Part 134: Hinnom - Turn 40

Turn 40

A single Doritos cool ranch-scented tear drips down each of King Hippomnomnomnom's cheeks. One for PIMP ROBES and one for CODE RED ORDERER. In his grief, King Hippomnomnomnom ordered a huge force into Lanka to recover the body of PIMP ROBES at any cost. CODE RED ORDERER, not so much. That's what you get for not being one of the world's most beloved heroes. Some day, thousands of years from now in another age, the mummified body of PIMP ROBES will be worshipped in its own rite while the monkey children use the bones of CODE RED ORDERER as a jungle gym.

Last turn was rough, but there's no crying in dominions 3 until you lose and I still have TheDemon mostly penned into Lanka. So let's see if that was just a blip or if TheDemon is going to continue wrecking my shit.


Sauromatia and I continue our friendship, as free trade advocates everywhere rejoice. Blood income holds steady at 52 from five provinces.


I'm passing on the full discount of my construction site to Sauromatia. This is because I have a big god damn mouth and I couldn't keep having a construction site a secret. I chat with Schneeble on occassion and two things happened. 1. I was excited about finding the constrution site and had to tell someone about it. 2. At the beginning of the LP, Lilli said she wanted us to disclose things like discount sites that would affect our strategic decisions (and subsequently explain how those decisions changed as a result), and I wanted to find out how long was reasonable to delay talking about the construction site in thread. If I was still locked in a struggle to the death with TheDemonthe mighty kraken from the deep, then I would be easy pickings for one of my neighbors and the presence of a discount site (without a fort!) would been a significant incentive to invade. Schneeble wasn't playing and is pretty reasonable so I asked him what he thought.

So that's the first reason I'm giving Schneeble the discount - he knows about the construction site and this is the hush money. The second reason is that I really want a strong neighbor who can be a long term ally. Not too strong, mind you, but Sauromatia is pretty weak right now and giving him the full discount will help him leverage his relatively low gem income into a better position going forward.


In Laerian Swamps, SKROOB! ported onto TheDemon's raiding Raksharaja and died. Obviously betrayed by a traitor! All film of the battle has been mysteriously erased but rumors of a Melqart suddenly appearing ass backwards abound! King Hippomnomnomnom's security forces are hard at work ferreting out the traitor's identity so that nasty fanfic can be written about him. Seriously, fuck this battle. SKROOB! couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. At least he managed to give TheDemon's Raksharaja a chest wound, but there's no two ways about it, this was a bad loss for me.


FUCK. THE. OCEAN. I looked at the scouting report and saw only ichthyids, but it turns out there were war shamblers too. That's a terrible combination - little guys with nets and big guys with huge bulging muscles to beat the crap out of you when you're down. FUCK THE OCEAN got hit with a couple nets and then a couple war shamblers and was dead before he knew what hit him. At least he was aptly named.


In Laerian Swamps, UNFROZEN CAVEMAN LAWYER and his dust warriors come through on cleanup duty.


Now, on to the main event. This is KING HIPPO JR and a bunch of avvites, barbarians and dust warriors against everything TheDemon has to offer. KING HIPPO JR escapes and we trade dust warriors, barbarians and giants for 10 Palankasha and 6 Gana. Not a good trade, but not a terrible one either, given our relative positions.


The raiding Raksharaja heads northward. What is he doing? I was confused when he didn't use the lab to cloud trapeze either home or further into my territory. Now I just have no idea what he's doing. I assume he's headed home by the northern route, but why?


Let's take a closer look at the battle in Lanka. TheDemon gets the first turn and puts up storm. It's a good idea because these aren't invulnerable giants. His Palankasha rush to meet the barbarians.


And break them.


As the barbarians turn to flee, avvites charge into the flank of the Palankasha and a summer storm rains lightning and acid down on the dust warriors.


A stray thunder bolt lands among the Palankasha. I'm sure Peak Theorycrafting will be giving that Raksharaja a stern talking to.


The barbarians have fled and the avvite and Palankasha are locked in combat while lightning continues to bombard the dust warriors.


Only a handful of dust warriors remain, but the giants have managed to cut down half of the Palankasha.


And then the dawn guard find the body of PIMP ROBES and with their mission accomplished the mighty army of Hinnom retreats.


Wait a minute. Where are those Palankasha going? Don't they know they won?


Guys? Guys, come back, you won!


This battle is a significant victory for me. That's the last of TheDemon's Palankasha fleeing off the field. The squad failed a morale test just as my army routed and because they have a W9 bless they were able to run the full length of the field before my poor slow giants were able to limp away.


Because TheDemon does not have any adjacent provinces, every single one of those fleeing Palankasha is lost to him. This is all he has left. With his pretender along, it is a not insignificant force. But it is much less frightening than the same force with a full complement of blockers. Particularly when those blockers are Palankasha.


Here's a quick look at FUCK THE OCEAN's last moments. Yes, I renamed DADDY ISSUES the turn before he died. No, no that wasn't intentional. Fuck.


In Hinnom, I cast Call of the Winds at the province TheDemon's raider moved into, The Marsh of Ethereal Frogs. The chest wound, combined with his pre-battle buffing, mean that that raider is going to get to 100 fatigue awfully quikly. A nice screen of chaff supported by a single raider should be able to take him out.


Here's the raider. S has a frost brand and a starshine skullcap (+1S gets him to three levels of astral so he can cast teleport) and will be porting in with the birds from Call of the Winds. Call of the Winds will jack the Rak's fatigue and then S will move in with his frost brand and finish the prostrate raider. You can also see my forging here. Ornias, the hero with A4B3 is getting empowered one level in blood to forge blood boosters. Lightless lantern and blood stone forging continues.


In Nardago, here's strategy number two. I know I can beat TheDemon now, but I'm still losing a lot in this war. So I build a temple in Nardago. TheDemon is going to get domkilled with a quickness or come and face me on my terms. KING HIPPO JR has three levels of holy magic from being a prophet and Melqarts get a sacrifice bonus of three so he can sacrifice six slaves a turn. With King Hippomnomnomnom's dominion score of 10, that means 12 (2/slave) candles a turn from sacrifice, one from the presence of the prophet and one from the presence of the temple for a total of 14 guaranteed candles. Dominion spread is a little funky, but if he doesn't do anything TheDemon probably has five turns at absolute most before he gets dominion killed.


In Lanka, it looks like TheDemon has summoned more Gana. He's now forced to use Gana and monkeys to screen for his mages. The Gana are a fine screen as they are ethereal, but they just don't compare at all to Palankasha when it comes to actually killing something.


Gemgen Counter

Bloodstones: 18
Cost: 90E, 144 slaves
Gems Generated: 89