Part 91: Lanka - Turn 72

Turn 72


I, uh, skipped ahead a little bit.





So, how did it come to this?




(that's two candles, total)

How. Did it come to this?



So, my last update was on turn... 40? Hey, that wasn't so long ago.

Anyway, Hinnom and I beat the crap out of each other and Schneeble wisely decided that he'd take any provs he could get for free but let Buildscharacter deal with the tough stuff. And so on turn 49, we signed a 10 turn NAP, plus a 1 turn notice NAP.

If I recall correctly, this diplo update by builds.

THE PLAN was for me to take advantage of this truce to first rebuild a little, then to snatch up as many free provinces from the near-beaten TC as I could. When you're invading someone in cooperation with someone else you can also either "accidentally" take some of their provinces too, if your coordination is bad, or "claim" that these provinces used to belong to you (partially true in this case). I had planned on doing this to Mictlan, who was under Lilli at the time.

It didn't exactly get off to a great start:

Turn 51/52








Now here I think I make my biggest mistake of the entire game.

As of Turn 54 or so Mictlan is under the control of Incy and signs a truce with Hinnom and friends. I decide to switch to Plan B, because I no longer have Mictlan as an ally to support a potential attack on TC.

BIG MISTAKE.

Plan B is my "Build up, wait 10 turns, wait a few more, drop the NAP and hit one of Hinnom/Sauro as hard as you can". And as you saw from their updates, I simply waited too long, especially under Mind Hunt harassment. Got out of the right mindset for this kind of scrappy fight and ended up falling behind.

Pressing an attack on TC immediately after the thug died would have been very prudent. I'm not sure if I could have taken him, but he was still fighting other people too. It would also be exactly what I need to finally grab some territory outside of the island, even if I can't hold it against TC's Master Enslave pretender. And let's face it, he's the best source of "free" territory on the map right now, well, after myself.

Instead, I sit on my butt like a chump and call back my god and whatnot. Also got a free fort event.



Blood research is the order of the day. I'm heading to Blood 7 for Leech, a really good anti-SC spell. Asrapas are an unarmored Lanka troop summon who are pretty good because they're cheap and hit hard with a magic weapon.



Turn 62




And... that's pretty much that. Against endgame nations that are prepared, I don't really have much of a chance. Unlike the scrappy fighting you can do in the early-midgame, once the enemy gets to a certain level of power and especially mobility your best bet is to hunker down and make them pay for storming your forts. If you venture outside forts, you get hit by teleporters and those are really hard to anticipate, so you can't really script for them without an equivalent level of power.

I did send out this force:



But it rather depended on the Darkness caster not getting eaten by Earth Elementals. And also it got teleported on, just like I thought any forces I send out would.






Which brings us to...

Turn 72



The present. Schneeble has been trying to blood sac me to death because he doesn't want to deal with storming my fort. But with this many priests inside, I'm pretty sure I can force the issue unless he puts temples on all the adjacent provinces. Oh, also, sending out a guy to cause some trouble. Hopefully.


ENDGAME KILLCOUNT
EDIT: God damn I'm still alive at turn 72 from that starting position. Most Dom3 games this size are over at this point.