Turn 17

My turn was bleh. I am working towards getting into fighting range, and almost there.

Site searching has shown exactly 0 new earth gems.

My 2nd Fort is up, and I hope to be spamming summons for the war very soon.

Hey guys... Denver, Colorado got hit with a tornado or 3 about 36 hours ago. My home was directly in it's path. Thankfully, the only significant damage we received was to the property around our home. I spent most of yesterday doing cleanup and repairs. The point is, I should have made this request earlier, but I had other things on my mind:

I need at least 3 unrest causing rituals targetted at Ermor's capitol to prevent him from further recruitment when he breaks free of siege this turn... Hurricane, Raging Hearts, Baleful Star - four of these would be even better.

Thanks!

LumenPlacidum wrote:Uh, I really hope you don't actually mean Mind Burn, but rather Magic Duel.

Eh, Mind Burn/Magic Duel, Arco/Marignon - who can keep all this straight? Yeah, I meant Magic Duel (furtively checking my scripting just to make sure...), no worries

Dang, Raiel! Sorry to hear that , but happy to hear you and yours are more or less alright! Do you need more time for your turn? I don't think even the Vets could complain about that. Well, maybe - "hey, that's what you get when the Denver City Council chooses Misfortune scales!" OK, now I'm hoping no one got hurt there in Denver, or my joke is pretty tasteless!

Anyway, we only need to bump their unrest above 100 to keep them from recruiting, and only for one turn at most (I will try to contain them with forces from 345, but if he disputes it with several or more Grand Thaumaturgs, I wont have a chance) before I hit them with my big field army.

So Raiel, where does their unrest stand right now? Have you been taxing the crap out of them? There's been lots of combat there too - that should raise unrest a bunch. Maybe we don't need to pile on too many remote attack spells, just one or two?

Ermor's capitol only has an unrest of 12. I really thought it was a sure thing.

Raiel wrote:Ermor's capitol only has an unrest of 12. I really thought it was a sure thing.

Well, in the end, I wouldn't worry about that too much. Let's speculate here. If he breaks siege with most of his Grand Thaumaturgs next turn, he'll get in little research, preaching, and reanimating. I'll hit him the turn after with about 150+ medium-heavy infantry (and while you certainly had him outnumbered last turn, a big part of your forces were the very light Runners) from 345, backed up by numerous archers (including the Farstrikers, I hope), my prophet, two Arch Theurgs, and two regular Theurgs. If he tries to defend his fortress outside the walls, he will have no choke point to depend on that turn (and anything he recruits will still be inside the walls), greatly lessening the effectiveness of his skele-spam (and Mind Duel might take out a couple of his spammers to boot).

Once I control his capital province, I intend to be methodical. I may or may not break down his fortifications the first turn I'm there. Even if I do, I'll wait. Because the turn I attack his capital province, I'll be sending 4-5 Theurgs from my capital (their job will be to cast Magic Duel in the final conflict), along with 25+ Serpent Cataphracts (many other mundane reinforcements will already be on their way). After I'm in control of his capital province, I will not attack the next turn, even if I breach the walls, but will likely send in someone to "test the waters" and get rid of any Gladiators he has recruited (much as you had done).

At the same time, my Theurgs and Cataphracts should arrive, and I will also Teleport in an additional 3-4 Arch Theurgs from my capital. So for the final battle, I should have the Cataphracts rushing the gate and trying to exploit a breakthrough, backed up by 150+ tough infantry, 5-6 Theurgs Magic Dueling and hopefully killing most of his Grand Thaumaturgs (and drastically lowering the amount of skele-spam), with my archers and Grand Thaumaturgs also cutting down on the numbers of undead he'll be summoning (my heavily armored units will not be bothered much by the missile storm).

If all neighboring provinces are in our control (and they should be - this final battle is still 2-3 turns away), that should be the end of Ermor once and for all. It will take some time. I will probably lose some semi-expensive units (even so, I'd happily trade a 150gp Theurg for a 300+ Grand Thaumaturg any day). But once it's over, I'll have a massive army in Ermor's capital, posed like the Sword of Damocles right over Ashdod.

Which is not to say I'll totally slack off on Ashdod in the interim. Like I said before, I'm moving 7 Hydras and substantial supporting forces into 329. The province to the south (just one north of Ashdod's capital) is a swamp - good times for Hydras! So if he doesn't respect me, and commit serious forces (and thus lessen his efforts elsewhere), I will most certainly attack. Plus, I'm still sending that S4 assassin to 305, and will continue with teleporting Magic Duel as necessity demands and resources allow. At a minimum, I should distract him a little while Shinuyama and Pangaea do their work, and C'tis also reorientates itself to go to work on the bad giants.

So, consider Ermor dealt with (although it may be 3-4 more turns before their taint is finally removed from the world). It just may take until then for Pythium to fully dedicate its resources elsewhere.

Disaster! One of the vets has been pummeling me with seeking arrows and hurricanes, my expensive mages are going down hard and I dont have the gem income to retaliate, im going to send out my mages this turn to site search although id rather do it remotely because I could potentially miss an epic site (lv 8 or 9). Eiru pushes from the north and im going to take back some of the lands he has stolen.

Skinu wrote:Disaster! One of the vets has been pummeling me with seeking arrows and hurricanes, my expensive mages are going down hard and I dont have the gem income to retaliate, im going to send out my mages this turn to site search although id rather do it remotely because I could potentially miss an epic site (lv 8 or 9). Eiru pushes from the north and im going to take back some of the lands he has stolen.

As far as I understand it, there are NO sites above level 4

Thank you sir, ive learned much being here.

Attacking 116, 130, 137. Putting pressure on Eriu's fortress at 181, but he might be able to get me out of there with his Sidhes. Trying to get a fort up in 179.

Pardon my absence, was away at a conference. Glad to see that any issues were resolved.

rdonj, Squirrel, what's the name of your sub (for the forum) and will he be joining us here and posting updates or will you?

A mixed bag of a turn. I am fairing better against TC than Ashdod. Ashdod recaptured 1 province (I taxed it to 200 though), took 1 province, and is sieging my fort in 281 with about 14 Sheshai, an Adon, and some slingers. My walls will hold against this force, trouble is there's another 80 slingers nearby and a few more Sheshei probably on the way.

Two of my attacks vs TC in 255 and 268 were successful.

Septimius Severus wrote:Pardon my absence, was away at a conference. Glad to see that any issues were resolved.

rdonj, Squirrel, what's the name of your sub (for the forum) and will he be joining us here and posting updates or will you?

The sub is Iainuki. Trouble is it's impossible to contact him - he doesn't have private messaging enabled on the shrapnel forums, or a way to contact him by email. So he has to contact one of us, which he has failed to do thus far.

Thanks for the death gems.

On the defensive vs Ashdod. Manuevering, reorganizing.

Will attempt to break seige shortly if possible.

Wonder how my Gorgon would fare vs 3 Sheshei and an Adon, perhaps more? Could be risky.

Attacking Ashdod in 306, playing capture, recapture.

Building fort in 255.

Awaiting assitance from C'tis in 303.

rdonj wrote:

Septimius Severus wrote:Pardon my absence, was away at a conference. Glad to see that any issues were resolved.

rdonj, Squirrel, what's the name of your sub (for the forum) and will he be joining us here and posting updates or will you?

The sub is Iainuki. Trouble is it's impossible to contact him - he doesn't have private messaging enabled on the shrapnel forums, or a way to contact him by email. So he has to contact one of us, which he has failed to do thus far.

Thought the sub might have joined the forum already. Well the name is what I need for now, hopefully there will be some contact.

rdonj, didn't i give you his e-mail address in a PM, either here or on the forums? If not I can do that. Actually, I'll do that right now.

Squirrelloid wrote:rdonj, didn't i give you his e-mail address in a PM, either here or on the forums? If not I can do that. Actually, I'll do that right now.

You can or I can get it from rdonj, if/when I need it. Right now I just wanted his name to pencil him in on the main shrapnel post. But if the sub's only going to be available till Thursday, perhaps I'll just add him to the alternates list.

Squirrelloid wrote:rdonj, didn't i give you his e-mail address in a PM, either here or on the forums? If not I can do that. Actually, I'll do that right now.

Actually you did, but apparently the lights are not all on upstairs Actually I was just a bit frazzled yesterday that day, I was stupidly busy and yeah, made a very silly error.