Turn 13 - Jishtay casts Thunder Strike

Killed 53 out of 80 Lanka troops in 148, 0 casualties.
Lanka scout reports:
126 - 51 Ganas, 83 other units, most avati and markata (or it should be, scout report only says 40 units for some reason)
127 - 50 units, Ganas, Markata Archers and Avati Archers.

Attacking 126 with my EK force this turn. Crushing 156 with mammoths.

In the East, TC took 175 from me. His army:
6 Demon of Heavenly Rivers, 8 Warrior of the Five Elements, 4 Footman, 5 Archer, 1 Chariot Prophet , 1 Immortal hero (A2N3 ethereal 0 protection no equipment)
His bless is E4S4N4.

I'll have a fairly decent defensive force in the East in 2 turns

Pics incoming.
West (Lanka, Abysia, Sauro):
https://2img.net/h/oi40.tinypic.com/259fr0m.jpg
East (TC, Fomoria)
https://2img.net/h/oi41.tinypic.com/14izak1.jpg

I found the Academy of High Magics in 120, it lets you recruit two types of wizards.

Wizards #1 is F1 with two 100% FAWES randoms and 10 RP for 180 gold.
Wizards #2 is W1 with two 100% AWESD randoms and 10 RP for 180 gold.

And the site itself has W1B1 income and comes with a lab.

First turn site searching too , it's right next to my cap and in the "safe" area of my backfield.

So that's my magical diversity taken care of for the game. And it's in a shareable position for hinnom too.

Ooooo, Academy of High Magics is great, yeah. Nice find!

I took a glance at my turn before coming in to work. CTis recaptured the prov I took with his main army so I got a look at it:

~20 serpent dancers
~20 elite warriors (the armored lizard warriors) + 2 sacred serpents
~20 city guard
1 priest king

CTis's blessing is only A4 (!!) - so those serpent dancers are basically a total waste of money. If he does not have skelly-spam, Niefel will walk all over his capital without even blinking. Speaking of CTis's cap, since he moved his main army away to attack me, he will now have to move back if he wants to defend it from Neifel. As you can see from the above, all the troops in his army are map move 2, except for the Serpents, which are 1. So, if he is smart, he will abandon the serpents in the field and run the rest of his men home.... but if he is stupid, he will not realize the different map moves and believe that his entire army only has move 1 and effectively hand us his capital on a silver platter.

In other news, the Hydras are on the move and took the indy prov south of my westernmost prov. Probably attack it next turn. I'm unconcerned as my plan is in place and I will have 30 lizards, 60 archers, ~25 huskarls, ~20 helhirds, 5 valks, and a pair of SoC casters + 15pd. He only has one hydra tamer commander too - my kingdom for an assassin! However I can likely just kill him manually in the battle, anyway.

That 60-man army is not C'tis's only army, he's got one of similar size somewhere in the west.

Should Niefel siege the capital before they get back it would be nice, though.

My turn doesn't have much to report, Agartha conquered Hinnom and indies, not me, didn't find anything nice, Const4 ready, Conj4 next turn, scored a S random in a mage a bit too far from Ovens province. So, if you want your lucky pendants, they're 3S a pop, as I don't have S income.

More later.

EDIT: Hey Lingchih, you need still rings? I'm sending you this turn 1 of both more, was just thinking of maybe being able to forge charcoal shields and stuff if you've got enough? I'm just not seeing what's the situation up/down there.

Okay. Finally managed to upload a picture. Situation around the interesting lake:

https://2img.net/h/oi40.tinypic.com/2mnkec0.png

Just noticed C'tis has built another castle. I'm sending 54 Deep Ones from my capital to march nearer to C'tis lands just in case he manages to get his guys slaughtered and there's a castle to breach, recruiting 40 little guys more.

Ermor has taken some C'tis lands with his mercs, I'd assume he's coming to rescue?

In Agarthan front, I've got 55 units worth of amphib leadership + prophet, so I think I'll dare to raid the coast at least. Can strike at 40, 48 or 55, QM what's your status there?

My Wyrm keeps touring the oceans, I assume there isn't much interesting stuff around the other lake, as Hel and Hinnom border it from north and Caelum from south? I can either surface to raid Fomoria a bit or double back to Sauromatia's coast, as need be.

Building a lab, recruiting 2 Mages of the Deep and a bucketload of troops.

Guys, what I was worried about seems to be occuring. As you can see from Atul's post above, Ermor is already sending reinforcements to CTis. Now, while those reinforcements are not particularly threatening, they are going to crap up an otherwise clean offensive and just generally make territory control around CTis that much more annoying.

I want to reiterate my push that we step up the speed of the CTis invasion ASAP. Once we've killed a noob or two, then we can breathe a little easier.

Niefelheim sitrep.

I took 272 from C'tis with no loss, against PD. His army had inexplicably moved to 259. 80 units, Elite warriors, serpent dancers, City guards and light infantry. My intel is probably pretty bad though. So, I am in position to send my two Jarls onto the C'tis cap if you guys want me to.

C'tis cap has what I see as 60 units. Looks mostly like shades, although it reads as Shades, falchioneers, and slave warriors. There is a Lord of the Gates in there.

Lanka attacked my northern castle in 106 with a very large army, mostly Gana and Asaru summons, with some bandar warriors, quite a few Atavi infantry. some archers, and his prophet. About 130 units in all. Luckily, I had sent my Jarl and his skinshifters in there on move and patrol, and they took care of the job. Lost most of the skinshifters, though they did good damage. My army finally routed, but the Jarl was berserk, and he killed anyone that remained (though sadly, not the prophet, who ran). Not sure what I am going to do with the two Jarls in there now. Probably attack with them somewhere.

A also took the Dawn Land (93) back from Aby with no casualties. And, I don't see any Aby armies on my border.

Found a site in 106 that let's a death mage summon ghouls (meh), and a 1N site in the prov Atul took for me.

Edit: OK, decided on attacks. I am attacking 127, 105, 91, and the C'tis cap this turn.

And yes atul, I could still use more snake and fire rings, though if you can forge better stuff, such as charcoal shield, great. I'll take anything that gives fire or poison resist. Judging by the hard time my Jarl had hitting those ethereal Ganas, a magic weapon or two might be nice as well.

atul wrote:
In Agarthan front, I've got 55 units worth of amphib leadership + prophet, so I think I'll dare to raid the coast at least. Can strike at 40, 48 or 55, QM what's your status there?

Any of those strikes would be good.

Oh, and Atul, get those siege forces moving towards the C'tis cap. I think I can take it, but I can't knock down those walls.

A more proper report:

I now have newb armies on 3 fronts. Agartha continues to advance, I am not opposing them until I gather an army I'm sure can win.TC just put an army on my border, tough to gauge how tough it is until I see if it has mage support. My advance on Fomoria turned out to be very short lived. Taking just one prov put me next to his capital (245) which is packed with slingers and unmarked.

Just hold the East QM. We are taking the war to them in the West.

Ling I gave a detailed readout on the CTis force and why it moved to 259 in my previous post if you are interested.

Moving ahead with the CTis front tho - can you make sure to post all your attacks in detail? I assume you are sending both Jarls to his cap this turn, but I have two sneak teams wandering around there and I dont want to step on your toes.

Oh and BTW - atul pointed out that CTis also has a light Death Bless for extra afflictions.

quantum_mechani wrote:

atul wrote:
In Agarthan front, I've got 55 units worth of amphib leadership + prophet, so I think I'll dare to raid the coast at least. Can strike at 40, 48 or 55, QM what's your status there?

Any of those strikes would be good.

Urgh. It's either supporting QM or enforcing C'tis sieging force. But guess I can split a bit to help Hinnom.

And another note, isn't Lord of the Gates the guy who summons a shitload of Shades every turn? And those guys have strength stealing attack...

How does the following sound:

Agartha:
Army of Shablers of the Deep + prophet attacking 55

C'tis:
Gathering troops, 25 misc guys to 20, 54 to 32, both armies can join at 6 and are on C'tis capital on turn 17.

Recruiting 50 troops from my capital and for next to it. If Niefel can give me #14 just for turn 15, those reach C'tis capital on turn 17.

That would make a 125-guy (give or take) misc guy army on C'tis capital on turn 17, with future recruits coming in each turn. About half of them are wielding Basalt Spears that should cut down Shades like butter. And I should have Alt4 for support and some mages in turn or two later.

Option:
Not raiding Agartha would make the initial sieging army 180 strong.

Can't forge any fort breaching items, so we have to do this by the numbers.

atul wrote:
Gathering troops, 25 misc guys to 20, 54 to 32, both armies can join at 6 and are on C'tis capital on turn 17.

Recruiting 50 troops from my capital and for next to it. If Niefel can give me #14 just for turn 15, those reach C'tis capital on turn 17.

Yes Atul, I can give you prov 14 to launch your amphibious assault. Remind me next turn though. There is usually a Jarl in there.

And yes, I'm quite afraid of those shades. But it seems like I need to act now or not at all. Unless we just want to raid him.

OK, I just ran a test of duplicate Jarls against a Lord of the Gates with shades, and have found that it would be total suicide for me to attack the C'tis cap with what I have. They can't even hit the shades. Kind of what I was thinking, but even worse than I imagined.

I will be attacking 272 instead. I guess it is just raiding until I can get some magic weapons and better equipment on the Jarls.

Sorry for the late notice. I should have run the test last night.

I'll target the capital and the shades. Lord's probably trouble for me, guess there's plan A swarming unless I figure out something to use against him...

Try to find C'tis' second fort and shut it down.

All this is dependent on CTis actually USING the shades to defend his fort. If he just retreats his men to the capital and holes up then we've still got it. Tough call to make tho.

Oh, C'tis cap is a Tel City btw (you all probably knew that, but thought I should mention it), so that's 500 walls. And, the Lord of the Gates is +150 walls. So that is effectively 650 walls with him in there. We may have picked a bad initial city to seige.