Dark Castle: Turn 11

 Let's see what happened in Golm:

I thought we had timed things well, but our Knights got slightly out of position and hit the Pale Ones before my chaff did. A lucky shot against one of my knights, who only had 1 HP, destroyed him. The Pale Ones didn't last long after this and fled for their lives after our remaining knights tore into them.

We only took two losses, but I'm not too thrilled about losing a knight. That knight didn't get blessed and didn't receive the +3 defense bonus. I'm assuming this is because his low HP caused him to be deprioritized for blesses by the combat AI.

After we took that province we see an Ulmish force of 60 in Silvania:

We also see a force from Marignon in Troll Land:

I'm not thrilled to have enemy armies on our borders, and I haven't gotten much response on the diplomatic front, so I'm thinking it's only a matter of time before I'm the wrong end of a two or three front war.

Ordinarily, I would attack from Golm to the Cracked Earth, but I don't think this force can take a 60-man Ulm army if he moves there, so I'm going to recall it to my capitol to reform. I'll need a defensive force if I'm attacked and it lets me to consolidate an army to attack the sea untamed to my Southeast -- or maybe go for the throne in Panuonia.

In Karene I sent a force of 6 knights and 32 chaff to attack Three Pine Grove. I'm using a lot of Knights because I think there's a chance I bump into someone and I want to make sure I win and that it has enough staying power to take the Cracked Earth if necessary.

Here is the magic site we found:

Woohoo -- anything that increases my death income is great.

It's a good thing I've been building priests and summoned those Acolytes because I've only had a single mound king appears so far in the game via my freespawn. That seems pretty low, although I'm able to still ferry my troops around with my priests but it's at the expense of some ghoul production.

For this turn we recruit two more priests and a scout.

Next turn I'm planning to build a temple and possibly upgrade a fortress if I make enough gold. 

I thought about summoning more units with my Death Gems, but after going through the next steps of my plan I realize I need to save them. Here's the plan in detail.

• Turn +1: Summon Dusk Elder (20 Death Gems)
• Turn +2: Research Construction with Bone Daddy while my Dusk Elder Summons an Archbishop (23 Death Gems)
• Turn +3: 3 Spectators forge Laurels (30 Death Gems), Prophetize Archbishop
• Turn +4: Begin summoning Lictors at 9 death gems/turn

This will take 73 Death Gems, but I'll have 80 so I don't want to spend anything. If everything goes according to plan I'll have Lictors on turn 16, which seems pretty far away. This also assumes Bone Daddy arrives next turn. If he doesn't, then I'll have more Death gems available for other summons (most likely more spectators), but my Lictor production will be delayed.