Part 83: Turn 71: Yoink

You don't get a lot of feedback out of Seeking Arrow. I think you get a message if there were literally no commanders in that zone, but that's not going to happen this time.









Could've gone better, could've gone worse. The power of the Chalice has actually already healed Hekabe (how many times has Hekabe "will probably never fully recover"ed now?) so we'll just keep it up next turn.

Consulting my last turn, Hekabe was aimed at Midria, so we'll avoid that province for future Mind Hunts.







We trade some provinces with Atlantis. I siege their fort, they take absolutely nothing of interest.

Junal Forest: Man gets jumped by a small pile of independent Villains. Villains are weak, but have a moderately strong ranged attack, and Man's PD can't weather the barrage long enough to get in range.



In Rim Mountains, Man has a large dude beating on Ulm PD.



I was actually considering using one of these guys as a thug during the T'ien Ch'i war. He's certainly not supercombatant class, but he makes a reasonable thug, especially with Gift of Health.



Mictlan cobbles together a half-functional army and uses it to attack Ulm's similarly-dubious army sieging Akesta.




Mictlan's big force here is its squad of Shamblers, but Ulm's mages are having none of that. The Shamblers weather a pile of Stellar Cascades and Falling Frost. By the time they reach the front lines, many of them are at half health and 3/4 Fatigue, or worse, and they rout almost immediately.



This was Ulm's castle, and we weren't planning to keep it anyway.



I wasn't paying enough attention to that Jomon castle. Jomon's put together a powerful enough force to kill my PD, and uses it to break out of the castle and reclaim Welrydh. There's only one commander here, so we'll use Mind Hunt to stop Jomon in its tracks - I'm pretty sure they're incapable of building mages so we can just hold them there until we can move forces to squash them.



Who wins: a bunch of pirates and militia, or the physical incarnation of Earth magic?

(It's the latter.)



Mictlan chooses to take back Vician Forest, with, shall we say, somewhat overwhelming force (their opposition is a scout.)

See anything missing? I do. The Lord of Corruption ain't here. He's stealthy, so Mictlan may have just misclicked like I did once or twice with the Faery Queens. Or he might be planning to cause catastrophe elsewhere. That'll be tough to deal with - we simply won't know where he'll strike until he shows up and does damage.

Ardun: Our small attack squad conquers a small amount of Mictlan PD.

Ene Umrul: A FUCKING JUGGERNAUT OF MAGES conquers a small amount of Mictlan PD.




This is actually more interesting than it may look - it's a cheap communion-capable Nature mage. Still, we'll probably never bother with it.

Forest of Gila: My guerilla attack squad flattens some Mictlan PD. See a theme? I see a theme!



Yeah we don't care.




The siege to break Silvania begins.

This is interesting for a few reasons, one being that it's my first real look at my intended new communion setup. So, for comparison . . .



Here's a hoplite at the beginning of the battle.

Communion starts up, buffs go up. Army of Gold, Power of the Spheres, and . . . Summon Fire Elemental?

Yeah, for some reason we don't get Warriors of Muspelheim. (Future Me: I'm guessing because it's completely invalidated by Army of Gold.) But here's what our improved hoplites look like:



See that Protection boost? And if the spells had gone off right, we'd be fire-immune as well. (Future Me: bzzzzzt)



Not that it really matters, as the Mictlan army doesn't get past the gate before routing.

VICTORY






This province includes some further weird things to recruit, presumably as part of the province data rather than a magic site bonus.

The Illusionist is basically Obscuro. Do you have any idea how useful that would have been early on? Yeesh.




Another of those arcane/nature combos.



We've picked up about 170 gems so far off that, repaying the base casting cost and then some. Now we're repaying the "bonus gems" we put into it.

We lose five scouts. I think my opponents are learning to patrol.





None of this is surprising. Also, fuck you, Blue Waters.



This turn we need to drop Gift of Health - with 170 extra gems. Ours, bitch. Turn after we'll be doing Forge of the Ancients, which means we need to tear down one of Atlantis's globals to avoid accidentally hitting one of ours. Riches from Beneath, since Stellar Focus could theoretically help Atlantis defend against Man.

We'll be tearing down Stellar Focus next turn anyway, but hey.

I add thirty gems to the Dispel of Riches from Beneath. I don't want to burn all my pearls on this, and I doubt the AI has reinforced it heavily.

We've got more gems to burn this turn, though. Our Queen of Elemental Air dons the Winged Helm and uses it to summon a second Queen of Elemental Air. I think I'm going to turn them into mobile thug-killers, but I want to have some strong Air hanging around available, so I don't want to use my current Queen for that. Additionally, I pile a bunch of boosters on a F2 Mystic and use him to summon a King of Elemental Fire.

All we need now is Elemental Heart and we're set.

Movin' from the north down. We finished two forts this turn, although it occurs to me a bit late that I forgot to build labs at them, so let's get on that - I redirect a few Mystics up to those areas to get to work, along with a Priestess to start building temples.

I've got seven Mind Hunts available this turn, all with Spell Focuses. Two get aimed at that Jomon army. Two get aimed at Mictlan forces wandering around in their territory. The remaining three get shot at the castle that didn't cause feebleminding last turn.

Barathrus continues trooping through Jomon. Next turn he'll be in range to start smacking Mictlan territories around again, although I'm going to have to be careful that he doesn't meet Mictlan's army.

Philetor heads south, finishing off most of the provinces surrounding Midgard. Polypoites actually heads north again, temporarily sieging a Mictlan castle (he won't see it coming). I'll leave a scout behind to continue the siege just for laughs.

My reinforcing army in Robber Home is sufficiently reinforced. It heads back to Stone Grave Mountains to pick up its abandoned troops, then move on to conquer more territory. My enormous dreadnought army moves to Midgard. The little auxiliary fortcracker army moves to the south to siege Vath, while I recruit a pile of slingers behind him to serve as siege fodder. My wannabe fortcracker army moves eastwards, chasing its dreams of relevance (and, let's be honest here, succeeding.)

Down in the bottomright corner, I've got a problem. My little war army has run across a group of Jaguar Warriors, which they would have a hard time defeating. Phyleides is done with her reanimation, so I move her southwest to join the war party. I'd love to move the war party back, but that would be courting starvation in Dragon Pointe, so they're unfortunately just going to stay there.

For comedy's sake, I have the Sibyl start construction of a fort in Dragon Pointe.

The commander I recruited in Shamballac does move to Dragon Pointe to grab another small army, however.

Assuming everything goes right, I'll be picking up three provinces from Mictlan and sieging three forts. One of those forts I expect to lose, but the other two I expect to keep.

We're forging nine - yes, nine - Ethereal Crossbows. I'm paranoid of my communion master Mystics going nuts and casting really bad spells (like the one that makes all your mages explode), but I also don't want them to troop into the enemy forces. Giving them a ranged weapon will solve both problems, and now I have the magical income to afford it.



I'm curious how long Mictlan is going to hold out against this.

Next: The war heats up.