Part 140: Hinnom - Turn 44
Turn 44
Now that the Zmey is out of the bag, I'm going to continue ignoring Mictlan and Arcoscephale and keep talking about war with Lanka. I'll discuss Mictlan-Arcoscephale in my bigger diplomacy post and in a separate strategy post. Until then, TheDemon still lives.
Last turn I started building a Tel City in Histyra. The construction site does not become public knowledge in this LP until that fort is complete (entirely coincidental I assure you). That means that irony or death doesn't know that I can make a ring of sorcery for around 20 pearls. He was willing to trade 80 water gems for a ring of sorcery. Ordinarily, this would be a stupid trade because rings of sorcery and rings of wizardry are incredibly valuable and if a nation can't forge their own then you shouldn't forge one for them (the same can be said of hammers). But, 80 water gems is a lot of water gems.
In other big news this turn, I finally hit construction 8. This was a bit of a gamble, but it turns out that nobody else has researched construction 8 so I have the artifacts all to myself. I take advantage by promptly forging absolutely no artifacts.
That Voice of Apsu cast found a water site in Nardago. That means TheDemon was lying thirty turns ago when he said his pretender was site searching there.
Still, it's nice to find additional water income.Slave income is down to 39 and reports in the field suggest that forcing scouts to wear full dress uniform at all times may not be a good idea.
High Woods is just North East of Hinnom and a little micro reduction (one fewer province to ferry scouts around in) never hurt anyone.
Construction 9 offers mechanical militia, a great global that adds little robots to your province defense, and a couple other construction summons, but really isn't worth it. Particularly when your research looks like mine. Although my research is bad, you can see that the dedication to lightless lanterns is really paying off and I'm up to 341 research points a turn.
At 341 points a turn, it won't be long before I can start putting up protective magic domes to stop people from casting nasty spells (like rain of toads, send horror, monster boar, fires from afar and seeking arrow) at my construction site. I'm going to put domes up because I have so many eggs in one basket. The vast majority of my mages are hanging out in Histyra and I don't want someone doing anything untoward to my poor giants.
Domes are an important part of the late game. They're an expensive investment of gems that you're not using to kill anyone but, particularly if you have weak human mages, it's important to stop enemies from raining fireballs all over your capital and domes are the way to do it. Here's an example of a dome. The astral dome has a flat 50% chance to stop spells. The air dome is the best with an 80% chance to stop spells. Fire and water domes don't stop spells but do fire or ice damage to mages casting spells at them. The blood dome is both the best and the worst. It summons a dome of horrors that have a 75% chance to stop any incoming spells and can drive the casting mages insane. Unfortunately, sometimes the horrors get hungry and eat the mages they're protecting.
I'm going to stick with Enchantment until I hit level 7. One of my favorite spells in the game is the reason I'm headed for enchantment 7. It also has earth blood deep well, a global that provides 20 extra earth gems a turn, and life after death, a spell that allows you to bring back dead heroes from the hall of fame.
This is such a good spell in Awesome Endgame and it's the primary reason I'm headed into enchantment Kraken have, rightly, been nerfed since the version of AE we're using (briefly buffed too!) and I'll talk about how great they are if I get there.
In Lanka, TheDemon sends everyone out against another poor scout. Why didn't I set the scout to retreat? Because micromanagement is for suckers
And here's the battle in Lanka. My scout quickly dies, but he gives me a chance to see what TheDemon has left. The Gana, Raksharaja (including one who just cast mirror image, indicating he's going to fight in hand-to-hand rather than summoning ghost wolves
They're Rakshasa, and cost blood slaves to summon. That means one of two things. Either TheDemon is hunting his cap or he's still trading with Lilli. I don't know, but I now suspect that Lilli's research spike is a combination of finding circle masters and trading blood slaves to TheDemon for death gems. Death gems can be used to make skull mentors. Skull mentors are like super lightless lanterns that don't summon horrors from beyond to eat your mages. Each skull mentor gives +9 research and costs 10 death gems to make. Anyway, I'm fairly certain nobody else is trading him slaves and I've been besieging him enough that he's probably not blood hunting his cap. That means that Lilli has been consistently supporting TheDemon while I've been fighting him (and, I should add, supporting me at one point by trading for a couple castings of rain of toads). It's a good example of just how frighteningly good she is at this game that she has the technical skill to turkey duel rainbow dash and the diplomatic skill to play me and TheDemon off against each other like this. Well done Lilli.
Here you can see that Blood Stone production is up to five a turn! If only I'd been doing this twenty turns ago. Oh well. Savnok, son of the Grigori Kokabel, and all around bad ass (and S4 caster) uses a starshine skullcap to forge a Ring of Sorcery for irony or death. Ornias forges a brazen vessel (miscellaneous slot blood booster). He's forging it so I have it just in case something happens to him and not because I need it. I haven't done any blood research and my slave income is all being funneled into blood stones (currently using 40 slaves a turn).
TOMMY LIKE WINGY brings his barbarian and dust guard escort back into Lanka. I don't know why TheDemon has been waiting to attack Nardago. Maybe he was waiting for the blood slaves from Mictlan to summon Rakshasa?
While he waits, KING HIPPO JR's HP total continues to swell as his sacrificing bumps Nardago up to six candles of friendly dominion.
Gemgen Counter
Blood stones: 31
Cost: 179E, 248 slaves
Gems Generated: 179
Look, I broke even!
