects having The Veiled One enter an enemy dominion would incur I can't really justify doing so. She'd be effectively down a quarter of her strength and at 60% hp fighting there. Instead orders are given for them to march southwest then south and Gurson (the Slayer currently scouting in Vlecz) is ordered to perform an assassination. Ideally he'll target the dwarven smith in the province and not one of the strong Vanheim combat units. Our feeble minded friend is also ordered to hit that province next to get a better idea of the defenses in place.
(https://i.imgur.com/urBJSgg.png)
Infernal Breeding treated us to a crop of about a dozen cobra headed humanoids with venomous fangs this time around. Gurson the Slayer singled out a Dwarven Smith and moved in for his kill.
The Dwarf saw him coming and prepared himself with Iron Skin and Flying Shield spells and after that Gurson was within striking distance. Gurson struck with both daggers but neither was able to pierce the magically tough skin of his foe. The dwarf slammed Gurson in the gut with his hammer hard enough to leave him reeling. Gurson responded in a frenzy, striking the dwarf twice more with his blades and dodging the return hammer blow. One of his strikes was true and pierced the skin, delivering the deadly poison that all slayers coat their daggers in. The dwarf began to cast a spell to electrocute his assailant but the spellcasting was interrupted as Gurson struck him twice more and administered more of the toxin. A second spellcasting attempt was able to get through however and it crumpled Gurson to the ground as his heart was stopped. Second later the dwarf also fell to the toxins coursing through his body.
(https://i.imgur.com/QWxiYRe.png)
Our scouts in Vanheim itself also witnessed a small battle as Agartha moved in to lay siege to the elven capital. There has been no sign of the main elven army for a couple of months now. (https://i.imgur.com/bmfyxMh.png)
Of final note, our palisades in Lorborough were completed this month. Bogliod and his ex-mercenaries will be on permanent patrol here unless called for and orders have been given to upgrade this location to a fortress.
(https://i.imgur.com/44I3j1i.png)
On EuchreJack's suggestion, orders have been given to priests at various temples to begin making blood sacrifices. This is only 5 sacrifices for now but I've begun recruitment of more standard priests to cover the 2 temples without one currently performing the ceremonies. Ba'al Chozro the Anathemant Warlock takes a break from his breeding experiments to aid in our blood magic research.
(https://i.imgur.com/p9JbD9E.png)
Turn 31. Fall in the year 2.
Bad news from the war this month. Our cave loving allies lost 4 territories and their siege force. On the other hand we have now seen the Vanheim main army first hand (though we don't know what these other 4 armies consist of).
(https://i.imgur.com/wWH7Q5w.png)
Research to blood magic level 4 was completed and we have researchers that level 5 should be hit next turn. Of these Call Lesser Horror is notable as a good suicide bomb. The horrors tend to attack friend and foe indiscriminately but I suspect if Vanheim ever shows up in Abysia itself having half our warlocks march out and summon these should be nice and terrifying. Hellfire sounded interesting but after looking at the details I think it's a less accurate, non-aoe, lower damage fireball that also costs a blood slave to use? Anyway fire magic is going to perform poorly. In the battle we witnessed in Vanhiem they have a mage summoning a rainstorm when the battle begins.
(https://i.imgur.com/KnopNNi.png)
Our defenses in Lorborough caught an elven scout trying to sneak past and our main army encountered no resistance to speak of in retaking the Range of Shadow. (https://i.imgur.com/XZBRV7h.png)
Another note is that we can see his pretender in Vanheim. Udainsakr the Fountain of Blood.
(https://i.imgur.com/Eyyt2OP.png)
Diplomacy-wise I've been in talks with Man. It sounds like he's come to see how threatening Vanheim is in this world and he's nearly prepared to launch an assault over seas. He's got a second smaller army that he plans to hit Van near our front with. We've agreed to roughly let him take the areas below the green line and I'll focus on marching north and east since it sounds like Agartha's largely out of the fight there. Exception if the river freezes in late fall then I'll march on the fortress in the swamp. I also sent him 50 air gems for water breathing amulets to allow him to get a larger force over faster. He's also got a small army of stealth preachers marching through Vanheim trying to hurt his dominion.
(https://i.imgur.com/h5SdyLr.png)
Our army marches into Greenwoods. I'm a bit hesistant about sending The Veiled One into enemy dominion but there's no way his main army should be able to reach there this turn and realistically if she does die I think we have enough priests on research duty to resummon her within 2-3 turns at most. Jack-of-all also moves out with his patrol force to bring them to the front line.
Turn 32. Late Fall in the year 2.
Research to Blood level 5 has been completed. A couple of decent things here. Hellbind Heart is a dominate spell used in combat by blood mages, Bind Demon Knight gives us a fairly strong unit but would require getting someone boosted to earth 2 to do so (some of our Warlocks have spawned with Earth 1 and The Veiled One can forge boots to give them a boost to level 2). At this point I realize that there's more useful here that not useful so our real limitation is that we're not bringing in blood slaves quickly enough to spawn these spells and rituals. Send Lesser Horror when cast by a few warlocks at one should be excellent for hitting enemy forces remotely. His sacreds may be strong enough to just ignore them but we'll see.
(https://i.imgur.com/YgXxMzE.png)
I've adjusted the research to keep going deeper into Blood Magic. I think if anything allows us to pull out a war victory here it will be the more powerful levels of blood.
Vanheim moved in to siege Ba'an Dagor. Their aerial corp it seems came in and wiped out out province defense outside of the walls and our forces hitting Greenwoods took no losses.
(https://i.imgur.com/mG4Q7Qm.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/BaTfFYM.png)
An ancient heirloom was found and donated to our armory. A two-handed battleaxe made of stabilized lavasteel, the Carmine Cleaver. I think Steve has earned this as a token of his faithful service. Next time he's in a province with a lab to access our armory he will be awarded it.
(https://i.imgur.com/mBolHhi.png)
Gunter Blukraft's Sonnenkinder mercenaries have agreed to fight for us (I don't remember bidding on them last turn but I guess I accidentally did while looking at the merc list) and have arrived in Dunheim. They are immediately ordered to begin marching to Ba'an Dagor and will arrive in 2 months. That should still be in time to break the siege before our walls fall.
Confusion here - I clearly have the message in my log that the fort is under siege and the walls are weakening but when I click on the province there is no enemy forces there and it acts as if I'm not besieged. Did he somehow attack, lay siege, and move back off in the same turn?
I give orders for two of our Warlocks in Abysia to Send Lesser Horrors to Halemyre and also order our army to move there as well. The horrors should arrive first and hopefully cause some damage before our army arrives. Forneus, one of our site searching warlocks is also nearby. I've given him orders to meet the army there, spam the Horror Mark spell a few times, and then retreat.
(https://i.imgur.com/84K0sWK.png)
Turn 33. Early Winter in the year 2.
First thing of note is that some mysterious monsters attack Halemyre and wiped out the province defense there. Wonder what could have caused that? Was overkill sending 2 groups of em but better safe than sorry in case their army was camped there.
(https://i.imgur.com/3rKCYIj.png)
Thanks unspeakable horrors!
(https://i.imgur.com/m53Lzsr.png)
With no PD left, it was no contest when our army moved in and began to siege. Now it's time for the decision of do we sit here and continue the siege or move on. I'm leaning towards continue the siege. We have to face Van at some point and I don't think more numbers will be super helpful, additionally when we moved into this place the presence of both our goddess and our prophet was enough to flip the dominion to ours.
Upgrading of the palisades in Ba'an Dagor to a castle begins thanks to some gold found in an event. We also found some Green Dragon Scale mail. It doesn't seem too impressive other than offering poison resistance - which doesn't seem to be useful for us with these opponents. It can sit on display and look pretty.
Other orders of note given this month are for Belial to attempt an assassination in Coatl Swamp. Scout reports that he has sages researching there and picking some off would be wonderful.
(https://i.imgur.com/aO1ni2G.png)
Long message queue this turn. Let's see how many are interesting - from the top!
Perceval the Castellan has claimed The Throne of Law in the name of Lifebringer, August Prince, the Divine Architect, Lord of the Soil, King of Metals, the Compassionate, Lover of Many Titles.
Our mighty horrors strike at the enemy! Oh wait..
(https://i.imgur.com/VASkui8.png)
Thankfully our other ones did much better.
(https://i.imgur.com/Gpi4beK.png)
Some captured blood slaves in a few different provinces. 27 in total (that's 3 lesser horror's worth).
Belial actually listened to instructions! Instead of attacking some combat veteran he actually went for one of the researchers.
Belial attacks Zanbarth the Sage at high noon for some reason. Zanbarth see's him charging in and casts Luck and Cheat Fate on himself before throwing Star Fires at Belial. The spell hits solidly but too weakly to cause any effects. Belial struck true and struck twice, once to the chest and once to the arm. However Zanbarth's Twist Fate negated the arm strike and Luck negated the otherwise fatal chest wound.
Zanbarth flailed at Belial with his bare hands, doing nothing at all as Belial struck him hard in the head while having hie foe's Luck block another strike to the arm. Zanbarth is near death and poisoned so his fate is sealed at this point. Luck prevents two more fatal strikes and as Zanbarth turns to flee for help he falls to the poison.
(https://i.imgur.com/JjRo64S.png)
Agartha attacks some Province Defense of Vanheims with a single Golem Crafter. I didn't see it craft any golems and it promptly died to a barbarian. We also have a few negative events on provinces that increased our misfortune and death scales while providing a few gems.
Some unlucky shit seems to be hitting everyone,
(https://i.imgur.com/zaaErnB.png)
while the newly claimed Throne of Law stretches its wings a bit.
(https://i.imgur.com/JYV3CMl.png)
The last thing in our message queue is that the walls of Halemyre that we began sieging are now severely damaged. At this rate the walls will be breached in (I think) 1-2 more turns. I expect to see Van's cavalry by then.
Before I get into orders, we have a diplomacy update. We've coordinated with Lifebringer to support him joining the war against the elves.
(https://i.imgur.com/6Pb8wsC.jpg)
The first orders given this turn are for Belial to try for a second assassination. If we can pick off more of these sages then that can't be anything but beneficial for us. Next up the orders are given to send a lesser horror to Takregus to support Man's landing there and then I saw this temptation.
(https://i.imgur.com/dRsJB3n.png)
Kolermegor is the province that our horrors wiped out the defense of this turn. Which means that those Einheres we see there had to be marched there by a commander. No way to tell if it's just the 50 of them or if his cavalry force is stealthed there as well but it looks like a good target for two send lesser horror rituals. I debate a third but blood slaves are getting low. After some waffling on this I decide that if we're going to do something, we're going to do it right! 4 Warlocks are ordered to send lesser horrors at them.
Gunter's mercenaries are adjacent to our siege as well so they are ordered in to support in case of an attack. Jack-of-all and his reinforcements are still about 3 months away. Orders are also given for 3 of the Salamanders in Ba'an Dagor to grab some fire gems and begin in this direction.
Turn 35. Late Winter in the year 2. (part 1)
First things first, Blood Magic level 6 has been reached. The jump to level 7 is a long one. Not entirely sure if I should go for it now or come back later. I'd really love astral corruption but without the construction skills for a booster none of my mages can cast it. Due to that I'm going to swap our research queue back to construction for a bit - it may also unlock useful upgrades for The Veiled One. The blood level 6 unlocks Call Horror, the big brother of the lesser horrors and MUCH more horrifying. There's also the Infernal Disease ritual here which sounds like it summons a powerful demonic assassin.
(https://i.imgur.com/ydx0USw.png)
Mixed news of the horror's front this month. The hordes we sent to Kolermegor were only mildly effective. Looks like they're just not going to cut it against seasoned troops. (https://i.imgur.com/4viM6um.png)
The ones at Takregus, supporting Man's assault, completely wiped out the defenses there. Man moved in unopposed. Belial against moves to assassinate and enemy Sage, this time hitting him in the dark of night.
The battle begins much like the last one, with the sage casting Personal Luck on himself then hitting Belial with Starfire. This one's starfire spell was much stronger and caused significant damage. The sage's luck spell block 4 attacks in a row and Belial turned to flee while it cast starfire repeatedly after him. Unfortunately, Belial never reported back and is presumed dead while his target is unharmed.
Now for the big news. Those 50 Einheres we saw and failed to do more than scratch? Turns out they were part of a 200 strong elven army that attempted to relieve the siege in Halemyre. Here's the battle lineup:
(https://i.imgur.com/BspeH3m.png)
For our part we have the mages in the center of our formation where many will be summoning Fire Elementals, the Lava Warriors making up the front line with Fire Drakes on one flank and Gunder's mercenaries on the other (where they'll hopefully stay somewhat out of the way of all the fire coming down since they don't have our native fire resistance). Another small group of Lava Warriors and infantry are holding in the far rear as a block against enemies with attack rear orders.
Battle is joined!
(https://i.imgur.com/oGtrm4w.png)
The elves open up with summoning a Natural Storm (is it really natural if it was summoned?) which makes fire magic much harder to cast and reduces all ranged accuracy. The first of the cowards begin to flee the battle! (https://i.imgur.com/nTYC3u1.png)
During the battle our famed one-eyed commander Steve rallied the rear guard and led them in to support The Vieled One as the enemy beserkers and cavalry met her. When several of those cavalry broke off to rush our mages he chased them down. (https://i.imgur.com/4PodBjg.png)
He fought 4 of the Van's at once with his initial attacks being repelled by the elven lance which then pierced his chest. As the lance withdrew and one of the hellhorses kicked him hard Steve just laughed at his foe and somehow held his ground. Steve held them off for round after round, unable to get any of his strikes through their glamours and defenses until he finally struck true and one of his opponents fell with an Axe lodged in his body. Just after this some fire elementals arrived and finished off the weakened Vanheim cavalry. With the threat to the mages eliminated Steve once more charged towards his goddess, who now stood alone against the enemy vanguard. (https://i.imgur.com/Ao4wbt9.png)
From there The Veiled One held against the Einheres until the rest of the elven forces fled. We won the battle but at the near total loss of our army. The Veiled One came out at full health and unharmed.
(https://i.imgur.com/cS5AmD4.png)
For more mundane activities this round, we found some gold and nature gems from various events and completed the castle in Ba'an Dagor.
I'll make a short followup in a little while with this turn's activities on it. Real life calls!
Turn 35. Late Winter in the year 2. (part 2)
Alright, so we covered the main events in the first post. Diplomacy chat next. Agartha is asking for earth gems and Man wants to organize a trade for 50 fire gems.
Our earth supply is low (only 12) so I regretfully pass on Agartha but with nearly 150 fire gems I organize that trade with Man. 50 Fire Gems for 20 astral pearls and some selected Construction 4 or future trade options. I believe he plans to empower a mage to Fire 1 to give himself flaming arrows. Since our forces are universally immune to fire I see him using this tactic as all positive for us. I also send one single horror squad to support him advancing again but that drains our slave supply and after this we should save the slaves for our warlocks to use. With the losses of our combat fire mages we may need to send some of the Warlocks into battle soon.
I give orders for several more of our warlocks to stop researching and move out to blood hunt in bulk. We're going to sweep the area around our capital province and have Bogliod or some other commander come in with patrols behind them. Dalkiel the slayer arrives in Coatl Swamp and is immediately ordered to attempt to complete the bungled assassination attempt by his compatriot last month.
Jack continues to bring troops towards the front. He's now our de-facto commander since the Anathemant Salamanders in Ba'an Dagor can't lead an army quite the size of what he's bringing. Our dominion vanished after the battle in Halemyre. I don't want to leave The Veiled One there alone without dominion while a chunk of the vanheim army is likely nearby after retreating. She moves back to Tenera to meet up with Jack and the incoming Salamanders there.(https://i.imgur.com/JNjZXsu.png)
Turn 36. Early Spring in the year 3.
Research in construction levels 3 and 4 completed this turn. I know construction 4 unlocks the Sanguine Dowsing rod, which makes my blood hunts more effective. Not entirely sure what other goodies are at this level but I'll have to take a look.
Vanheim hit us in Kolermegor. Which to be perfectly fair, I didn't realize we owned. They killed the 3 members making up the province defense there and we got a look at what must be their surviving forces from the recent battle. (https://i.imgur.com/T3ElYDg.png)
A couple of very minor events not worth noting and then an exciting one! If only Steve were still here to be our representative.
(https://i.imgur.com/x7GFtor.png)
We of course don't really HAVE any non-magical combatants of note. Just to give it the old college try, Soferic grabs some miscellaneous gear from our armor and goes to represent us. (https://i.imgur.com/k9DTmcP.png)
Other than that not much of note this turn. Jack transfers his army to The Veiled One's command and begins his way back to Abysia for more. The Veiled One and the new mage reinforcements prepare to return to the siege of the fortress of Halemyre. Recruitment is temporarily paused for a turn so a lab can be constructed in Lorborough to make the blood slave hunting there go more smoothly.
Yeah I was just counting up Man's potential throne access if we finish Vanheim off. I think we're both expecting to be at one another's throats the minute the viking's go down and thanks for the hellfire info!
Turn 37. Spring in the year 3.
"Deepstrength the Oracle of the Ancients has claimed The Throne of Life in the name of The Second Stone, Master of the Oceans, King of Rain, God of Water." Seems like a good time for a thrones update.
(https://i.imgur.com/tvYUfq6.png)
Man currently has the most claimed points with Vanheim sitting on at least 2 unclaimed thrones at the moment. We're still behind in the ascension point race due to having only one throne in our province though we have access to another 3 along our borders.
Man and Vanheim had a battle in the Coatl Swamp that our scout reported on. Looks like they have another large stack in the area, or a smaller group that met up with the remnants of the army we fought recently. (https://i.imgur.com/hCArA7A.png)
The claiming of The Throne of Life has made everyone in the world slightly younger. Our mages definitely appreciate it even if it's far too little to make a significant difference for any of them, and then we had the People's Death Match in the arena. Only 3 nations sent contenders, ourselves, Agartha, and Vanheim. Man was unrepresented in this. The first bought was Vanheim's Vanherse vs Agartha's Oracle of the Ancients.
(https://i.imgur.com/3HN2nuA.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/uQzzRDc.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/u0eeXVF.png)
The Oracle stood there as the Vanherse charged in. The Vanherse draws first blood by slamming his Hammer of the Mountains hard into the Oracle's leg causing a permanent limp. While the Oracle was reeling from this blow the elf's horse struck another solid blow to his chest with it's hoof. The Oracle was unable to land a return blow on the agile warrior who then nailed him with the hammer for 37 points of damage, crushing his chest and killing him instantly. Round 1 goes to Vanheim.
Round 2:
Round 2, also the finale round due to only being 3 participants, is Soferic the Hell Spawn vs the Vanheim Vanherse. (https://i.imgur.com/ILPnKTl.png)
The two warriors rush towards one with the vanheim warrior striking first with a heavy chest blow from his hammer followed by a strike from his mount that was deflected by Soferic's armor. Soferic's return blow with his battleaxe struck hard but went through a mirror image rather than the enemy himself. Leave it to the elves to find a way to cheat in the arena itself! Soferic immediately breathed a jet of fire from his mouth with cooked the Vanherse a bit within his armor but failed to down him. Another attack from Soferic was repelled by his opponent's lance and he turned to flee the battle as the mounted warrior killed him with a hammer blow to the back. Immediately after, the vanherse collapsed to the ground gasping his final breaths as he died to the extreme heat still trapped within his own armor. The arena finale is deemed to have no winner. At least we prevented Vanheim from getting the victory award!
The only other news this turn is that we have moved unopposed back into our siege at Halemyre and with the reinforcements we are quickly tearing down the fortress's walls. Nothing new order wise for our nation either. Jack's on his way to pick up the next group of reinforcements, The Veiled One is leading our army and combat mages in the siege, and recruitment is proceeding throughout the nation as per normal.
Edit: I am at least beginning to consider a temporary truce with Vanheim (on the condition that they give up Halemyre so their fort here won't be threatening the adjacent throne) so we can focus on research and maybe grab one of the independent thrones in our territory as well as finish site searching. Not sure it's wise quite yet with the army size they have shown but something to think about soon. I wouldn't want to give them the breather they need to come back with some overwhelming force and I'm not positive that our previous victory is repeatable. Any opinions?
Turn 38. Late Spring in the year 3.
Research for construction level 5 completed. Other than The Veiled One herself or a rare Anathemat Dragon random we don't have mages skilled enough to make use of anything here.
(https://i.imgur.com/oFHZCOV.png)
One of our Mages of Spring researching near our Throne of Spring had a lab accident and opened his mind to some kind of psychic horror. As a result he's now gotten Battle Fright (-5 Morale) as a permanent condition. A treasure trove was found in Stone Grave Mountains, giving us several gems, a few hundred gold, and a magical Shield of the Accursed which has a chance to mark anyone striking it for interdimensional horrors.
(https://i.imgur.com/U06knB6.png)
In military news we've breached the gates of Halemyre and our army has been ordered to begin preparations for storming the fort.
And it seems another legendary hero has elected to join us! Rago the Rage Lord appeared at the gates of our castle in Abysia to fight for The Veiled One!
(https://i.imgur.com/CGH0lA5.png)
Paimon the Slayer reports a large force of Militia in Zeburia, just north of the Vanheim Capital. He's been given orders to attempt to assassinate whoever is leading them. Success could result in some critical reinforcements for Vanheim being delayed by a month.(https://i.imgur.com/46QhTmh.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/YbDUTBB.png)
The final orders given this month are for a couple of uses of Send Lesser Horror to the areas surrounding Halemyre with Kasbeel the slayer ready to plant the flag of Abysia should Kolermegor prove defenseless aftewards. (https://i.imgur.com/8IKQGtQ.png)
Turn 39. Early Summer in the year3.
Some confusion on turn order on my part here. Our slayer attacked Kolermegor BEFORE the horrors hit. I though proper turn order was magic rituals -> movement -> combat. Then the horrors hit it and wiped out the defenses. And THEN the province flipped to our control anyway. Our other two horror targets hit small units of non-pd and caused minimal damage.
Agartha has declared a new prophet- presumably their previous one was lost to Vanheim at some point - Golog the Decrepit.
--> At this point I got caught up in a bunch of work and ended up finishing the turn in little parts throughout the day. Unfortunately this means I couldn't really give a play by play of my thoughts so here's a quick summary. <--
We successfully stormed the fortress at Halemyre. Losing 5 Lava Warriors and defeating about 30 beserkers and a dozen assorted province defense. We also captured Kolermegor. Turns out the reason the province flipped anyway is that one of our feeble minded warlocks turned scouts was entering the province this same month and he 'conquered' it for us.
A small Vanheim raiding force is attacking our back country. (https://i.imgur.com/FLyOESO.png)
The Veiled One moved to conquer the reportedly lightly defended province nearby while the mages accompanying her moved back towards Ba'an Dagor to replenish gems and pick up some fresh mages.
Oh and I almost forgot the big (bad) news! Vanheim hit Man's main army near Vanheim itself. 3 Vanadrotts accounted for over 400 kills as they absolutely devastated the human force with massed lightning attacks. I'm not sure how well we'll hold up to that when their attention comes back our way but thankfully we do have some air access from the Mage's of Summer that we get from our throne. I've ordered one of them to forge a lightning spool. It does a few things bust most importantly gives the holder 15 shock resistance, which should stack with the 10 from our bless and make Then Veiled One tough to take down with lightning.
Since I wrote this after the fact, I'll go straight into posting..
Turn 40. Summer in the year 3.
The remnants of Ogorol's power have left the world. That means we can now declare a new prophet. I don't have anyone in particular in mind at the moment so if anyone has a suggestion and/or wants to claim and name the prophet now's the time to speak up! Prophets can't be renamed once they are declared. Next up we had one assassination attempt this turn. Forcalor the Slayer attempted to slay a Vanheim commander in Ard - home of the Throne of Pestilence.
Forcalor targetted a Van Herse named Hrugnir. (https://i.imgur.com/Qey57fd.png)
Forcalor attacked at night and dodged the initial javelin hurled at him by his opponent. Once within striking distance Forcalor made short work of the job, having his first strike parried by his opponent's broad sword and then delivering poisonous wounds to both the body and head immediately after. Forcalor then took a hard hit to the torso from the broadsword but remained standing and managed to deliver a fatal stab to the Herse's chest.
Bogliod moved into Binophe to clean up after the Vanheim raiders and did so losing only one of his men. He's been ordered back to his standard patrol at Lorborough immediately. The raiding force tried to move into Bitra next but the extra province defense raised there last month was enough - barely - to defeat them. (https://i.imgur.com/bIXkRfL.png)
The Veiled One's attack on Vlecz was effectively unopposed. The dozen militia there didn't even land a blow. She is moving back to Ba'an Dagor to exchange equipment for the lightning resistance item forged this past month.
Overview shot:
(https://i.imgur.com/nVqcB16.png)
I immediately tried to prophetise one of out scouts but the option isn't there. I assume they have to be located at a temple to do so and Dave begins the ritual to become a prophet of The Veiled One in Pholothras. On second look, there's not a temple there but Dave can still perform the ritual. Maybe it just requires being within friendly domain or territory?
Construction research completed level 6 this month. This unlocks forging of "very powerful magic items". The only one I know from memory that we really want to dive into are lightless lanterns. All of our Salamanders (and our Warlocks who know some fire magic) spending a turn making themselves a lantern should dramatically speed up research. (https://i.imgur.com/XsdFayo.png)
The Veiled One moves to Ba'an Dagor to reform the army and modify equipment. Jack leaves the capital to deliver more infantry to the front, and we've spent about 150 of our 180 fire gems on lightless lanterns. While there are still many fire mages not making them that's about as 'all-in' as I think we should go on it and even this may prove too much. Research continues down the blood magic path.
Turn 42. Early Fall in the year 3.
Let's be honest EuchreJack, I don't know what I"m doing ^_^. I just know fire is minimally effective against both elves and Agartha so I'm deep diving blood. I was aiming for astral corruption but that doesn't effect combat mages I think so it won't be as useful as I'd like. Definitely blood vortex though I don't have a good place for it. Maybe just bite the population bullet and drop it on Abysia itself with patrols to keep unrest down.
Other than that I'm liking both the Send Horror (the nastier version) and the Thug options that I think come from many of these summons. First time playing a blood nation though so everything past blood 6ish is new to me!
I'm concerned this turn with the dominion score in Umidor. It has gone from supporting The Vieled One to have two candles for Lifebringer. (https://i.imgur.com/axIrLpk.png)
All hail Dave the Prophet! (https://i.imgur.com/vrQqpJC.png)
For random events we found some gold and gems again but nothing else of note and no interesting battles this turn either. It seems like Vanheim may be massing forces in Steppe of Wild Horses though. Research went from 572 points/month to 1054 per month between the lanterns and the new recruits put on research duty. Disease Demon looks halfway decent so our only Blood level 5 warlock, Xaphan, tosses a test casting of it. Some of our level 4's spend the month forging Blood Thorn daggers, which primarily are used to increase the blood magic skill of the wielder by +1.
The Veiled One, now in Ba'an Dagor swaps our her Burning Pearl for a Storm Spool (shock resistance) and collects her mage reinforcements before moving back out towards the Vanheim front. Here's our army and it's setup - the Salamanders not visible on the detail page are all copying the same script as the others. (https://i.imgur.com/SvfHvIe.png)(https://i.imgur.com/z2ts7Ru.png)
Turn 43. Fall in the year 3.
A dire portent!
(https://i.imgur.com/mbh0boR.png) Lifebringer has completedthe Mother Oak ritual. This gives them (I think) +10 nature gems every turn.
Our disease demon performed... okay I suppose. It attacked a Vanjarl and had it's rear handed to it, but it was able to disease the unit before dieing so unless he can heal diseases in someway the unit will die in 8ish turns.
An excellent unexpected event in Dothian. A wave of religious fervor swept the populace there and 50 of our humanbred infantry formed up in the region. They will be shifted into a patrol leader as soon as possible. Since we are relying on friendly dominion for The Veiled One to maintain her strength, I've ordered that they army move into the Faery Forest and attempt to control the throne located there (The Throne of the Stars). It looks like Vanheim is a minimum of 2 turns away so as long as the defenses there don't prove far more dangerous than expected we should be able to claim it with minimal losses and still move in to defend Halemyre.
We're also going to try an experiment. 5 Warlocks are going to move towards the throne in Copper Woods and try to summon a few Horrors before retreating.
(https://i.imgur.com/FBBOH8h.png)
Turn 44. Fall in the Year 3.
Two Boots of the Messenger arrived from Man. We discussed this as part of the firegem payment many months ago. He also sent along a few blood slaves.
Speaking of blood, research to level 7 blood magic completed this turn. We're well beyond the farthest I've gotten in single player regarding blood research. I think Father Illearth is a good choice here maybe to gear up similar to The Veiled One and be able to hold nearly as well. Arch Devil's as well. I also think that Leech become the 'default' damage spam spell that blood mages use in combat. Summon Dream Horror says it causes unrest until found and the spell description says +30 unrest on cast. If that's 30 unrest per turn until it's found that could be amazing for shutting down enemy income or making them waste troops patrolling.
(https://i.imgur.com/GR8Jw4O.png)
Vanheim attacked our province defense in Kolermegor. Primarily a force of Einheres. (https://i.imgur.com/gRR4gX7.png)(https://i.imgur.com/ADRgRJG.png)
Our attack on the Fey Forest went very well. We have claimed the province with the loss of a single hellbred giant. The Veiled One beings the ritual to claim The Throne of the Stars while construction of a palisade begins.
(https://i.imgur.com/O2x6mFt.png)
We saw a huge force from Man advancing through some of the remaining independent provinces. Presumably either to claim the nearby throne or to attack Agartha. (https://i.imgur.com/2Djfjqx.png)(https://i.imgur.com/biAE8nq.png)
Diplomacy Interlude
Some negotiations with Man. He's moving towards the throne at 1 on the map below. We've previously agreed kinda sorta that he can have the throne at 2 when he's capable of taking it. With him at 4 ascension points he can't be allowed to take both. With the strong defenses on each it's good to assume that either both are level 2's or one is a level 3 throne. Either combination means he wins. I've agreed to not contest him at 1, let Agartha defend that throne but 2 is fair game for both of us. Additionally we've agreed to a 3 turn delay between any declaration of war between our nations and any hostile activities.
(https://i.imgur.com/jW4Cn4r.png)
Three more disease demons are being sent out this turn to try their luck and construction of a Starshine Skullcap has been ordered. This magical helmet will increase the Astral magic abilities of it's wearer.
Turn 45. Early Winter in the year 3.
First off, two thrones were claimed this time. Bob the Oracle of the Ancients claimed The Throne of Thorns in the name of The Second Stone and, of course, The Veiled One, Mistress of the Wildlife, Queen of Nature, the Hidden One has claimed The Throne of Stars. This was followed by Man announcing a new prophet: Hengest the Knight of the Stone.
Man then attacked the throne along the border with Agartha, in DwoAna. They were successful but not without losses. (https://i.imgur.com/U8BX6YW.png)
Vanheim then launched two attacks on our lands. The first was against the province defense in Vlecz. (https://i.imgur.com/ZC8xHBO.png)(https://i.imgur.com/AcQ4h2C.png)
The second was into Halemyre to lay siege to our fortress there. (https://i.imgur.com/77UIflG.png)(https://i.imgur.com/uL7giIP.png)
Bogliod's men caught a Vanheim scout trying to get through Lorborough and gave him swift justice at the end of a crossbow bolt.
One Salamander stays behind at the Thone of Stars to prepare a lab there, the rest of the army moves into Halemyre to relieve the siege. Some good news in site searching as well, Mount Chaining was discovered near the Throne of Stars. This site doesn't give gems but any blood magic rituals performed there will cost 30% fewer slaves. This is an amazing discount. If it can be secured well enough we definitely would want to have a lab and a group of warlocks there.
The costs of the lab prevent any of the usual recruitment this turn.
Turn 46. Winter in the year 3.
3 Vine shields received from Man and that news is followed by Vanheim attacking us in Pustinia and wiping out the province defenses there.
(https://i.imgur.com/mE7YP1N.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/bDgSGYw.png)
I think our best move is to head into that snowy region east of their army (Vlecz). He'll either retreat back to there, or try to kill off more of our lightly defended provinces. Even odds I think that he retreats or moves towards The Throne of Stars.
Not much else of note. A few lesser horrors are sent towards some potentially soft targets, a few disease demons targeting both his army and his research center. With any luck we'll catch his movement and if its the 3 mages that catch it maybe they can do enough damage with their elementals to be worthwhile.
Turn 47. Late Winter in the year 3.
I have been spamming so many assassinations lately that I've stopped reporting them. If anyone claims a named assassin I'll give his/her play by plays but otherwise I'm hitting anywhere from 2-6 attempts per turn sometimes :) The vanherse you mentioned had a disease demon hit him. Wasn't enough to kill him but it DID inflict both a disease and a never healing wound.
Vanheim did NOT move into Vlecz, so our army just annihilated a small province defense force without taking any losses or using any gems. Instead the Vanheim force moved to Aenasia and cleared our defense out there at minor cost to themselves. Agartha warned us that the large army of sacreds beseiging him vanished last month so it may be in our vicinity.
(https://i.imgur.com/SyNm8Ea.png)(https://i.imgur.com/x7XYozJ.png)
The Mages that were sent to slow or halt this force in Tenera are thankfully still healthy enough that they can make the move to Vanheims likely next destination.(https://i.imgur.com/jID3o5R.jpg)
and our experimental warlock party will make a poke at the level 3 (most likely) throne this month.
(https://i.imgur.com/dc8HVPc.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Sp49WVw.png)
Finally I decide to take a risk with our main army and attack Kolermegor. (https://i.imgur.com/um2fVcl.png)
Turn 48. Early Spring in the year 4.
After various assassination results, we received the battle report of our experimental warlock attack on the Copper Woods.
(https://i.imgur.com/JtYPNq5.png)
We didn't win but did cause a significant amount of damage. The fatigue cost of this spell or the casting time was significant. Best I can tell the warlocks only cast it a single time each and the enemy army was on them before they recovered from the fatigue. The plan may work better if there's a wall of chaff to buy them time, or maybe consider sabbathing them up.
Our scouts managed to claim an unprotected province in the Windswept Desert and our army was successful in Kolermegor. (https://i.imgur.com/tDfxqMW.png)
However Vanheim surprised us by moving to besiege Ba'an Dagor. Other news of note is that our palisades protecting the Throne of the Stars has been completed. Again we try to make some predictions as to his destination, but also send a few lesser horrors out to try and weaken him before he moves. The question next is where do we order The Veiled One and her army to march to. I would love to push into Van territory and siege their fort but hesitate to do so within their own dominion. I suppose we have enough priests now that we could recall her in a single turn if need be but that would still be an expensive loss.
After some consideration, we'll ping the defenses there with one of our scouts while the army preaches and builds a temple in Kolermegor.
Overview:
(https://i.imgur.com/H2Tyv65.png)
Blood Magic level 8 has been researched. Blood Vortex is a global spell here of interest. It will provide a steady supply of slaves if we're able to cast it. Life for a Life looks like a powerful combat spell as well, putting out 40+ Armor Negating damage per cast. Bind Heliophagus seems powerful as well, I think these guys are improved arch devils maybe? Not completely sure. Our first order of business will be to get the blood vortex up. We'll try to place it by the Throne of Stars for the 30% discount.
(https://i.imgur.com/g3hr4km.png)
Or horror attack on the van raiding party were successful, catching them outside the walls of Ba'an Dagor. Unfortunately their leader got away.
(https://i.imgur.com/cPcE54E.png)
Vanheim did hit our PD in the Windswept Desert. They came with a Vanjarl leading 26 ogres. The single cavalryman we had stationed there expectedly did nothing but report on it.
Are army decides to take the risk and attack the Van fortress at Steppe of Wild Horses. There is quite a bit of risk involving this since we will be out of our own dominion.
New problem, at this point a scouting report from our coast came in.
(https://i.imgur.com/3Q3lw3I.png)
This puts Man at a potential win next turn if both of those unclaimed ones are level 2's. Or a victory when he claims the one in Carrion Woods otherwise. Such a close path to victory necessitates a change in policy. Emmissaries are immediately send to both Vanheim and Agartha regarding this information.
-- Interlude--
Turn 50. Late Spring in the year 4.
Not the greatest of turns here unfortunately. We suffered a major defeat at the Steppe of Wild Horses.
(https://i.imgur.com/YVsJmB0.png)
while smaller forces hit our lightly defended borderland provinces.
Man has a large army adjacent to the level 3 throne that will likely be able to take it next round.
(https://i.imgur.com/VbNLf1r.png)
In spite of the bad news there's really not much to report on in detail this go around. Our researchers begin calling the Veiled one back. It shouldn't take more than 1-2 turns and she already has gear ready to requip herself and in reality the 'army' she was leading was the smallest of our 3 groups.
Order are given to destroy the fort in Halemyre, we won't let them use it as a staging area or to improve their defenses here.
Overview:
(https://i.imgur.com/GZphAdE.png)
Long event list this turn but most of it is standard stuff. Man claimed The Outer Throne and Agartha claimed The Throne of Pestilence.
Forneus the Anathemant Salamander conquered Pustinia with the help of his fire elementals. Unfortunately the one send to Ferran Mountains was run down by a fast cavalry charge and failed. Vanheim always tried to hit Bitra with a raiding party but the pumped province defense from a few turns ago wiped them out and Rago the Rage Lord successfully defeated the guards in Binophe. (anyone have a suggestion for an easy way to take a screen shot and drop text labels on it for times like this? I tried in ms paint but my handwritten scrawl wasn't legible)
Dunheim suffered a nasty event this turn. One of the local nobles revealed himself to be a vampire and attacked the province. with over 60 men and vampires. Our defenders didn't stand a chance and they're now beseiging the fortress there that is protecting The Throne of Spring.
The first order of business then is to have Xaphan the Warlock don his Armor of Souls and use the power boost it provides to summon the Blood Vortex. This game is wrapping up quickly from the looks of it but dammit I WILL cast one big ritual spell before it ends.
(https://i.imgur.com/KVlThaf.png)
Ragu turns back towards Abysia, a battle with Man is about to break out and his warriors will be needed. A couple of warlocks moves towards the level 3 throne in order to at least harrass Man if they take it, and that's about it.
(https://i.imgur.com/hbjjIQx.png)
Turn 52. Summer in the year 4.
(https://i.imgur.com/i5J7dIx.png)
The nation rejoices! The Veiled One, Mistress of Wildlife, Queen of Nature, the Hidden One has risen from the dead in order to kill more heathens!
Vanheim moved in to siege the Throne of Stars. Not much we can do but hold it as long as possible and Man conquered the throne near Abysia.
The two warlocks defending our fort in the Faery Forest spend most of our slaves this turn casting infernal breeding in an attempt to build numbers up enough to protect the walls and every warlock in our capital is ordered to blood hunt. That'll tank our economy for 2-3 turns due to the unrest it will cause but at this point I think it'll have to do. Ragu continues marching towards the border with Man and The Veiled One hops over the mountains to prepare for an assault of her own and finally two mages are sent to try and elemental down the vampire menace.
Since we're coming to an all or nothing moment, I've also ordered the research team to march out and join the Veiled One. The lack of troop support is going to hurt a lot but maybe they can handle the men.
Yeah I would have if I had the slaves to spare. After those two conjured troops up I was left with about 6 slaves leftover.
Turn 52. Late Summer in the year 4.
(https://i.imgur.com/oe6AVL0.png)
Good game to the other players! Man comes in with a throne victory after claiming The Throne of the Sun with both Abysia and Agartha a single turn from contesting.
(https://i.imgur.com/XXGAo8r.png)
I enjoyed writing this up. I know there were only a few vocal followers but a large view count - would yall like me to write up the next game here as well? We'll likely start in the next day or two in late age. I'll either be finishing up the cycle as LA Abysia or going with LA Ragha as the surviving splinters of our great nation.
Edit: The final throne points screen as was suggested and the score graphs as well.
Thrones:
(https://i.imgur.com/CNw5V4P.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/GMwioOC.png)
Provinces:
(https://i.imgur.com/2IWfLY7.png)
Forts:
(https://i.imgur.com/9NglmaU.png)
Income:
(https://i.imgur.com/smX6lMi.png)
Gem Income:
(https://i.imgur.com/oUuLGpK.png)
Research:
(https://i.imgur.com/tE6GLou.png)
Dominion:
(https://i.imgur.com/dcEErz4.png)
Army Size:
(https://i.imgur.com/sQXnYIH.png)