"A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Executor

As for game breaking numbers, that all falls into water once you get stuck at 3 choke provinces such as I did, and can't even use the seas. I can't risk using more than 500 undead per battle to try and breach the fronts. Ermor is kind of a one trick nation, and I didn't get lucky with almost any indie mages.

Why specifically 500? I understand that you are probably concerned that massive casualties among your undead chaff may force your SCs/mages to rout, but I am curious how did you come up with that particular number.

Well **** me, that was a dreadful turn a?

Yes, that was... intense.

I guess you got some hurting too there Corwin, I assume that didn't go as well as you'd hoped? I got a load of your items and artifacts from the central front. Good thing I set all my units to guard commander or the results might have been far worse for me. And a fairly lousy decision to cast army of lead, but I didn't expect wrathful skies to be honest...

Who escaped btw, only the water queen or did I miss someone else?
I hate those damn things with their crazy regeneration, they are far superior to the rest of the ERoys.

No shi*t, I certainly got some hurting. Lost 5 SCs and several battle artifacts in the main battle on our central front. Also lost tons of mages to your tartarian ambush in another battle on the south-east front. At least I've got sob tartarian and his grand thaumaturge lackey who killed so many mages.

Good news - these 5 SCs managed to take a lot of ermor troops and mages with them to their graves. And castle walls still hold strong, while castle defenders keep teleporting in and summoning more SCs&troops. Bad news - all your anti-SC SCs have survived the battle while defeating my ambush team. And I've hoped to catch around 4-5K of your undead troops in my ambush, not 800. More bad news - I was really hoping to catch your two tartarians in that swamp province. But you have vortexed them away, damn you. In hindsight I should have concentrated on castle defense and its ambush battle rather then trying to do too many things at once.

I sure as hell didn't expect that crazy Tartarian landing in the back, also, why did you give an S2 Tartarian the forbidden light?

Two words - Gate Stone. It was the only possible way for me to forge it without spending a lot of gems on empowering.

Yes, that guy knew how to party. Won two battles without taking a single scratch, and has cut off an important supply rout for one turn.

Of course his primary goal was to destroy your entire routed army, should I win the main battle, but alas that was not meant to be.

Heh, and gate stone? I guess you aren't holding back any more, when you bring it, you really bring it huh?

Yeah, no holding back. I've decided it is time to fire all secret guns I've been saving for the special occasion. The idea was to deliver Ermor a stunning blow that would take you a while to recover from, and to break you siege on my central castle, restoring the original border.

Instead the results were much more mixed that I have hoped, and I have lost the main battle.

Not sure I can match all of that stuff...

I certainly hope you won't be able to. But you have been very resourceful so far, and this turns you have escaped from one carefully laid ambush and broke through another.

Oh, and that damn mage of mine used up 3S gems for soul drain, not two, so the Tartarian and himself died instead of casting VoR... sigh
At least they took a fair amount of your troops and mages with them.

Ah, that what has happened. Why casting soul drain in the first place? It would unlikely kill anything in 1 or 2 turns while it was in effect.

BTW, did you really have to steel my mercs? You expected I'd storm Ulm didn't you? Luckily I forgot some gems.
Not sure what happened to the other mercs doe..?

Yeap, you have guessed correctly. After taking a look inside Ulm's capital, courtesy to your scout last turn, I decided that I should try to relieve pressure on Ulm's capital as much as I can, to help their brave defenders. Not sure about your other merces - I've only bid on one team - air mage and his minions. Perhaps you have forgotten to renew your contract for the 2nd team? Or perhaps they just got bloody tired of you - you had these poor lizards sitting in the mud under Ulm capital's walls for like 10 turns now.

Well, 11 forts under siege this turn, thank you BL and indipendants, and presumably another one about to fall in the water front...

It seems we'll have to take control over Ulm and Bandar fast, they're on the upraise.

Way to go Ulm and Bandar! Raise and kick undead menace from your ancients lands while they are preoccupied in the northern continent.

I think I preferred the old, more peaceful BL leader.

Heh.

P.S. Did you like my boxing gang? I think they're pretty awesome

Yes, your boxing team surely has kicked royal as*s. I've lost more SCs to them this turn that I have lost total SCs since the beginning on our war. Well done.

But let's see how they will fare in round two though. I am adjusting my tactics and equipment...

P.S. And how did you like my forbidden light/medusa wielding crazy tartarian? Of course he can't defeat a strong army by himself, but I expect he will be a real bit*ch to kill...

[Lingchih]

Lol. It's really funny. You guys are fighting a war of words, and Dr. P is about to kick all your asses.

I might come back out. It's getting pretty boring just watching battles. Let's see who the highest bidder is on my forces.

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

Lol. It's really funny. You guys are fighting a war of words, and Dr. P is about to kick all your asses.

We, we are more like writing mini AARs and trading war stories rather then waging war of words. But you may very well be right about Dr. P - his forces are almost completely intact after all, while Ermor and I are bleeding each other dry.

It's funny how such highly magical nations like Ermor and Pythium have successfully managed to destroy most of each other battle mages since the beginning of our war. Ermor's huge scary communions seem to be the thing of the past, at least for the moment, and my own battle mages have been suffering badly. If this trend will continue for few more turns, I expect we will be reduced to mostly fighting with sticks and stones, rather then with advanced magery that we both have in our disposal.

Of course Ermor still must have a large reserve of mages, since their research is still going strong. Not to mention all their mages on summoning duty, since despite huge losses of undead chaff on ermor's various fronts since the beginning of our war, ermor's army charts simply refuse to go down.

[DrPraetorious]

I may need an extension in order to organize some armies for to die...

[Lingchih]

I've never seen Ermor win with communions. Ermor wins with huge numbers that break the battlefield. The most I have seen/heard of, in this game, is 5000 troops, which breaks the battlefield, but not badly. Show me a 15,000 troop army, and I'll declare the game over.

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by DrPraetorious

I may need an extension in order to organize some armies for to die...

Ok, let me know once you will know for sure if you will indeed need it, and if so, how long, and I will abjust the timer accordingly.

[Corwin]

Ok, I've added 48h to the current timer, as requested.

Happy New Year everyone!

[Executor]

Heh, good call on the delay, haven't got a clue as to what to do this turn, kept staring at the turn for quite some time now...
This is a very tricky turn you know. I don't fancy you whipping out the gate stone... and the aegis... and forbidden light... aaaaand the boots with the sickle... and all those others of course.

BTW, just out of interest, when did you hit const 8? How the heck did you menage to snatch all those uniques? Even blood ones. How did you even branch into blood? I noticed lammia queens, but that's very expensive and not so reliable. Regular commanders? But that takes too much time and effort?

[Corwin]

Originally Posted by Executor

Heh, good call on the delay, haven't got a clue as to what to do this turn, kept staring at the turn for quite some time now...
This is a very tricky turn you know. I don't fancy you whipping out the gate stone... and the aegis... and forbidden light... aaaaand the boots with the sickle... and all those others of course.

Yeah, well, most of that heavy artillery have missed the target, at least during the last turn. I was hoping you will finally try to do something with those two raiding tartarians of yours, rather then just evacuate them.

And now you have some of the unique battlefield artifacts yourself, congratulations! But perhaps I will have a chance win some of them back in the coming turns.


And yes, I agree, this is going to be a tricky turn.

BTW, just out of interest, when did you hit const 8? How the heck did you menage to snatch all those uniques?

Long time ago. Mostly by carefull long-term planning. Con8 has became my primary goal pretty early in the game and I had to sacriface a lot to reach it quickly, considering that I was in the middle of active war with magically-strong Agartha when I switched to this reseach goal.

Still I was clearly not the only one in the race to grab uniques. At least one nation - TC has beaten me to Con8, possibly others but I am not sure. TC has succedded in grabbing some of the best uniques by the time I hit Con8. However I was able to grab quite a few from what was left in the next few turns. Gatestone I only got few turns ago - 6s6e mage is a bi*ch to get.

Even blood ones. How did you even branch into blood? I noticed lammia queens, but that's very expensive and not so reliable. Regular commanders? But that takes too much time and effort?

Yes, it does, so I haven't bothered with regular commanders. I've dedicated some SCs to boring blood hunting duty early on, to kick-start my blood production. (I can share more details after the game if you like ) I was too late to the blood party to grab any of the blood SCs though - Jotuns had them all by then. I've tried one that I thought has the highest chances of being still available but only lost about 100 bloodslaves for my troubles. I did grab some of the blood uniques though, once I had enough bloodslaves to do the forging.

BTW you didn't answer my question about not using more then 500 or so undeads per battle. I am still curious.

[Executor]

Well, so that my armies would still be on the rise even when I have dreadful casualties. It has a nice psychological effect don't you think, for you as well. Like me killing your mages and SC's but your army size not dropping due to the Soulstone and the free spawn.

Although, I've been under a lot of sieges these last few turns and alas those mages of mine don't reanimate under siege so my army size keeps still.