Part 59: Turn 59

Turn 59, uh, strap the fuck in



it might not look like much but... come with me on a journey



but first, nazca honors its trade



And Evocation 7 which has some battlefield clearing spells. Firestorm isn't in our casting wheelhouse but these guys:




They could come up eventually.



We find a +1 pearl site.



We push onto the eastern side of the island and find basically nothing.




And push farther into the sea. Nominal resistance.
...because they are all in Rivia...



Our army moves in to find...


Everyone.

i do not know how much PD that is

Let's get a look at the guys who jump out here.



First up we got a straight up king here. Kings are raw as hell as a general historical rule. A Lizard king can claim thrones as they are an H3 mage. This guy will honestly probably just smite a lot and not matter but he is a king so he should probably get a screenshot. Respect the office. He has a water breathing ring which suggests he walked here.



But for real this is the big head turner. When the other side is binding dead gods into service you know things are getting pretty real. Tartarians (or Tarts for short in common parlance) are summoned as units but can be uplifted into commander status with Gift of Reason or Divine Name like our prophet was. They are also insane and have an about 25% chance of ignoring your orders every month. They have random paths more or less and this guy is W4. He has a water breathing ring because I guess this immortal dead god can drown even though he is kept alive only by force of its insane willpower. Let's be realistic after all.



A wight mage. Likely the result of a twiceborned Marshmaster dying.



Only one saurowraith here but one is kind of enough. No equipment though.



Oh lordy he was making a second shademail brain reaper I love it.

OK so now for the notables on our side we have...



Protection 28, ok defense, 6 attacks per round two of which are triple damage vs undead and even some elemental resistances. Cyborg Prince Eric- Revengeance will buff with Body Ethereal and Astral Shield and attack rear.



And my god, who is very much alive unlike the monstrum, is on the field. Disney's the Normal-Sized Mermaid is going to cast Living Air to summon a ton of air elementals and tangle up their backline ideally, then cast mass regeneration for my line troops then spam Living Air until he goes off-script and does ?????

The rest of my wizards are set to do astral things, summon elementals, summon LOTS of elementals or just throw frozen heart if nothing else.

ready...

FIGHT!



I open up with a LOT of elementals.



And the first barrage of soul slays, frozen hearts and paralyzes messes up the leading trolls but...



There is a lot more coming. Special shout out to the catoblepas pair gassing the team's own wolf tribe indie PD. You can see my air elementals going into the middle of their formations.



The saurowraith casts soul vortex in a move that all those living wizards next to him extremely appreciate. The Air Elementals mob the back line.



Speaking of living wizards here is one of his Sea Troll Kings here.



That little white pentagram star in the upper corner is the Light of the Northern Star battlefield enchantment cast by one of my astral wizards, granting all my astral mages +1S level which is very good for casting the good paralyze, soul slays and enslaves more.



Mass regeneration goes up, all living dudes get +10% regeneration. The elementals don't get it which is too bad because that would be pretty funny.



Our water ice elementals meet their front line finally.



A lot of his army is lagging behind though, probably because of air elementals. One of his troll kings cast Frost Fend-



This gives all his troops +5 cold resistance which will help them not fatigue out (further) from all the chill auras flying around here and blunt- but not stop- the damage from Frozen Heart



The armies clash. The chill aura from my ice elementals might be bad for my wave warriors. Also Cyborg Prince Eric- Revengeance has been punching out an enemy elemental on the north of the battlefield. And that troll is in our colors now?



Enslave mind heck yea. He is almost dead, suffering from profuse bleeding and surrounded on all sides by enemies but he is ours.



Have an idea of the kind of damage Cyborg Prince Eric- Revengeance is putting out here. On chaff yes but.



The Catoblepas join the battle...


...and annihilate swaths of their 'allies' to get a few wave warriors.



It is around this point you can see that the basic C'tis troops and indies have all realized that ain't it chief. tfw you realize you are the grass that suffers when elephants fight and gtfo



A few of my own troops are just not having it.



A lot of them are too fatigued out to move from the cold so they are going nowhere anyway. Also pictured is my golem running RIGHT PAST THE MONSTRUM to go chase fleeing snake militia. Great. Good. i love it



Also LOOK WHO IS HERE NOW ACTUALLY. As the line troops fade the super combatants step up.



The Tart looks to have cast liquid body- so it will take half damage from physicals, and given itself a pretty big chill aura as it wades into melee.



Note to self- next time attack large monsters orders instead of attack rear.



My wave warriors, unable to move from the cold, are shredded by soul vortex and death gazes and just you know stabbing.



The golem fights his way through skelespam put up by the Wight Mage even as the troll and the other wizards begin to lose nerve and retreat.



My astral mages are all fine by the way and casting whenever they get a shot. The Monstrum eats a 27 turn paralyze. haha suck it



And my god is still going fine! DID ANYONE ORDER MORE AIR ELEMENTALS???



In the back the wight mage sees the unstoppable cyber monster bearing down on him and decides to go home and do his homework immediately.



The back line wizards get a few more ice elementals off before they all flee. This will keep the golem busy for a bit.



My mages enslave a catoblepas.


i... am... ruuuuuude!

Who then gores his former catoblepas comrade fatally.



My golem beats the ice elementals but the chill aura has actually fatigued him some. Note to self- add cold resist to the kit.



The saurowraith strikes down my new catoblepas



BEEP BEEP GOLEM COMING THROUGH


a perfect spiral... scientists are still trying to figure it out

He runs up and fucking BURIES his sword in the saurowraith's chest.



And promptly needs a nap. That is, uh, concerning. Hold on...


hell yes

We enslave the Monstrum!!



The saurowraith wanders away from that scrum toward my mage line. My nature mages seem to have started berserking the warrior-wizard champions because one runs right up to them. My golem begins to recover from his fatigue but fast enough to get involved soon? Probably not.



He gets blinded, he eats a stun...



and learns the error of his ways.



PELAGIA WINS


the great outdoor fight

FRIENDSHIP

With no retreat provinces, any C'tis troops who fled are gone for good. The mountains don't give back what they take

Also that was 94 PD. Someone do the math on how much gold that cost

some other fights also happened



Phaecia is hitting a throne with a small team of wizards.



So what is his plan here.




I swear I didn't know this was going to happen when I screenshot those spells from the research list.



These guys are pretty beefy though and that is not a lot of blockers.



And they can't buy enough space.



With more troops that would probably work. Honestly a large conventional army would do it too I think. Howareu probably realizes that too.

MEANWHILE at another throne.



I found where the revived saurowraiths are. I HOPE they are the revived ones I killed earlier and not just Even. More. Saurowraiths.

Also that monstrum was... not his only Tart.



The Paths on this guy are pretty intense. Some boosters and a regen ring. 10% healing but 10% of 300hp is a lotttt




The other two are 'just' slabs of meat.



The other side is also nothing but slabs



I hope you like soul vortex. The MVP spell of this dang game.



The tart titan pops DARKNESS cratering the combat skills of creatures without dark vision (undead normally don't care as you might expect)



The troops wash over and around the Saurowraiths but they can't really be stopped.



The red glow is Curse of Stones, a spell that tries to add encumbrance to everyone on the field. I think the throne defender earth mother cast it. The AI loves it and it is ?probably good? but I don't feel like I run into as many fights that are decided by fatiguing out the enemy side as I used to in dom4.



Also in a twist, the titan tart, with no ethereal form and only 5 protection, is getting beaten DOWN.



RIP to a real astral-death god corpse thing.



But he isn't necessary for the win and tbh probably didnt even need to be there which has to make it sting a little.



C'tis secures a second throne.

Events!



I know that sounds dire to you guys but I am enslaving dead gods here ok.




It might save time to just tell me whenever one of these events does not happen?



That... is actually real good.



Phaecia gets indie trolls seiging a fort.


nice



The overview. We have pushed C'tis way back on this front, and I think we need to threaten his throne with an advance of our own. The trick is making it so our armies don't die to his standard bullshit plus whatever else he might come up with. Jsoh actually innovates and learns from losses so that's a thing. Not every player does!



I start setting up shop here. Building a fort and temple. I may need to cast some above-the-waves only spells soon and this is a defensible spot with C'tis recently kicked out. I start pushing to have him removed from more of the sea. I send my golem out initially in this screen shot but then decide to hold Cyborg Prince Eric- Revengeance back for now. No sense walking into a counterpunch for no reason.



But what is this in the troop bar up above? Our new buddies!



The Monstrum and the saurowraith are now just line troops without any paths, but if I use Gift of Reason on them they will regain their former paths. The equipment, like the ring of water breathing, is lost though. I don't need a W mage IMMEDIATELY but



I don't have any death mages yet!



We did a number on him but he won't be thugging it out I am pretty sure anyway.



Anyway lets fix your brain... most of the way.


nice

I don't have any particular use for ferrus at the moment so he will research. It is enough jsoh doesn't have him.



My fort over here has eyes on this situation but doesn't have solutions to it handy.



I will attempt to brain melt the Eriu terror squad. This is my pledge to the people.



Winter indies hit the Throne of Elements.



I swap out Cyborg Prince Eric- Revengeance's herald spear for a frost brand to provide cold resistance.



I am hiring a lot more scouts and also wondering if I can delete AI Marignon and get eyes on this throne.



Losing 100 wave warriors didn't dent our line troop forces much at all.



I keep moving the masses forward. I also begin to scoot my scout and Disney's the Huge Fuck-Off Mermaid around the island to get them into a better position if they are needed on the C'tis offense.