Dark Castle: Turn 27

Let's see how our battles went this turn:

Deep Forest

Bandar Log caught our raiding force with the bulk of his army and smushed us under the feet of his elephants. I was a little worried Bandar Log would catch my raiding force, but my force was expendable chaff and easily replaced.

Delca

Our raiding force in Delca had considerably more success only losing 6 soulless against minimal PD. We've used up the last of our soulless in this raiding force, and I thought I would never utter these words but I think I need more soulless in this army. I still think they suck buy they do soak up hits, which is handy. 

Cloudcap Spires

We stomped on Bandar Log's defensive force, but it was mostly PD (20 worth) and a small squad of conventional forces led by a Guru. They didn't have a chance and our losses were fairly light.

It was good to see our force in action because the Lictors were set to attack immediately, and most of the rest of my forces were set to fire. This meant the Lictors, who are fairly fast at 15 movement with unholy power and swiftness, charged in front of our main host.

If this was a stronger defensive force they would be heavily exposed so I'll make sure to adjust the formation so this doesn't happen again.

Oh oh. There was a special battle in Karene, which means assassination.

Berthold, a priest, got jumped by a ghost who drained his life away. It's unfortunate, but I can't assign bodyguards to all my priests. Occupational hazard. 

Phaeacia (I hate spelling that word) attacks Marignon in his capital:

I was surprised how well Phaeacia's army did here. His force had been whittled down over the past several turns, but he still only took light losses against quite a bit of PD, which includes crossbow men. Phaeacia did cast air shield on some of his back units and a few volleys were directed in the rear of his formation, so this might have mitigated some of his damage.

This is good news for me since it now means that Marignon is bottled up and likely won't attack me. I do hope Eriu tries to attack Marignon's capitol as well. 

Let's check out our events:

We already covered the assassination attempt, but here's the site we found. 

Our site searchers also uncovered the following site:

Both are modest, but anything I get is appreciated. 

We attacked the following provinces this turn:

Idenhorm:

I'll have 28 Lictors, 24 Knights, and 355 chaff. I'm expecting the Spring Hawks to hit my back lines, so I'm putting a lot of my sacreds right on top of my commanders to protect them and to use their magic weapons to mitigate ethereal.

This might be a little risky but I desperately need independent mages.

For our construction we upgrade our Palisade in Panuonia to a Fortress

Terrace Peaks:

I'm going to continue my raiding against Bandar Log and strike Terrace Peaks

Cloudcap Spires:

Storming fortresses is always tricky -- especially for MA Ermor, where I can risk losing a large number of my undead if I'm not careful due to the battlefield timer.

I'm going to use the minimum force I think I'm going to need, which is 54 Lictors and 124 chaff. He can't have too much in this fortress based on my scout reports and how quickly we tore down the walls. I'm specifically not using any of my Knights. This is a bit risky, but if disaster does strike I'll still have a considerable army and the Lictors are not mindless and will run away so I'll at least have an army left. 

The formation will have chaff in the back defending my commanders, and about 80 up front to absorb whatever Bandar has. I'd like to show a screen-shot but it's hard to show the formation since I have so many squads and it's hard to differentiate them from the the sieging only units.

We summon another a Dusk Elder. I don't want to have to summon them, but I need more magical paths badly. Also, we recruit two more priests. I have a lot of fortresses I need to fill with ghouls.

Dark Castle: Turn 26

 

Three more searches and nothing. Good job team.

Let's see how we did in our battles:

Rosta

Our raiders strikes again and easily defeat 1 PD worth of Bandar's defense. We lost 8 soulless -- some to our own javelins -- but they did their jobs and took hits that could have destroyed our higher tier chaff. 

Troll Land

Marignon's PD always have one of those annoying Friars -- even with minimal PD -- who enjoy casting banishment against us. This time was no different and we took a few losses. However, it's worth it to see our formation in action, and I saw that some of our commanders moved too far forward in the formation, who I pulled back.  

I was expecting some type of shenanigans from Marignon this turn, but he's staying put in his fortress. I would to if there were three armies converging on my capitol.

Eriu's troops are hard to spot but he's in there somewhere. I'm probably making them pretty nervous with the size of my army, but I just want to stop Marignon from trying to do a suicidal raid into my lands. I'll pull them back once he is contained.

You will notice that there was a battle on the screenshot above between Phaeacia and Marignon in the Woods of Weeping:

It's not worth it to show the full battle, but Phaeacia used a lot of Mind Burn.

Mind Burn has the potential to be problematic for Ermor because it doesn't target mindless units, and if you only have a few commanders leading mindless troops, all those Mind Burns can knock out your commanders and not only make you lose, but also cause your troops to disintegrate. Fortunately, Lictors are not mindless and soak up those kind of hits. As a backup, I could also use ghouls for this purpose but their MR isn't as high as Lictors.

Let's check out our events:

It's modest but free gold and gems are always welcome.

For our attacks this turn we strike at the following provinces:

• Delca

• Troll Woods

• Cloudcap Spires

If I was Bandar Log I would find these attacks annoying as hell. I'm going to keep trying to throw him off balance and gobble up all of his territories with the hopes I can kill his army piecemeal and disrupt his economy.

There's a chance he might head North and go after my capitol, but I have so many ghouls that I think that would be very difficult for him. Also, he looks like he's afraid of me and not eager to leave his capitol exposed. 

For our construction we build a temple in Kingdom of Dhara, which will be out 10th temple next turn. This will increase our max dominion to 8 and give me another death gem per turn. 

We also build a Palisade in Peacehaven, which is the throne I took the turn before. It's not well protected, but I don't see any sign of aggression from Ulm so I think it's safe -- but I'm still taking a gamble.

Finally, we upgrade our Palisade in Kingdom of Dhara to a fortress.

I'm going to send my Arch Bishop to Panuonia to claim the throne in a few turns. I'll try to get a Dusk Elder with air, and I can begin to forge Owl Quills to help with my research a bit. 

I was going to do another installment of Ghoul Watch where I count all of my ghouls in my fortresses, but that's too time consuming. Instead, I'm counting up the all the siege defense of my fortresses:

Shadowland:     106

Obocte:             90

Kingdom of Dhara:     64

Karene:             136

Ermor:             130

Morn:     65

Plothai:             90

The Caverns:             93

Shade Forest:             47

Panuonia:     22

I'd like more but I can shuffle them around in emergencies pretty easily, and I always try to maintain a commander in each fort for moving units around anyway. The days of me not having commanders are mercifully over, but I'd still like more if I can because I'm still finding it's barely enough.

I've never actually completed the MA Ermor story chain, but I still have this book icon even though I searched with my Dusk Elder. I'm going to send in a different Dusk Elder and see what happens. 

Finally, we recruit two more priests and a scout.

We have a total of 28 provinces, or roughly 20% of the provinces.

Something to take note of is that Bandar Log staled in his last turn and didn't submit a turn in time.

Dark Castle: Turn 25

 

Bright Woods

Our raiding force easily beat Bandar Log's minimal defenses. Our only losses were a handful of soulless, whose job it is to die instead of my other forces so I'm happy with this.

Zenthra

Grave Giggler and my chaff met the independent knights head on while my Knights tried to destroy the rear commanders. However, we weren't able to kill them with our initial charge had to defeat them conventionally. Fortunately Grave Giggler held the line well and forced them to route with help from my other forces, but we did lose most of my chaff in the process.

Peacehaven

This was a large battle with my main army for a throne site. For such a big battle we had fairly light losses. We had so many troops that they get in each other's way or else I think we would have had even fewer losses.

Unfortunately, the throne isn't very good for us.

I do like the 5 dominion and conflict bonus, which I think means it helps get rid of enemy dominion more efficiently, but I don't want to pay 100 gold per turn. Also, if I seize this it will scare the hell out of Ulm, and I don't want to fight yet another opponent yet.

Spires in Ascension:

We rolled over Marignon's 1 PD with minimal losses. Something interesting to note is that my soulless took all the initial banishment. The battle AI tends to target higher HP units so I'm wondering if I can use this to my advantage in future battles and keep them away from my main troops so they don't get hit with banishment splash damage.

Glen Wisdom

I'm not going to bother showing this battle, but Marignon defeated my 1 PD and reclaimed his province.

However, Marignon then lost it again because Eriu attacked here this turn and took it back. This is one of the provinces I said Eriu could take.

Dubros

Our raiding force easily seized Bandar's 1 PD province. I'm not going to show the battle, but here's the strategic map.

Phaeacia seized one of Marignon's fortresses in Ecnaphale:

Marignon didn't have much to defend himself with and lost the fortress.

Ulm stormed T'ien Ch'i's fortress this turn:

Tien had more mages this time and was able to do at least some damage to Ulm, but the outcome was really never in doubt.

These are taking up multiple pages now

Here were were our events this turn:

Woohoo! More Gold.

Here is the magic site we found:

This is useless for me.

I noticed that Bandar has now split his army into two parts -- no doubt as a result of my raiding.

It looks like one is full of Gurus and the other has his sacred kitties. 

For our attacks this turn we do the following:

• Attack Troll Woods

I might lose this force, but it will force Bandar to stay near his capitol or he'll lose more territory.

We finally got our first druid:

130 gold is pretty expensive for 5 research points. I'm going send out the first couple to help search for nature sites. Maybe I'll get lucky and they will find some independent mages.

For our infrastructure we upgrade our Palisade in Shade Forest to a fortress and build a temple in Panuonia.

For recruitment we summon an Arch Bishop and hire 2 priests, 3 scouts, and a Woodhenge Druid

Here are our final moves.