Part 5: Turn 4

Turn 4

Iram's prophet declaration finally arrived!

Iram are a mostly human nation themed after Arabian desert nomads. They have strong air and fire magic as well as lots of jinni summons. They seem like a cool nation but like Fennoscandia are included in Dominions Enhanced which has a lower power level than these more grab-bag mods games. I'm not sure why Iram waited until turn 4 to prophet since it's just a regular commander - usually anybody who waits this long does it to prophet one of the more powerful slow-to-recruit mages.


As for our two expansion forces, neither took any losses at all!
The unicyclists in Iseenu Beforest once again proved their high defense and long weapons are better than armour:

We did not bump with Fennoscandia unfortunately, I would have liked to potentially take out one of their expansion forces.

The clown fight in Jessinka's Oasis started off in a classic way, with 4 out of 5 of the clowns being hit by the invulnerability buff even though there was more than enough area to go around:

Luckily I had considered this during testing and make sure that the buff got cast twice.

The same thing happened with the two casts of blessing, with the first one hitting only half the guys but the second getting them all.


The clowns crashed into the lines of melee troops and it was a total massacre, this clown instantly killed two militia in a single round. Thirty eight damage!


Some troops passed by the clowns and started heading towards the mage who would not stand up in the same way. This could actually have been bad but luckily the losses from the rest of their squad caused them to turn around to flee while only half way towards their target.


So we won with zero casualties and probably close to zero damage taken. Giant clowns with this bless are one of the scariest units in the game this early. As I said, only Edjuldnir can effectively fight them during the expansion phase.


Our plans for this turn are short: we move our clown force out to the west into Saquenay's Vista and our unicyclist/juggler force to take the candle province Bloax Laboratories to the east. I'll give a full overview of the candle system when it becomes relevant but suffice to say that it's an important choke point to hold.
Our scout (mime) has found Fennoscandia's cap which is looks closer than it actually is - 4 moves away is reasonably average in dominions. I'm still hoping for a bump with Fennoscandia's expansion forces as they could try for Bloax Laboratories this turn too.
No sign of any other nations or even their dominion.
Thanks to the farm province and the fact that we are still recruiting the thirteenth clown from before we are flush with cash this turn so I recruit 4 enormous clowns to finish off the expansion force and actually place a bid on the fish-people mercenaries. Apart from Karanaac, no other nation in this game has good amphibian troops so if I could start grabbing underwater provinces they'd be a real nice source of income.