Part 68: Turn 56
Turn 56Our mind hunts firing off as per usual. First misses the King Of Mountains (who costs 50 gems note).
Yes! Eat shit! He was the last commander too so I'm sending a token force in to finish off the troops. Even if Anglia does decide to utterly waste 500 gold of PD to try and lay a trap I'm not sending enough to worry about - just an arrow fend caster, a blesser, and a half dozen clown troops.
Next up is mind hunting Karanaac's god. It's far easier than worrying about how many clowns it'd take to kill it.
Rejoice our god has awoken! Hopefully this time he'll be a little more careful... The lost nature magic takes us from 4 to 3, which is a bit annoying since we can't cast Awaken Treelord (N5) with a Moonvine Bracelet booster now but we're also pretty far away from the required Enchantment 7 anyway so it's not a huge deal. We could get different nature mage summon that has hands like an Ivy King first if we really need to.
The mantis AI has won two more mercenary bands. Fuck that's Helmut the mason he could have upgraded our forts! By this point in the game I've stopped paying attention to the mercenaries but that's a mistake since there are a few good ones that only show up in the late game.
U takes that border province as agreed earlier.
For the other half of the deal, we move a clown to take Caverns Of The Succubi that U nabbed. Also time to storm the last mantis fort, FOR REAL this time. Please let this war be over.
Back in the east it's time to get Fennoscandia's throne back! We have our usual score of enormous clowns, backed up by a handful of mages. Arrow fend and divine blessing go off straight away then the aoe clown buffs follow, with some pretty patchy application. It's dark but thanks to our low-light vision bless we're not actually doing too bad! I think this might be one of the first times it's actually come into play this whole game.
Racing forward we see that Anglia has been summoning some grubs - who are low-key my favourite summon since they're pretty cheap, are no pushover in combat, and have one of the best gem-to-siege-strength ratios in the whole game. The downside is that they're pretty slow.
Unfortunately as per usual the clowns aren't all on attack rear and some of them get caught up trying to fight the wall defenders. I mean sure they're still enormous clowns with arrow fend up, but 20% of a lot of bullets is still a lot! Without the buff coverage that more mages would have provided the clowns started to fall one by one.
Even Pongy decided that he was bored of casting spells and was going to get some action himself!
In the end the power of comically large boots can't be denied but it was a LOT closer than it needed to be. I probably should have cast shock resistance buffs. The age of the recruitable troop, even ones as good as enormous clowns, really is almost over. It's mages that decide big fights at this point of the game.
Speaking of Pongy, apparently their "heroics" were impressive and they made it into the hall of fame with heroic attack skill. Now this is the kind of mage I like to have, just look at him. Not quite at the Super Combatant level, especially compared to Dom 3/4, but still a very powerful caster.
The people here are pretty unhappy about being governed by literal clowns though apparently.
With our forces mostly gone from down here and a worrying amount of Anglian troops building up next door, Joaquin Phoenix's Oscar is going to teleport into this newly retaken throne to help keep it safe. Pongy is claiming it this turn.
While we're here let's take a look at the HoF actually. Of course it's U's immortals at the top spot, fuck. Third is Chasos's immortal assassin.
Worryingly we've lost track of Anglia's main army. I miss Eyes of God already! The province we took last turn was just 1 point of PD so it's time to advance our forces forward. These mages are absent from the research corps and it's critical that they do things rather than just stand around.
We clean up another mantis province, this one with a fitting name.
Anglia have moved a big force onto the candle that we said U could take, so that means this force is U's problem now right? Right??
quote:
[3:45 AM] Xanrick: Well, here comes another big wave of brits through 7. I'm gearing up a big force in the area, hopefully it's enough to counter them, but it'll take a couple of turns to gather everything. Fortunately my fort at 33 should finish in time to avoid getting aborted. Queens of thunder and air elementals are scary, so I'm hoping that I can mass enough guys with magic weapons and get some shock resistance buffs going.
[3:50 AM] Xanrick: Did you see the force in 138? That was the one that was supposed to link up with the rest in the candle system in the NW corner, but Chasos ended up blocking me off. Now I'm going to have to loop the long way around, it'll just end up being faster for me to make a secondary force, since it's about 3 turns worth of travel.
Oh also apparently something else happened this turn but I got distracted and failed to pay it any attention and neither should you.
Whoops I forgot to send anybody. Bet that fortune teller who told us about it 3 months ago is pissed.