Part 3: Turn 3
Turn 3gonadic io posted:
There's a lot of troops there but these amphibious independents are notoriously poor quality so while I'm a bit worried I take the gamble. I hope it goes well!
Let's watch as I lose my starting army and am put out of the game instantly!
Here's my brave boys, 20 Unicyclists
![](1-ONhdRcY.png)
and 20 jugglers
![](2-gnmxIWx.png)
Note their universally low protection and this is not the force that will have the invulnerability buff. Thanks to my awesome scripting the unicyclists charge far ahead of the jugglers and fight the enemy force without backup
![](3-MRLt8VW.png)
...
![](4-9cpCanJ.png)
and the enemy force then routes instantly and I take zero casualties. Those amphibian independent troops are bad.
Maxing out my luck scales is already paying off as I get my first hero this turn! This is a 6% chance per turn with luck 3 I believe. The Emerald Impaler the World Champion is a fantastic leader providing a plus SEVEN bonus to morale to units under him, and gets awe and a pretty big 19 defense. Even more interestingly he starts with a heroic ability, in this case strength, but isn't allowed into the hall of fame proper. The committee is biased against professional jousting and keeps saying that it's not a real sport.
![](5-TuwNJ2w.png)
In terms of movement, the starting expansion force is moving further east to try and secure more land and the Emerald Impaler is joining them. Not one of them will route and risk looking weak in front of him. My clown force is moving onto the farmland to the east, scripted to buff with both bless and invulnerability. By far the weakest part of this force is Candy the clown leading them as he's much more fragile than the size 5 clowns alongside him. As such he's just tucked right into the corner and they're positioned to try and minimise the chance that somebody will zoom past and take him out.
![](6-g2iCaow.png)
In terms of recruitment my other scales are also coming into effect which means I can recruit another Thirteenth Clown and a grand total of one (1) giant clown. One! Part of why I'm going for the farm province instead of the lizards is that I just absolutely need the cash ASAP. The lizard province will only start producing nature mages after I get a lab and temple up so that's a further away concern.
Looking at the world map, what's this?
![](7-W6br89f.png)
That's the flag of Fennoscandia the norse/troll nation. I'll do a followup post with more details but their scariest troops are limited recruitment so I'm willing to risk a bump with them at this stage. They seem like an okay nation to have as a neighbour, certainly their dominion doesn't spread shit. Their trolls can be a bit scary but I can get a lot more giant clowns than they have trolls at this stage and I'm not at all worried about their human troops. Later on they get access to the classic combo of Foul Vapours and Horde of Skeletons which is going to be very annoying to fight. I am not planning to rush them or anything but I start giving serious thought to them being my first war - if I can kill them before the combo gets online it'll be a lot easier.