Part 106: Hinnom - Turn 5
I hope everyone's holidays were nice and they got exactly what they wanted for Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza/fuck you dad, I'm an athiest.
Turn 5
Expansion continues as planned this turn. Sauromatia takes one of my cap circle provinces but very kindly agrees to let me have it.
FAT SHETLAND PONY GUIDE and his fat shetland ponies crush all before them and FAT SHETLAND PONY GUIDE earns accolades as one of the world's most beloved heroes.
The independent commander randomly started with this magic item which allows FAT SHETLAND PONY to automatically bring a single skeleton with him to battle. It is not very good but does have some situational uses which we may see later.
He receives heroic endurance which will could be quite useful later as it removes fatigue from a unit during battle and that's quite helpful for casters. When it's time I'll go into the why. But for now just know it's a nice little bonus.
This is something I forgot to mention in prior turns. In addition to a great name, The Swamp of Ethereal Frogs allows me to recruit these ladies.
They come with one point of water magic and have a 25% chance of getting another point of either water, earth, nature or death. Water magic is the one thing none of my national mages have. If I can recruit one with another point of water I can start searching for water magic sites and I'll then be able to search my lands for every single type of magic. That will be pretty sweet for me so it's a medium-high priority to build a lab on this site.
I recruit more dawn guard and make a bid for another mercenary company to
Diplomacy
This is where things are interesting. I now know that TheDemon is hemmed in on all three sides by me, TC and Sauromatia. He has to attack one of us to expand and he has to expand if he wants to win this game. I don't see any troops on my border but TheDemon has continued to be radio silent after some initial chatter in the first four turns. That makes me very worried and I reach out to Dawkish and Feinne to see if they're interested in an alliance against TheDemon. I can't afford to fight him 1v1 and I want to continue my expansion to the South West. I also know he has to attack. So, in my mind at least, my best option is either to team up against him or to team up with him and take out one of his neighbors. I really like a solid long term neighbor who's willing to be friendly and about whom I don't have to worry too much so I generally try to make friends with at least one of my neighbors and have that continue for much of the game. Of course, the best friends a nation can have are map corners but this map is wraparound so that's not an option here. An aside, if you're in a corner and an experienced player is your neighbor they're probably planning on killing you and taking your corner. Sorry.
Turn 6
Nothing all that exciting happens this turn. Most of my poor fat shetland ponies die while expanding to the South West which is a bit of a set back as it means two more turns before I can lock off entry to either of the two bridges. I'll use the mercenaries I just bought, 30 heavy infantry will do just fine against most indies, along with the remaining chariots for that expansion. Dawn Guard move out to capture the last remaining provinces bordering my cap and are in position to defend against an attack by TheDemon, join with TheDemon in an attack on TC or Sauro or join with TC and/or Sauro in an attack on TheDemon. An aside, this early period before alliances are cemented and the game really starts to take shape is my favorite part of dom3. Everything is up in the air and you have to scramble both tactically and diplomatically to maximize any advantages you have and set yourself up for the long haul.
