Dark Castle: Turn 19

Eriu responded to my diplomatic message and said that he was aiding a coalition that had formed against me, but that he wasn't under any obligation to get involved directly as long as my war was aimed at just Marignon. 

I responded with the following:

Bone Daddy grins evilly and says, "A coalition against me?!"

He laughs menacingly and feels an urge to slap his knee, but he has no hands. "There is a coalition forming, but it's not against us. We were approached to form a coalition against you. Apparently, some of the lesser nations are concerned that the deprivations you inflicted upon hapless Man will be visited upon them soon unless they take action."

However, Bone Daddy thinks the ideas of treacherous, back-stabbing nations forming a coalition is rather amusing, but we have no interest in joining one against you. Marignon sought our demise and needs to be punished, but we're not trying to exterminate him -- just hurt him real bad so he won't annoy Bone Daddy so much with their incessant bible thumping.

I might have embellished the part about a coalition forming against Eriu, but not by a lot since a player who I will not name did suggest we attack Eriu together.

Let's check out our attacks this turn

Troll Land

It wasn't much of a fight with my Knights rushing in to kill the enemy commanders. We took some banishment damage, but the losses were quite light. 

It's good to see the formation and our scripting in action. I need to make some modifications because my knights got trapped behind some of my units and my Lictors surge forward a bit too quickly. I modified the formation to push my chaff further forward and I put my Knights in two wings so we can spread them out more to mitigate AOE damage.

We seized the following site for our efforts

Bitra

Our forces started quite far away, and although my Knights are fast it still took a few turns to reach the enemy commander. During that time we took some banishment damage until we killed the friar and forced the enemy to retreat. 

If it wasn't for swiftness it would have taken us longer to reach the back line, which would have caused more causalities from banishment spam. I think it's a very good bless that has a lot of not-so-obvious value in these types of situations.

Alluvia:

The Tritons and Sea Horsies surround Grave Giggler and do a bit of damage to him, but he regenerates faster then they can hurt him and eventually they flee. I absolutely love Grave Giggler. To have an immortal SC class unit feels pretty big to me, although I need to be super careful how I use him since he can be fragile in certain situations.

For our attacks this turn we strike Spires of Ascension 

Our formation is too big to take a screenshot, but we'll have 338 units of which there will be 24 Knights and 20 Lictors.

If Marignon were to move his army into this province and include all of his mages from his capitol, which is only 1 square away, there might be one hell of a fight, but I suspect he thinks I'll converge on his capitol. Still, he must know his capitol would cause a lot of damage to me so he might be savvy enough to know my move.

Here's the effect generated by The House of Fiery Justice that I'm worried about:

In a test game this kills 12-15% of my Knights and 25-40% of my chaff per turn, but spares my higher HP commanders. It's not impossible for me to seize his capitol, but I would need to be very careful about the forces I park there and I might need to consider using independent troops as a chaff wall unless I can catch his army in the open field.

I should mention that I'm coordinating my attacks with the Phaeacia player to avoid bumping him. It's hard to tell from my vantage, but it looks like my ally is being fairly passive in his attacks, and I'm a little worried this could be some type or ruse. It probably isn't, but I did purposely leave off some of the screenshot above to the player so that he thinks my force is weaker then it really is (see below).

I'm hoping that if he does tell Marignon about my move that Marignon will try his luck and put everything he has in a decisive battle outside of his capitol and get wrecked in the process.

For our other attack we strike Glen of Wisdom from Bitra:

This is a very small raiding force, but big enough to take out most PD. 

For our sites this turn we found an animal cemetery in Panuonia:

I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery...

Interesting site but I don't think the units it provides are worth the mage time investment.

Here were our events:

Nothing good, but not awful either.

There's a book icon on one of my provinces:

That's in a province next to Marignon's capitol. I think this might be part of my national event chain. Maybe I need to move in a dusk elder to search? If so that's a bummer because I need my dusk elders to do other tasks right now. 

For infrastructure we upgrade our Palisade in Obocte to a fort, and begin construction of a Palisade in The Caverns. I also move in a small force of 4 knights and 30+ chaff to protect the Caverns. I figure I can use it to help Panuonia or Shade Forest if needed as well.

On the recruitment front we summon an Arch Bishop and hire another priest.

My research is terrible. It's turn 19 and I still only have 3 in construction:

If I don't do something about this I'm going to lose this game. I was hoping I could find some independent mages that I could recruit, but the best unit I've been able to find so far are Woodgenge Druids:

They are expensive, slow to recruit, and not very thematic, but I'm not sure what other choice I have at this point. At least they are versatile with H1 and can sneak. My next fortress/temple complex will need to be in Shade Forest, and I'll need to build a lab. I converge some commanders here to start this next turn.

Grave Giggler will be handy for protection, but I'm also pulling in a priest and my Dusk Elder. Between the three of them we should be covered for construction, although I'll try to pull in a scout or commander from somewhere to assist with the Palisade.

I now have 23 provinces, which isn't too bad and above the average of 16 per play for this map, but if I gain too many more I might cause concern for other players.

There was a battle in the arena that was won by Eriu with one of his Tuatha's against a Yogi. This allows us to see his bless:

Leopold is certainty going to be hard to hit. With that spear and attack skill, he'd be really good at repelling. When I looked at the combat log I saw a LOT of luck negated messages from the Yogi -- 12 of them. Luck has a 75% chance of negating a fatal blow, but to get this many in a row is only a 3% chance so that monkey was real lucky. 

Here are our final moves: