Dark Castle: Turn 14

 

WooHoo! Bone Daddy has joined us.

He's not much of a fighter but he's good with magic. His research rate is almost 3 times what I'm currently doing, so he'll likely be doing most of our research moving forward.

The plan is for us to continue to research construction to level 6. I was undecided what to do, but this will give me access to boosters that will help diversify our magic and allow us to site search better. It will also aid my research by giving me access to certain research items, e.g., Skull Mentors, and as an added benefit it gives me good tools to deal with SCs and thugs.

There are other super critical spells I need, e.g., Rigor Mortis, in enchantment 6, but those are hard to get without boosters so those will have to wait. I'm really going to need to find some good independent mages. 

Let's check out that battle in The Untamed Sea:

This wasn't a terribly exciting battle: Our forces charged into the Mermen and and killed them all. What was interesting is that my forces didn't throw their javelins (maybe that doesn't work underwater?), and the Mermen didn't rout until the last minute, which was surprising since they don't have great morale.

We discovered the following nature site after the battle:

Here is the site we found in The Caverns:

Keep those death gems flowing!

For our attacks this turn we sent a large force of 87 chaff and 16 knights against Panuonia.

I don't have enough priests to bless all my knights at the start, but I'm hoping they will during the battle and why I'm placing my priests closer to the front.

Probably not ideal placement, but we'll see.

I talked to Man a bit about Eriu attacking him, but he wasn't real specific about what was happening beyond doing some type of elf shenanigans and they had a +6 defense bless. That would imply 9w, but that seems strange and makes me wonder if I'm getting the right information.

Man is showing some major weakness right now, which is extremely dangerous in MP dominions where to be successful you need have a certain Machiavellian approach where you exploit the weaknesses of your fellow players while simultaneously being good with diplomacy. To show weakness is to invite other players to gang up on you and take your stuff. 

Anyway, I'm definitely going to invade Shade Forest before someone else does, e.g., Eriu, and will be ignoring my agreement with Man. I'm actually considering making Man my first target, but I'm not in a great position to do so yet and would love to have some Lictors before I start anything.

I begin to assemble a force in Plothai that will have 68 chaff and 6 knights that I'll use to take Shade Forest next turn.

For our construction this turn we build a Palisade in Obocte. If I get up this fortress my capital will be completely surrounded by fortresses by turn 18.

On the recruitment front I order Etimmu to summon a Dusk Elder. I also rename my Arch Bishop from Ziruk to Creepshow and prophetize him. Also, I feel like Etimmu isn't a very intimidating name, so I rename him to Grave Giggler.

For our freespawn we're finally getting some more commanders and received two mound kings last turn. I was getting a little worried that I was going to have to summon mound kings. The Priests we've been hiring are really nice to have as emergency transporters, but it's not enough and I'd don't want to interfere with their ghoul production.

In other news Ulm lost The Cracked Earth due to a bad event. Hah.

However, I'm not in a good position to capitalize on his misfortune, and I think that Dark Knight event is pretty tough. It's been awhile, but I seem to recall an archer who has special orders to kill commanders with a magic bow that could be nasty. 

I'm not sure why I'm not being attacked yet. I was expecting me neighbors to come right at me, but everyone has been super peaceful. That seems like a bad idea on their part. I feel like in a few more turns I'll be powerful enough to go on the offensive. 

Here are our final moves: