Excellent work Thtbloves! I more or less swore that Chaoticag had this in the bag! (I apologize again for my sudden disappearance halfway through the match...)
Now for my recap, forgot a bunch so some holes likely abound: Titanaconda was mostly to nab a bunch of land quickly so I could set up a bunch of temples to spam indie priests who subsequently spammed longdead. And give minor earth bless for my mages. But I just got SO MANY DARN NATURE GEMS! That I empowered him to N1. Then he died. Immediately re-empower to N1 again after resurrection, followed by N2 empowerment. Considered going further. Transmuted around 100 nature gems to death later on because RNGesus thought I didn't need those.
Militarily, I thought my early war against Pythium would go better, I expected banishment spam, and I prepared for it with Antimagic. Not a perfect solution, but it would grant my undead troops enough durability to matter. Needless to say I was Thunderstruck by what he had in store, and while his master heavy communions wreaked havoc on his slave (He typically burnt out the entire slave contingent each battle...), the upfront firepower decimated my forces.
I would've still overwhelmed with numbers had Tien Chi not attacked, against both of their armies I could only force a stalemate (Not a lot of major pushing one way or another... For so darn long...). And then Nazca attacked me and I used that to more or less force a peace treaty with Tien Chi (Never did reclaim the Throne of Air...)
And Chaoticag knows how little ground was gained and lost over the long term in our engagement (Spoiler: Very, Very Little.)
And it turns out the counter to skeleton hordes is the same as the counter to communions: Rain of Stones... More or less rendered me unable to attack it did... And I could never get enough mound kings together to try that 'advance army' tactic I theorized about...
All in all? Before my internet decided that no, I don't get to participate anymore (Still sorry
), I probably produced around 4 to 5 hundred longdead per turn. (I never did count, just guesstimated from how long it took for the graph to recover after losing 2k undead in a single fight.) It could've been much more, but I was already having logistic issues with that many so... (And I wanted my Thaumaturgs researching/fighting, not reanimating
) If only RNGesus wasn't so stingy with the Death gems it might have been better. If only I rushed Darkness instead of Antimagic (all your guys get -6 attack/defense and my skeletons get +4 attack from Power of the Sepulchre? Likely would have made a huge difference in the fight vs Tien Chi. Especially as it turns out no one tried banish spam against the horde...)
So in conclusion, I was basically at war the entire game with almost no territory gains or losses. I'm still absolutely confused as to how. More importantly, I try a nation I've only seriously played once before and do somewhat ok with it while hopefully somewhat breaking my Crippling Overspecialization with this game. (PS, It's Agartha I'm utterly confident with.)
(Also PS to Thtbloves: Warriors of Muspelheim grants Cold resist, it wouldn't help you in a fight against Agartha unless they spammed Shard Wights. Fire Fend or Warriors of Niefelheim or Army of Gold grant the army wide Fire resist you would want against that many Magma Children. (Cost efficient little summons aren't they Shadowlord? Also why am I not seeing Sentinels or Mercuries in that screenshot? Spam more Mercuries next time, they're absolutely great when Ironskinned!))
Anyway, internet has been behaving since then, so I might be up for another game if one starts again soon. I highly doubt I'll have to drop out again too.