Turn 14

My attack vs indies in 303 was successful, securing C'tis southern border for the moment. Attack vs TC in 264 also successful.

Will be attacking Ashdod's fortress in 285. Scout reports 6 Sheshei and minimal PD. Attacking with a mixed force of around 130 units, largely composed of barbarians and some national troops.

Also attacking TC in 268, and 245 (adjacent to his cap).

Edit: Also attacking indies in 243 (Agartha beware).

Hoplo, by the time my revelers get down to your area I'm afraid you might be toast. But they may be able to help you or Arco. Try to hold out as long as you can. But should you perish, I'm sure Pythium and C'tis will see to it (correction: they are seeing to it) that Ermor is wiped from the map!

Skinu wrote:

Hoplosternum wrote:Well I have reached the end of the road now. Vanheim has doubled back towards my capital (and grabbed Bolivar) so my Capital will fall soon. Lost plenty of troops last turn in small actions.

My Pretender is now surrounded by Eriu, Marignon and Vanheim. Marignon has a force and magic (lots of Bonds of Fire etc and scores of crossbows) to kill off my God and stop my Fort being built. Oh well it was a long shot and it would probably have worked had it not been for Marignon as Vanheim could not both keep my capital covered.

I should still have a province or two next turn so I won't actually be out for a while but you can stop sending me cash now as I probably won't be needing it.

Don't give up hope, im sending a saving force of 5 mages, 11 elephants, infantry, and archers against your capital, so don't attack. Also, This may be the last turn I can play in a while.

It's difficult to keep much hope but I will carry on fighting to the end.

Even after my Capital falls (and he is damaging the walls now) and my Pretender is killed I may still be able to grab a province or two to stay in the game.

Unfortunately I suspect he will have 150 or so troops on my capital next turn as his main Skinshifter army doubled back to take Bolivar and will probably combine on my capital to take that ASAP before he comes for you.

EDIT: By the way I will be attacking 75 (Elays) of Marignon (centre) and Betame (94) Eriu by caelum this turn. And maybe one of Vanheim's too.

EDIT EDIT: Cancelled my attack on Betame after watching how useless Smite was against the Eriu Thug Attacking Vanheim instead.

Septimius Severus wrote:Hoplo, by the time my revelers get down to your area I'm afraid you might be toast. But they may be able to help you or Arco. Try to hold out as long as you can. But should you perish, I'm sure Pythium and C'tis will see to it (correction: they are seeing to it) that Ermor is wiped from the map!

It would be good to live longer than Ermor I'd hate to be the first one eliminated

Skinu, would you please be so kind and answer the questions I asked in the first page of this thread.

Does anyone know if any of my national summons are good air mages? (At least A2). Alternately, does anyone have a site with decent indie air mages located such that I might be able to occupy it for a couple turns? Wind guide will eventually be quite useful to me, and my only way to cast it at present is my pretender.

(Yeah yeah, i never took a SP game far enough to check out all my summons)

Might need to empower my pretender to E1 at some point here to summon Tengu, although that kind of earth gem expense sounds really painful at the moment.

Septimius Severus wrote:

Also attacking TC in 268, and 245 (adjacent to his cap).

This is Great...
So maybe TC could go back

Correction: Don't like attacking a province with 2 enemy dominion, GK is sneaking into the province (same dom kill effect, no need for combat until the province is friendly)

Squirrelloid wrote:Does anyone know if any of my national summons are good air mages? (At least A2). Alternately, does anyone have a site with decent indie air mages located such that I might be able to occupy it for a couple turns? Wind guide will eventually be quite useful to me, and my only way to cast it at present is my pretender.

(Yeah yeah, i never took a SP game far enough to check out all my summons)

Might need to empower my pretender to E1 at some point here to summon Tengu, although that kind of earth gem expense sounds really painful at the moment.

Well the Dai Tengu is a great air mage (A3) and mobile as he is a flyer. But at 55 air gems he is pricey. You do get 25 other Tengus with Lightning as well, but it's not that great a return. Tengus are fairly frail which is not so bad for the mage (most mages are frail and he isn't a thug) but makes the others simply fancy archers who I think get two lightning strikes then fly foward and die

Faerie Court is probably better as it uses nature gems and less of them. Faerie Queens also have A3 and flying. Plus healing But it is conjuration 8 rather than 5 in which case Air Queens are available and make great SCs (unlike FQs & DTs) and better air magic.

Illusionsits (A2) are avialble from Bolivar next to my Capital Sorceresses and Enchantresses both have/can have decent air. But in general indie air is hard to find.

I think air is really hard to get in to in a serious way if you don't have recruitable air mages or get lucky early with indies. The good stuff all takes high air magic so indies are not very useful without a lot of boosters. While it is my favourite magic school if I am playing a none air power I usually bite the bullet and don't bother with it except maybe on my Pretender as an army support and personal buffs.

Wind Guide is good but it doesn't help archers in the way Flame Arrows does. If you have enough archers (or you are firing at enough enemies) it doesn't matter that the arrows scatter futher away. So it's nice but not crucial. And the time when it's most useful is early on which if you have to work to get in to you miss.

You do have nice summons though. The Shura (Conj 4 10D) is better than a Bane Lord unless fighting other Thugs (as it has fear and ethereal but less hps). Should make decent raiders or to add to your armies and as they are undead you can load them up with heavy high protection earth armour And the Dai Oni is a decent SC/Top Thug in the MA era when you reach Conj 8. Especially now Tarts now have shattered souls.

Joelz wrote:Skinu, would you please be so kind and answer the questions I asked in the first page of this thread.

I think we all need to start relying on PMs more often. It has helped out a great deal with coordinating Pythium's and C'tis' activities, and between Pythium and Shinuyama too. I think all neighbors should be in regular contact (at least one PM a turn) with each other, sharing intelligence at the minimum.

Also, I hope we can get a handle on the Bandar Log situation soon! Let's get someone else in there now, or just let Ulm absorb them.

Sorry for the delayed report, guys!

Twobits: Thanks for letting everyone know I didn't just dissappear.

There's not much more to go into... I think I got pretty lucky in that battle with Ermor. His cold dominion had my cold-blooded mages out within the first few turns, but his Vestals broke early under banish from 7 H3 priests.

I didn't have a chance to think about it yesterday, but has anyone seen Vanheim's Cap-only mages in action?

I know Baalz is tied up with Joelz's Guardians, but if Vanheim drops in on Ermor's capitol (as he was implying he'd do in the Shrapnel game thread), I'll probably have to kiss that entire army, mages and all, goodbye.

Ermor had a scout in my capitol that was found and destroyed this turn. Don't know if that actually means anything, though.

Thanks for the dominion support, Squirrelloid!

OK, here's how it's looking:

One Theurg will stay behind in 358 to build a temple (if Dom-Kill becomes necessary), everyone else there will attack 354. If something goes wrong with C'tis at Ermor's capital (a breakout, or some devastating Vanheim air-raid), I'll still have a big force next to Ermor's capital.

Otherwise, Ashdod has become my new Public Enemy #1. I aim to put the fear of the Pantakrator into his Astral mages! Kitchen sink time, as I've already detailed previously. Shinuyama, thanks for the Astral gems, feel free to keep sending 'em my way, as I'll really be burning through them (at least until Ashdod decides to keep his Astral mages off the battlefield).

Raiel, figure that it wont be any blessing that kills you, in will be the Vanadrott's Air magic, but most especially, whatever gear he's kitted with, which could pretty much be damn well anything. Figure he'll be immune to poison and have high MR (even so, 6-7 H3 guys chain-gunning Smite might land a few blows, and they only have 15 HP), but with no feet slot, he likely wont be flying (unless using that cumbersome flying/trampling armor), and will have less reinvigoration options (undead spam might be helpful, as well as other ways to rack up fatigue, like Numbness). I wouldn't worry too much, unless he hits you with multiple attackers.

Yep. Multiple attackers is what I expect. And with smite having a range of only 25, I imagine that he'll be sitting back out of range with Thunderstrike. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Raiel wrote:Yep. Multiple attackers is what I expect. And with smite having a range of only 25, I imagine that he'll be sitting back out of range with Thunderstrike. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I attacked vanheim's cap a few turns ago. he didn't have thunderstrike yet. he had some alteration and some enchantment I believe.

viccio wrote:
This is Great...
So maybe TC could go back

That is correct, if I attack or threaten his capital, it is likely he will recall that Deva or whatever it is back to defend it and thus out of your hair.

In other news: I'm looking forward to coordinating the destruction of Ashdod with the other 3 northern noobs once we completely and totally remove Ermor from this game. I hope this (the wiping out of Ermor) will be happening very soon.

Hoplo, well now, you can wait to see if your are removed from the game naturally, then we can keep you in by having you take over for perhaps Bandar Log, and thus having a fresh start in the North.

Or you can switch out of your nation before then (if we have someone to replace you, rdonj perhaps, till the end comes) and you can take over Bandar now or Caelum (if Ulm absorbs Bandar) and Caelum needs a permanent sub.

It looks like we might need a temp sub for Ulm, and possibly a permanent sub for Caelum (if he losses Internet altogether). That is another possiblity for you to have another shot in the game. I'd prefer any temporary positions be filled from our alternates if available though.

Ok, we're waiting on Bandar Log and Ashdod again. Bandar, what is taking so long - you have 2 provinces, how complicated can your turn be?

5.5h to go, still no Ashdod or Bandar....

We may need to do some reorganizing in the next turn or two to keep things moving smoothly per my above post. If Ashdod gets in soon, I'm tempted to force host and let Bandar stale, then just replace him or let Ulm take those provinces.

Ashdod is in. Just Bandar now.

I've asked rdonj to step in, take Bandar's turn and assess the situation. If this doesn't happen shortly I'll just force host.