Turn 26

I'm not sure exactly how many eagle kings Caelum had in 174 last turn, but after 7 seeking arrows + the 5 or so Fomoria sent, there were 4 eagle kings and 1 tempest lord, and only 2 eagle kings escaped. One lost an eye. He lost a lot of spire horn archers there, and 3 yazads. I fought him less well in another province and lost some hirdmen, although I fought his 22 mammoths back (only killed about 6 of them unfortunately, but gave chest wounds/limps/battle fright to many) and killed some more spire horn archers. It looks like our troop losses are about equal on the score graph, although I did not lose a single Van commander (and the good ones in that conflict have shields of valor and I've got a wall of scouts with me so BRING ON THE ARROWS).

I need some more seeking arrow help, and maybe some vengeance of the dead if we can get it, please. I routed both his armies and he's got some kings a bit vulnerable in 146 and 149. 146 has at least one caelum scout 'flying above the army', and I have no scout at 149 but can see his army because I am adjacent. I believe that both eagle kings that escaped the carnage in 174 went to 149. There is an eagle king in 147, but I've got 6 seeking arrows en route so he should die.

146, 147, 177 are all vulnerable to horror attacks (as in, 4-8 troops in each) if we can swing those yet.

I am pulling in 1800 gold per turn, although I'm not quite maxing out troop buying. Pretty close, though. Current gem production is 2F 16A 1W 15E 9S 11D 4N

I hate to say it, but it looks like lanka is dead. Efforts should be taken to secure their capitol as soon as possible to prevent the vets from getting his gems/income. Also helheim's activity in c'tis does not bode terribly well. Someone should probably try to develop a squad of mind hunters. It's the only remote attack that can target glamoured, stealthy commanders, and helheim doesn't have native astral iirc to stick with the raiders, and most definitely shouldn't have glamoured, stealthy astral mages. Ermor would be a good candidate as it only needs two boosters on a 2s augur elder and has national healers. But if anyone else has commanders that can get to 4s they would do well enough.

It looks like caelum got hurt pretty bad - nice job. He is probably not going to be terribly happy when he sees that turn. I think you can expect some attempt at vengeance I can send a few more seeking arrows his way if you like, fomoria is nearly out of air gems though. I guess you'd prefer the arrows in 149? Or would you prefer 146. Just let me know and what sort of quantity you'd like. I'm going to be taking 249 from you this turn and fomoria should be taking 262 the turn after if all goes to plan. If this isn't going to work, say so before all the unmarked get there....

Sending 20 water gems to c'tis this turn. Unfortunately I missed sending them last turn by about an hour. Oops.

I also forgot that I was going to cast an air dome, might not be able to depending on how many seeking arrows I'm sending this turn.

Darloth, let me know what you want me to do about 273, 265, and 244, should I retake or you'll handle it?

Helmheim can target concentrations of my retarius and gladiators and wish them away into the corn field before they can build up for an attack on 14, so I'm going to have to keep them in reserve/cut back on their production/use them against another enemy.

rdonj, by 2s you must mean astral.

Ok, movin back into 237 I guess.

Yes, that is what I meant.

I have a Vandrott raiding crew going from 249 to 239 this turn (both friendly provinces), so we should be fine. 262 is clear as well. There is 0 PD in 249, 1 in 262. I'd like to keep 239 if possible, as it's got a banefire brazier that helps me make fire brands. If someone's sitting on fire gems, I have a few 3E1F dwarves and always like fire to equip my vans.

I forgot to mention that 231 (east of Fomoria's 2nd fort) is Tempest Spire with Evocation bonus 20. If someone wants to set up a lab to launch some fires from afar then feel free to set up there, just let me know before you head over. Between the seeking arrow factory coming online at the world tree and a fires from afar factory there, we could be a real pain in the ass to roving armies.

I can do some fires from afar on 14, could seeking arrows be used against Jarls? if so I could use one or two on 14 against the Jarl there, prepatory to my attack. My pretender can cast it but I need to do some research with him right now.

BTW Hinnom has 100 troops patrolling capital. Unrest and tax are at 0. Population down to 23610.

I can take 132 and 146 from Caelum.

Please send your seeking arrows to 147, rdonj. I have 7 on their way to 149 as that would stall 40 spire horn archers from getting inside their fortress... if you can get 3 more on 147 then we have a good chance of an eagle king death (I have 1 arrow going to 147, can't do more unfortunately).

btw, around 30 kohens/melqarts + a baal in wolvermery (23) just north of 262.

P3D, please take any province you can from Caelum. Lets kick them while they're down as much as we can.

I can just manage 3 plus the air dome, so that fits perfectly for what I had planned.

Seeking arrows could be used to take out jarls... but it would take rather a lot of them to guarantee a kill. At least 3x as many as to kill an eagle king. So I wouldn't recommend it.

Stretch wrote:Please send your seeking arrows to 147, rdonj. I have 7 on their way to 149 as that would stall 40 spire horn archers from getting inside their fortress... if you can get 3 more on 147 then we have a good chance of an eagle king death (I have 1 arrow going to 147, can't do more unfortunately).

btw, around 30 kohens/melqarts + a baal in wolvermery (23) just north of 262.

P3D, please take any province you can from Caelum. Lets kick them while they're down as much as we can.

I somewhat doubt fomoria is in the kind of shape needed to kill that many melqarts/kohen, I guess we'll see what happens.

To anyone with Seeking arrows:

Caelums God is alone (!) in 138. It's a Master Druid, so no stronger than the crone, unless he has equiped him against seeking arrow.
He has also 7 wizards in 120. Edit: Wait, a Master druid can sneak, right?
Hinnom has a lot of good indie mages also, will have to look at the last turns to find them.


And yeah, I supposed that I can't do much anymore with Rain of Toads, just hope that Niefel doesn't have that much patrollers. Scrying would be good. If he disperses them I could start again.


I don't know if Lanka is dead.

I will try to rout the Niefel force on his cap via assassination/+ attack. He uses guards on one commander and has a fire brand on the other, maybe guards, too, so I don't know how this will turn out. However it is the last Niefel Jarl+Skinshifter group I think, so if it succeeds we might be able to push him back.

Also I think I will attack Atlantis.

Thanks for the money and crystal coin btw, I have two horror senders now and will try to cut off the retreat route of Niefel in Lanka.
I used them for raiding caelum so they are forewarned probably, though.

Really? How are you seeing the master druid... I thought they were stealthy in CBM. Scrying, or does he show up when he site searches? I would imagine that he has an air pendant (or shield of valor) + luck pendant on his pretender, if he plans to keep it alive, but we might get lucky. I'd like to blast the wizards once I run out of juicy eagle king targets, but I am guessing by this point he has a dome of solid air up.

Any way you can attack Caelum for a couple turns instead of Atlantis? His armies went down about 40% last turn (meaning that unless someone else had a decent battle with him, that he doesn't have that much left), and his income is getting eaten away. His eagle kings are probably going to be thrown at me (helloooo thunder ward). I'm also about to siege his fort to the east of caelum. If they're going to knock Lanka out, lets knock one of theirs out too.

Might be fun to send a horror at the master druid... see what he has equipped, and if you get lucky kill him. But anyway, if you can see him he should be targetable with remote spells. If he is out in the open, potentially vulnerable somewhere it could well pay off to fling attacks his way.

I took the territory next to him via horror+scout and I think you are only invisible if you are on sneak or hide - so site searching makes you visible.

Yes, I've thought about the (lesser) horror, too, but if I were him I would just set the god to retreat and sneak back to my cap after last turns barrage. Still can't hurt to try.

Yeah, unfortunately you probably would just be wasting your time with the horror. Oh well, I am just going to submit the turn I have now and not worry about hitting the druid. Although I have this feeling said laziness may backfire later

Anyone know if hinnom is running a bless, and if so what it is?

Hinnom bless is E9N4S4.

Send two Horrors on the druid. He might be able to take out one, but not both.

I suggest to gang on Caelum and Niefel, being defensive elsewhere.

rdonj, if you see this in time you could divert your 3 arrows to the druid and see if we get lucky. I can send my 1 there as well. I definitely want to pummel the other province with 7 arrows I have going there now since I don't want his flying troops rebuilding his fortress walls.

If I besiege his fortress, can he get troops inside of it without going through me, or does that only work if they are stealthy?

He would need them to be stealthy. Actually I'm not even 100% sure he could sneak in, I don't play stealthy nations that much.

I'll send my arrows toward the druid and see how that plays out. I expect it will fail... he could cloud trapeze eagle kings in to save it if nothing else But if it doesn't that would be quite nice.


Btw septimius, any of the alternates on board to take over fomoria?

OK, I changed one of mine to go to 138 too. We'll see how this works... if someone has horrors, 147 would be an interesting province to send them to. A few mammoths and an eagle king sitting all alone (and probably flying to reinforce his fortress too). The eagle king, unlike his pretender, is probably NOT set on retreat. He's probably set on air shield/thunderstrike x4 as usual (although maybe some mistform after getting beat up lately).

If we kill his pretender, do we get a 'You killed our god!' message, or is that just from the AI?

That's just from the AI, unfortunately. But we might hear on the noobs vs vets thread if we ask nicely .

rdonj wrote:Btw septimius, any of the alternates on board to take over fomoria?

Awww, ready to go so soon. Grudge has indicated he's ready when we need him. It be nice if he could have those 3 provinces surrounding the pennisula at least to work with right now (262, 245, 249) otherwise seems kinda-sorta not worth it to bother switching in someone else. But I know you must go. I'll switch e-mails and he can take over for next turn (provided I hear something in time).

Perhaps I shouldn't take 237 from him and redirect my forces against 14 instead. But I suppose I might as well since the troops are in the area. I can give it back later if need be.

I just can't spend a lot of time playing dominions right now, so I don't want to play too many turns. This game in particular really calls for a lot of effort and attention to perform well. Anyway this turn is in and shouldn't be problematic, and the next turn shouldn't be terribly exciting either, unless hinnom decides to come across the water with that rather large army they have. It would probably be nice for grudgebringer to come in when it's still easy and get some time to acquaint himself with fomoria's situation before he has to go into crunch mode

rdonj wrote:I just can't spend a lot of time playing dominions right now, so I don't want to play too many turns. This game in particular really calls for a lot of effort and attention to perform well. Anyway this turn is in and shouldn't be problematic, and the next turn shouldn't be terribly exciting either, unless hinnom decides to come across the water with that rather large army they have. It would probably be nice for grudgebringer to come in when it's still easy and get some time to acquaint himself with fomoria's situation before he has to go into crunch mode

Yes, it seems Dom3 has many subtleties. Though I would say we've been in crunch mode since turn 1 with these vets (though we probably didn't know it).

Lumen (Agartha) old friend, haven't heard from ya in a few turns how are you fairing? Making any progress against Hinnom?

Agh. Nasty turn.

Well, kinda expected something like that. Still not entirely sure what to do about it.

Septimus - feel free to retake 265, 244 or 273 for me if you can - I can't do anything about those immediately. I'm going to try and get to Darkness, which is only two turns away, and maybe drop some unpleasantness in the meantime while I regroup. My fortresses are both secure.

I could do with 600 or so gold from someone - 300 would do the trick, just enough to tide me over until I can kick out Helheim. Again.