Turn 11

Well, that was another awesome turn of site searching for the sorcerers. I've been gearing up to start summoning various drakes, and all I have to say other than that is:



Oh! Yes, please!

Obviously, that place will have a laboratory in two turns, and a fortress as soon as I can manage it.

In other news, I didn't take much in the way of provinces, but I'm in a good position to expand more. Thank you Ulm for the earth gems, I'm forging that second hammer now.

Marignon now has a border with me.

I'll update this post when I know where I'm going.

Squirrelloid, what's your situation regarding Ashdod, specifically, I guess? I'm just wondering how long I can expect to be dealing with him. Are you counter-attacking soon? What will your route be?

I'm moving a couple of scouts to my southern border this turn, and they will enter Ashdodian territory the turn after. Does anyone else have intelligence on Ashdod, especially in the western portion of their territory?

Going to dig-in and reinforce 358 outside of Ermor's capital, and I'm hoping I can hold it long enough for C'tis to do some damage from the other side. But I'm now having to recruit forces in my capital to deal with Ashdod (30 Principes, 5 Hydras, and 60 odd gladiators - did you know you can only have 100 units in your recruitment queue?). That's a lot of dough that I could be spending to build a 3rd fortress (I'm holding off now, because my preferred location might be in Ashdod's path), or using trying to finish off Ermor. So the sooner anyone can get Ashdod off my back, the sooner I can get back to trying to stomp Ermor

Check the map thread. See those arrows moving to the front line - that's my army of (hopeful) doom. So next turn i either meet Ashdod's army or start rampaging towards his capitol, his choice. Which may mean you don't have to deal with Ashdod at all - but I can't promise anything yet.

And I have rusting mist - giants with no armor do not scare me.

Edit: Look at the bright side - if he does go after you that gives me a much clearer shot at his capitol.

LumenPlacidum wrote:Well, that was another awesome turn of site searching for the sorcerers. I've been gearing up to start summoning various drakes, and all I have to say other than that is:



Oh! Yes, please!

Obviously, that place will have a laboratory in two turns, and a fortress as soon as I can manage it.

In other news, I didn't take much in the way of provinces, but I'm in a good position to expand more. Thank you Ulm for the earth gems, I'm forging that second hammer now.

Marignon now has a border with me.

I'll update this post when I know where I'm going.

THAT IS AN AWESOME FIND AND COULD END THIS GAME!!!

Now you have to decide who you want to hold it for maximum effectiveness. For Conjuration, your best values are:

Pythium's angels
Bandar Log's Rudra and company (A close second to Pythium)
Tartarians and (immortal) Bane Lords - these are a far distant third, but can be summoned by Machaka.

It would be great to hand it over to Pythium or Bandar Log, but seriously, the most important thing is to keep this out of Vet hands. If they scout this, they WILL teleport in with everything they have and defend it like the whole game depends on it.

Using it for tarts/banelords would be a bit of a waste compared to angels. But still useful. For the moment though it's a great place to start a drake factory.

I'd be happy to give it up to a teleporting Pythium on such a time that they have angels ready to be summoned. At that point I'll probably be 100% battle magic anyway.

Angles are a long ways off at this point We'll worry about that when I ever get that level of research (if the game is still going). In the meantime, I think you should get whatever you can out of it, Lumen! I like rdonj's drake-factory idea, especially if you can boost up some sorcerers to Dragon Master. And heck, at half price, there's probably loads of other summons that can help you out, with F, E, N and D magic on your mages - teammates might want to send you excess gems of those types, just so you can take advantage of the discount.

Skinu wrote:My turn went very badly. Sent an army to Holpo's capital and got wiped out, lost five good mages, and thirty archers. although I can recruit three per turn now it was a hard loss to take. It was my own dumb mistake, I opted to rush in and thought I could win but really should have taken adjescent provinces for retreat. Still, im regrouping and will attack again shortly, Probably two turns.

A courageous act nevertheless. But that is the stuff we are made of isn't it?

Anyone have any targets for viccio's fires from afar?

Not ashdod. His entire army resists fire.

Well, if no one else has any ideas, I can't imagine a better use of fires from afar than against Ermor's Vestals in 355... they're really tough to kill in battle, but with only 9 hit points and no armor, they should fall easily. TwoBits can probably tell you what other provinces they're in. But hitting 355 would really soften up what might be a difficult battle for me this turn.

If someone else has a request, feel free to give it priority, though.

Raiel wrote:Well, if no one else has any ideas, I can't imagine a better use of fires from afar than against Ermor's Vestals in 355... they're really tough to kill in battle, but with only 9 hit points and no armor, they should fall easily. TwoBits can probably tell you what other provinces they're in. But hitting 355 would really soften up what might be a difficult battle for me this turn.

If someone else has a request, feel free to give it priority, though.

Well, it could be dropped right on Ermor's capital - there are Shadow Vestals and Longdead Horsemen there (60 units, so all bolts should find targets) it would nice to see dead. Plus, with any luck, you might bag a Grand Thaumaturg or two...

I agree that Ermor is the best possible target. The faster Ermor dies, the faster we can start collapsing the vets down the line.

Oh, darn. I had this big long post about stuff that somehow didn't get posted.

Basically in a complicated way I said shoot ermor. :p

ok, 2 fires from afar... 1 in ermor capital and 1 in 355

I should have Fires from Afar in the not too distant future... too many research priorities, not enough mages (yet!). I seem to have the best exponential growth in research, so if current trends continue i'll eventually pass the research leaders! <.< >.>

(yeah, i didn't want to look for an actual shifty eyes emoticon, too much work. Besides, smilies look better in ascii).

Raiel, you're the only noob whose turn isn't in yet. Try to beat ashdod

Well, I beat Ashdod in turn submission... I just hope someone can beat him on the field.

Thanks for the artillery support, viccio.

I'm sure you guys will manage I'll go give namad a nudge on irc. For what it's worth he's been a bit panicky, something about how badly he's outnumbered and the over 2x team gold advantage.

rdonj wrote:I'm sure you guys will manage I'll go give namad a nudge on irc. For what it's worth he's been a bit panicky, something about how badly he's outnumbered and the over 2x team gold advantage.

You mean his overwhelming victory against my first army wasn't encouragement? Admittedly I killed or routed everything but his damn sacreds. But still, i did basically nothing to those guys. Would think that would inspire him...

Not really. He said that had you attacked a turn earlier he would have lost the province. He was "scrambling to defend against attacks that didn't happen."

What he's doing now he didn't say, and I didn't ask.

rdonj wrote:Not really. He said that had you attacked a turn earlier he would have lost the province. He was "scrambling to defend against attacks that didn't happen."

What he's doing now he didn't say, and I didn't ask.

Um, huh? Those Sheshai Anakim were in the province I would have attacked. I had nothing on those guys. I seriously doubt I could have taken the province before - i think he's overestimating the forces I had available to me. *Now* I am loaded for bear, so maybe his fear is justified, but he hasn't even *seen* my army yet.

Edit: Also, now I get to fight in my dominion. And I'm not just thinking about morale. I'm thinking about it being cold for his heat-loving Anakim.

I see that Vanheim has a big gem income and a lot of that is probably earth and air gems. If you're fighting Vanheim, try and put shields of valor (air shield) on your best commanders (if they are human-sized without too much HP) and get a lot of scouts or cheap indie commanders in your armies or else seeking arrows are going to tear you up (unless your commander is stealthy in which case arrows won't get him). You want to make sure that your commanders can probably survive a hit from one seeking arrow, and then make sure that they're not going to be targeted by more than 1 per turn if he decides to throw 4-7 of them at you.

Stretch - you are not really Vanheim anymore are you? And if you are then I, Caelum and Arco would like a word

You are quite right. Vanheim may well be in a position to seeking arrow spam now. His research is going up quite fast and his armies are not being led by his good air mages so they are probably researching or forging at his capital.

But about a third of his gems are of the earth/astral variety from his Adepts of the Iron Order site he has found. As are some of his research mages.

In fact if anyone has seeking arrow or other overland attacks the Province Banded Hills (38) has little but Adepts of the Iron Order. These have 12hp each (but zero protection) and have 8 (9 with magic one) research points a turn and cost 220 gp a piece. The province would make a very good target. My scout is no longer there but he had at least 3 there last turn by my spy report.