Turn 17 - wheels in motion

So things are proceding as planned, as far as I can tell.

West: https://2img.net/h/oi39.tinypic.com/2qvgqhv.jpg

Lanka was repelled at my fort in 141. 23/36 killed with no losses.
In 148, Lanka's army composition is as follows:
78 Ganas (ethereal unarmored undead with 14 morale)
12 Rakshasa (early national blood summons, nothing special)
15 Kala-Mukha Warriors (sacreds with great all-round stats)
23 Archers of various types
1 Rakshasi Mage (A2 D2 N1 B1 H1)
I was wrong about it being mage-heavy, as I mistook the Rakshasa for Rakshasi. An easy mistake to make. I think I could take it with t-strike spam from my backup squad, but I'll let Niefel handle it, as I have more pressing things to do.

In 156, Lanka has 20 units, mainly Longdeads and Longdead Bandar Warriors.

I routed Mictlan's army in 127 and killed 46/62, including all his Sun Warriors.

This turn: attacking Abysia's capital (114). Abysia has a report of 9 Burning Ones in 97, which could cut my retreat route, but I'm not going to worry about it yet.



East: https://2img.net/h/oi43.tinypic.com/1057jm1.jpg

Vanheim has a 123-troop 7-commander army in 175, right on my border. I was lucky and grabbed their composition with a scout attack this turn. It is:
14 Amazons
20 Mounted Hirdman
72 Hirdman
10 Vanhere (sacred Hirdman berserkers)
6 Serf Warrior
1 Fay Boar
2 Dwarven Smith (E3 mages, likely for buffs)
1 Vanhere (A1 mage)
1 Vanherse (A3E1B2 mage, with blood slaves)
1 Scout Prophet
2 Commanders
His bless is S4.

They're well-placed on the battlefield, with archer/mage fodder, rear attack calvary flankers, etc. He also brought along a bunch of blood slaves. I assume for army buffs or summoning Imps. I think they discussed imps as a t-strike counter, possibly. Seems Mictlan summoned a bunch against me. Pity it doesn't work.

Tien Chi is on my border in 130 with the Green Horde mercs (40 Barbarian Horsemen)


Next turn I will have Cloud Trapeze. After that I'm going to research Construction 4, will have that in approx 3 turns.

Nice thunderstriking there Demon. I saw the action against Mictlan.

Not much to report this turn.

One northern Jarl took 126 from theDemon, and is holding there while the other Jarl and Prophet army move in there.

New Jarl is moving north, with 30 skinshifter army.

In the south, the Jarls in 14 were attacked by Ermor and his mercs. He was slaughtered. The two Jarls there now are preaching, while the two formerly trapped Jarls, now equipped, move back in to bolster them. I could alternatively send the two Jarls in there out to attack, but I have two large C'tis armies on my border there, 150 in prov 273, and 80 in prov 276. I would rather just hold this turn and let them kill themselves on me.

Recruiting one Jarl and 10 skinshifters in the cap. Next turn, Ramparts in 34 will be done.

Still need equipment for the new Jarls. A brand and shield a turn would be nice, Atul. Or more, if you can do it. I have a couple Jarls unequipped or only lightly equipped.

Finished Alteration 2 (for mirror image and quicken self). Moving on to Thaum for site searching.

I can probably have the Jarl I am recruiting this turn go out to take the 76 and 86 indies, since Atul seems to be busy, and we really should go ahead and take them.

Also, I will install an IRC program on my Macbook Pro before next turn, so that I can talk to you guys during my day.

Oh, did I not mention that I had a Macbook Pro? Sorry, it's a sweet machine.

It also runs Windows natively, in case I cannot find a good Mac IRC app.

So, this turn I'm facing a dilemma I can't come to a decision on. My force which was in place to attack CTis is now massively starving, due to a surprise +2 Heat and +1 Death fluctuation in the province scales. On top of that, I had to send back my lizards to deal with the pending 2nd Sauro invasion (their morale was starved out anyway, they would have been useless in the fight). This leaves me with a significantly smaller force, starving. They are facing half of the CTis southern garrison - not a dangerous for fight for them at full strength, but now? And to make matters worse, the province in debate, 247, can be reinforced not only from CTis's cap, but also from CTis's second fort. My options as I see it are:

1) Go ahead with the attack on 247, counting on the helhirds to defeat reinforcements (or expecting CTis to retreat his forces)

2) Attack 259, expecting the force at 247 not to move, and the force at 276 to attack Niefelheim to the north. Which would give my men a turn to get some food.

3) Stay where I am and send enough men away to not starve - don't like this option cause it might influence Sauro to attack north, instead of east (where the trap is).

4) Abandon the archers and sneak into CTis territory with glamor'd troops only so they can feed up and attack next round.


I dont see any way to do attachments in this forum, so I will email my turn to Atul and QM, whose emails I know. Ling and Demon, if you'd like to see it as well, just let me know. Any advice is much appreciated.

My apologies for missing everyone in IRC. Last day of exams, so I was out quite late.

I noticed some discussion on what I can seeking arrow. I have potentially 2 mages available for this, this turn. Next turn I'll have up to 6 available. Not sure what I can hit this turn, I was hoping to find Vanheim's pretender again next turn. But I can hit whatever you need me to instead.

If I were you IH, I'd "step into" C'tis's trap on the condition that he hasn't seen (scout retreat, or other battle) what your real force composition is. Sure, Sauro may have reported it to him, but likely not precisely. The hope there is that he'll underestimate your force quantity. One level of starvation isn't all that bad, honestly. If you have the option set a priest on sermon spam. 247 is a farmland so you'll have supplies next turn.

In terms of the Sauro force, this may sound like a silly sugestion, but having your guys go berserk if you can pull it with indy mages will deal with the fear problem. I would recommend berserker pelts but you need to cast Air Shield so that won't work. Dragon Helmet is your best bet in that case. A sermon spammer might as well.

I could switch 2 of Niefel's "nice to have" WWs to province you're attacking, would net base enc 15+ for lizards. Might even the scales.

Also still like the idea to Seeking Arrow Sauro leaders and scout attack those troops so that hydras poison the archers.

What's more prudent, snake rings or wine skins?

I'll look at your turn and report my own when I get home. For now, it's 4 WWinters and 9 Tiamats, awe shields for Hel and snake rings. Attacking 88.

Snake rings for sure. I might be reading the map wrong, but right now I think IH is in a Mountain Waste prov. Once he clears it to farmland he'll be fine. And if the situation is iffy, we should stack on as many force multipliers as we can, so definitely WW 247.

This is just a short-term supply situation, there's no need for wine skins atul. Thanks for asking tho

Just need to decide how risky it is to attack and where.

I must say that now seeing the situation it's a bit of a toss-up.

You've got, what, 22 helhirdlings, 40 archers, 20 or so misc glamoured troops and couple of thugs.

Against anything between 60 to 300 C'tissian troops, many of them with 2 attacks (bite&trident), or shades. Of course depending whether C'tis wants to attack you _or_ Niefelheim.

Though I think you stand to lose a lot less than C'tis. After all C'tis can't come after you even if he won and Sauro's army can be stopped easily on its tracks once Caelum gets those 6 Seeking Arrows online.

Hm, dunno. Where I'm standing it would seem that if Lingchic has 2 new equipped Jarls moving into 14, he could send the 2 Jarls there to provinces there aren't anyone attacking from (attacks were coming from 2 provinces, right?) and trust the 2 incoming guys to beat up C'tissian invasion. That way, we'd get a turn's head start AND two armies operating on totally different methods right next to C'tis capital. If it would work, it's be a good alternative to this waiting. But maybe I'm just being rushy.

IH, just if you attack, put something cheaper than those glamour guys up front taking the Shadow Bolts. Damn lot of gold in the up front guys. :-/

Oh fuck.

Talk about oversights.

My Abysia route goes through mountains and wasteland, in Death3 dominion. And I have only a wine skin. :-/

Hm, should I split my advance into waves so that a part goes 81 - 97 - (109 or 116) - capital? If I don't expect a lot of armies moving around thanks to TheDemon shutting down the capital that would give me a wider berth...

Or then just bite the bullet and suffer for 2 turns of wastelands until getting to that 25000-pop capital?