Dark Castle: Turn 12

 

Let's check out our battle in Three Pine Grove:

This is the first time we're using Soulless, my least favorite Ermorian unit. They are basically big sacks of meat with terrible stats and no combat capability. If anything they can be a detriment because they have a lot of HP so if too many die relative to the rest of our force it can cause a rout based on HP loss.

Their biggest benefit from a strategic perspective is they can be used to patrol -- although I think they have a malus to this -- and they can tear down walls. On the tactical side they are good at absorbing alpha strikes -- such as from cavalry. In the situation below I thought I would try them against barbarians and see it could buy some time for my knights to move in and take hits that would kill my more valuable chaff.

In this situation I think it worked decently. They got blasted by the initial barbarian charge, but then my knights moved in behind them to tear into the barbarians. We only lost two longdead, which isn't bad.

Let's check out that event:

That sucks -- my dominion isn't exactly strong to begin with so losing any is a bummer. This was a 2-luck province as well.

For our moves we converge forces into Karene so we can attack The Sea Untamed next turn:

And we send some force to Morn so we can soon march on Panuonia, which is a throne site.

It's turn 12 and we have 17 territories, but my expansion is becoming more difficult since our borders are beginning to solidify.

For my gold spend this turn I build a temple in Karene and recruit two priests. I debated whether I should upgrade my two forts, but I decided I want more death gem generation, priests, and dominion. Next turn I should have enough to upgrade the two forts.

I was doing some more analysis and my troops will not do well against Ulm's high protection troops. I absolutely have to have Lictors and Bone Daddy to make good use of my Blood Vengenace, which I think Ulm will be susceptible to since his troops have low MR.

If I was Ulm I would consider attacking me right now since I'm fairly weak still, but I won't be in a few turns. However, it is difficult to judge the capabilities of your opponent -- especially if he hasn't built up a capable spy network yet. Maybe the poem I sent him is making him reconsider. 

To my East Man still hasn't taken Shade Forest. This implies weakness and something I'd love to exploit, but then I'd be exposing myself to attack from someone else. I'll give him a few turns or else I'll just break the agreement and seize it before someone else does.

I figured out where the rest of the opponents are in the game. Below is a map. My natural allies would likely be Eriu, T'ien Ch'i, Phaeacia, and R'lyeh since I'm unlikely to share a border with them. If I'm attacked they would be natural folks to form a temporary "mutually beneficial" alliance, although playing MA Ermor makes this challenging.

1. Marignon
2. Eriu
3. Man
4. Bandar Log
5. Ulm
6. T'ien Ch'i
7. Phaeacia
8. R'lyeh