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Author Topic: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun  (Read 17943 times)

Jilladilla

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #45 on: April 04, 2020, 07:07:10 am »

Very nice, things are getting interesting! Keep up the pressure on Vanheim.

The Veiled One is looking good, but she'll want some regeneration from spells or items at some point.

Strength of Gaia covers regen, it gives you 10% regen (doesn't stack with the other usual spells), barkskin (doesn't stack with ironskin, sadly), and +4 strength.

For oldark's sake, it also gives +1 Nature magic until the end of battle.
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oldark

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #46 on: April 05, 2020, 07:19:18 am »

Turn 28. Summer in the year 2.

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
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oldark

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #47 on: April 05, 2020, 08:56:10 pm »

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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EuchreJack

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #48 on: April 06, 2020, 10:24:55 pm »

Let the altars flow with blood!

That should help your Goddess get into the thick of things, plus it puts Van on the defensive as they have to blood sacrifice to counter your blood sacrifices.

I would advise more aggression: from what I can tell Van can win if the lines remain stable, or even if they lose some territory.

oldark

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #49 on: April 07, 2020, 12:54:57 pm »

Turn 30. Early Fall in the year 2.

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. 
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)



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oldark

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #50 on: April 07, 2020, 02:25:44 pm »

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).
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
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Another note is that we can see his pretender in Vanheim. Udainsakr the Fountain of Blood.
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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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
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Il Palazzo

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #51 on: April 07, 2020, 04:41:11 pm »

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.
What you do, is you pair this with a few low-level astral mages casting nothing but horror mark. This redirects the horrors towards the enemy (not 100% reliably, though). It's tricky to use, but can do wonders if done properly. The key is to correctly gauge how many horrors is enough, since if any are left after the enemy is gone, they'll come after you.

Also, ouch. That 100+ vans will be a pain in the neck. Do you know what bless they're sporting?
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oldark

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #52 on: April 08, 2020, 12:38:54 pm »

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
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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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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oldark

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #53 on: April 08, 2020, 01:06:39 pm »

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thanks unspeakable horrors!
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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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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oldark

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #54 on: April 08, 2020, 10:41:01 pm »

Turn 34. Winter in the year 2.

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..
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Worst...horror...ever.

Thankfully our other ones did much better.
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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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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,
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

while the newly claimed Throne of Law stretches its wings a bit.
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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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
We're going to summon a couple of horrors in that beachhead that he's landing in to either reduce it's defenses or completely clear them out for him.

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
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oldark

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #55 on: April 09, 2020, 08:00:20 am »

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
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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:
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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!
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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!
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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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Steve engaged with several of the berserk Einhere, cracking one hard in the head before another stepped up behind and removed Steve's arm.  Steve yelled in defiance and his return blow struck out his assailant's eye, finally getting revenge on the world for that two year old injury that gave him his nickname before succumbing to his wounds and falling in battle.  During this another group of berserkers had swung around and hit the mages, making Steve the last living Abysian on the battlefield this day, defending his goddess until the very end.  RIP Steve, we will never forget. (now someone needs to write him a funeral dirge :D)


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.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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!
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oldark

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #56 on: April 09, 2020, 10:13:56 am »

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.
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Il Palazzo

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #57 on: April 09, 2020, 01:23:07 pm »

Rest in pieces, Steve. He might not have been the greatest Steve ever, but definitely amongst the top five. I predict the name will become popular in Abysia among hopeful warlock couples.
 
That's a tough victory with that battle. You routed the enemy but they kept all the commanders. Here's hoping many more died during retreat (statistically, that should be only about 2, but the rng can be a fickle goddess).

Personally, I wouldn't waste sending lesser horrors against armies. They're much better used against province defences, as one cast has a very good chance to wipe out a ~10 strong pd. You can either use this to cut off retreat paths when you're attacking, or to destroy enemy economy.
The more powerful send horror ritual is much more suited to taking on armies in numbers, but that has to wait until blood 9.
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oldark

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #58 on: April 10, 2020, 08:32:49 pm »

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.
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A couple of very minor events not worth noting and then an exciting one! If only Steve were still here to be our representative.
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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.
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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.
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Karlito

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Re: Let's Play Dominions 5 MA Abysia - Burning Sun
« Reply #59 on: April 11, 2020, 11:41:33 am »

It's nice checking in on this every couple days. Rough battle there, but at least it wasn't a total loss. With Man joining in, Vanheim's in for a hard time. The tricky thing is balancing preserving your forces for the next war against finishing off the vikings.

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?

Chiming in on this, Hellfire is actually higher aoe than fireball, so it does have uses. Though if there's a swarm of weak enemies, I think Agony is often going to be better to spam.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2020, 11:51:09 am by Karlito »
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