Turn 20 (What's your situation?)

Ok, I have the jaguar warriors in 142 and have two options now - move them to 135 and hope for a Niefel attack or attack 131 to get access to Abysia cap. Opinions?

Also I'm a bit pissed that Abysia neither says anything per PM nor in game nor sends the gems back. I know that the game is a lot less fun if you're going down but just one line about what sits on his cap and how long it takes to breach the walls...

And thanks for the scrying and update on Caelums army.

Well, haven't checked my current turn yet. Won't have time till late tonight. Apparently Niefel must have attacked me in 6 and maybe was repelled, killing a Jarl or two (according to the opposition).

Darloth maybe you can shed some light on the area?

The situation is a bit less contained in the North. Vanheim has taken some losses (especially a pretender) and Formoria as well (I was wondering where Atlantis' huge armies and Wyrm went. Mictlan or anyone else capable of sending in unrest producers into frontier northern enemy held provinces would be greatly appreciated.

Fomoria (and Sauro as well) have not responded to my PM's. Sauro is doing well on his own, but it is difficult to avoid the feeling that they would rather not have any dealings with the likes of us. I hope this is not the case. We are all a team (perhaps I'll institute a communications rule next time, any thoughts?)

As of last turn I was OK, my sacreds have a good bless (as my pretender is level 4 in all paths). Hopefully I can cross to Hinnom and attempt a landing before Atlantis attempts to regain 7. I must retake 11 as well.

More later.

Illuminated One wrote:Ok, I have the jaguar warriors in 142 and have two options now - move them to 135 and hope for a Niefel attack or attack 131 to get access to Abysia cap. Opinions?

Also I'm a bit pissed that Abysia neither says anything per PM nor in game nor sends the gems back. I know that the game is a lot less fun if you're going down but just one line about what sits on his cap and how long it takes to breach the walls...

And thanks for the scrying and update on Caelums army.

Who is in 135 right now?
In taking 135 would that put you within striking distance of the enemy?
Do you have enough troops, now or in the next turn to do both?
Is the province layout in the area such that Abysia could exchange provinces with you and still remain in the game, provided they lose more ground and/or communicate such a wish?

Yes, 135 is still mine and Niefel has an army in a neighbouring province.
If they don't have a scout in the corridor my army might come unexpected.
I'd rather they attack me than Lanka I guess I'd loose anyway but maybe I can deal enough damage to force them to regroup.
On the other hand if I could deal some damage to the army besieging Abysia...

And as I said I'm not to fond of keeping him alive in some backwater provinces of mine - 152 and 167 can be taken by anyone who wishes and I can live without 183 but giving away any other provinces will hurt me and I really see no reason to do that just to let him survive without any noteworthy magic especially as he had to rebuild from scratch (and to run through my bloodhunting provs).

And sorry, I can't raise unrest there, I've got exactly enough mages/blood slaves to do that to the caps currently.
I could forge some fire/cold resistance rings and water breathing rings if that helps though.

It may be that the people you're having trouble contacting are not checking into the dominions forum very frequently. You could try getting their attention with an in-game message, it would be hard to miss that.

rdonj wrote:It may be that the people you're having trouble contacting are not checking into the dominions forum very frequently. You could try getting their attention with an in-game message, it would be hard to miss that.

I've sent an in-game message before to Sauro and Formoria, several turns back asking them to either cordinate via this forum or via in game. I am sure others have as well. And a PM on Shrapnel should send an e-mail to their home e-mail address by default I think. If anyone has heard from them, let us know.

Illuminated One wrote:Yes, 135 is still mine and Niefel has an army in a neighbouring province.
If they don't have a scout in the corridor my army might come unexpected.
I'd rather they attack me than Lanka I guess I'd loose anyway but maybe I can deal enough damage to force them to regroup.
On the other hand if I could deal some damage to the army besieging Abysia...

Well, if Abysia is under siege, if you think you can relieve the siege or assist Abysia in any way, I would think it might be good to keep him alive as long as possible, that would be the way to go. If you can split your forces and do both, thats good too. If however you feel that you're better off just taking over Abysia (if you can)to prevent other provinces from falling into enemy hands that is up to you. Assuming Abysia does not reply to you.

If it were me, I would attempt to render any assistance possible to my team member, regardless of how communicative they've been. In my eyes, if we can make it to turn 30 with some semblance of dignity, and without losing a single member, we'll have done much better than the vet team did last game, and we shall be able to hold our heads up high with honor.

I also have (had) a single province wide corridor, so I'm sure they are aware of my every move. But as long as I can get at em', I'm blissfully happy in my ignorance.

Illuminated One wrote:
And sorry, I can't raise unrest there, I've got exactly enough mages/blood slaves to do that to the caps currently.
I could forge some fire/cold resistance rings and water breathing rings if that helps though.

No problem, I am sure you will do what you can.
Yes, we could use a ring/amulet of water breathing and cold resistance items are nice against Neifel. Priority on the water breathing stuff for me anyway.

I guess what I'm saying is if we win, we win together, if we loose, we give em hell and go down together as well.

You did seem to do wonderfully in 6. You've taken out his jarls and left the midway province undefended, so I'll swoop in from behind with a chunk of ethereal undead to capture that, and try and push forwards against the jarls myself. I'm going to test a behemoth-to-soak then lockdown with vine whips and kill with various undead tactic.

I'm pushing further into Helheim's home territory, I expect to run slap bang into an army that will splatter me pretty soon, but so far so good. I'm cutting off Neifelheim's retreat with the other half of my expansion probe, and striking at their jarls this turn, though I'm not sure how effective it's going to be. I'm trying my best to retake stuff from Helheim, but to be honest, I think that attack force might be worse than the jarls.

Someone did waste another two or three hits of murdering winter this turn, once again on provinces I hadn't the manpower to defend anyway. On the downside, this probably means they can and will use the spell twice a turn.

Edit: Wolven winter, not murdering winter! Bah. I'm sorry, I got the name wrong. It's cheap, too, so I'm pretty certain they can spam it as much as they want. Murdering winter would be much nastier, but sadly he hasn't wasted THAT many gems.

Finally, I think it might actually be Atlantis who has the Purgatory. I can't tell for sure, it -may- have just been a site, but they do have the second highest research, they might have managed it if they've gone for alt + thaum.

Okay, turn report done, now for general status:

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My combat tactics are barely adequate, and I've been pushed back essentially to my two forts, but I have a small pair of armies running around in his territory.

I have +6 death income and +4 nature income, and if I can take them back I know about another +1 death and +2 astral. My research is spread pretty evenly between conjuration, enchantment and construction, with some evocation also. I'm now at the stage where, were I not being rushed by blue giants and invisible vikings, I would start researching to a specific game-altering goal - probably one of the greater darknesses, or maybe tartarians given I could build boosters to cast GoR really easily. Since I don't have that option, I'm stuck researching whatever SC counters I can come up with, and spending all of my gems on banes and equipment. I would currently be horrifically vulnerable to any anti-undead weaponry or spells, but he doesn't -seem- to be using them. Yet.

It would benefit me greatly if people attacked the enemy while I do my best to slow them down. Currently I have lost 246, 247, 259, 273 and 272, but I have managed to take back 276, and conquered 18, 12 and 22.

I have no sense of the bigger picture, and very few scouts - I can see only what is in front of me, and I don't really know how to react to turn the tide in a meaningful fashion. I soldier on regardless, attempting to stem the tide of neifel and hel, at least for a while.

I got a message from Fomoria this turn: "go ahead and start attacking me. i'm not gonna last long, so you may as well get my land and stuff". I've got a decent army marauding around so I'm going to contain Atlantis as well as I can and hold the front against Caelum while I get some elephants. I'll pass a fire brand this turn, Darloth... if anyone has extra fire gems, the lack of those is what is limiting me outfitting Darloth to the gills with anti-niefel gear. I think I can still get 1 charcoal shield or flame brand out per turn though even without gem support.

There's an easy way to check who's cast what globals. Go into the game and press f6 Or you can look at global enchantments from one of your labs, etc. Casting wolven winter makes a lot more sense, I was wondering how exactly someone had managed to research evocation 7! by turn 19.

A few possible SC counters to throw your way. Ghost Grip. Stellar Cascades. Hand of Death. Drain life. Dusk daggers. Dispossessed spirits (if you can fatigue his units a bit, they have a paralyze attack and I think they're size one. If they can get a hit or two in a round eventually they should be able to fatigue out an sc. Lammashtas might be able to hurt them a bit. Horror mark Anyway I'm sure you already thought about most/all of those, but it can't hurt to point a bit.

Edit: Also with enough smite spam your lizard kings should be able to take out relatively low mr scs.

Ye Gods, those Jarls can take massive punishment. I killed one and 10 Skinshifters at a cost of over 60 troops. Luckily I had lots of troops, Barbarians, Retarius, and some smite seemed to do it. Picked up a firebrand.

I'll try to take 44 (from Hinnom, anyone know how much PD is there?)
And also attack 257 again from Atlantis, not much pd there.

Darloth, I'd like to take back 11 (The Promised Land) this turn (I'm concerned about his pd increasing as the turns go by) but if that's the province you were refering to by "midway", I'll wait for you to do your thing. Otherwise I'll try to hold on to 6 or if you like throw something at 273 and the Jarls.

Believe it or not you actually made out pretty well in that battle. The jarl itself costs almost as much gold as what you lost in troops, not even including its gear. Add in those skinshifters and he lost 1300 gold worth of units. So it was a good victory.

Stretch wrote:I got a message from Fomoria this turn: "go ahead and start attacking me. i'm not gonna last long, so you may as well get my land and stuff". I've got a decent army marauding around so I'm going to contain Atlantis as well as I can and hold the front against Caelum while I get some elephants. I'll pass a fire brand this turn, Darloth... if anyone has extra fire gems, the lack of those is what is limiting me outfitting Darloth to the gills with anti-niefel gear. I think I can still get 1 charcoal shield or flame brand out per turn though even without gem support.

Hmm, seems like we are losing Abysia and Fomoria.

Lanka and C'tis are hard pressed it would seem as well. But I guess are holding on as long as possible, making the vets pay for every inch, reminds me of the grand job Lumen (Ulm) did last game. We may yet turn the tide.

If we cannot keep them in the game and the've no desire to remain (I could call in an alternate for Fomoria I suppose, a fresh perspective sometimes helps) it looks like we may have no choice but to attack (Abysia and Fomoria).

Mictlan, if the situation improves I suppose you could always give back Abysia's cap if he desires to remain in the game and your forces are large enough to break the seige and subsequently large enough to capture Abysia's cap.

I don't think it's very sensible to keep someone alive that way.
While I realize that Abysian blood paid for Mictlan safety (as did the blood of everyone else) stragegically transferring power from me to him is really bad as so much is lost during the province swap.
He had to take my provinces, siege my castle without any army to do that quick, loosing research. Than he had to rebuild temples, restore his dom (if he isn't domkilled in that time). I'd loose research from moving my mages into wrong dom, have to redirect my blood hunters into high income provinces and even pay for that. Really, it just like the vets had killed him while raiding me.
And if I don't do that, just give him once province to wait until the cap is retaken he'll be crippled for the rest of the game and only able to play a very minor role.
I guess it doesn't hurt if I give away the provinces though, so I'm offering them that.

If money can save him, or gems can save him or an army can save him then he should please say something but as it is now I'm trying to help Lanka and fortify myself for retaking Abysia later.
If you or Darloth could need money, please tell me.


Well, I guess, everyone is putting up a really good fight, considering our opposition.
If we can keep that up a little longer there might still be hope striking back.


edit:
Well, I've got an idea, maybe it works, and will try to free the cap of Abysia.
Any info anyone on the area and Caelum armies in range would be good.
And if he's still reading, I'd like to apologize, I didn't realize you were asking for help in the posts back then.

Now Caelum has an army heading towards me.
4 Eagle King, 12 Mammoth, 12 Yazata, 60 archer.
I will try to spam Celestial Chastisement with my then lighting-immune air-shielded army dropping upon him. (Celestial hounds have shock immunity).

And send me all the air gems you can spare.

Remember - at some point when you're well-protected against caelum's lightning, he does have water to fall back on. Most likely this will involve things like numbness, frozen heart, ice strike and water elementals. So eventually your anti-caelum thugs will want to have cold immunity as well. For the moment though the people who are fighting niefelheim probably need cold resistance more.

I agree with you there and I've maybe just killed the last Abysian mage to reach his cap.
Abysia is besieged by a large Atlantian army and Caelum has some base in his lands.
I don't know if I have a chance to defeat them but I'll try.

In theory, my S2 mages casting Celestial Chastisement on the Eagle Kings would work wonderfully. It has 7+ AN no MR damage on magical units (like Yazata and Eagle Kings) then a chance they change sides.