Part 220: Sauro - Turn 49

Turn 49
Artificer, most of us are pretty good about leaving Dom3 shenanigans where they belong (not just in the game, but in the last turn as well) but there is definitely an element of Diplomacy the game in here as well. If you really want to win then chances are you're going to have to be an ass to one or more of your fellow players. Possibly multiple times in one game!

- Schneeble/Sauromatia
A few random events: A big market was held and I raked in 500 gold in taxes, a fertility festival raised the growth scales in one province at the expense of a couple candles, and I found some Nature gems. Also, 141 units suffered from Burden of Time. Add those to the 90 from last turn and... my goodness this thing takes its toll. Still, as ever the vast majority of those suffering are Androphag Archers (which I haven't recruited in many turns anyway because I feel their time has passed except as siege fodder) and Soothsayers. Wait, isn't my prophet a Soothsayer?


I see. Well, he's still got 15 hit points left, I can get quite a few turns of slave sacrifice out of him before he goes unless there's some other old age mechanic where a unit can flat out die from being too old. Like that kind of detail would be coded into this game.


I move my small underwater force back south (they took Mictlan's undefended water province without issue) and I order my Witch King squad to attack that province that the Troglodyte random event took. Also I continue to shuffle around a few priests who have nothing to do now that my goddess is back.

- TheDemon/Lanka
The observant among you may have noticed that Lanka took one of the provinces on "his" island. That's Vepitre, and I gave it to him. I also gave him Remecia (the one next to it) which I expect him to take next turn. I also signed a 10-turn NAP with him with a promise to give at least 1 turn of notice before attacking him after that. Why would I do all of that? I'm pretty sure that this will be covered in the next diplomatic post, but when builds character and I were discussing things that we could do to stop Mictlan's zmey, he threw out an idea that I latched on to as the best possible thing that we could do. I argued that it was quite literally a game changer and that we should do it as soon as possible.

Hinnom didn't have the gems to pull it off, apparently... but Lanka did. I don't know the particulars of the deal that those two worked out, and my participation wasn't exactly required but I volunteered it anyway. In part this was because TheDemon was enabling us to do a thing that I had gotten so excited about, and in part it was because I had not concerned myself with that border for a while and I wasn't inclined to start now. After all, there was a real war on and it was happening somewhere else.

- Feinne/T'ien Ch'i
Speaking of real wars, you may have also noticed that I am moving a force back into Erfel down at the bottom of the map. I had been talking to Feinne, and we worked out our differences. Pangaea and Hinnom had more important things to do than attack Feinne, and I believe that I asked them to leave what was left of T'ien Ch'i alone for a little while. In return I got Erfel again (which was not essential to Feinne and which gave me another avenue to attack Mictlan), and Feinne would throw in his lot with us against Lilli's power.

- Dexanth/Arcoscephale
Wrath of Rainbow: 846 (previous turns) + 24 (4 wounded) + 0 (0 killed) = 870 gold
That turn wasn't so bad!

- buildscharacter/Hinnom
Hinnom sent an independent commander to take Cacian Forest back (where the Illusionists are). I told him I put a few points of PD there to prevent anybody from sniping it with a scout during the handoff. I told him! Anyway, when that independent commander marched to his death against my 3 PD I realized that I could have gotten another air mage out of the deal, if I had only forseen that builds character would not commit sufficient force to an attack. But how could I have predicted that?

Irrational Objectives:
1. Control the entire isthmus.
2. Extract an air mage from buildscharacter.
3. Summon/GoR the Daughter of Typhon.
4. Extract blood price from Arcoscephale (870 gold).

I actually wanted to post turn 50 here, but it turns out that my e-mail service won't let me download it. I'll try again tomorrow morning!