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In Progress Let's See the World Die. Dominions 4.

Grimwulf

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PocketMine

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Serpent in the Staglands Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech
Name the jarl LundB. That way you're sure the DRN will favour him.

I know the guy by "Hatoful" LP. Any ideas what he looks like?

I...I can find out if you like :3

That would be grand! I had easier time picturing Crispy. But don't beat yourself over it, if it won't work out.

I think that's close enough?


According to Codex members picture gallery


this is LundB
UkXS7.jpg
 

PocketMine

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Serpent in the Staglands Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech
Great Dominions 4 LP btw cant wait for turn 12 update.
Played Dominions 3 once or twice ages ago not enough to understand its complex mechanics.





I remember that Hatoful LP its a shame he didnt finish it.
 

Grimwulf

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To deal with Cult of Bullshit that started in The Hanging Tree province, I ordered Crispy to design and send some kind of agitation scrolls. You know, something to remind the peasants about their God-King, and to inspire their faith and loyalty.

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I should have trusted this assignment to somebody else...


TURN 12

EARLY SPRING IN THE YEAR 2 OF THE ASCENSION WARS

I was a little worried about Weeping Falls battle, for heavy cavalry can be devastating at times. Thankfully, it went just perfect.

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No dead, no wounded. Selvaria seems to bring luck in every battle she joins.

Hostile cavalry didn’t manage to land a single hit. Illusions is serious business, not to mention exceptionally high defense.

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Next thing they know – the whole squad is surrounded.

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The rest was slaughter, in good old Trollish fashion. Moving on.

Penda the Bloody-Handed, Unstoppable Hangadrott, attacked Midvale this month.

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A small squad of enemy’s light infantry tried to attack the shieldwall from side (a surround-ish tactic, I guess). Nice try. Too bad Penda was waiting for them at the same flank.

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Dealing major damage with dat crazy look in his eye, he quickly forced hostile army into full retreat.

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It was just another typical battle.

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And then, from the dark, they came.

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Led by Eginolf the Warrior Smith, these bastards ambushed us before we had a chance to restore strength after previous battle.

40 men and women, well-rested and top-notch equipped.

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Some of our men were too wounded to even hold the line.

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We managed to withstand their initial charge. One of our huskarls lost an arm.

Humans of Ulm are different from the others. They are incredibly bulky, strong, skilled, and spirited. In combat they don’t retreat, and fight almost like Vanir. Besides, all of them either dual-wield, or fight with enormous two-handed weapons. Offensive capabilities of Ulm forces are truly great.

Unfortunately, our troops were severely outnumbered and exhausted, to pull up a fight.

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But Penda and his helhirdings were as good as new, charging straight for Eginolf. They just need a turn or two to kill him, and put an end to this.

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Two warrior maidens rushed to protect their chief. Penda slayed them one

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by one

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They managed to slow him down, but not for long. Nothing stands between him and Eginolf now.

Not just that, but Eginolf was completely out of stamina, casting his primitive Alteration 1 spells (114 fatigue). He is helpless.

One turn left.

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One turn to close in and strike down the leader of this backstabbing army.

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Aaand, he doesn’t do it.

I swear, watching this makes me feel physical pain. We could win this encounter if we had just one more turn. Penda commanded retreat in desperate attempt to save what was left of his men. Unfortunately,

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there was no one left to hear Penda’s order. Shieldwall was standing as long as it could. Only one huskarl survived this massacre. He, Penda and one helhirding. The other one didn’t make it through enemy ranks.

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Or maybe it was an attempt to cover Penda’s retreat with his life.

In any case, that night we lost Midvale.

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Overall, six Vanir have joined the Great Feast this month. Five have fallen in battle of Midvale, and one died in Helheim. If you remember one-eyed huskarl who fought Irnifried – he finally succumbed to his wounds.

Eginolf. Remember this name, coz now it’s personal matter. Vengeance is coming.

Still can’t believe we’ve lost. So. Fucking. Close. Let’s see the reports or whatever.

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Finally reached Thaumaturgy 4. That grants us a couple of mandatory gem-searching spells and a handy D3 combat spell Terror, which I already mentioned earlier. Current research speed and death gem income is just perfectly enough to cast BoT on turn 18. If nothing interferes.

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Anything’s possible with Misfortune 3 scale, though. And yes, research speed will be a bit lower after I give orders to everybody, but I won't stop hiring new research powah, so don't worry.

Some Pretender(s) have entered the game.

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During Pretender creation there is a possibility to make him/her/it Dormant or Imprisoned. That would give you additional design points, but Pretender won’t enter the game until some time passes. King Grimwulf had to be Awakened, because that’s the whole point of research-rushing.

Quick glimpse on Dying Jungle report:

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Just need a little bit more forces, and I can take it no prob.

A worldwide event? That’s interesting.

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Isn’t that a nice Christmas gift from Vanheim? That boosted my gold income significantly. Great. Just great.

Now to Jon Snow’s report. You guessed it: bad as usual.

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Pretty sure it’s the Prophet’s army. Fay Boars help Vanheim to move his doomstacks even through low-supply provinces. Another reason why war with them will never get easy.

If Dag is at Bitter Woods, then I should get out of Weeping Falls. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough resources to make a stand at the moment. Besides, everybody in Codex Troll’s army is level 2 right now, and in perfect shape. These vets need some noob reinforcements, so they won’t risk their butts so often.

Some important stuff from score graphs. Here we see that Caelum and Ulm are busy with each other right now.

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Thus we can make an assumption that their main forces are currently occupied. Since Caelum previously had 5 provinces, and now has 6, last turn they must have conquered this province:

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Purple “R” are provinces where Ulm forces retreated.

We need to gather all availibale info before making decisions. Kailasa has just one province now.

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Gem income and research level didn’t drop, so that is the capital province. Kailasa’s army is at Marverni’s level now. Which is not too far from our own.

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I guess Marverni took a beating from Ulm. Specifically, from mercenary Hannibal, who is currently working for Ulm.

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Hannibal is an elephant rider, commanding 5 more elephants. During previous turn he didn’t lose a single unit, and got some exp, judging by Hall of Fame info.

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I have no idea who is that Önder dude, but he must have done something GRAND to make it to the top in just one turn.

Therefore, someone’s took a beating from this merc. Marverni is the only one who’s got an army drop.

Sorry for the boring stuff, I usually move it to War Council section, but today it’s reserved for summing up First Year of the Ascension Wars.

DECISIONS TIME.

Helheim keeps researching. Everyone, except for Crispy – he will forge Dwarven Hammer. There goes yearly income of earth gems.

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Since I’m going to have a shitton of researchers, I just rename them all into “Skald”, “Royal Skald”, “Dead Skald”, etc. So I have easier time navigating my Nation Overview window. Skalds are searching for useful details about magic stuff in ancient Edda’s – that’s how I picture Viking-ish research process. Doesn’t make sense, but shuddup. I’m having hard enough time larping as it is.

Since we figured out that Caelum is SUPPOSED to be preoccupied with Ulm, gotta take the chance and grab Valley of 1000 Deaths.

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LundB is assigned with this task. There are rumors among Vanir that LundB is undercover Caelum agent, so this will be a good opportunity to improve his reputation.

Everett will meet him there and assist in the fight.

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I don’t think that enemy archers will be able to hit our units on that kind of distance, which explains the formations:

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And if all goes well, Everett will sneak deeper into Caelum territory, while LundB attacks the Dying Jungle, along with reinforcements from Helgate, led by Gordon Cageman. Who has absolutely nothing to do this turn, and thus just patrols around Helgate all alone. Lame.

Jon Snow moves to Vanheim’s capital. He doesn’t need to search for Vanheim’s encounters anymore (I’ll see them in action once they attack Weeping Falls PD), but instead should sneak peak at Vanheim Pretender, Visrutar. He is most surely not Awakened, and all Dormant ones will join the War during next few turns (some awaken earlier than others). They always show up in respective capitals, so he just needs to be there the moment it happens. And not get caught.

Penda is currently in Chillmoor, along with his last huskarl. Helhirding-bodyguard escaped in Thunder Falls, and I don’t have any commanders there to pick him up.

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I order him to stay and search, but if Ulm attacks Chillmoor, he’s going to retreat immediately. No need to risk the old man again.

Ok. After giving it some thought, I decide to spend a turn on counter-attack preparations. Codex Troll and Selvaria are ordered to sneak.

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Codex Troll won’t engage local defense of Edge of the Melt province. Not only because there are quite a lot of them, but also because we don’t want to lose Troll’s army if Ulm attacks the same province. Enough is enough.

Selvaria sneaks to Thunder Falls. Even if Ulm attacks it next turn, she won’t engage in combat. If it don’t, she’ll take survived helhirding and some minor reinforcement which I’m about to hire.

HIRING!

First of all, I hire three barbarian chiefs: in Misty Hollow, Chillmoor and Dead Snows. They are worthless commanders, but have this particular ability:

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That’s right, no more Mr. Good King. From now on, I am going to pillage those border provinces. Fuck you, Ulm! Don’t remember if I explained it earlier, but you can’t hire more than one commander per turn in a province. Some commanders take two turns to be hired, but you know that already.

If everything goes well, we shall reclaim Midvale on turn 14, together with Codex Troll, Penda, Selvaria, barb chief, and reinforcements from Helheim.

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The rest of the gold is spent on skald and 6 serf warriors in Helheim. Which is probably not enough for LundB to conquer Dying Jungle on turn 14. Well, people say he’s lucky. I hope they are right.

And that leaves us dry as my last bottle of ale. 4gp left. At least it feels gud too look at all that zero-unrest everywhere.

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Thanks again, Vanheim.

That covers FIRST YEAR, ladies and gentlemen. That’s right, 12 months passed and we are still alive. It’s partly your achievement, as well! For it was you, who voted for Crispy in our ranks. It was you who sent Balgruuf to his death. It was you, who… err... Hm. At least you read my mumbo-jumbo, that’s gotta take a lot of effort.

Now is a good time to sum up first year, make some conclusions, and think about the future how to destroy fucking everything. I invite you as honorable guests to Annual War Council, and bid farewell to those, who actually have a life. Whatever you were doing in this autistic thread, I hope to see you next turn.

Wes þu hal!

Today’s session might be even more boring than usual, but what can we say - that’s annual sum-up. Serious business.

First of all, let us compare our progress with other nations, one score graph after another.

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Expansion. We currently have 11 provinces, which is kinda average. Vanheim, Oceania and Sauromatia achieved the same result. C’tis has 14, which is gud. Arcoscephale and Ulm both have 10 provinces, Agartha and Ermor have 9 each. Caelum has 6, Marverni only 4, and Kailasa has only it’s capital left. Based on this, we can attempt to draw some rough borders.

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We are pretty sure about Vanheim, Caelum and Kailasa borders, fairly sure about Ulm, while all the others are pure speculations, just so we could picture the scale and proportions easier.

It seems like Oceania and Sauromatia had a couple of border conflicts, resulting in status quo.

Ermor and Arcoscephale lost some battles, but not territories (most probably due to unsuccessful attacks on Thrones and/or neighbors).

Ulm gave Marverni a beating and punched us a little too, while giving up a province to Caelum.

C’tis destroyed most of Kailasa. A miracle the latter are still struggling to exist.

No other early conflicts were noticed. Still a lot of free lands to conquer for anybody. Except for Vanheim.

Next score graph.

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We are the only nation that has a second fortification, apart from Caelum. Turn 11 is a bit late, but at least we are ahead of our competitors.

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Income is surprisingly good, considering our scales and AI handicap. Of course, we are still behind of almost everybody, but at least we are not left in the dust, like Caelum (big army expenses, too little provinces, all provinces are mountains – low income), Marverni (only 4 forest provinces – low income) and Oceania (most likely bad scales, also underwater provinces are low-income too). Notice how everybody got a boost on last turn during worldwide event. At first that made us think that Kailasa reclaimed it’s capital province (defeated C’tis sieging force), of which we were wrong. Meaning, the map is slightly wrong as well. But nobody cares about Kailasa.

Moving next.

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Gem income is a total failure, considering it was one of our top priorities. Bad luck is partly to blame, but 9 gems is still insufficient for achieving our goals. Oceania and C’tis are doing much better, Arcoscephale has 8 gems per turn, Vanheim and Sauromatia have 7, all the others receive default 6.

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The worst thing about research score graph is incredibly high results of Arcoscephale – about the only nation capable of dispelling global enchantments. Losing to Kailasa is non-significant, since C’tis decided to go holocaust on them. As for C’tis itself, they are not the worst neighbor we could expect. Leave them be.

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In dominion score graph we are occupying solid middle tier. Caelum struggles not to get a domkill, Kailasa is slowly dying, Vanheim’s Pretender seems to be still Dormant/Imprisoned. Arcoscephale receives incredible dominion boost during all the later turns, which could mean anything from random events to large-scale temple building.

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Our army doesn’t exist. Yet.

C’tis, Caelum and Agartha are the main forces of destruction. Although, judging by all score graphs in general, Caelum will die soon anyway, Agartha acts passive, and only C’tis puts his army to good use. Good for them, goddamn lizzurds.

All in all, we are doing almost gud. We got a half-decent Throne of Ascension pretty early, built a fully equipped fort in first year, didn’t hamper our research speed too much, received several Hall of Fame titles, and even enjoyed almost GENTLE treatment from AI.

On the downside, Crispy was a complete waste of turns, money and effort. Even though it’s very unlikely not to find a single site in three provinces (2 mt. and 1 plains) with D2E3, Crispy fucking did it. He could win us a turn if he stayed at Helheim and researched all that time. Then again, it’s not like we could cast BoT on turn 17 with default death gem income. Oh, well.

Balgruuf died. At least he showed those swags how real men fight.

We have lost 8 Vanir during first year, including Balgruuf. If we speak about War, that is. Meanwhile, the population of Helheim is currently 27800 and falling. It will continue to drop relatively slow until we cast Burden of Time. Then it will fall much, much more rapidly. No matter.

“The dead should be grateful” is Helheim’s motto, and the whole point of our religion.

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Rpgsaurus Rex

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Excellent LP, much entertainment! One can really feel your passion for it seeping through, which is all that matters in these things.
 

Grimwulf

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Someone brought bad ale on last War Council. That led our analytics Crispy into making some mistakes. Correcting now:

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I have received a letter from Lizzurd Lord, commenting on my progress (how does he even know? Seems like we have a SPY in our ranks). Since nobody knows lizard language, our scribes Crispy could only translate some bits.

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He’s got a point regarding besieged castle income. They still bring SOME gold to their owner, but not much.

First year is usually a mere reconnaissance. Year 2 marks the beginning of early game. Didn’t I warn you that this War is gonna take forever? My bad.


TURN 13

SPRING IN THE YEAR 2 OF THE ASCENSION WARS


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Penda found a magic site in Chillmoor. About time.

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Codex Troll witnessed a battle between Ulm and Edge of the Melt defenders. It wasn’t pretty.

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Not much to say about this. Same war party, same commander, same tactics (none whatsoever).

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Eginolf used his last gem. And he’s got access to Evocation 1 spells, which is irrelevant right now.

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Eginolf and his men are nothing more than a scouting band. Still, they are in perfect shape and most of them gained experience level already. That makes them a valuable asset in Ulm’s army.

Of course, they are capable of wiping out my current army all by themselves. However, I cannot let them go away either. There might be a solution to this, but let us read other messages first.

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Mighty fine job, LundB. The archers couldn’t hit shit during first turns, just as I expected. That provided LundB and Everett with a couple free turns to buff.

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Fabulous Vanjarl decided to do it the hard way, and charged into front lines instead of going for commanders. Dependent Everett followed him, no questions asked.

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You know what’s the main difference between LundB and Everett? They both kill humans, but LundB also looks good.

Long story short, enemy couldn’t stand the magnificence of Vanjarl, and retreated.

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Strangely enough, Caelum didn’t attack LundB the same turn, which I was almost expecting. Something's fishy birdy going on here.

Another news!

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Humans are strange. The Inevitable End is coming soon, yet they are worried about bad omens.

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That’s actually good news, coz I need Crispy to forge one more Dwarven Hammer before he hopefully dies of old age.

Jon Snow made it to Vanheim’s capital right in time. Visrutar has awakened.

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Frost Father. Could be worse.

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The world doesn’t need two demented old kings! And I am clearly the more charismatic one.

Anyway, Visrutar will most likely stay in capital, providing research and dominion boosts to Vanheim. So strange that they still didn’t attack me.

Time to make them decisions. Our GLORIOUS expansion seems to be over.

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Completely surrounded. It is possible that Caelum and/or C’tis won’t be aggressive for the time being, so I’d better not provoke them. LundB is going back to Helgate. Everett will be scouting around Caelum and Ulm, and Gordon is sent to Helheim, along with 6 serf warriors.

Meanwhile, all our commanders prepared a sweet ambush for Eginolf.

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Which we shall discuss later, during War Council meeting. Krummi (Icelandic for “Raven”) is our new Dis, by the way. Barb chiefs are named Raider Horas, Raider Brutus and Raider Lod. Once again, that “raider” is just for easier navigation in Nation Overview window. One of them is going to Weeping Falls, the other one to Thunder Falls for good old pillaging (they will both retreat if attacked), while third one participates in Midvale ambush (just to pillage it immediately after attack).

Hiring orders:

- Helkarl-skald in Helgate;

- Vanjarl, 5 helhirdings and 3 serf warriors in Helheim.

Starting from next turn, I will start minor blood economy in my Kingdom. It won’t have any major impact on my progress, but will certainly provide me with additional options in times of crisis (ability to summon some low-cost demons from Blood2-Blood3 research schools; ability to perform sacrificial ceremonies if I ever have dominion problems; access to some tasty blood artifacts later in the game). Mini-explanation on how the whole thing works:

The basic principle is this: Vanjarl (having B1 path) searches the capital for virgins every turn, while local PD and Gordon Cageman with his serf warriors decrease unrest by patrolling. In most cases, unrest will be zero. Sometimes it will be slightly higher, lowering my income (which is not grand anyway). Densely populated provinces are preferable for blood hunting, and I only have a chance to stock up on girls during early game, and maybe first part of midgame. Coz after that, the only virgins in the world will be Selvaria’s SVD and Crispy (nevermind, he’ll be dead by then).

Some score graph data:

- Caelum’s dominion is rising slowly. Which is actually good, because I need them right now to keep Ulm busy. Besides, if Caelum is domkilled anytime soon, I won’t be able to grab his lands. They will go to C’tis or Ulm, making them even bigger threats;

- Kailasa still holds on to their capital;

- Agartha and Oceania have built fortifications. The latter took a serious beating, most likely from Sauromatia;

- Ulm had a minor army drop last turn. Judjing by dead Hannibal, Marverni showed some teeth.

That’s about it.

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War Council coming next. Today’s topic is “Midvale Ambush”. Join or bye!

The whole thing is risky as fuck. Too many assumptions involved.

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1. Assumption 1: Ulm is not aggressive towards us. Yes, we had a small fight over a province we both happened to attack simultaneously, but AFAIK, AI doesn’t consider such an act as provocation. The fact that Ulm didn’t attack Thunder Falls (my totally undefended province) proves it. Eginolf could attack Thunder Falls and Chillmoor, but he went for Edge of the Melt instead – that proves Ulm's non-aggressive attitude even further.

2. Assumption 2: Based on what we just said, Eginolf has no choice, but to go back to Midvale.

3. Assumption 3: Since Ulm is currently fighting Marverni and Caelum, while presumably not giving a fuck about us, there is no point whatsoever to keep/move other commanders in Midvale. There is currently no one there, and we don’t expect anyone to show up next turn, except for Eginolf and his men.

That leads us to believe that we know what are we dealing with, when planning an ambush on Eginolf and local PD of Midvale. Codex Troll, Penda, Selvaria and Krummi will execute our plan next turn. Here is the general idea:

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And that’s another view of the same thing:

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Don’t mind Raider Brutus – he won’t participate in combat.

Ulm doomstack will reach our front lines (shieldwall) on turn three. We placed some human archers slightly ahead on left flank, to shoot and provoke them – if we’ll get lucky, the doomstack will split a little. We also gave an order to one inexperienced helhirding to attack rearmost immediately, on turn one. Which may split the doomstack even further. Doesn’t really matter if any of these splitting tricks work.

On turn 3 two Valkyrie squads and two helhirding squads will attempt to attack commanders. On turn 4 Codex Troll and Penda will join them. 6 different squads in total. If ANY of them, just a SINGLE one passes morale check and actually attacks commanders, we’ll win this without any casualties. We expect 2 commanders: Eginolf and local PD commander. It won’t take more than 2 turns to kill them. Thus we expect Ulm army to rout on turn 5 or 6.

If, however, everyone will fail morale check, we should be able to win this anyway. Terror x2 and Frighten x4 will inflict heavy morale hit on Ulm forces, and if we succeed with splitting the doomstack, helhird and SVD will surround them and fight small groups. Shouldn’t take long before humans of Ulm fail morale check.

Eginolf doesn’t have H path, and thus won’t be able to bless Steel Warriors, which is reason enough to attack right now. Yet another good reason is this:

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Eginolf and his men will have three options of where to retreat. Those who run to Edge of the Melt are gonna find themselves cornered, nowhere to escape from there. We shall be able to finish them off on turn 15. Every last one of them.

If anything goes wrong, our troops will die horribly. If Eginolf decides to go further into our lands, it would be great though. Because then we’ll conquer undefended Midvale, and totally cut his escape route, while winning some time for reinforcements.

That’s it for today. Let us hope for the best.

Eginolf brought it on himself.
 
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Grimwulf

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TURN 14

LATE SPRING IN THE YEAR 2 OF THE ASCENSION WARS


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Let’s do this. GLORY OR DETH!

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I’m so pumped up! What r u gonna do now, EGINOLF?!

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So, err. Local PD chief, eh?

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And that was the Grand Midvale Ambush, my monocled friends.

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Commanders and units of PD are never shown in battle reports.

As you see, all my planning was perfect, except for one minor issue: I never considered that Eginolf might actually STAY IN THE FUCKING EDGE OF THE MELT! Look at this shit:

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So, Ulm actually WAS non-aggressive. And Eginolf’s scouting band stayed in EotM province to search/build/circlejerk/whatever. My brilliantly calculated surprise attack had DEVASTATING effect on Midvale PD (read: on nobody at all). And now I am surrounded by pissed off Ulm forces. FUCK!

And now, this will happen with 94,7% probability (calculated by Crispy):

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Not good. If we attempt to attack Edge of the Melt right now, we might get DRN-lucky and actually get out of Midvale before Ulm counter-attacks. Then we can pwn Eginolf, just like we planned initially. Yeah. Chances of that happening is so low, better to forget about it.

Defending in Midvale is not an option too. This province has one of the worst types of PD.

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It won’t make any difference even if I was stupid enough to spend everything on PD. On the contrary, sight of tens and hundreds “comrades” dead can force even the bravest into retreat. So, not an option.

As sad as it is, we have no choice but to fall back and regroup in Chillmoor. Moving to allied provinces is calculated before attacking non-allied ones in TRS (turn resolution sequence), so everybody should make it out of Midvale just fine.

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I leave 4 archers under command of Brutus, and order him to pillage. I don’t need neutral human archers, especially in such non-significant numbers, in my army. They will only slow me down. As for barbarian raiders, their only purpose is pillaging and retreating if attacked. More units under their command = more effective pillaging.

If Eginolf attacks Chillmoor next turn, he is gonna regret it. I’m going to bump up PD a little:

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Because 20 barbs are certainly worth 55gp in this circumstances.

I have to delay blood hunt in Helheim. Right now I need freshly hired Vanjarl with all available reinforcements in Chillmoor. His name be Ragnar Lothbrok! Because:
a) he’s awesome;
b) nobody suggests new names.

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Not so fab now, are you, LundB?

Speaking of LundB, I know how to use his spare turn and check out his incredible luck at the same time. I’m running out of air gems because of active Owl Quill forging, and I need at least one more air magic site. Don’t have any spare commanders to search, thus Auspex comes in handy.

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He’ll cast it on Dead Snows.

Logistics are simple this turn.

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I forgot about Everett, and too lazy to make a new screenshot. He is ordered to sneak towards The White Forest.

Combat formations have slightly changed. We now have twice as bigger shieldwall, twice as much cavalry, and 20 barbarians from PD. Eginolf has no chance if he attacks Chillmoor.

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We’ll see how it goes from there. If Ulm reclaims Midvale with all his powah, we’ll hit him in Edge of the Melt, do some border dancing.

Hiring orders:

- Vanjarl, 12 serf warriors in Helheim for blood hunting;

- Helkarl-skald, 10 huskarlar-spearmen in Helgate for Greater Good.

36gp is saved for next turn. I should really build some temples. Also, bump up PD in Resting Shore to 10 in order to deal with constant unrest rising (still no idea what is it. Last turn I lost a candle there. Event? Magic Site with "increase unrest" feature?)

Nothing exciting on score graphs as well. Caelum lost a candle of dominion, Kailasa is still holding, C’tis becomes more and more fat – the usual stuff.

This is probably the last turn when all the info from Nation Overview fits in one screen. For all you nerdy autists:

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No War Council this month. Me and Crispy have a hangover, and other councilors are good for nuthin’. That doesn’t mean you can’t express yer opinion, advices, name suggestions and whatnot – Helheim will listen. Unless you are a lizzurd.

Never trust a lizzurd.
 
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Johannes

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Starting from next turn, I will start minor blood economy in my Kingdom. It won’t have any major impact on my progress, but will certainly provide me with additional options in times of crisis (ability to summon some low-cost demons from Blood2-Blood3 research schools; ability to perform sacrificial ceremonies if I ever have dominion problems; access to some tasty blood artifacts later in the game). Mini-explanation on how the whole thing works:

The basic principle is this: Vanjarl (having B1 path) searches the capital for virgins every turn, while local PD and Gordon Cageman with his serf warriors decrease unrest by patrolling. In most cases, unrest will be zero. Sometimes it will be slightly higher, lowering my income (which is not grand anyway). Densely populated provinces are preferable for blood hunting, and I only have a chance to stock up on girls during early game, and maybe first part of midgame. Coz after that, the only virgins in the world will be Selvaria’s SVD and Crispy (nevermind, he’ll be dead by then).
That's actually not exactly how it works. You always lose income even if you immediately patrol the unrest away, though you won't clearly see it. Since the turn resolution goes Blood Hunting -> Taxation -> Patrolling. So as a rule it's not a good idea to hunt in your cap.
 

Grimwulf

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Starting from next turn, I will start minor blood economy in my Kingdom. It won’t have any major impact on my progress, but will certainly provide me with additional options in times of crisis (ability to summon some low-cost demons from Blood2-Blood3 research schools; ability to perform sacrificial ceremonies if I ever have dominion problems; access to some tasty blood artifacts later in the game). Mini-explanation on how the whole thing works:

The basic principle is this: Vanjarl (having B1 path) searches the capital for virgins every turn, while local PD and Gordon Cageman with his serf warriors decrease unrest by patrolling. In most cases, unrest will be zero. Sometimes it will be slightly higher, lowering my income (which is not grand anyway). Densely populated provinces are preferable for blood hunting, and I only have a chance to stock up on girls during early game, and maybe first part of midgame. Coz after that, the only virgins in the world will be Selvaria’s SVD and Crispy (nevermind, he’ll be dead by then).
That's actually not exactly how it works. You always lose income even if you immediately patrol the unrest away, though you won't clearly see it. Since the turn resolution goes Blood Hunting -> Taxation -> Patrolling. So as a rule it's not a good idea to hunt in your cap.

Yeah, I was mistaken on that matter. Blood hunting is calculated before Income indeed. Although, this action doesn't always raise unrest, there is a DRN-based check involved (sometimes you get girls without raising unrest and sometimes you fail to gather them at all). Blood hunting in capital is generally a last-resort option in any game session, but unfortunately I won't have another chance to stock up on virgins.
 

Grimwulf

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Typical Helheim War Council:

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TURN 15

EARLY SUMMER IN THE YEAR 2 OF THE ASCENSION WARS

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Ok. Take a deep breath, and try to find something good in this whole situation. Gotta be positive.

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See, it’s not that hard! Sup, LundB.

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All right, this isn’t working. We’ve lost 2 provinces and almost out of air gems too. Nothing good to be found here. Since we didn’t have anyone to protect the borders, there wasn’t much fighting involved.

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Eginolf attacked Weeping Falls, while Bobo attacked Thunder Falls. Yes, I’m dead fucking serious – BOBO is the name.

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E2N2H1, loaded with magic gems. Ulm’s blessing grants +6hp and +2 defense skill (N7W4-5 female Pretender, could be Volla or Great Enchantress, or something even less adequate). Spell arsenal is the same Alt1/Evo1. They probably focus research horsepower exclusively on Construction school.

Eginolf’s band has a lot of sacreds, but no priest to bless them. Bobo’s band has a priest, but no sacreds. Can’t let them unite. In fact, I will fucking KILL THEM BOTH next turn.

I’ve had enough!
:x

Next message.

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Well, I’ll be. At least some people don’t fuck each other in the eye. They can recognize a True God when they see one. Not much point in exceeding maximum dominion, though. Frozen Hills has 7 white candles this turn, but it will go back to 6 during next one (6 is my current maximum). You can see dominion-related stuff when clicking on any temple.

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Brutus and 4 archers went berserk last month.

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Holy shit, guys. The province still has 10k population, so you’d better try harder.

Pillaging is somewhat tricky to establish: barbs (units) are gud, but undisciplined, which means they have trouble retreating. Common neutral units are somewhat expensive to hire/maintain. Gold that is obtained from pillaging (yes, it actually brings gold when you assign enough units for it) isn’t nearly enough to cover the cost. No matter. Our goal is to kill as much population as possible, and raise unrest while doing it.

My scouts don’t have anything interesting to report this turn.

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Jon Snow is looking at Eginolf’s band; Everett finally reached Caelum/Ulm borders. Moving them both deeper in Ulm. Yes. We need to go deeper.

Next turn we are going to reclaim 2 provinces and hopefully kill Eginolf and Bobo. How exactly are we going to pull it off will be discussed during War Council. All Valkyries fly to Thunder Falls, while the rest of the army marches towards Edge of the Melt.

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LundB searches Helgate, since not a single air mage searched it yet. C’tis and Caelum don’t show signs of aggression at the moment.

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Helheim does mighty researching, while our blood specialist Lord Harkon sets off on a hunt.

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This turn I’m going to hire some more PD. To be more specific, PD 10 in Misty Hollow (20 barbs are capable of inflicting some damage on Eginolf’s band, if he decides to go that way) and PD 10 in Resting Shore (coz PD 10 gives unrest reduction 1, which should compensate that fucking every-turn-unrest-rising).

Royal treasury is freakin’ low on gold that month, that’s why I only hire Vanherses in Helheim and Helgate. One is going to build some temples, the other one is for teh research. I also hire 8 more serf warriors in Helheim (20 guys patrolling should be enough to keep unrest at zero, considering default capital PD 25), and 2 more huskarls in Helgate (so LundB will have 20 in case he needs them).

That leaves me with 114gp. I hope to hire one more Hangadrott next turn (I’ll need at least one D4 Hangadrott later on), but research, temples and reinforcements are still on top of my priority list.

Marverni seems to have a hard time defending against Ulm and – probably – Vanheim too.

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4 provinces at turn 15? They are not going to win this one. Their army and income graphs don’t look better.

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In fact, their army size is equal to that of Kailasa. Including two merc bands:

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I say we should add Marverni to nations-outsiders list. No way in hell they can win this War.

If we fail our counter-attack next turn, we’ll join the outsiders too. If you don’t care, see you next time. If you want to listen to them councilors, meet me at War Council. Come alone.

The plan is the same for both battles:

1. Kill the fucking commanders;

2. Finish off the rest.

We don’t expect any dangerous spellcasting. Casualties are almost inevitable, if we actually catch up with Eginolf and/or Bobo. So, let’s discuss the probabilities.

Eginolf:

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1. He’ll stay at Weeping Falls. Most likely he’ll be crushed by Vanheim. If not (they are both non-aggressive types of AI, so they might still be neutral to each other), we’ll crush him ourselves on turn 17.

2. He’ll move to Edge of the Melt. Then we can finally do some sweet vengeance.

3. He will attack Misty Hollow. Probably the smartest thing possible, but at least our barbarian PD should be able to kill a bunch of Conans.

4. He’ll attack Vanheim himself. Jon Snow will tell how it went. Ederhet is the only adequate option, if he decides to go YOLO. If he attacks north-western part instead – well, he’s fucked.

And now Bobo situation.

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1. He’ll stay in one place – the battle commences.

2. He falls back. We reclaim the province without any losses, and deal with Bobo later.

3. He attacks Frozen Hills before we get to the Thunder Falls. Lucky fucker. No point in hiring PD in Frozen Hills – it sucks badly.

4. He attempts to attack Frozen Hills, but we get to him first and make some old-fashioned castration.

We don’t see any forces in Anvilwood or Lower Ulmwood, so we don’t expect any surprises. Time to get down and dirty with tactics.

Eginolf encounter:

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The scheme should be pretty self-explanatory. We have 6 cavalry squads, consisting of 2 experienced horsemen each. If ANY SINGLE ONE of them passes morale check - we win with little-or-none casualties. If not, we should still win by morale (notice Terror x2 and Cermon of Courage x3, combined with decent numbers).

Bobo encounter:

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Valkyries will hold for two turns as far from enemy ranks as possible. Even archers will be forced to come closer to them before shooting (and thus moving away from Bobo). On turn three, when both archers and infantry will be half-way to SVD, we’ll have 6 morale checks. If at least one is successful – we’ll win this shit. If not, everygirlie dies. Goodbye, SVD. Yes, simple as that.

Blessings x4 are just to make sure everyone gets a blessing. No point in casting air shield, since it’s either no-loss victory, or unavoidable death.

And that’s about it. We’ll see if our planning will get us somewhere this time.

Speaking of shitty planning, this one was Lizzurd Lord’s reaction to turn 14 (translated by drunken Crispy):

So, a village in western borders of Ulm. Inside a small tavern, two barbarian-warriors drink merrily. One is local, the other one just passes through.

SUDDENLY, someone runs through the village, throwing javelins in all directions, screaming warcries. Nobody in the tavern seems to react in any way. The travelling barb asks the local one:

- Gunther, what the fuck was that?

- That, my dear friend Sigmund, was The Elusive Hangadrott.

- Why is he called “Elusive”?

- Because nobody managed to catch him.

- And why nobody managed to catch him?

- Because nobody gives a fuck about him.

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Dreaad

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Nice LP bro :salute:. Even though I personally hate vanheim/helheim/tuatha etc, basicly anything else with illusions... Especially glad to see you avoid gearing up SC production against the AI as usually they can't handle such a situation at all.
 

Grimwulf

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Nice LP bro :salute:. Even though I personally hate vanheim/helheim/tuatha etc, basicly anything else with illusions... Especially glad to see you avoid gearing up SC production against the AI as usually they can't handle such a situation at all.

Yeah, I know, Dominions AI isn't particulary brilliant in general, but we have what we have. I don't plan on using SC anytime soon.

Actually, I'm not a fan of "glamour pony" game style too. It's just Helheim - fuckin' love the backstory and general atmosphere.

 

Grimwulf

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I appreciate all your positive responses and brofists, as well as corrections of my mistakes. But don’t hesitate to ask questions if you feel like you don’t understand what’s going on. Since the only feedback I currently get comes from Lizzurd Lord, here is a bit more explanations on “wtf is that morale check plan?”, which I didn’t explain clearly:

During my first posts of this LP I stated that “attack rearmost” command does not always work as intended. Sometimes units attack closest enemy instead, sometimes they hit somewhere in the middle, and sometimes they actually go for the rearmost units possible. There is a DRN check involved, based on each squads morale. More squads = more checks = more chances that at least one of them attacks rearmost (commanders). Both Eginolf’s and Bobo’s squads have just one leader, and maybe PD chief. One or two combat turns should be enough for two Valkyries/Helhirdings to assassinate enemy commanders, and force entire enemy band into routing.

Crispy the sinister svartalf was inspired by Crispy the Crispy. Someone may say I’m exaggerating. But whenever I take a glimpse at shoutbox, something like this happens:

dibens: crispy you're an idiot
Crispy: No, you're an idiot for assuming.
dibens: there is no good Tim Burton, not modern one at any rate
Crispy: Dumbfuck
Crispy: Judge something after it's out.
dibens: nigga, do you fucking live in a real world? the world where people learn from mistakes? this guy
Crispy: Fuck you.
dibens: look at his fucking filmography
Crispy: Grow up, dibens.
Crispy: Stop sperging about little things.
Crispy: And if you ever call me an idiot again I'm going to filet your internal organs and slow cook them on my BBQ.
dibens: you're the worst
Crispy: Do I make myself clear?

Feels like an average Helheim council meeting :3


TURN 16

SUMMER IN THE YEAR 2 OF THE ASCENSION WARS

Eginolf decided to stay at Weeping Falls, which is fine by me.

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Edge of the Melt gave up easily, having only minor PD.

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Let’s see how the “6 morale checks” plan worked. Turn 3 (moving out):

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Turn 4 (checking morale of each cavalry squad – those who fail are going to attack infantry):

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Oddly enough, every single squad passed the check. I believe it’s actually the first time in all those 16 months. Hel, even Penda and Codex Troll passed the check on turn 4.

I could move formations a bit closer to enemy ranks, so that cavalry manages to reach commanders on turn 4. It’s currently 7-9 squares away. But that would lead to more casualties in shieldwall, which I do not want.

Turn 5: end of battle.

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If Eginolf was participating in this, he would be dead right now. Sigh.

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No losses – just a couple of lightly wounded surfs. Useless humans.

The Bobo encounter was slightly more amusing. Those who attend War Councils might remember Crispy’s “four possible outcomes”. If Crispy says there are four possibilities, then you should be prepared for fifth.

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So, Bobo attacked Midvale, which I didn’t take into consideration. Don’t judge me.

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Our raiders escaped, and Ulm reclaimed Midvale again. It should have something like 50 unrest right now - not much profit can be gained from the province atm.

Valkyries had an easy victory in Thunder Falls. No dead or wounded among our ranks.

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Although, they didn’t reach rearmost in this one. Half of them attacked infantry, while second half charged into archers.

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Not a single human managed to land a hit on my girls. Neither did enemy commander, despite his loud name.

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I expected this session to be something like that. This border brawling will hopefully last long enough for Burden of Time to take effect.

Several interesting events happened this month.

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LundB found a level 2 air magic site in HELGATE. Who would have thought it was there all along?

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Now I have 3 air gems per turn income, which is enough to craft an Owl Quill without running out of fuel. Brofist, LundB!

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C’tis assigned a new Prophet.

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Don’t remember if I mentioned it before, but if a nation’s Prophet dies, they can’t just immediately assign a new one. 6 months of mourning must pass. We all remember C’tis former Prophet, Ningikuga, who fought bravely against Skögu in the Arena. And now he is replaced by Alu. Some types of units change their stats, equipment and appearance after becoming Prophets.

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Let us wish new Prophet of C'tis to experience a truly horrible death. As soon as possible.

Lord Harkon knows his job. I wish one particular svartalf would learn from him.

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Now I have 5 virgins in my treasury! And I’m currently struggling to remember if blood slaves are affected by BoT. I think they are not, but not entirely sure. There are some mighty fine blood artifacts in Construction 6 school (not even mentioning Construction 8), which I would really love to acquire, but that won’t happen ‘til late midgame. Sacrificing virgin grannies, kek.

Anyways.

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Fuck this. And unrest is STILL RISING! Candles do not increase too, although Vanheim doesn’t have strong enough dominion to prevent it.

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Misty Hollow has strange dominion level as well, considering the distance to my capital, awakened Pretender and Prophet walking nearby. This is all wrong. I’m not saying it’s impossible, just highly unlikely. Me and my luck.

Oh, well. What kind of world event we have this month?

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Fucking. Birdmen.

I’ll be frank with you: I don’t remember this event at all. Maybe I just didn’t get Thrones of Night that often, or maybe this event was added in new versions of Dominions 4 – I don’t know. What I know is, that’s fucking bad. If only it happened just 6-8 turns later, I would be happy. And right now it makes all my living units suffer from severe penalties in combat.

Except for Crispy. Little fucker has “Night Vision 50” ability, which will certainly help him to creep on me.

The good news is all my neighbors are going to suffer from this as much as I do. The exception is Caelum, whose sacreds are blessed with Nightvision by the Throne of Night. Agartha is enjoying the whole situation too, gaining a massive advantage.

Lizzurd Lord said that this darkness will only last a few turns. And you can always trust a lizzurd.

In any case, we’ll have to deal with it somehow.

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Everett reports massive reinforcements coming to aid Bobo.

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Attacking Midvale this month is not an option then. I’ll send Everett further south to take a glimpse at Ulm’s Pretender Kantena, their overall army situation and maybe their southern borders.

Jon reports strange Vanheim behavior. Seems like they are not aggressive towards Ulm. What are those pseudo-vikings even doing then? They didn’t conquer a single province during last three turns.

No matter. Logistics time.

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Heimskr the Vanherse will build temples in The Hanging Tree, Dead Snows and Valkyrie Peak (in that particular order). Then I’ll have 5 temples in total, with total max dominion 7. This should be enough for this game session, but maybe I’ll build one more temple later on (just in case smth bad happens to existing ones).

Everyone is ordered to attack Weeping Falls. Hoping to finally get a showdown with Eginolf, I made some rearrangements. Nothing grand, though.

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LundB transforms 4 fire gems into 1 air gem via alchemy (this can be done momentarily, no need to wait a turn). I won’t need fire gems for a long time, even if I’ll need them at all. The only fire mage in Helheim is King Grimwulf, and he’s got better things to do than craft artifacts or cast minor rituals. Now LundB can cast one last Auspex upon The Hanging Tree province.

Hiring Hangadrott and 2 helhirdings in Helheim; Vanherse-skald in Helgate. That leaves me with 0 gp. Oh, well.

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Magic gem income is still kinda low. Especially death gems.

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Btw, Kailasa lost their last province to C’tis.

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We are now ahead of C’tis and Kailasa in terms of research. Can’t beat The King, baby. We are still somewhat behind of Arcoscephale and…

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Caelum. The fuck happened to Caelum, why is the sudden boost? Don’t tell me it’s second fortification, they had it for ages. A lot of nations have them by now, Oceania even has a third one.

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Marverni has a similar boost. I doubt it will save them, though.

Ok. Time for War Council! Hey, where are you going? Guys? GUYS?

Sigh. So lonely.

Research.

Next turn we’ll have Thaumaturgy 5, and 71 RP to spare. Thauma 5 won’t give us anything particularly useful at the moment, but Burden of Time alone was totally worth the effort.

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Leeching Darkness is currently dangerous because of possible friendly fire.

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Confusion is nice, but situational.

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Currently only Hangadrotts are able to cast it, and they are better off with Terror. The latter has awesome aoe, ignores MR, and barely uses any fatigue. Of course, it can hit friendly troops as well, if not used carefully. But there is no drama in it (a little jumpscare is better than losing a limb).

The real question is what should we research next? A lot of options, a lot of opportunities. Why don’t we start discussion with other global rituals we plan to cast?

The first one lies in Thaumaturgy 6. Funny, huh?

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This one will be devastating, especially combined with BoT. Only the old and crippled will fight in Wars of future. But since we won’t have 75 death gems anytime soon, there is no point in rushing it.

Instead, we should focus on minimal combat magic.

- Evocation magic school has a shitton of powerful combat spells;

- Alteration school would allow making Super Combatants out of Vanjarls and Hangadrotts;

- Conjuration is currently useless (no magic gems to spare on summons);

- Blood Magic is not a priority (and we only need to search it til level 2, or 3 max);

- Construction is simply necessary, the sooner – the better;

- Enchantment provides with undead summons (both combat and permanent), among other things.

Researching Evocation or Alteration may be a smarter choice in current circumstances (and probably the only choice if it was pbem session), but we’ll research Enchantment instead.

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A lot of useful spells in this one, and one of them is absolutely necessary in order to win.

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Let us discuss the highlits:

1. Revive King – Mound King is cheap and effective commander with 80 undead leadership and ability to fight underwater. He can help us conquer those neutral underwater provinces to the west of our capital.

2. Seeking Arrow – holy Troll, how much easier it would be to kill Eginolf and Bobo if we only had this spell in our arsenal right now. It is what it is: once cast, it kills random commander in targeted province (has a chance of failure, but still). There is no better ritual spell against hostile armies led by a single commander.

3. Create Revenant – let us imagine Helheim after 20 turns or so. No gold income whatsoever, due to dead population. Some scraps are spent on maintaining existing researches, who are slowly dying of old age. So, how do we do research? With REVENANTS, of course! “A corpse possessed by a spirit from Underworld” – isn’t it just marvelous? One could not wish for a better assistant in royal library. Or better a hundred of them.

Undead do not require gold for maintenance, and never die of old age

4. Cloud Trapeze – very helpful for Vanjarls and Hangadrotts. Basically, a cheap teleportation spell (only moves a commander though, not his army).

5. Raise Dead – a VERY powerful combat summon. A horde of zombies (never flee, never get tired, don’t require gems to be summoned) can prevent enemy advance for a long time. Even Helkarl with Skull Staff (Constr4 artifact) is able to cast this spell. Shieldwalls become obsolete when you have this.

6. Twiceborn – you didn’t think we would let Crispy just die of old age, did you? He is our best councilor.

Besides, his D2E3 is very useful for forging artifacts.

After reaching Enchantment 4, we should switch to Construction 4. And then back to Thaumaturgy, until we research Thaum 6. We should have enough death gems for casting Foul Air by then.

The world will be drenched in suffering, disease and death. And when The End reaches it’s Apex, we shall cast Well of Misery.

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The more death and suffering will be around Helheim, the more death gems we’ll be receiving. Legions upon legions of undead will come back from Underworld to finish off surviving enemies – severely outnumbered, old, diseased, and desperate.

The border between realms of living and dead will be no more.

This is the world of our dreams.

The future.
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Dreaad

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Nonesense, go for evocation next, get shadowbolt it's easy to get to and will do wonders for you in combat against the inevitable hordes of Ctis, Ermor and Sauromatia if they aren't wiped out by Ermor as so often happens on this map. It will also help you negate those pesky illusions of Vanheim.
Falling frost is also not a bad idea, once you, Vanheim and the glorious Eagel King empire begin pushing your dominions that cold scale + encumbrance, combined BoT and with a few low level fatigue increasing spells will make it almost impossible for anyone to beat you on your own turf before freezing into solid blocks of ice.

Save enchantment for after you get at least some battle magic.
 

SerratedBiz

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What does a level 2 air magic site entail? If it only gives 1 air gem per turn, does a level 1 magic site give anything different?
 

Grimwulf

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Nonesense, go for evocation next, get shadowbolt it's easy to get to and will do wonders for you in combat against the inevitable hordes of Ctis, Ermor and Sauromatia if they aren't wiped out by Ermor as so often happens on this map. It will also help you negate those pesky illusions of Vanheim.

Ermor ain't feeling good right now, judging by score graphs. Low on provinces, worst research in the world. Besides, EA Ermor doesn't have anything to counter Burden of Time on turn 18. Not mentioning Foul Air follow-up. Sauromatia and Agartha are much more capable foes, but they will have to deal with Ulm in order to reach me.

For C'tis to approach my lands, he has either to go through Caelum (won't be a cakewalk), or besiege Helgate. I have some ideas of how to break those sieges.

Ulm won't be much of an issue after BoT.

Vanheim is my only concern. Unfortunately, Shadow Bolt won't help me against him at all. A single-target spell like this will only prove effective against thugs and SC, which AI doesn't use til late midgame.

Falling frost is also not a bad idea, once you, Vanheim and the glorious Eagel King empire begin pushing your dominions that cold scale + encumbrance, combined BoT and with a few low level fatigue increasing spells will make it almost impossible for anyone to beat you on your own turf before freezing into solid blocks of ice.

I have no water mages to cast Falling Frost either, nor do I have the time to research any school to level 5. Unlike MA Ermor, I don't have deadly dominion, so my version of BoT is a "light" one, if you will. I need to combine it with something else, preferably Foul Air, ASAP. Or the whole effort will be in vain.

Save enchantment for after you get at least some battle magic.

Actually, Terror + Raise Dead is pretty effective by itself against Vanheim, Ulm, Caelum and C'tis. I won't have to fight anybody else in forseen future.

What does a level 2 air magic site entail? If it only gives 1 air gem per turn, does a level 1 magic site give anything different?

Level 2 sites require level 2 mages to be found. LundB, being an A2 caster, was able to find Copper Idol.

If I ordered, let's say, Zephyr (A1 caster) to search the province, he would find nothing.
 

Kashmir Slippers

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So... Do you have to hire new researchers every turn to keep in the green? Is that where your gold is going? How are the other civs able to have such large armies and be relatively close to you in research?
 

Grimwulf

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So... Do you have to hire new researchers every turn to keep in the green? Is that where your gold is going? How are the other civs able to have such large armies and be relatively close to you in research?

Yep, it's preferable to raise research speed every turn. I hire a researcher every turn and give him an Owl Quill, which provides me with reasonable research pacing.

Impossible AI enjoys a massive handicap. So I will stay behind him in matters of army, gold, gems, sometimes research, for a long time.
 

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