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In Progress Let's See the World Die. Dominions 4.
- Thread starter Grimwulf
- Start date
Got bored and left
Guest
Oh snap. Hold on, folks, this is about to get rough! I can't believe I'm so excited about this damn LP. Kudos, Grimwulf.
panda
Savant
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2014
- Messages
- 398
Oh, boy
inb4 epic victory only to fight another 400 units army (+survivors from this one) in a couple of turns.
Would you be safe if monkeys/lizards could grab valley of deaths first?
inb4 epic victory only to fight another 400 units army (+survivors from this one) in a couple of turns.
I wonder if it is the case or Caelum just attacked because you took exit from that mountain and obtained direct land border with them.
Would you be safe if monkeys/lizards could grab valley of deaths first?
Thanks again. You bastards make me blush. Or maybe it's just strong ale.
Working on updates all day, every day.
I didn't know that. Thank you for enlightening me.
Yep, they won't stop even if I win this one. But I figured it might be easier to protect the fort with Pretender God inside the walls.
That "exit" from the mountain, as you've put it, is a province that's actually adjanced to my capital. It doesn't lead anywhere, except for my capital. So unless they don't want Helheim destroyed asap, there was no point in attacking Helgate.
They had direct borders with Ulm, C'tis and Kailasa. Proofpic from turn 18:
Nah, I don't think so. Caelum is a "defensive" type of AI. Even when they are at war, they don't tend to just spam attacks, unless it's absolutely necessary. Example: Ulm-Caelum conflict. They grabbed one province from Ulm, and that's it. No more advancing. Ulm might have tried to reclaim it, but failed (Caelum has much better army, and less scattered too).
To be totally honest, I was kinda hoping that Caelum won't attack Helgate. I thought they might go for the Dying Jungle or maybe south, or try to eliminate weakend Kailasa. You know, go for supplies and resources, to support their starving army. There are no supplies in Helgate, yet they persist in assaulting.
That leads me to conclusion that Caelum reacted to my BoT, and try to counter it by any means necessary, even if they had to take Valley of 1000 Deaths from C'tis or Kailasa (or they could just fly over it).
Murdering Grimwulf is rather effective counter-measure vs BoT.
Working on updates all day, every day.
I didn't know that. Thank you for enlightening me.
Yep, they won't stop even if I win this one. But I figured it might be easier to protect the fort with Pretender God inside the walls.
That "exit" from the mountain, as you've put it, is a province that's actually adjanced to my capital. It doesn't lead anywhere, except for my capital. So unless they don't want Helheim destroyed asap, there was no point in attacking Helgate.
They had direct borders with Ulm, C'tis and Kailasa. Proofpic from turn 18:
Nah, I don't think so. Caelum is a "defensive" type of AI. Even when they are at war, they don't tend to just spam attacks, unless it's absolutely necessary. Example: Ulm-Caelum conflict. They grabbed one province from Ulm, and that's it. No more advancing. Ulm might have tried to reclaim it, but failed (Caelum has much better army, and less scattered too).
To be totally honest, I was kinda hoping that Caelum won't attack Helgate. I thought they might go for the Dying Jungle or maybe south, or try to eliminate weakend Kailasa. You know, go for supplies and resources, to support their starving army. There are no supplies in Helgate, yet they persist in assaulting.
That leads me to conclusion that Caelum reacted to my BoT, and try to counter it by any means necessary, even if they had to take Valley of 1000 Deaths from C'tis or Kailasa (or they could just fly over it).
Murdering Grimwulf is rather effective counter-measure vs BoT.
panda
Savant
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2014
- Messages
- 398
Thanks, now i see why you so inclined to think it was reaction to BoT.
But seems that is too much to pray for with your "luck" scales
So for you avoiding war it does not matter with which nations except yours AI have borders.
And I'm not pretending that i know shit anyway, that's just speculations. Mostly curiosity about how AI works, not directly LP related.
nah, i was referring to province called Valley of 1000 Deaths. In ideal situation Caelum'd have to trigger very unpleasant war with C'tis in order to get to you.
But seems that is too much to pray for with your "luck" scales
I was playing quite a lot recently(thanks to you and this awesome LP) and got impression that AI will/can only declare war on neighbors.
So for you avoiding war it does not matter with which nations except yours AI have borders.
And I'm not pretending that i know shit anyway, that's just speculations. Mostly curiosity about how AI works, not directly LP related.
I want to try out dialogue-window-thingie that I saw in other Codex LP’s, just for additional flavor (only during combat). If they annoy you or smth, don’t be shy to say so. I also made the screenshots more lightweight, hope it won’t affect the quality.
* * *
Caelum’s formations look interesting.
Several squads with combined units. Not what I would do in their shoes, but still.
Our circle looks gud, even without zombies.
Vanghuhaha’s Fravashi casts Air Shield. Fravashi is this thing:
It may or may not appear near some commanders of EA Caelum (and some other nations, like Ragha, if I understand it correctly) during battle. They can’t be scripted, and are unreliable at best.
Seraphine Deanica (kinda simple name for Caelum, eh?) casts Sermon of Courage on a mammoth squad, raising their morale a bit. Good call. No point in targeting lizzurds – they are beyond any help.
Blind bitch Vahagahata casts Blessing. Most of holy spells have precision 100, so you can’t really miss them too much, even when you don’t have precision at all.
For those who forgot already: Caelum’s blessing grants +5 Undying; +3 Defence. Their sacred troops are scattered among separate squads, so most of them will charge without Amrav’s blessing.
Archer squads shoot our decoys, no surprise here.
They missed. Humans of Helheim can’t even pray right, but at least they are lucky.
Non-flying units of Caelum move a bit. The flying ones stay in place – they were obviously given “Hold and Attack” order.
Meanwhile, our skalds begin raising dead, and our Vanjarls enter Sabbath by sacrificing virgins from the capital.
Vanjarls drop down with 140 fatigue, no less. Communion/Sabbath slaves will die if their fatigue exceeds 200, but it shouldn’t be the case in this battle. If I calculated right, Vanjarls will recover slowly each turn unitl turn 6 (then AI will take control over Grimwulf, and only Illwinter knows what spells he shall cast).
Everything seems to go according to initial plan, when suddenly Royal Skalds begin to cast Raise Skeletons, instead of Raise Dead.
That isn’t good. Skeletons are only slightly better than zombies (it all depends on equipment, which is semi-random in both cases), but they come in much lesser numbers. Only three instead of ten. This is bad.
I’m not totally sure why it happened. I know that Raise Dead spell is affected by the amount of unburied corpses in the current province. Which should be decent, considering recent Caelum attack, their constantly dying units, BoT that kills population, my Death 3 scale, etc. Oh, well. I guess the province has ran out of corpses, and stupid me for not paying attention.
Gotta make us some fresh corpses asap! But before that, mass buffing from Crispy and Andhaira.
Thankfully, both spells landed almost in the middle of the circle, affecting most of our infantry and giving them +3 to protection and +4 to strength.
Grimravy enters Sabbath, finishing the ritual. All royal skalds made their turn, summoning what was availiable. Our current circle looks like this:
Undead chaff will move ahead a little, but their low speed (and more summoning during turn 2) won’t break the circle much.
Now it’s time for my WILD BET: the archers. Thrilling, isn’t it? (inb4: no.)
Two arrows from magical longbows pierce the air with a sweet sound of death. Did they connect?
Of course they did! MORE SO, Valescere’s shot was so lucky, the wounded mammoth got a Battle Fright affliction. Which made his already low morale equal…
Minus fucking one.
Both ArtB and Valescere didn’t move an inch while shooting, so they should be safe inside the circle when Caelum attacks. We’ll see.
Commencing turn 2! Fravashi casts Astral Shield, while both Seraphines cast Sermons of Courage.
Mammoth with -1 morale has now 0. Argh.
Enemy arrows incoming.
And they missed (ok, one arrow connected with 0 dmg).
The wolves are the fastest non-flying units of Caelum. They missed our provoker and went for the circle. Except for one wolf that fell behind. Why? Coz he’s too old for this crap.
Royal Skalds have gone wild. Now they cast whatever undead summoning spells they want.
Astral Shield doesn’t guarantee immunity vs Caelum attacks, but it should keep the Vanjarls alive until they will be totally surrounded. Which hopefully won’t happen.
All Vanjarls now have 137 fatigue (last turn it was 140). We are doing fine.
Svartalves buff a bunch of armed zombies.
Huskarls throw javelins at wolves, making some good connects. Valescere and ArtB fire another one.
This time Valescere’s arrow did only 3 damage without any additional afflictions, but at least it has hit the same mammoth as last time. ArtB landed a solid shot, inflicting 16 dmg and Diseased affliction.
Here comes more Sermons of Courage. Shit is about to get serious.
No more fucking around. The battle has begun.
Most of our Helkarls have 89 fatigue because of casting Animate Skeleton on turn 2, so they are able to protect themselves. Svartalves have 90 fatigue. Hopefully, Andhaira will manage to cast Terror before he’ll be slaughtered.
The wolves are routing already. Javelins did a good job.
Another barrage of arrows.
Once again, they were targeting our decoys. Notice how none of the flying infantry targeted them, btw.
All arrows missed, except for one. One arrow connected. The wound was fatal.
Birdmen attempt to kill us all. Human serfs can’t defend as well as Vanir, but that’s no surprise.
Andhaira didn’t get a chance to cast Terror, unfortunately. What a waste of death gem.
Caelum fails to deliver a decent hit upon any Vanir. They mostly fight with undead, just as I was hoping.
Mammoths, lizzurds and tribal archers moved closer.
… Actually, I noticed one very stupid thing on AI’s part right now. Mammoths and tribal archers are placed in the same squad. Not only it makes mammoths undisciplined (auto-skirmish formation, -2 penalty to morale), but also lowers their speed from native 16 to tribal archers’ 11. Mammoths would move much faster on their own, and wouldn’t have a morale penalty too. Guess I’m lucky, after all?
Also, I believe that tribal archers will never use missile weapons if they are in one squad with melee-only units. Probably that’s why they didn’t fire a single arrow throughout the battle.
Airya temple guards move in their own squad, in line formation. They are reasonably strong, but too slow for Caelum’s usual pace.
Under Grimwulf’s blessing, combined with Svartalves buffs, every Vanherse turns into killing machine.
And now I am glad that most of Helkarls aren’t unconscious. Perhaps it’s not so bad they didn’t follow the script. Pretty much EVERY Vanherse and Helkarl managed to kill a birdman or two during this turn. This insane strength boost (+2 from blessing, +4 from buff) has most surely compensated the only weakness of Vanir: relatively low dmg output. Now they one-shot everything.
Helkarls who can’t reach any birdman in melee follow the script (cast Frighten spell).
Power up the bass cannon. FIRE!
Leeching Darkness awkwardly targeted the center of our own circle. That will probably kill some serfs, but meh. At least any birdman who enters the “Inner Sanctum” will face most horrible death. Our Vanir should be fine, since they have decent MR 14-15. Commanders have much more.
Crispy did much better, I’ll give him that. Turns out, he’s not just talk, but can also put his dick into those feathery butts, when needed.
His Terror spell affected a lot of those sorry losers, most of the affected are at negative morale now. -1, -2, even -3.
Now he is unconscious. Hold on there, Crisp. Helheim needs little sinister fuckers like you.
As you may remember, our 20 huskarls were given “hold and attack” order, which makes their attack begin right about… now.
Since half of Caelum units (not too powerful to begin with) are afflicted because of starvation, our huskarls don’t have any problems in landing precise and powerful hits upon them. Damn, this battle goes unexpectedly good so far.
Valescere is currently fighting with rather powerful Airya Infantry (no afflictions, exp. level 1, but has morale 0 due to Crispy’s Terror).Crazy Brave Van Scout attempts to hit the birdman, but misses.
Heh, the poor fellow enlisted in scouts, expecting to roam across the world unnoticed. Can’t be sure about anything here in Helheim. Hope you’ll make it through this alive.
Undead horde attacks, doing relatively little damage, and killing the most wounded and afflicted ones.
ArtB fires an arrow at the same mammoth he shot last time.
Doing only 5 damage this time, no new afflictions. The beast still has 27 hp left. Seems like we won’t be able to force them into routing, after all.
Leeching Darkness check (this spell doesn't do any damage immidiately, instead all units standing in the cloud by the end of the turn must pass MR check or receive damage). Legless serf warrior, Crispy’s personal bodyguard, died. He wasstanding crawling in that cloud, protecting Crispy with his life. Unfortunately, Crispy was unconscious at the moment, and couldn’t react to his death. But who knows what he was dreaming about?
Our other units were unaffected by Leeching Darkness. Where is your math now, lizzurds?
Seraphines continue casting Sermons of Courage. This time on archers, coz all the others are out of range.
Terror spell didn’t go unnoticed. The whole squad (or was it several?) retreated. Including Airya Infantryman that was about to attack Valescere.
Crispy, you scary sinister motherfucker.
It may seem like our decoy guys retreat, but in fact they are attacking the closest enemy, which are birdmen behind them. But one of them is rather nervous indeed.
The battle rages on. The hill to the north of our circle is clusterfucked with birdmen and undead. They are killing each other with passion.
Some of our Helkarls got hit as well. Why did I script them into fainting? That was rather stupid on my part. One Raise Dead should have been enough, as it seems.
More undead dies, some serfs die as well. Lots of Vanir get hit, all of a sudden, one Helkarl is at negative hp and bleeding out. Random birdman retreats (probably last survivor of some small squad).
As you can see, second wave is coming, and we haven’t dealt with first one yet. When those Spire Horn Archers will run of arrows (each has 12 arrows, for 12 turns), they will engage in combat too. We may consider them third wave, since they have large numbers and half-decent ice knives.
Yeah. Too damn close they are.
You, serf warrior! I will assign you to bodyguard duty for your bravery after this! Just… FUCK
Caelum archers finally got him. The guy almost made it back to our ranks.
I’ve had enough of this bullshit. SKALDS!
Some cast Steal Breath, some cast Frighten, others are unconscious or fighting in melee. The Real Good Thing is that Steal Breath spells were targeted at mammoths (the two closest ones). I swear to myself, I want them to FALL so bad.
No. I will not stand idly by while MAMMOTHS attack my hold and trample my people! EAT THIS!
I want to see how you’ll like it with that pathetic MR of yours. More Steal Breath from Skalds, targeting front mammoths. Excellent.
Vanir and human infantry makes another charge, dealing major damage.
If only that useless Andhaira managed to cast one more Terror, all those birdmen would probably have routed by now.
Vanjarls have 131 fatigue. Shouldn’t worry about them dying (at least I’m still able to do simple calculations). Crispy has 104.
Undead deal some damage, nothing major though. Several zombies charge into mammoths.
I’m glad that all of us pay attention to upcoming second wave, even brainless undead. We must eliminate this threat before it’s too late.
Both Van Scouts fight in melee this turn. Valescere fights crippled Iceclad (protection 19 is a bitch), ArtB faces ordinary Raptorian Militia. These guys are rockstars of this battle, I kid you not.
Wanna know why? Because they enlisted early on. (a moment of propaganda)
Leeching Darkness check.
This time I failed the check too (with fucking MR 22). Only 2 points of damage, I’m totally fine.
Can’t say the same about one of the serfs, left with 1 hp, limping and weakened. Some poor fuckers from Caelum got scratched and afflicted, one tribal archer was killed. Nothing major. Sigh. Should have casted Terror like Crisp.
Turn 5 already. Blind bitch casts Sermon of Courage upon herself, heh.
A LARGE portion of Caelum infantry routs.
Some stay and fight, but look rather miserable.
Suddenly, ANOTHER large portion retreats.
NOW we’re totally ready to face second wave.
The only, hm, issue left is a bunch of elite iceclads (not wounded, not afflicted, not even starving – top notch of Vashamasha army).
They are pretty dangerous, but thankfully low in numbers. We can handle them.
Caelum archers miss.
Crispy is at 99 fatigue, so he should be able to reanimate some fresh zombies next turn (this turn he just recovered).
Mammoth trampling (just like any other trampling) isn’t reported in message screen, so it’s hard to capture mammoth attacks. The one in the front trampled all undead around.
All mammoths come at critically close distance, trampling undead on their way. One of them gained 99 fatigue (trampling hits fatigue like crazy), another one is shot by two skalds with Steal Breath. He falls down with thundering sound, breathless (127 fatigue).
The new Leeching Darkness hits second half of the second wave. I’m pretty damn accurate, if I dare say so myself. Of course I dare! I’m a freakin’ god.
Huskarls and serfs are mostly fighting iceclads this turn, and take them down slowly, bit by bit.
Some of our troops went for mammoths already, starting with the fallen one.
Btw, another mammoth is currently lying down in that cloud with 133 fatigue (was hit by Steal Breath). That’s two down. Four to go. Huskarls kill that mammoth, along with several more iceclads.
Leeching Darkness check. The cloud in our circle is gone, so now it’s just about two clouds in the middle of the battlefield.
Deaths, allfictions, heavy wounds, major morale hit. Yes, maybe this turn was worth the long waiting. I can watch their suffering for eternity, but I have to end this battle at some point.
If Caelum’s second wave retreats this turn, then my choice of Leeching Darkness was the right one (plus a bit of luck, of course).
Nothing interesting coming from Seraphines. Fravashi is fainted (102 fatigue). 2 much buff 4 u?
Second wave my arse. We still have to deal with iceclads.
You ffffuckers. You are literally murdering my research.
Caelum archers aim for Amrav knows what, and miss.
THE MAMMOTHS ARE ROUTING! Yaaarrrrr!
They are trampling everything on their path: humans, lizzurds, wingless birdmen. What a joyful sight.
But one thing still buggers me. One particular mammoth seems to be in separate squad. He didn’t rout. He went for the hill instead, trampling my undead.
Triple Steal Breath, and the last mammoth falls.
He is kinda nice. Diseased, of course, like almost every other mammoth of Caelum and Battle Fright affliction – once again, like most of their mammoths. Otherwise, it’s a big-ass healthy mammoth, that just needs to be fed.
I’ll keep it for myself.
Nothing more to say, actually. This update turned out to be too big as it is. Next turn every last Caelum unit routed, including commanders. We managed to kill some of their non-flying infantry while at it.
We’ve lost some units and commanders, but not NEARLY as much as I expected.
Mostly due to very, VERY stupid mistake of AI, regarding mammoths. If Vahasahahaha placed them in separate squad, they would reach my ranks one turn earlier, and with better morale. Instead, they haven’t done shit during this battle. Trampled several undead, and that’s it.
But hey. Now I’ve got MY OWN DAMN MAMMOTH – how awesome is that?
I fed him already, so he’s gud now. Although there is a birdman sitting on his back. But meh.
I’ll call him Grumpy.
That’s it. You must have one hell of a patience if you’ve read it that far. I’ll talk about aftermath of this battle a bit more during next update, but it’s really time to end this post.
End it in a badass fashion.
* * *
BATTLE FOR HELGATE
Caelum’s formations look interesting.
Several squads with combined units. Not what I would do in their shoes, but still.
Our circle looks gud, even without zombies.
Vanghuhaha’s Fravashi casts Air Shield. Fravashi is this thing:
It may or may not appear near some commanders of EA Caelum (and some other nations, like Ragha, if I understand it correctly) during battle. They can’t be scripted, and are unreliable at best.
Seraphine Deanica (kinda simple name for Caelum, eh?) casts Sermon of Courage on a mammoth squad, raising their morale a bit. Good call. No point in targeting lizzurds – they are beyond any help.
Blind bitch Vahagahata casts Blessing. Most of holy spells have precision 100, so you can’t really miss them too much, even when you don’t have precision at all.
For those who forgot already: Caelum’s blessing grants +5 Undying; +3 Defence. Their sacred troops are scattered among separate squads, so most of them will charge without Amrav’s blessing.
Archer squads shoot our decoys, no surprise here.
They missed. Humans of Helheim can’t even pray right, but at least they are lucky.
Non-flying units of Caelum move a bit. The flying ones stay in place – they were obviously given “Hold and Attack” order.
Meanwhile, our skalds begin raising dead, and our Vanjarls enter Sabbath by sacrificing virgins from the capital.
Vanjarls drop down with 140 fatigue, no less. Communion/Sabbath slaves will die if their fatigue exceeds 200, but it shouldn’t be the case in this battle. If I calculated right, Vanjarls will recover slowly each turn unitl turn 6 (then AI will take control over Grimwulf, and only Illwinter knows what spells he shall cast).
Everything seems to go according to initial plan, when suddenly Royal Skalds begin to cast Raise Skeletons, instead of Raise Dead.
That isn’t good. Skeletons are only slightly better than zombies (it all depends on equipment, which is semi-random in both cases), but they come in much lesser numbers. Only three instead of ten. This is bad.
I’m not totally sure why it happened. I know that Raise Dead spell is affected by the amount of unburied corpses in the current province. Which should be decent, considering recent Caelum attack, their constantly dying units, BoT that kills population, my Death 3 scale, etc. Oh, well. I guess the province has ran out of corpses, and stupid me for not paying attention.
Gotta make us some fresh corpses asap! But before that, mass buffing from Crispy and Andhaira.
Thankfully, both spells landed almost in the middle of the circle, affecting most of our infantry and giving them +3 to protection and +4 to strength.
Grimravy enters Sabbath, finishing the ritual. All royal skalds made their turn, summoning what was availiable. Our current circle looks like this:
Undead chaff will move ahead a little, but their low speed (and more summoning during turn 2) won’t break the circle much.
Now it’s time for my WILD BET: the archers. Thrilling, isn’t it? (inb4: no.)
Two arrows from magical longbows pierce the air with a sweet sound of death. Did they connect?
Of course they did! MORE SO, Valescere’s shot was so lucky, the wounded mammoth got a Battle Fright affliction. Which made his already low morale equal…
Minus fucking one.
Both ArtB and Valescere didn’t move an inch while shooting, so they should be safe inside the circle when Caelum attacks. We’ll see.
Commencing turn 2! Fravashi casts Astral Shield, while both Seraphines cast Sermons of Courage.
Mammoth with -1 morale has now 0. Argh.
Enemy arrows incoming.
And they missed (ok, one arrow connected with 0 dmg).
The wolves are the fastest non-flying units of Caelum. They missed our provoker and went for the circle. Except for one wolf that fell behind. Why? Coz he’s too old for this crap.
Royal Skalds have gone wild. Now they cast whatever undead summoning spells they want.
Astral Shield doesn’t guarantee immunity vs Caelum attacks, but it should keep the Vanjarls alive until they will be totally surrounded. Which hopefully won’t happen.
All Vanjarls now have 137 fatigue (last turn it was 140). We are doing fine.
Svartalves buff a bunch of armed zombies.
Huskarls throw javelins at wolves, making some good connects. Valescere and ArtB fire another one.
This time Valescere’s arrow did only 3 damage without any additional afflictions, but at least it has hit the same mammoth as last time. ArtB landed a solid shot, inflicting 16 dmg and Diseased affliction.
Here comes more Sermons of Courage. Shit is about to get serious.
No more fucking around. The battle has begun.
Most of our Helkarls have 89 fatigue because of casting Animate Skeleton on turn 2, so they are able to protect themselves. Svartalves have 90 fatigue. Hopefully, Andhaira will manage to cast Terror before he’ll be slaughtered.
The wolves are routing already. Javelins did a good job.
Another barrage of arrows.
Once again, they were targeting our decoys. Notice how none of the flying infantry targeted them, btw.
All arrows missed, except for one. One arrow connected. The wound was fatal.
Birdmen attempt to kill us all. Human serfs can’t defend as well as Vanir, but that’s no surprise.
Andhaira didn’t get a chance to cast Terror, unfortunately. What a waste of death gem.
Caelum fails to deliver a decent hit upon any Vanir. They mostly fight with undead, just as I was hoping.
Mammoths, lizzurds and tribal archers moved closer.
… Actually, I noticed one very stupid thing on AI’s part right now. Mammoths and tribal archers are placed in the same squad. Not only it makes mammoths undisciplined (auto-skirmish formation, -2 penalty to morale), but also lowers their speed from native 16 to tribal archers’ 11. Mammoths would move much faster on their own, and wouldn’t have a morale penalty too. Guess I’m lucky, after all?
Also, I believe that tribal archers will never use missile weapons if they are in one squad with melee-only units. Probably that’s why they didn’t fire a single arrow throughout the battle.
Airya temple guards move in their own squad, in line formation. They are reasonably strong, but too slow for Caelum’s usual pace.
Under Grimwulf’s blessing, combined with Svartalves buffs, every Vanherse turns into killing machine.
And now I am glad that most of Helkarls aren’t unconscious. Perhaps it’s not so bad they didn’t follow the script. Pretty much EVERY Vanherse and Helkarl managed to kill a birdman or two during this turn. This insane strength boost (+2 from blessing, +4 from buff) has most surely compensated the only weakness of Vanir: relatively low dmg output. Now they one-shot everything.
Helkarls who can’t reach any birdman in melee follow the script (cast Frighten spell).
Power up the bass cannon. FIRE!
Leeching Darkness awkwardly targeted the center of our own circle. That will probably kill some serfs, but meh. At least any birdman who enters the “Inner Sanctum” will face most horrible death. Our Vanir should be fine, since they have decent MR 14-15. Commanders have much more.
Meanwhile in Lizzurdland
Crispy did much better, I’ll give him that. Turns out, he’s not just talk, but can also put his dick into those feathery butts, when needed.
His Terror spell affected a lot of those sorry losers, most of the affected are at negative morale now. -1, -2, even -3.
Now he is unconscious. Hold on there, Crisp. Helheim needs little sinister fuckers like you.
As you may remember, our 20 huskarls were given “hold and attack” order, which makes their attack begin right about… now.
Since half of Caelum units (not too powerful to begin with) are afflicted because of starvation, our huskarls don’t have any problems in landing precise and powerful hits upon them. Damn, this battle goes unexpectedly good so far.
Valescere is currently fighting with rather powerful Airya Infantry (no afflictions, exp. level 1, but has morale 0 due to Crispy’s Terror).
Heh, the poor fellow enlisted in scouts, expecting to roam across the world unnoticed. Can’t be sure about anything here in Helheim. Hope you’ll make it through this alive.
Undead horde attacks, doing relatively little damage, and killing the most wounded and afflicted ones.
ArtB fires an arrow at the same mammoth he shot last time.
Doing only 5 damage this time, no new afflictions. The beast still has 27 hp left. Seems like we won’t be able to force them into routing, after all.
Leeching Darkness check (this spell doesn't do any damage immidiately, instead all units standing in the cloud by the end of the turn must pass MR check or receive damage). Legless serf warrior, Crispy’s personal bodyguard, died. He was
Our other units were unaffected by Leeching Darkness. Where is your math now, lizzurds?
Seraphines continue casting Sermons of Courage. This time on archers, coz all the others are out of range.
Terror spell didn’t go unnoticed. The whole squad (or was it several?) retreated. Including Airya Infantryman that was about to attack Valescere.
Crispy, you scary sinister motherfucker.
It may seem like our decoy guys retreat, but in fact they are attacking the closest enemy, which are birdmen behind them. But one of them is rather nervous indeed.
The battle rages on. The hill to the north of our circle is clusterfucked with birdmen and undead. They are killing each other with passion.
Some of our Helkarls got hit as well. Why did I script them into fainting? That was rather stupid on my part. One Raise Dead should have been enough, as it seems.
More undead dies, some serfs die as well. Lots of Vanir get hit, all of a sudden, one Helkarl is at negative hp and bleeding out. Random birdman retreats (probably last survivor of some small squad).
As you can see, second wave is coming, and we haven’t dealt with first one yet. When those Spire Horn Archers will run of arrows (each has 12 arrows, for 12 turns), they will engage in combat too. We may consider them third wave, since they have large numbers and half-decent ice knives.
Yeah. Too damn close they are.
You, serf warrior! I will assign you to bodyguard duty for your bravery after this! Just… FUCK
Caelum archers finally got him. The guy almost made it back to our ranks.
I’ve had enough of this bullshit. SKALDS!
Some cast Steal Breath, some cast Frighten, others are unconscious or fighting in melee. The Real Good Thing is that Steal Breath spells were targeted at mammoths (the two closest ones). I swear to myself, I want them to FALL so bad.
No. I will not stand idly by while MAMMOTHS attack my hold and trample my people! EAT THIS!
I want to see how you’ll like it with that pathetic MR of yours. More Steal Breath from Skalds, targeting front mammoths. Excellent.
Vanir and human infantry makes another charge, dealing major damage.
If only that useless Andhaira managed to cast one more Terror, all those birdmen would probably have routed by now.
Vanjarls have 131 fatigue. Shouldn’t worry about them dying (at least I’m still able to do simple calculations). Crispy has 104.
Undead deal some damage, nothing major though. Several zombies charge into mammoths.
I’m glad that all of us pay attention to upcoming second wave, even brainless undead. We must eliminate this threat before it’s too late.
Both Van Scouts fight in melee this turn. Valescere fights crippled Iceclad (protection 19 is a bitch), ArtB faces ordinary Raptorian Militia. These guys are rockstars of this battle, I kid you not.
Wanna know why? Because they enlisted early on. (a moment of propaganda)
Leeching Darkness check.
This time I failed the check too (with fucking MR 22). Only 2 points of damage, I’m totally fine.
Can’t say the same about one of the serfs, left with 1 hp, limping and weakened. Some poor fuckers from Caelum got scratched and afflicted, one tribal archer was killed. Nothing major. Sigh. Should have casted Terror like Crisp.
Turn 5 already. Blind bitch casts Sermon of Courage upon herself, heh.
A LARGE portion of Caelum infantry routs.
Some stay and fight, but look rather miserable.
Suddenly, ANOTHER large portion retreats.
NOW we’re totally ready to face second wave.
The only, hm, issue left is a bunch of elite iceclads (not wounded, not afflicted, not even starving – top notch of Vashamasha army).
They are pretty dangerous, but thankfully low in numbers. We can handle them.
Caelum archers miss.
Crispy is at 99 fatigue, so he should be able to reanimate some fresh zombies next turn (this turn he just recovered).
Mammoth trampling (just like any other trampling) isn’t reported in message screen, so it’s hard to capture mammoth attacks. The one in the front trampled all undead around.
All mammoths come at critically close distance, trampling undead on their way. One of them gained 99 fatigue (trampling hits fatigue like crazy), another one is shot by two skalds with Steal Breath. He falls down with thundering sound, breathless (127 fatigue).
The new Leeching Darkness hits second half of the second wave. I’m pretty damn accurate, if I dare say so myself. Of course I dare! I’m a freakin’ god.
Huskarls and serfs are mostly fighting iceclads this turn, and take them down slowly, bit by bit.
Some of our troops went for mammoths already, starting with the fallen one.
Btw, another mammoth is currently lying down in that cloud with 133 fatigue (was hit by Steal Breath). That’s two down. Four to go. Huskarls kill that mammoth, along with several more iceclads.
Leeching Darkness check. The cloud in our circle is gone, so now it’s just about two clouds in the middle of the battlefield.
Deaths, allfictions, heavy wounds, major morale hit. Yes, maybe this turn was worth the long waiting. I can watch their suffering for eternity, but I have to end this battle at some point.
If Caelum’s second wave retreats this turn, then my choice of Leeching Darkness was the right one (plus a bit of luck, of course).
Nothing interesting coming from Seraphines. Fravashi is fainted (102 fatigue). 2 much buff 4 u?
Second wave my arse. We still have to deal with iceclads.
You ffffuckers. You are literally murdering my research.
Caelum archers aim for Amrav knows what, and miss.
THE MAMMOTHS ARE ROUTING! Yaaarrrrr!
They are trampling everything on their path: humans, lizzurds, wingless birdmen. What a joyful sight.
But one thing still buggers me. One particular mammoth seems to be in separate squad. He didn’t rout. He went for the hill instead, trampling my undead.
Triple Steal Breath, and the last mammoth falls.
He is kinda nice. Diseased, of course, like almost every other mammoth of Caelum and Battle Fright affliction – once again, like most of their mammoths. Otherwise, it’s a big-ass healthy mammoth, that just needs to be fed.
I’ll keep it for myself.
Nothing more to say, actually. This update turned out to be too big as it is. Next turn every last Caelum unit routed, including commanders. We managed to kill some of their non-flying infantry while at it.
We’ve lost some units and commanders, but not NEARLY as much as I expected.
Mostly due to very, VERY stupid mistake of AI, regarding mammoths. If Vahasahahaha placed them in separate squad, they would reach my ranks one turn earlier, and with better morale. Instead, they haven’t done shit during this battle. Trampled several undead, and that’s it.
But hey. Now I’ve got MY OWN DAMN MAMMOTH – how awesome is that?
I fed him already, so he’s gud now. Although there is a birdman sitting on his back. But meh.
I’ll call him Grumpy.
That’s it. You must have one hell of a patience if you’ve read it that far. I’ll talk about aftermath of this battle a bit more during next update, but it’s really time to end this post.
End it in a badass fashion.
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Got bored and left
Guest
Wow, that went way better than I expected. We're still alive! I think I'll drink myself to oblivion now.
Also, the little in-battle dialogues are really cool, they add even more personality to an LP already full of it, good stuff.
Also, the little in-battle dialogues are really cool, they add even more personality to an LP already full of it, good stuff.
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I like Crispy. 
SerratedBiz
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2009
- Messages
- 4,143
That's one intense m'fing battle. I wonder what comes next for the defense of Helgate - did the Caelum army retreat? Does this mean you'll go on the offensive? Or will the threat of reinforcements still keep you in your territory and fighting to recover some of your lands?
I'll dive into all kind of details during next update, which I'll probably post tomorrow, but yes - we have driven off their army from Helgate. That's what we were fighting for.
I will make preparations for the conquest of Caelum, and lead it personnaly. Vanjarls will accompany me with this, as well as Van Scouts. Probably Crispy. It won't start immidiately, tho - Caelum still has INSANE amount of troops in Valley of 1000 Deaths.
Hard to say. It's the first time I use BoT since it was nerfed. Gordon Cageman is 42 years old, most of our serfs are 38-40. Most non-magical animals are old and dying already. Nations that hire old-age commanders don't have an easy time with them, as well. Vahahagaga from last fight proves this statement.
I would make a wild guess and say that there won't be any mass dying until winter of year 3.
Truly a 
LP, very Codexian (maybe a bit short on trannies but whatever...)
Thx man I learned a lot, this game can be daunting but it's great!
I have some questions... I've been scrounging various forums to find a guide to the magic schools. I have a grasp of various concepts of the game, I've managed to establish communions and blood economy, I can manage a decent pretender design and usually I'm able to organize my research to get those low hanging fruits like useful evocations (magma line for Ulm) and costruction (OMG Ulm gets quills for 1 air gem!!!) but I have some serious problems once I reach level 4-6 in any school (I mainly played as MA Ulm, Marignon and Pangea)
Too much thingamajic, an ocean of C&C, summons, powerful artifacts, "you're screwed" rituals and... OMG ITS HAVEN!
Is there any place where I can get a summary of the various schools? I understand it's very nation specific, but I just started playing, even a short summary of the various "fuck you" rituals and late game magical strategies would be a huge noob-boon.
So, any guide you deem useful?
LP, very Codexian (maybe a bit short on trannies but whatever...)Thx man I learned a lot, this game can be daunting but it's great!
I have some questions... I've been scrounging various forums to find a guide to the magic schools. I have a grasp of various concepts of the game, I've managed to establish communions and blood economy, I can manage a decent pretender design and usually I'm able to organize my research to get those low hanging fruits like useful evocations (magma line for Ulm) and costruction (OMG Ulm gets quills for 1 air gem!!!) but I have some serious problems once I reach level 4-6 in any school (I mainly played as MA Ulm, Marignon and Pangea)
Too much thingamajic, an ocean of C&C, summons, powerful artifacts, "you're screwed" rituals and... OMG ITS HAVEN!
Is there any place where I can get a summary of the various schools? I understand it's very nation specific, but I just started playing, even a short summary of the various "fuck you" rituals and late game magical strategies would be a huge noob-boon.
So, any guide you deem useful?
Truly a
Thx man I learned a lot, this game can be daunting but it's great!
I have some questions... I've been scrounging various forums to find a guide to the magic schools. I have a grasp of various concepts of the game, I've managed to establish communions and blood economy, I can manage a decent pretender design and usually I'm able to organize my research to get those low hanging fruits like useful evocations (magma line for Ulm) and costruction (OMG Ulm gets quills for 1 air gem!!!) but I have some serious problems once I reach level 4-6 in any school (I mainly played as MA Ulm, Marignon and Pangea)
Too much thingamajic, an ocean of C&C, summons, powerful artifacts, "you're screwed" rituals and... OMG ITS HAVEN!
Is there any place where I can get a summary of the various schools? I understand it's very nation specific, but I just started playing, even a short summary of the various "fuck you" rituals and late game magical strategies would be a huge noob-boon.
So, any guide you deem useful?
I'm sure there will be a lot of trannies in this LP, once we reach Sauromatia
A guide, eh? Hard to say. I mostly learned to play from several sensei-type of guys during my Dom3 and Dom4 experience. The last one was especially gud at this game, met him at rus national chans.
You should probably ask Johannes about guides. He seems to be in Dominions community for a long time, so he can probably tell you more about that.
Also, Lizzurd. But I warn ye - one should never trust a lizzurd.
Lizzurd
Cipher
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2015
- Messages
- 566
Has someone summoned me to this thread?
Conjuration - Quite obvious, school for summons. It also has different in-battle magic path boosters - like "summon earthpower".
Alteration - School for various buffs. It also has a bit of damaging spells.
Evocation - Glorious battlemagic. Most of this spells are damaging. It also has storm and rain.
Construction - Obvious.
Enchantment - It has some summons and many battlefield-wide buffs. For example spell "Foul Vapors" - each round it affect 5-10% of all units and deal them 5 poison damage. Its safe for lizzurds like me, since we have poison resistance. Another example is "Quaqmire" - this spell reduces attack skill and defense skill for all creatures who don't possess swamp survival. Known fact, that lizzurds live in swamps and thus give no fuck to this.
Thaumaturgy - school for mostly utility spells. Almost all spells here must pass magic resistance roll in order to affect units.
Blood magic - Obvious.
All this schools give you a big array of available spells, and many nations might want some specific spells, so research order is heavy dependent upon your nation. However i can say some general recommendations - Evocation school is very useful at first part of game, and quite bad in second. Alteration is sort of useless until level 6. Enchantment is very good for nations with death and in the second half of the game. Thaumaturgy is good if your enemy has low magic resistance.
There is a small guide in manual. Page 95 exactly. However it almost doesn't explain gameplay use of the schools.
Conjuration - Quite obvious, school for summons. It also has different in-battle magic path boosters - like "summon earthpower".
Alteration - School for various buffs. It also has a bit of damaging spells.
Evocation - Glorious battlemagic. Most of this spells are damaging. It also has storm and rain.
Construction - Obvious.
Enchantment - It has some summons and many battlefield-wide buffs. For example spell "Foul Vapors" - each round it affect 5-10% of all units and deal them 5 poison damage. Its safe for lizzurds like me, since we have poison resistance. Another example is "Quaqmire" - this spell reduces attack skill and defense skill for all creatures who don't possess swamp survival. Known fact, that lizzurds live in swamps and thus give no fuck to this.
Thaumaturgy - school for mostly utility spells. Almost all spells here must pass magic resistance roll in order to affect units.
Blood magic - Obvious.
All this schools give you a big array of available spells, and many nations might want some specific spells, so research order is heavy dependent upon your nation. However i can say some general recommendations - Evocation school is very useful at first part of game, and quite bad in second. Alteration is sort of useless until level 6. Enchantment is very good for nations with death and in the second half of the game. Thaumaturgy is good if your enemy has low magic resistance.
Yeah I thought that maybe I should just bite the bullet and play a MP game, I'll get slaughtered but at least i should be able to understand why...
I'll just keep watching your LP and the other Dom threads around the codex, maybe some of the oldfags you pinged will be able to direct me somewhere and/or enjoy abusing me in MP
Constant practice always makes you better, but pbem-only isn't the way to go. You should do a lot of testing in single-player. Test units, spells, formations, combinations, tactics, global strategy and ideas. Ideas can be gud and bad. Starting without scales just to rush BoT might be a bad idea, but at least it's fun. Kinda.
And everything in this game is very nation-specific, and also depends heavily on your opponents and map settings/specifics. I don't believe you'll find a guide with universal strategies out there. And even if you will, such a guide will be very abstract. You said you like MA Ulm? I used to play some sessions (including one 6-player pbem) with this Pretender design and general strategy (not classical approach to MA Ulm, mind you):
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Basically, this is LA Ulm cosplay. First thing you want is expanding towards the largest province you can find in vicinity (in terms of population), and start building fortification asap. Then do your regular MA Ulm thing: spam master-smiths, send one or two for site searching; research Construction and Alteration, a bit of Conjuration and Evocation; make them thugs. Make sure you have enough Dwarven Hammers, but don't make too much of them (nothing worse than Dwarven Hammers lying in your treasury without purpose). As soon as Pretender awakens, send him to blood hunt. Assign any neutral commander (preferably someone with leadership 50+) to patrolling the province with 50 or so dogs. As soon as you get 50 blood slaves - empower Master Smith in your second large province (preferably master smith with F2 and not too old). This Blood Smith should craft a couple of Sanguine Dousing Rods for Pretender and himself, then go blood hunting too (don't forget patrols). Gather another 50 blood slaves, then empower one more blood smith. From this point, assign some blood slaves for crafting Blood Stone with your Pretender, but don't stop poppin' new blood smiths. They can craft some really cool blood artifacts too, btw.
Your smiths benefit greatly from Blood Stones, especially smiths with E3. Blood Stone + Earth Boots + Summon Earth Power spell = E6 AND a free earth gem. That will allow you to cast Maws of the Earth spell with 40 range, 10 aoe and 18 dmg, without too much of a fatigue hit. You should make a lot of those Blood Stones.
After researching Constr 6-7 (depends on whether you need that Forge of the Ancients - I find it a bit overrated for MA Ulm, and don't tend to, you know, RUSH it), Alteration 5 (Maws of the Earth is a must), Evocation 4 (mostly coz of Blade Wind, but a lot of other useful spells too), Conjuration 3-6 (really depends on your playstyle, can find all kind of cool things there, but Summon Earth Power is a must) - go for Blood Magic, and Blood Magic only. Until you research Curse of Blood. Then start spamming Vampire Lords with your Pretender. They will push your blood economy skyhigh, and give your MA Ulm diversity it really, REALLY needs in Late Game (the blood and death play). Demons and undead will complement your army greatly, it will be very tricky to counter such a diversed player in late midgame and late game.
Late game research is heavily dependent on your playstyle, opponents, and overall current situation. You can't really plan that far before you
Oh, fire path on Pretender is for crafting Skulls of Fire. Little things like this and/or temperature/luck scales can be adjusted to suit your tastes.
Phew. I think that covers it. Just so you don't think I don't give a fuck about your problem, you know
(can't recommend any guides, but at least I can share some personnal experience)
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Thx bro, that's a lot of info actually... And I already tried mixing a bit of blood with ulm in my last game but your approach is interesting enough, never went with a blood pretender and demiliches are cool!
Setting up game now
Setting up game now
Always have time for bros. But don't really have a single favorite nation
Besides, all my fav strategies are a bit weird, and all my fav designs are not entirely mine. This one is for EA T'ien Ch'i, designed by Lizzurd, and slightly changed by me. I wanted to use it in on-going Codex Season 2 pbem, but random nation distribution gave me Xibalba. Sigh.Anyway, I mention this particular design, because it's incredibly easy and very fun to play. Unlike most of my designs, which are mostly suffering.
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The key is lightning-fast expansion. Every turn you hire a Master of the Dead/Way, 7 sacreds and 3 infantry with shields (any type you can afford). W9 blessing grants your sacreds +4 defence and Quickness. Put this blessing on these guys
And you've got yourself absolutely immortal melee fighters with FOUR attacks per turn.
Your priest can lead 10 men. One squad is shield-bearers - they are standing as close to the front as possible, box formation, "Hold and Attack" order.
Another squad is these guys. Place them on any flank, slightly behind shield-wielders (not right behind them, mind you, but behind and to the side of them), box formation, "Attack Closest" order. The priest stands in the middle of their box and scripted to spam Blessings.
Enemy archers should target shielded guys, while your sacreds faceroll through any kind of independent defenders, capturing 2-3 provinces every single turn. Hire independent commanders in conquered provinces, so they will start building new forts. You also need those neutral commanders to take command of your squads, coz priests are crappy leaders (10 units max, morale penalty).
Turmoil 3 + Luck 3 will provide you with lots of positive events, usually meaning incredible and diverse gem income (you should assign minimal patrols and/or hire some PD to keep unrest at zero in large provinces). T'ien Ch'i has almost every path of magic, and can use them very well. In fact it's a good nation to get used to the game - solid units, incredible casters (can be united into Communions too), mostly awesome national summons. It's not a bad idea to focus your research on Conjuration, and rush it from 0 to 5 in a row. Just spend all your fire gems on Demons of Heavenly Fires (they are awesome in battle, you'll see), and probably most of your air gems on Celestial Hounds. Demons of Celestial Rivers are gud for conquering neutral underwater provinces.
Masters of the Dead are cheaper to hire and maintain, but try to keep several Masters of the Way in every fort you have - you'll need their diverse magic paths.
You can rush-attack most of Impossible AI nations towards the end of your expansion with 40-60 sacreds, combined with some chaff and decoy units. I kid you not. As soon as you'll get someone else's capital with it's gold and gem income (not mentioning the free castle itself), Impossible AI's advantage will be nihilated.
As soon as Pretender awakes, you should have a lot of astral gems, and most likely lot of water gems as well. You can use them to spam astral and water rituals, depending on what schools of research you've learned (there is almost no wrong way for T'ien Ch'i). You can also use Pretender to lead large armies underwater and pwn your UW neighbors, if you have any on the map.
I would give some advices about research, artifact forging, thug and SC design, but it's really up to you. With T'ien Ch'i there are countless possibilities. Don't forget to assign a Master of the Five Elements to site searching at some point to maximize your magic gem income.
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Actually, it works every time. You can see that in battle log.
The only thing I can think of is the situation when your quickened unit makes 1-2 attacks and kills everything he can reach. In that case bonus attacks won't happen indeed.
Edit: nevermind, mah feeble mind can't hold that much info.
W9 Blessing actually gives 50% increase in amount of attacks and movement speed, not 100%. So if unit has just 1 attack, he will receive additional attack every other turn. Ashery was right on that one.
The Quickness spell gives you double attacks and movement, and overrides the W9 blessing effect.
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Ashery
Prophet
- Joined
- May 24, 2008
- Messages
- 1,337
...Damn it...
I read the first line of your post, dug around online to find a source to back me up...and you go and concede the point...
Enlist today! Or you might miss all the fun. Like our new Helkarl, Grunker.
No! I don’t want to read no messages. I’ve just finished fighting 240-unit army, and my men are thirsty. Fuck the War, let us celebrate!
It’s good to play Dominions slow. You have time to enjoy them victories (or prolong the suffering, heh). So, let’s drink and discuss the consequences of this battle, and new horizons that lie before us.
Starting with the bad part, just to get rid of it. Full casualty report.
Three Helkarls died due to absolutely stupid and unforgivable mistake. That will teach me not to script any Vanir into fainting after second turn. Sigh. All three Helkarls died, because they were unconscious and unable to protect themselves. Count one more Vanherse, and we have a total of FOUR lost researchers. Add 6 huskarls, which makes it 10 Vanir in total. I expected twice as much losses, but damn. I could have saved Helkarls.
3 humans died as well, but who even counts them?
Andhaira was reborn in capital (every resurrection happens in national capital). He is now a valuable asset to my Kingdom, believe it or not.
As a Wight Mage, Andhaira is now taller, stronger, has actually very good physical stats. Encumbrance 0, and it will ALWAYS be zero, whatever heavy equipment he wears (spellcasting will still take away fatigue, but not nearly as much as with previous encumbrance). He isn’t old anymore. HE DOESN’T COST SHIT to maintain (0 gp/turn). See that “Diseased” affliction? Guess what, it does NOT affect undead in any way. No hp loss, no additional afflictions – nothing. He also doesn’t need to eat, and has 25 resistance to cold and poison, which you might as well consider immunity. He has 100% dark vision, just like any undead. Chill aura (3) compliments this masterpiece. His fucking death made him so much better in every way.
The cost of this, well, he is undead. He is affected by Banishment and some other undead-specific spells, artifacts, abilities and stuff. But in most cases, high MR totally nihilates this weakness.
As for afflictions – all life form afflictions are carried along into undead form. Andhaira received heavy wound in battle for Helgate, but it doesn’t matter now. Sometimes you lose an arm or leg, or receive a chest wound or whatever – all those wounds don’t really matter after rebirth (for a spellcaster, at least). Sometimes you get unlucky enough and lose an eye, or even worse – become muted. But it’s always worth the risk of dying in combat, rather than waiting for death of old age (the latter spams much more afflictions, and some of them can be pretty nasty, like Dementia).
Sometimes (not this time, though) a mage also gains +1 death magic after rebirth. It’s random. IIRC, the chances are 50/50. Twiceborn spell works wonders when cast by svartalves – those weak and expensive creepers. Crispy will use this short break between Caelum encounters to cast Twiceborn too.
See, this battle wasn’t just about casualties – we got ourselves a Wight Mage. Another acquirement is of course Grumpy the mammoth.
Given to decent leader, like any Vanjarl, he will have 8 morale. Which isn’t much, but this value can be somewhat increased by Sermons of Courage. “Diseased” affliction means that he won’t last too long. He wouldn’t anyway, due to BoT (he is 29 years old, with 42 threshold of mammoths).
“Yeah, yeah, you charmed a single mammoth, it’s funny and all. But it’s not like you can use him, lol”, - is that what you’re thinking? Do you even know what Early Ages nation should be afraid of mammoths most of all? I will tell ye. Caelum.
I double dare you: look at Grumpy once again. 13 Protection value and 15 cold resistance. It means he gives zero fucks about their ice weaponry. Now imagine just for one moment, what if Grumpy was on our side one turn earlier? I would place him behind our circle with “hold and attack closest” order.
You see, he would trample several birdmen every single turn. Caelum mammoths will have to cross the entire battlefield to reach my ranks, while Grumpy just has to wait standard 2 turns, when their infantry attacks (they don’t attack on first turn, because they need Blessings and Sermons of Courage). They will appear right before him – all he has to do is TRAMPLE.
So yes, in my current position Grumpy will be a MAJOR damage-dealer. And let’s not forget that I won’t fight them in the open if they attack Helgate again (of course they will). I’ve got walls and shooting towers, after all. I feel like I can take on twice as much of their starving forces as before.
Another reason for this is Valescere and ArtB. Previously I was so nervous about Caelum’s mammoths that I assigned both Van Scouts to shoot the damn creatures. Which was kinda stupid on my part – the chances to take a mammoth down with just two bowmen are next to none. Even if they would both fire at the same target. I should have assigned them to shoot rearmost – there was a chance to kill Seraphine priestesses. Next time, guys.
The main thing is WE WON, and Caelum forces routed back to the Valley of 1000 Deaths. Where they continue to starve, desert and die. Look at this.
Last month Caelum suffered one of the biggest, of not THE biggest, army loss throughout the history, among ALL nations of the world. If that doesn’t hurt, I don’t know what does.
Still, the real battle is yet to come.
Notice the candles. Valley of 1000 Deaths: from one black candle from last turn, to one white candle on this turn. Pray tell me, Amrav, did you feel it?
Yes, you did. So, you don’t have any believers in Valley of the Ape, after all. The extra candle I saw happened at The High Stair. Can’t see how this is possible, except for random event. Whatever the case, I plan to extinguish Amrav’s candles, nice and easy.
A lot of our troops and commanders gained a level-up from last battle. The researchers got +1 to research from this promotion, and additional +1 from the presence of Great Sage.
Some units got non-significant afflictions (never healing wounds; mute; battle fright). One huskarl lost his shield arm. But overall, we are still in good shape. No reinforcements needed (don’t have any spare gold anyway).
We shall pwn these birdmen. Now, give me dat last keg of ale.
The celebration is over. Here goes the butthurt.
Hey, our little diversion maneuver worked out on Vanheim. We stopped them in Weeping Falls. But looking at their army makes mefucking panic uncomfortable.
The formations are gud. Native infantry forms a big line in the front. Cavalry on the flank in box formation.
Cavalry. Oh, the horror.
All experienced, all in perfect shape. And not just them, but almost every national unit. And those FUCKING numbers.
I have no idea what to do with Vanheim. Here, I confessed.
… At least almost every province to the west and south of my capital is non-significant. The Throne is kinda painful to lose, and Chillmoor brings additional death gem. Otherwise, the territory is relatively expendable. As long as I compensate lost provinces with newly captured ones (Caelum, Ulm).
My only bet is using my good-for-nothing commanders (Brutus, Lysandus, Roark, Everett) for sneaky diversions, so I can split Vanheim’s doomstack in several smaller bands and dispose of them bit by bit with Codex Troll’s forces. To do that, I need to let him go deeper into my lands, then cut the escape route. Here he won’t be able to hire reinforcements, except for neutral chaff. These kind of maneuvers are unreliable, but what else can I do about them?
Change the subject, that’s what. Do you remember last battle of our main army? Codex Troll was attacked by Tallo of Ulm in Midvale. The latter failed like a sorry little loser, but managed to escape with a handful of survivors. Guess what? Codex Troll tracked them down.
Long time no see, Tallo.
Not so tough anymore, eh? Hiding behind this pitiful PD? It won’t even break through our undead chaff.
Four thugs prepare the bass cannon.
Zombies are ready and waiting.
Aaand, end of turn 1.
Another little rain of arrows incoming.
Penda was scratched (no afflictions).
Either traditional decoy trick didn’t work this time (which happens), or I’ve placed my Hangadrotts far too close. Gonna change that a bit next time, just to be safe.
Selvaria and Krummi cast Frighten at the same square. Three units of this line now have -2; -2; 0 morales.
The rest might fail morale check because of their meek-hearted comrades.
Headless casts Flying Shield instead of Raise Dead. Why don’t I pay attention to unburied corpses (the province has just run out of them)? Troll casts Holy Avenger, Ragnar casts Air Shield – nothing to see here.
Don’t know about you, but I enjoy every battle, both massive and small ones. Turn 3.
PD militia and Tallo’s infantry closed in on our undead.
Terror is a nuke. Even against strong morale of Ulm.
Most of Tallo’s survivors now have less than 5 morale. Selvaria and Krummi add some more Frightens as a compliment.
Followed by another Terror from Headless Horseman.
And a finisher from Codex Troll. This is pure art.
Next turn the battle engages. Ulm mostly hits undead, while our thugs (all, except for Everett who failed the check) attacked the sorry-ass leaders, killing PD chief and several archers.
Tallo is standing there, looking pathetic, while our Helhird slaughters the last of his people.
Not sure how this could happen, but a lucky repel from Tallo inflicted “Battle Fright” affliction upon Selvaria. That’s mighty annoying.
Anyway, one turn later Selvaria makes the finishing blow.
The rest is statistics.
We’ve lost one archer-provoker, but it doesn’t matter at all.
What else do we got in messages? Patrolling and BoT reports, and one unexpected event.
“Sect”? How is your sect different from my religion? “Drink ‘til you die” is exactly what I’m telling you to do, idiots! No need to lower my fucking dominion. Shitheads.
To Hel with them. I’ve got orders to give. Ulm front doesn’t look so good this month.
Steel maidens everywhere. Did I say that Steel Maidens are arguably the best units of EA Ulm? Because they totally are.
Attacking Lower Ulmwood blindly is too risky – you never know what kind of reinforcements to expect from other provinces. Moving to defend Midvale can be dangerous too. Can’t beat united forces from Anvilwood and Lower Ulmwood. Besides, I don’t want to lose Thunder Falls again – this province brings significant amount of gold from gem depostis. And provides a short path to my Throne, which I don’t wanna open for Ulm.
Stay here and give up on Midvale..? Dammit, that’s a tough one. Right then, we stay. And hope that forces from Lower Ulmwood attack Thunder Falls this turn. All the gems are here, after all.
Let’s see. Codex Troll, Headless Horseman and Ragnar are gone preaching. Not much else to do, and we really need more white candles here to form a faithwall.
Penda searches the province for A3 sites. Chances are shit, but I have enough preaching going on already – not much else to do.
Krummi took two squads of Helhirdings from Hangadrotts (6 units in total) and went on patrol to decrease unrest and squeeze a bit more income. As you surely remember, Krummi provides the same morale bonus as Hangadrotts (+2), due to heroic ability.
Selvaria gave one ring to Ragnar, and one ring to Krummi. Now they finally have decent Attack value.
They will make great warriors when blessed. And with morale that high (Ragnar will have 20 and Krummi 29 when blessed) they make perfect commander assassins.
Selvaria herself isn’t as effective as before due to morale penalty from Battle Fright affliction. That doesn’t mean that she won’t fight from now on, I just need her in capital (I’ll explain why a bit later). She might join King Grimwulf in his conquest sometime later.
Everett sneaks into Misty Hollow. If Vanheim attacks this province, he’ll try to hamper their advance there.
Roark sneaks into Midvale. Anvilwood forces will most likely attack it this turn, and Roark will attempt to delay them until our main army counter-attacks.
Brutus attacks Weeping Falls, hoping to make another successful diversion. Last time it wasn’t too hard, since we attacked the province from three sides. But now our chances are low. Still worth a try, tho.
Lysandus patrols, coz what else should he do? From Edge of the Melt he can help with attacking Ulm or Vanheim. If he’ll be attacked himself, then retreat to Chillmoor or whatever.
Now, let’s talk capital of Helheim.
Grunker can’t join the army without a Skull Stave that will make him fabulous. So he’ll just research a few turns.
Gordon patrols, coz he’s good for nothing.
Andhaira works dat forge. A new toy for Selvaria incoming.
She will stay in Helheim for the time being and cast this spell:
Normally this only summons one Corpse Construct per cast. The rod adds three more to this amount. And one turn later, when I finish researching Construction 4, I’ll make someone forge this:
With Lightning Rod and Storm Spool, Selvaria will be able to summon SIX Corpse Constructs every turn, for only one single air gem.
Corpse Constructs are kinda worthless in terms of offensive capabilities, and it isn’t a good idea to rely on them too much when composing armies. BUT, they are my only available tool for besieging castles. I can’t come up with anything else in my current state.
Long story short, effectiveness of besieging heavily depends upon combined strength of besiegers vs combined strength of defenders. I don’t have gold to hire shitton of units who will break walls, period. While summoning 6 Corpse Constructs will provide me with a total horsepower of 90 Strength every turn. At that pace I will be able to conquer Anvilwood relatively soon.
Maybe I’ll hire another Dis and forge her another set of these artifacts, so she can support my conquest of Caelum. And maybe I’ll need another one to replace Selvaria, who can be used elsewhere. I’ll think about it later.
Btw, Corpse Constructs can be used to conquer those neutral underwater provinces, or to reclaim provinces attacked by neutrals (barbarians and such). They are also very good defensive chaff due to charged body state, if Vanheim goes aggressive on us.
I hope I’ll find more air gems soon, though. I have some spare Owl Quills for now, but I'm gonna hire more researchers, who will need more Quills.
Finally, Helgate orders.
Full-ass defense.
Researchers do research (I managed to distribute every Owl Quill, not a single one dusting in treasury, yay). We shall reach Construction 4 this turn, fucking finally.
I'm gonna go on a stroll around the province. Chances of finding more magic sites in Helgate are not that high (there are 3 uncovered sites in this province already, while the maximum is 5. Or is it 6..? The chances are shit in any case).
Crispy casts sinister rituals with a creepy expression on his face.
One of the skalds forges Ring of Tamed Lightning.
Because I plan to conquer Caelum. Caelum has the best research in the world, which means a lot of mages. Caelum’s mages are probably the most powerful air mages in Early Ages. You see what I mean?
My native resistance 8 combined with 15 from this ring will grant me a total of 23. Should be enough, I hope.
Another skald sacrifices a virgin on my altar to generate additional temple check. I’m gonna max out my domionion in Valley of 1000 Deaths next turn, you will see.
ArtB is given “Defend” assignment instead of “Patrol”, coz patrolling is done outside of castle walls (will engage Caelum if they attack), and I want my archas inside the fort. Let’s say he’s helping Valescere with building.
We build supply storage.
Most of province supplies are cut off while siege (because we only control the castle in that situation, not the province). And the population of Helgate dies rapidly from BoT and Death 3 scale, leaving us with even less supplies every turn. Grumpy’s gotta eat, you know.
That covers the orders, methinks. Currently hiring:
- Helkarl in Helheim (Ulminati);
- Vanherse in Helgate (Skald);
- PD 1 in Thunder Falls;
- PD 1 in Helgate
That leaves me with 13gp. Livin’ like a hobo!
For all your nerdy needs:
Aaand, that’s it. I didn’t mention battle formations in this update, coz they are not interesting for a change. Diversion guys (Brutus, Lysandus, Everett, Roark) retreat if engaged; our main army is pretty much the same (two thugs instead of four; Krummi took over two squads of Helhirings from Hangadrotts; Penda and Headless are placed slightly to the rear and will cast Raise Dead for two turns, then spam Terror). Plus they have a PD commander from PD 1 (Vanherse).
War Council session is gonna be short this month. A couple of score graph news, a couple of random thoughts, and few things I forgot to mention. But you’ll attend anyway, right? Right?
TURN 25
SPRING IN THE YEAR 3 OF THE ASCENSION WARS
SPRING IN THE YEAR 3 OF THE ASCENSION WARS
No! I don’t want to read no messages. I’ve just finished fighting 240-unit army, and my men are thirsty. Fuck the War, let us celebrate!
Starting with the bad part, just to get rid of it. Full casualty report.
Three Helkarls died due to absolutely stupid and unforgivable mistake. That will teach me not to script any Vanir into fainting after second turn. Sigh. All three Helkarls died, because they were unconscious and unable to protect themselves. Count one more Vanherse, and we have a total of FOUR lost researchers. Add 6 huskarls, which makes it 10 Vanir in total. I expected twice as much losses, but damn. I could have saved Helkarls.
3 humans died as well, but who even counts them?
Andhaira was reborn in capital (every resurrection happens in national capital). He is now a valuable asset to my Kingdom, believe it or not.
As a Wight Mage, Andhaira is now taller, stronger, has actually very good physical stats. Encumbrance 0, and it will ALWAYS be zero, whatever heavy equipment he wears (spellcasting will still take away fatigue, but not nearly as much as with previous encumbrance). He isn’t old anymore. HE DOESN’T COST SHIT to maintain (0 gp/turn). See that “Diseased” affliction? Guess what, it does NOT affect undead in any way. No hp loss, no additional afflictions – nothing. He also doesn’t need to eat, and has 25 resistance to cold and poison, which you might as well consider immunity. He has 100% dark vision, just like any undead. Chill aura (3) compliments this masterpiece. His fucking death made him so much better in every way.
The cost of this, well, he is undead. He is affected by Banishment and some other undead-specific spells, artifacts, abilities and stuff. But in most cases, high MR totally nihilates this weakness.
As for afflictions – all life form afflictions are carried along into undead form. Andhaira received heavy wound in battle for Helgate, but it doesn’t matter now. Sometimes you lose an arm or leg, or receive a chest wound or whatever – all those wounds don’t really matter after rebirth (for a spellcaster, at least). Sometimes you get unlucky enough and lose an eye, or even worse – become muted. But it’s always worth the risk of dying in combat, rather than waiting for death of old age (the latter spams much more afflictions, and some of them can be pretty nasty, like Dementia).
Sometimes (not this time, though) a mage also gains +1 death magic after rebirth. It’s random. IIRC, the chances are 50/50. Twiceborn spell works wonders when cast by svartalves – those weak and expensive creepers. Crispy will use this short break between Caelum encounters to cast Twiceborn too.
See, this battle wasn’t just about casualties – we got ourselves a Wight Mage. Another acquirement is of course Grumpy the mammoth.
Given to decent leader, like any Vanjarl, he will have 8 morale. Which isn’t much, but this value can be somewhat increased by Sermons of Courage. “Diseased” affliction means that he won’t last too long. He wouldn’t anyway, due to BoT (he is 29 years old, with 42 threshold of mammoths).
“Yeah, yeah, you charmed a single mammoth, it’s funny and all. But it’s not like you can use him, lol”, - is that what you’re thinking? Do you even know what Early Ages nation should be afraid of mammoths most of all? I will tell ye. Caelum.
I double dare you: look at Grumpy once again. 13 Protection value and 15 cold resistance. It means he gives zero fucks about their ice weaponry. Now imagine just for one moment, what if Grumpy was on our side one turn earlier? I would place him behind our circle with “hold and attack closest” order.
You see, he would trample several birdmen every single turn. Caelum mammoths will have to cross the entire battlefield to reach my ranks, while Grumpy just has to wait standard 2 turns, when their infantry attacks (they don’t attack on first turn, because they need Blessings and Sermons of Courage). They will appear right before him – all he has to do is TRAMPLE.
So yes, in my current position Grumpy will be a MAJOR damage-dealer. And let’s not forget that I won’t fight them in the open if they attack Helgate again (of course they will). I’ve got walls and shooting towers, after all. I feel like I can take on twice as much of their starving forces as before.
Another reason for this is Valescere and ArtB. Previously I was so nervous about Caelum’s mammoths that I assigned both Van Scouts to shoot the damn creatures. Which was kinda stupid on my part – the chances to take a mammoth down with just two bowmen are next to none. Even if they would both fire at the same target. I should have assigned them to shoot rearmost – there was a chance to kill Seraphine priestesses. Next time, guys.
The main thing is WE WON, and Caelum forces routed back to the Valley of 1000 Deaths. Where they continue to starve, desert and die. Look at this.
Last month Caelum suffered one of the biggest, of not THE biggest, army loss throughout the history, among ALL nations of the world. If that doesn’t hurt, I don’t know what does.
Still, the real battle is yet to come.
A reminder: these kind of reports are VERY inaccurate
Notice the candles. Valley of 1000 Deaths: from one black candle from last turn, to one white candle on this turn. Pray tell me, Amrav, did you feel it?
Yes, you did. So, you don’t have any believers in Valley of the Ape, after all. The extra candle I saw happened at The High Stair. Can’t see how this is possible, except for random event. Whatever the case, I plan to extinguish Amrav’s candles, nice and easy.
A lot of our troops and commanders gained a level-up from last battle. The researchers got +1 to research from this promotion, and additional +1 from the presence of Great Sage.
Some units got non-significant afflictions (never healing wounds; mute; battle fright). One huskarl lost his shield arm. But overall, we are still in good shape. No reinforcements needed (don’t have any spare gold anyway).
We shall pwn these birdmen. Now, give me dat last keg of ale.
The celebration is over. Here goes the butthurt.
Hey, our little diversion maneuver worked out on Vanheim. We stopped them in Weeping Falls. But looking at their army makes me
The formations are gud. Native infantry forms a big line in the front. Cavalry on the flank in box formation.
Cavalry. Oh, the horror.
All experienced, all in perfect shape. And not just them, but almost every national unit. And those FUCKING numbers.
I have no idea what to do with Vanheim. Here, I confessed.
… At least almost every province to the west and south of my capital is non-significant. The Throne is kinda painful to lose, and Chillmoor brings additional death gem. Otherwise, the territory is relatively expendable. As long as I compensate lost provinces with newly captured ones (Caelum, Ulm).
My only bet is using my good-for-nothing commanders (Brutus, Lysandus, Roark, Everett) for sneaky diversions, so I can split Vanheim’s doomstack in several smaller bands and dispose of them bit by bit with Codex Troll’s forces. To do that, I need to let him go deeper into my lands, then cut the escape route. Here he won’t be able to hire reinforcements, except for neutral chaff. These kind of maneuvers are unreliable, but what else can I do about them?
Change the subject, that’s what. Do you remember last battle of our main army? Codex Troll was attacked by Tallo of Ulm in Midvale. The latter failed like a sorry little loser, but managed to escape with a handful of survivors. Guess what? Codex Troll tracked them down.
Long time no see, Tallo.
Not so tough anymore, eh? Hiding behind this pitiful PD? It won’t even break through our undead chaff.
Four thugs prepare the bass cannon.
Zombies are ready and waiting.
Aaand, end of turn 1.
Another little rain of arrows incoming.
Penda was scratched (no afflictions).
Either traditional decoy trick didn’t work this time (which happens), or I’ve placed my Hangadrotts far too close. Gonna change that a bit next time, just to be safe.
Selvaria and Krummi cast Frighten at the same square. Three units of this line now have -2; -2; 0 morales.
The rest might fail morale check because of their meek-hearted comrades.
Headless casts Flying Shield instead of Raise Dead. Why don’t I pay attention to unburied corpses (the province has just run out of them)? Troll casts Holy Avenger, Ragnar casts Air Shield – nothing to see here.
Don’t know about you, but I enjoy every battle, both massive and small ones. Turn 3.
PD militia and Tallo’s infantry closed in on our undead.
Terror is a nuke. Even against strong morale of Ulm.
Most of Tallo’s survivors now have less than 5 morale. Selvaria and Krummi add some more Frightens as a compliment.
Followed by another Terror from Headless Horseman.
And a finisher from Codex Troll. This is pure art.
Next turn the battle engages. Ulm mostly hits undead, while our thugs (all, except for Everett who failed the check) attacked the sorry-ass leaders, killing PD chief and several archers.
Tallo is standing there, looking pathetic, while our Helhird slaughters the last of his people.
Not sure how this could happen, but a lucky repel from Tallo inflicted “Battle Fright” affliction upon Selvaria. That’s mighty annoying.
Anyway, one turn later Selvaria makes the finishing blow.
The rest is statistics.
We’ve lost one archer-provoker, but it doesn’t matter at all.
What else do we got in messages? Patrolling and BoT reports, and one unexpected event.
“Sect”? How is your sect different from my religion? “Drink ‘til you die” is exactly what I’m telling you to do, idiots! No need to lower my fucking dominion. Shitheads.
To Hel with them. I’ve got orders to give. Ulm front doesn’t look so good this month.
Steel maidens everywhere. Did I say that Steel Maidens are arguably the best units of EA Ulm? Because they totally are.
Attacking Lower Ulmwood blindly is too risky – you never know what kind of reinforcements to expect from other provinces. Moving to defend Midvale can be dangerous too. Can’t beat united forces from Anvilwood and Lower Ulmwood. Besides, I don’t want to lose Thunder Falls again – this province brings significant amount of gold from gem depostis. And provides a short path to my Throne, which I don’t wanna open for Ulm.
Stay here and give up on Midvale..? Dammit, that’s a tough one. Right then, we stay. And hope that forces from Lower Ulmwood attack Thunder Falls this turn. All the gems are here, after all.
Let’s see. Codex Troll, Headless Horseman and Ragnar are gone preaching. Not much else to do, and we really need more white candles here to form a faithwall.
Penda searches the province for A3 sites. Chances are shit, but I have enough preaching going on already – not much else to do.
Krummi took two squads of Helhirdings from Hangadrotts (6 units in total) and went on patrol to decrease unrest and squeeze a bit more income. As you surely remember, Krummi provides the same morale bonus as Hangadrotts (+2), due to heroic ability.
Selvaria gave one ring to Ragnar, and one ring to Krummi. Now they finally have decent Attack value.
They will make great warriors when blessed. And with morale that high (Ragnar will have 20 and Krummi 29 when blessed) they make perfect commander assassins.
Selvaria herself isn’t as effective as before due to morale penalty from Battle Fright affliction. That doesn’t mean that she won’t fight from now on, I just need her in capital (I’ll explain why a bit later). She might join King Grimwulf in his conquest sometime later.
Everett sneaks into Misty Hollow. If Vanheim attacks this province, he’ll try to hamper their advance there.
Roark sneaks into Midvale. Anvilwood forces will most likely attack it this turn, and Roark will attempt to delay them until our main army counter-attacks.
Brutus attacks Weeping Falls, hoping to make another successful diversion. Last time it wasn’t too hard, since we attacked the province from three sides. But now our chances are low. Still worth a try, tho.
Lysandus patrols, coz what else should he do? From Edge of the Melt he can help with attacking Ulm or Vanheim. If he’ll be attacked himself, then retreat to Chillmoor or whatever.
Now, let’s talk capital of Helheim.
Grunker can’t join the army without a Skull Stave that will make him fabulous. So he’ll just research a few turns.
Gordon patrols, coz he’s good for nothing.
Andhaira works dat forge. A new toy for Selvaria incoming.
She will stay in Helheim for the time being and cast this spell:
Normally this only summons one Corpse Construct per cast. The rod adds three more to this amount. And one turn later, when I finish researching Construction 4, I’ll make someone forge this:
With Lightning Rod and Storm Spool, Selvaria will be able to summon SIX Corpse Constructs every turn, for only one single air gem.
Corpse Constructs are kinda worthless in terms of offensive capabilities, and it isn’t a good idea to rely on them too much when composing armies. BUT, they are my only available tool for besieging castles. I can’t come up with anything else in my current state.
Long story short, effectiveness of besieging heavily depends upon combined strength of besiegers vs combined strength of defenders. I don’t have gold to hire shitton of units who will break walls, period. While summoning 6 Corpse Constructs will provide me with a total horsepower of 90 Strength every turn. At that pace I will be able to conquer Anvilwood relatively soon.
Maybe I’ll hire another Dis and forge her another set of these artifacts, so she can support my conquest of Caelum. And maybe I’ll need another one to replace Selvaria, who can be used elsewhere. I’ll think about it later.
Btw, Corpse Constructs can be used to conquer those neutral underwater provinces, or to reclaim provinces attacked by neutrals (barbarians and such). They are also very good defensive chaff due to charged body state, if Vanheim goes aggressive on us.
I hope I’ll find more air gems soon, though. I have some spare Owl Quills for now, but I'm gonna hire more researchers, who will need more Quills.
Finally, Helgate orders.
Full-ass defense.
Researchers do research (I managed to distribute every Owl Quill, not a single one dusting in treasury, yay). We shall reach Construction 4 this turn, fucking finally.
I'm gonna go on a stroll around the province. Chances of finding more magic sites in Helgate are not that high (there are 3 uncovered sites in this province already, while the maximum is 5. Or is it 6..? The chances are shit in any case).
Crispy casts sinister rituals with a creepy expression on his face.
One of the skalds forges Ring of Tamed Lightning.
Because I plan to conquer Caelum. Caelum has the best research in the world, which means a lot of mages. Caelum’s mages are probably the most powerful air mages in Early Ages. You see what I mean?
I don’t want to end like Balgruuf.
My native resistance 8 combined with 15 from this ring will grant me a total of 23. Should be enough, I hope.
Another skald sacrifices a virgin on my altar to generate additional temple check. I’m gonna max out my domionion in Valley of 1000 Deaths next turn, you will see.
ArtB is given “Defend” assignment instead of “Patrol”, coz patrolling is done outside of castle walls (will engage Caelum if they attack), and I want my archas inside the fort. Let’s say he’s helping Valescere with building.
We build supply storage.
Most of province supplies are cut off while siege (because we only control the castle in that situation, not the province). And the population of Helgate dies rapidly from BoT and Death 3 scale, leaving us with even less supplies every turn. Grumpy’s gotta eat, you know.
That covers the orders, methinks. Currently hiring:
- Helkarl in Helheim (Ulminati);
- Vanherse in Helgate (Skald);
- PD 1 in Thunder Falls;
- PD 1 in Helgate
That leaves me with 13gp. Livin’ like a hobo!
For all your nerdy needs:
Aaand, that’s it. I didn’t mention battle formations in this update, coz they are not interesting for a change. Diversion guys (Brutus, Lysandus, Everett, Roark) retreat if engaged; our main army is pretty much the same (two thugs instead of four; Krummi took over two squads of Helhirings from Hangadrotts; Penda and Headless are placed slightly to the rear and will cast Raise Dead for two turns, then spam Terror). Plus they have a PD commander from PD 1 (Vanherse).
War Council session is gonna be short this month. A couple of score graph news, a couple of random thoughts, and few things I forgot to mention. But you’ll attend anyway, right? Right?
First of all, Crispy had this crazy-ass idea of pwning Kailasa.
As soon as Caelum shows weakness, we’ll grab Valley of 1000 Deaths, then Valley of the Ape (which belongs to Caelum too), then SUDDENLY, DECISIVELY attack Kailasa, siege dat capital, and wait for domkill (1-2 turns). INSTANT CAPITAL!
Sure, we’ll leave Hegate vulnerable for Caelum counter-attack, and will most likely enrage C’tis, which is gonna provoke war with them. Crispy didn’t make any comments on that. But he was looking sinister.
Unfortunately, to make that happen Kailasa actually has to survive this long. C’tis took their province last turn and besieged Kailasa capital again, annihilating their entire army (for the first time Helheim doesn’t have the smallest army size in the world – Kailasa is rock-bottom now).
For the first time we wish poor monkeymen good luck. It would be so much better to fight them, and not C’tis.
On the same graph we can see that Ulm lost a province to us (Thunder Falls) and another province to Marverni.
We reclaimed Helgate from Caelum, but that isn’t new. Agartha lost a province to Sauromatia. Skögu gained more experience.
The Champion is unstoppable. It’s going to be interesting if he survives ‘til next Arena Tournament (Champions have no right of choice – their participation is guaranteed).
Selvaria gained a lot of exp after killing Warrior Chief, she is now the greatest. Tallo was a coward, but an experienced coward. His death didn’t go unnoticed.
The only bad news of this month is research. We fell behind Marverni and even Vanheim.
That’s gonna bite us in the ass in the long run.
Finally, research. The actual one, not the score graph.
There is no longer any need to rush Thaumaturgy 6, not with this kind of death gem income. We’ll go easy on the mortals, for now.
Instead, we should think about Vanjarls in Grimwulf’s army. They can’t unite into Sabbaths all the time – we barely have enough virgins for one more battle. After that, they are pretty much useless. Unlike Ulm front, assassinating Caelum commanders with Vanjarls-thugs is not a grand idea, for too many reasons. Let’s just stick to the main one: we need Vanjarls in the circle.
So, what should they cast if they don’t fight in melee? Let’s see how their current spell books look like.
First two turns for buffing (Holy Avenger + Air Shield/Protection from Lightning – depends on what Caelum throws at us). No point in Sermons of Courage – none of us have any problems with morale, unlike Caelum. Well, except for Grumpy.
So, what will it be? Confusion through air gem empowerment? Too expensive. Steal Breath? That’s kinda pathetic, and our Vanherses-skalds can do it just fine. FOUR fucking Vanjarls have nothing to do in combat, and no way we are leaving these guys behind, to do research and shit. Let us find something cheap in terms of RP and effective versus Caelum.
Conjuration school has Summon Storm Power on level 2.
Great, but it requires a storm to be present. Caelum usually casts Storm spell themselves (Evocation 5 school), but can’t be sure about anything when fighting AI. Without storm, this spell is useless. And we have no means of making a storm by ourselves (could be done with Evo5 spell, artifact from Constr6, national hero who automatically summons storm every battle, etc). So, not an option.
Alteration school has a wide variability of air spells, even on low levels.
Let’s discuss them in details.
1. Aim. We are going to use this spell a lot in not too distant future. There is one particular anti-thug design in Grimwulf’s mind that he intends to use on Vanherses, that involves Aim spell. Should be very effective, but prerequisites are not met atm. Useless for Vanjarls in upcoming conquest.
2. Charge Body is super-awesome on Vanherses, combined with Protection from Lightning buff. But it’s not really the way to go for Vanjarls, who already have a lot of more effective buffs to cast. Not an option.
3. False Fetters is nice and very useful, especially in defensive formations like we currently have. But we should consider the circumstances: all battles will be fought in our dominion with Drain 3 scale, therefore all units will receive +1 MR. And Caelum infantry has above-average MR as it is. False Fetters is A2 spell, and Vanjarls are A2 casters – therefore, they receive no bonus to MR penetration. All in all, the spell is situational, but frankly, it looks only slightly better than Steal Breath in these circumstances.
4. Mirror Image is pretty damn useless for Vanir. We are all mirrored by Glamour.
5. Phantasmal Warrior and Ghost Wolves summon small number of ethereal units – situational, but mostly useless. Especially for Vanjarls fighting against Caelum. Besides, Ghost Wolves spell demands an A3 caster.
6. Mistform is grand. It’s the key spell for making thugs and even SC (Super Combatant) out of Vanjarls. This spell will be an absolute must at some stage. It has a downside, though: absolutely useless against Caelum. The latter have a lot of units with magic weapons that ignore this spell.
No point in looking for higher levels of research. We are only doing a short detour from our general research plan.
Since Blood Magic school requires blood slaves for 99% of it’s content, which we don’t have, and Enchantment and Thaumaturgy are too long to level-up, the only school left is Evocation. But is there a single useful air spell against Caelum forces in low-level Evocation schools?
Let us look at three air spells in Evocation 1 and Evocation 2.
1. Shocking grasp is perfect in circle-defense formation like ours. Bypasses MR, ignores Protection, inflicts high damage on target (one person), and some small-aoe (1 circle, IIRC) fatigue damage. Since Vanjarls don’t usually do much damage in melee, especially while fighting heavily-armored opponents like Iceclads, this spell will help them to one-shot anything nearby. Even more useful for Vanherses.
2. Shock Wave is probably the worst thing one can cast in circle-defence formation. It will friendly-fire a lot. Although, it may prove useful if we decide to change tactics at some point. And it surely WILL be useful in future, not regarding Caelum.
3. Lightning Bolt is the key we are looking for. It features everything we currently need: high damage; bybassing of MR, armor and shields; small-aoe shock; low fatigue cost. Long range and good precision as a bonus.
One might say “why the fuck are we even CONSIDERING using lightning against lightning-spamming nation like Caelum”? The answer is simple: while every birdman has very high cold resistance, almost NONE of their melee units have any resistance to lightning. The only ones who do are Tempest Warriors (Shock Res 8) and weak Spire Horn Militia (Shock Res 5).
Sure, their commanders and some missile units are protected from lightning, but who cares? Most of their infantry (national and local recruits) is not. Lightning will prove effective.
That being said, our research plan for this month is this:
We shall research Evocation 2, then go back to general research strategy (more on that topic in future War Councils).
Thank you for attention, hope to see you next time!
As soon as Caelum shows weakness, we’ll grab Valley of 1000 Deaths, then Valley of the Ape (which belongs to Caelum too), then SUDDENLY, DECISIVELY attack Kailasa, siege dat capital, and wait for domkill (1-2 turns). INSTANT CAPITAL!
Sure, we’ll leave Hegate vulnerable for Caelum counter-attack, and will most likely enrage C’tis, which is gonna provoke war with them. Crispy didn’t make any comments on that. But he was looking sinister.
Unfortunately, to make that happen Kailasa actually has to survive this long. C’tis took their province last turn and besieged Kailasa capital again, annihilating their entire army (for the first time Helheim doesn’t have the smallest army size in the world – Kailasa is rock-bottom now).
For the first time we wish poor monkeymen good luck. It would be so much better to fight them, and not C’tis.
On the same graph we can see that Ulm lost a province to us (Thunder Falls) and another province to Marverni.
We reclaimed Helgate from Caelum, but that isn’t new. Agartha lost a province to Sauromatia. Skögu gained more experience.
The Champion is unstoppable. It’s going to be interesting if he survives ‘til next Arena Tournament (Champions have no right of choice – their participation is guaranteed).
Selvaria gained a lot of exp after killing Warrior Chief, she is now the greatest. Tallo was a coward, but an experienced coward. His death didn’t go unnoticed.
The only bad news of this month is research. We fell behind Marverni and even Vanheim.
That’s gonna bite us in the ass in the long run.
Finally, research. The actual one, not the score graph.
There is no longer any need to rush Thaumaturgy 6, not with this kind of death gem income. We’ll go easy on the mortals, for now.
Instead, we should think about Vanjarls in Grimwulf’s army. They can’t unite into Sabbaths all the time – we barely have enough virgins for one more battle. After that, they are pretty much useless. Unlike Ulm front, assassinating Caelum commanders with Vanjarls-thugs is not a grand idea, for too many reasons. Let’s just stick to the main one: we need Vanjarls in the circle.
So, what should they cast if they don’t fight in melee? Let’s see how their current spell books look like.
First two turns for buffing (Holy Avenger + Air Shield/Protection from Lightning – depends on what Caelum throws at us). No point in Sermons of Courage – none of us have any problems with morale, unlike Caelum. Well, except for Grumpy.
So, what will it be? Confusion through air gem empowerment? Too expensive. Steal Breath? That’s kinda pathetic, and our Vanherses-skalds can do it just fine. FOUR fucking Vanjarls have nothing to do in combat, and no way we are leaving these guys behind, to do research and shit. Let us find something cheap in terms of RP and effective versus Caelum.
Conjuration school has Summon Storm Power on level 2.
Great, but it requires a storm to be present. Caelum usually casts Storm spell themselves (Evocation 5 school), but can’t be sure about anything when fighting AI. Without storm, this spell is useless. And we have no means of making a storm by ourselves (could be done with Evo5 spell, artifact from Constr6, national hero who automatically summons storm every battle, etc). So, not an option.
Alteration school has a wide variability of air spells, even on low levels.
Let’s discuss them in details.
1. Aim. We are going to use this spell a lot in not too distant future. There is one particular anti-thug design in Grimwulf’s mind that he intends to use on Vanherses, that involves Aim spell. Should be very effective, but prerequisites are not met atm. Useless for Vanjarls in upcoming conquest.
2. Charge Body is super-awesome on Vanherses, combined with Protection from Lightning buff. But it’s not really the way to go for Vanjarls, who already have a lot of more effective buffs to cast. Not an option.
3. False Fetters is nice and very useful, especially in defensive formations like we currently have. But we should consider the circumstances: all battles will be fought in our dominion with Drain 3 scale, therefore all units will receive +1 MR. And Caelum infantry has above-average MR as it is. False Fetters is A2 spell, and Vanjarls are A2 casters – therefore, they receive no bonus to MR penetration. All in all, the spell is situational, but frankly, it looks only slightly better than Steal Breath in these circumstances.
4. Mirror Image is pretty damn useless for Vanir. We are all mirrored by Glamour.
5. Phantasmal Warrior and Ghost Wolves summon small number of ethereal units – situational, but mostly useless. Especially for Vanjarls fighting against Caelum. Besides, Ghost Wolves spell demands an A3 caster.
6. Mistform is grand. It’s the key spell for making thugs and even SC (Super Combatant) out of Vanjarls. This spell will be an absolute must at some stage. It has a downside, though: absolutely useless against Caelum. The latter have a lot of units with magic weapons that ignore this spell.
No point in looking for higher levels of research. We are only doing a short detour from our general research plan.
Since Blood Magic school requires blood slaves for 99% of it’s content, which we don’t have, and Enchantment and Thaumaturgy are too long to level-up, the only school left is Evocation. But is there a single useful air spell against Caelum forces in low-level Evocation schools?
Let us look at three air spells in Evocation 1 and Evocation 2.
1. Shocking grasp is perfect in circle-defense formation like ours. Bypasses MR, ignores Protection, inflicts high damage on target (one person), and some small-aoe (1 circle, IIRC) fatigue damage. Since Vanjarls don’t usually do much damage in melee, especially while fighting heavily-armored opponents like Iceclads, this spell will help them to one-shot anything nearby. Even more useful for Vanherses.
2. Shock Wave is probably the worst thing one can cast in circle-defence formation. It will friendly-fire a lot. Although, it may prove useful if we decide to change tactics at some point. And it surely WILL be useful in future, not regarding Caelum.
3. Lightning Bolt is the key we are looking for. It features everything we currently need: high damage; bybassing of MR, armor and shields; small-aoe shock; low fatigue cost. Long range and good precision as a bonus.
One might say “why the fuck are we even CONSIDERING using lightning against lightning-spamming nation like Caelum”? The answer is simple: while every birdman has very high cold resistance, almost NONE of their melee units have any resistance to lightning. The only ones who do are Tempest Warriors (Shock Res 8) and weak Spire Horn Militia (Shock Res 5).
Sure, their commanders and some missile units are protected from lightning, but who cares? Most of their infantry (national and local recruits) is not. Lightning will prove effective.
That being said, our research plan for this month is this:
We shall research Evocation 2, then go back to general research strategy (more on that topic in future War Councils).
Thank you for attention, hope to see you next time!
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