Part 210: Sauro - Turns 32-33
Turn 32
This turn is fairly uneventful, and that is a good thing. No, a great thing. I'm still trying to get my feet under me. Anybody can take a look at the graphs and see that I'm in nearly as precarious a position as Lanka. I can only assume that the reason nobody has taken advantage of that fact is that they are all busy elsewhere. The little disposable income I have is plowed into recruiting a Witch King, a Warrior Sorceress, and a Scout each turn. I can't afford anything beyond that.
My little archer squad met only with a minimal amount of Lanka's PD, and was victorious. I figure that TheDemon will either counterattack with a force I can't beat, or do nothing. My best bet is to take this largely expendable force and send them to the province south of his capitol. The aggressive pace risks little and--if successful--helps to keep the pressure on.
My first turn of blood hunting (ever) pulled in 4 slaves. It's a start! I'm slowly expanding my blood hunting and associated patrols, forging a skull mentor with the hammer in my inventory, and continuing my research toward Evocation 5. This turn I hit Evocation 4, which doesn't really do anything for me except add Nether Bolt. Even then, only my Enaries can cast that and I don't have many of those guys.
Some time around this turn, TheDemon approached me and made a suggestion: I had more to gain by turning against Hinnom than I did in seeing through the attack on Lanka. Lanka had tenuous control over only a handful of provinces, so I was likely to get three at best, all of them ravaged by constant battle. Hinnom had a big, fat untouched back-country that I could probably grab a lot of with a timely betrayal.
Of course it wouldn't really *be* a betrayal because I was a new player and buildscharacter had been dealing with Dawkish and then Xanrick. I might even be able to scratch one of my Irrational Objectives off the list. It was tempting...
Dominion Watch: 16 candles (up from 15)
Wrath of Rainbow: 30 (previous turn) + 12 (2 wounded) + 24 (2 killed) = 66 gold
Irrational Objectives:
1. Control the entire isthmus.
2. Extract an air mage from buildscharacter.
3. Complete Project X.
4. Extract blood price from Arcoscephale (66 gold).
Turn 33
Ultimately I decided to stay the course. Abandoning Hinnom might get Hinnom killed, but as far as I could tell at the time I would have been the next obvious target after Hinnom's destruction. I might have been able to grow a little more in the meantime but unless T'ien Ch'i or maybe Pangaea were still hip deep in a bloody war by the time Hinnom was defeated, Lanka would almost certainly go after the tiny, depleted Sauromatia next.
Conversely I've managed to maintain a long-term alliance with buildscharacter in another game (we both lost, which may have been setting a precedent) but he struck me as more likely to hold a peaceful border all the way up until there's nobody left to kill, and/or until one of us becomes so powerful that the other is obligated to turn on him (with a gentleman's notice, of course).
Assuming that aligning myself with either TheDemon or buildscharacter results in the destruction of the other, I feel that being TheDemon's friend will get me a greater short term gain that I won't have a chance to capitalize on, while being buildscharacter's friend will result in a smaller short-term gain but a safe border that will be a big help when one of the larger powers decides to kill me.
Perhaps most importantly, I'm pretty sure that TheDemon would want to keep the Peninsula of Awesomeness if I allied with him. That's seriously a lot of gems in one place, and I am loathe to relinquish it to anybody.
Anyway there are two fights on this list that I'm going to investigate:
1. The battle in Remecia, which is where my tiny squad of archers and the Spirit Guide were headed. It turns out that my army never made it, and in fact this battle is between barbarians and Lanka's PD. That is an unlucky event at a really inconvenient time for TheDemon, but it works out well for me!
2. The battle in Peninsua of Awesomeness. My tiny squad fought here with some of my own PD against an attacking army from Lanka. The battle is his 30 archers against my 10 (and frighten), plus the PD acting as miscellaneous chaff. Atavi archers already have low morale, and the Frighten spells cast by my Sprit Guide lower it further. Also, Androphag archers are pretty great and the atavi archers were apparently set to fire cavalry (maybe so they could kill any Witch Kings in the army) and so they wasted most of their shots firing over my archers at my more distant PD. So I won! The Spirit Guide died, though, which kind of sucks.
I've hit my primary research goal, though, and now I'm moving up a large army of archers, plus those markatas who will be buffed by Body Ethereal, and some cataphracts, and a mess of witch kings. This army represents nearly everything I have (well, maybe half of my witch kings, but everything else), so I hope I scripted everybody correctly! The plan is that these guys will gather in the Peninsula of Awesomeness next turn, and move on to finish Lanka off after that.
Dominion Watch: 12 candles (down from 16)
Wrath of Rainbow: 66 (previous turns) + 12 (2 wounded) + 0 (0 killed) = 78 gold
Irrational Objectives:
1. Control the entire isthmus.
2. Extract an air mage from buildscharacter.
3. Complete Project X.
4. Extract blood price from Arcoscephale (78 gold).