Dark Castle: Turn 30

 

Yikes. From the messages, I can tell that Eriu launched a full assault against me this turn. This makes sense since he has been ruthless in seizing territory, trying to capitalize on others' weaknesses, and with the bulk of my army in the south, it's a logical move.

Copper Canyons:

No surprise here. We easily took Copper Canyons from Bandar Log with minimal losses.

Bandar Log:

Our large assault force destroyed Bandar's Log province defense with very light causalities. Our Knights did a great job of hitting the rear commanders and helped end the battle quickly.

Troll Land

A Sidhe Lord, equipped with a 30-gem kit, easily demolished my minimal defense here. I had a Dusk Elder stationed, but fortunately, he had orders to retreat and was the only survivor. The lord wielded a Frost Brand, an ineffective weapon against us. It seems he intended this for someone else and is making do with what he has available.

Whiteport

Another Sidhe Lord, although with no equipment, took a shot at my high income province but we were able to force him to retreat without too many losses. The Sidh cast mistform, but my ghouls have magic claws that likely allowed them to damage him.

Panuonia

A moderate sized force from Eriu assaulted our Throne province. We didn't stand a chance against his 60+ sacreds and 5 tough thugs/commanders, but the force is barely able to dent our walls and knocked them down from 250 to 243 (thanks ghouls), but there could be more forces enroute. 

Cerulean Sea

Another Sidhe Lord equipped with a ring of water breathing attacked my water province and easily defeated us.

Alluvia

Another Sidhe lord attacked our underwater province. This time, he just had a ring of water breathing, but it was enough to take our minimal PD.

Zenthra

A Sidhe lord with no equipment easily defeats us in Zenthra.

In Delca, we seized the province from Bandar Log with no resistance.

You should always get PD...

On the intelligence front we saw the following battles:

Phaeacia attacked Marignon in White Waste and won without any losses:

I see that R'lyeh is about to assault the throne in Gray Forest:

I wanted to take this throne, but I would never be able to beat R'lyeh and especially not while I'm fighting Marignon and Bandar Log at the same time.

The player from Bandar Log suggested I should put him out of his misery, but I think he's goading me into attacking him. This strengthens my opinion that I should first probe his defenses. In Bandar Log's capital, we renamed our censor to Monkey Bait and sent him with a few troops for 5 turns to understand what tactics he will be using. I might launch a full assault next turn. I don't like my odds, but they will only get worse as time goes on. 

It's surprising that Eriu is raiding me so aggressively. Considering MA Ermor's fortresses and undead hordes, I would think this would be very difficult. I'm not very worried. In fact, MA Ermor is actually pretty good at raiding themselves, which Eriu might soon discover. I am testing a potential counter by deploying a few sacred units (3 lictors and 2 knights) in each territory, led by a priest. Preliminary testing showed promising results against his standard kit. Of course, he can adapt easily, but then again, so can I.

My geopolitical situation is not favorable, and I'm concerned about Ulm and my throne of bureaucracy. I'm deploying 177 ghouls and my Archbishop to reinforce. If Ulm attacks, I'll have trouble reinforcing due to my ongoing wars with Eriu and Bandar Log. However, being ganged up on in Dominions is something I'm accustomed to, so we'll see.

I'm slightly worried about Bandar Log obtaining Soul Slay, so I'm forging an amulet of antimagic to increase GG's MR to 24. Against a standard soul-slay caster he'd have 1.78%  of being killed per cast. If he gets spammed, he'd have a 50% of being killed after around 40 casts.