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[NUKE9.13]

Mmkay. So that went reasonably well.

Clearly, the plains are secured. The mountains... are a lost cause, for now. What we need is a jungle weapon. I have one idea for something you wouldn't want to see stalking through the jungle:

Deus ex Tempestas: We know the storm. We control the storm. We feel the power contained within the storm. And now it is time to unleash that power.
God can be found in all things, for all things are a part of Him. The storm included. We can summon his aid, a fraction of his divine being, in the form of a towering Storm Elemental.
The unlimited rage and unfathomable power of the storm made manifest, the Storm Elemental stands as tall as four men, made up entirely of swirling black clouds, the occasional flash of lightning running through its body. It cannot be harmed by mortal blades, for truly, when have mortal means ever been able to control the weather?* It can easily harm mortals in return, though. Fists slam into enemy soldiers with all the power of a hurricane behind them, small thunderbolts leap from its torso, and men and horses alike flee before its raging bellow. Fallen branches, small rocks, and unfortunate soldiers are all whipped into the air by the towering giant, to come crashing down on enemy archers.
The Storm Elemental can only be summoned during inclement weather, obviously, and may be somewhat hard to control without the efforts of several trained mages. It is expected to be a National Effort.

Alternatively, we could develop something to control the seas with, in the form of my previously described ballista:

Ballista: Using our knowledge of composite materials and tension, we build a giant bow-like weapon capable of launching thick bolts or stones into enemy troops/vessels. Due to the large and cumbersome nature, they would work best mounted on the deck of a ship, though portable varieties could also be used on land.

However, as we are relatively secure at the moment, with the plains solidly under our control and at an advantage in the jungle, I think now would be a good time to develop a superweapon. Therefore I'm going to vote for Deus ex Tempestas


By the way, evictedSaint, if it's not too much trouble, could you let us know what sort of casualties we suffered, and where the king sultan has chosen to reinforce?

[Kashyyk]

My suggestions :

Long range mind reading - being able to scan the thoughts of enemy officers from beyond bow/fireball range will counter their mage hunters.  We'll be able to cancel their officer bonus again. Spending a design on it rather than a revision should allow us to reduce the cost of the spell at the same time.

Sword of Allah - Now that we have skill in  manipulating storms, it shouldn't be  difficult to cause targeted lightning strikes, for bombarding blocks of enemies and sniping critical targets.

[Sosoku234]

Deus ex Temestas will probably be way too expensive to be feasible in the long run, so it would have to be our last blow. After all, it might fail/backfire and then we're down a lot of troops and powerful mages AND money. I won't say it's a bad idea, just that we should put it on the back burner until we secure the Jungle and/or gain a foothold in the Mountains.

However, the Sword of Allah is a much safer idea. It may still be expensive, but most shots would count.


I suggest we make use of the heavy winds and the storm itself to make tornadoes. Armor doesn't mean shit if they get thrown high enough into the air.

[Taricus]

Actually it does mean shit. The impact when they hit the ground will be harder, and more likely to hurt their allies if they manage to land on them

[NUKE9.13]

Deus ex Tempestas* will probably be way too expensive to be feasible in the long run, so it would have to be our last blow. After all, it might fail/backfire and then we're down a lot of troops and powerful mages AND money. I won't say it's a bad idea, just that we should put it on the back burner until we secure the Jungle and/or gain a foothold in the Mountains.

The economy doesn't work that way- we don't have continuous costs for things, just price brackets. A National Effort means we can only deploy one of them- it has no bearing on our deployment of other spells and equipment.
Yeah, it probably won't work first try. But what kind of superweapon works right out the gate? You can't fix problems before they exist.
Using a superweapon when we are already winning is overkill. I realise that in real life that isn't how superweapons (ie Nukes) are used, but this isn't real life. We aren't trying to get them to surrender, we are trying to wipe them out. The point being, I say we should develop it now whilst we have a slight advantage, then use it to magnify that advantage into victory.

All that being said, I understand where you're coming from. If people don't want to create giant monsters right now, I can live with that. My secondary pick would probably be Sword of Allah.

Long range mind reading - being able to scan the thoughts of enemy officers from beyond bow/fireball range will counter their mage hunters.  We'll be able to cancel their officer bonus again. Spending a design on it rather than a revision should allow us to reduce the cost of the spell at the same time.

I'm not sure we actually need to lower the cost? Having one per squad seems like overkill. We just need to read the minds of their generals and lieutenants in order to completely nullify their officer bonus.

[evictedSaint]

Both sides are once again at full troops - both due to Moskurg chivalry, and Arstotzkan pragmatism.  Most casualties occurred in the jungle, followed by the mountains, but neither side was able to successfully route well enough to secure unrecoupable losses for the other.  The Sultan has evenly distributed troops across the map, except for the jungle where the largest faction of our army now sits.

[Kashyyk]

I'm not sure we actually need to lower the cost? Having one per squad seems like overkill. We just need to read the minds of their generals and lieutenants in order to completely nullify their officer bonus.

As it's very expensive we'd have to use our skilled mages for the risky job of sneaking into enemy territory. If we lose them, I'm assuming we'll have less high level spells cast during battles, because the mages who can cast them are dead. If we have more disposable mages doing the mind-reading, our more valuable mages can stay within our lines and cook up more lightning.

[NUKE9.13]

I'm not sure we actually need to lower the cost? Having one per squad seems like overkill. We just need to read the minds of their generals and lieutenants in order to completely nullify their officer bonus.

As it's very expensive we'd have to use our skilled mages for the risky job of sneaking into enemy territory. If we lose them, I'm assuming we'll have less high level spells cast during battles, because the mages who can cast them are dead. If we have more disposable mages doing the mind-reading, our more valuable mages can stay within our lines and cook up more lightning.

Hmm, yeah. That makes sense. Still, I'd rather develop some more offensive magic.

Although. Now that I think about it, they might be developing a counter to lightning attacks even as we speak. If we roll out a new lightning spell and they roll out, I dunno, earthing rods integrated into soldier's armour (Obviously not that, but some other magical means of blocking lightning may be possible)- then they would have countered two of our designs for one of theirs. Perhaps we should diversify our threats. Perhaps what we need is...

Creature of the Storm: Okay, so, a towering giant may be a bit ambitious. How about we start small, with a Lesser Storm Elemental. The same height as a man, but made up of swirling black clouds, they are immune to mortal blades, which pass harmlessly through them, whilst delivering savage blows with all the force of a tornado in return.
These give us a way to hold our own in prolonged melee where our brave soldiers are usually at a disadvantage. They would only be summoned during stormy weather, and probably require the attention of a wizard to keep them under control. They are expected to be between Expensive and Very Expensive.

Either that, or we develop a ballista. But that's boring and mundane, I'd rather do something flashy and magical this turn.

[Kashyyk]

And yet we wouldn't design an anti-fire spell, despite them having dropped considerably more actions into fire spells?

I'm willing to bet they'd have a similar thought process to us, and decide not to be reactive either.

[Sosoku234]

We could revise the storm strike spell to be more powerful, like a torrential downpour.

[S34N1C]

Rename it to the Spear of Allah and you've got my vote

[NUKE9.13]

And yet we wouldn't design an anti-fire spell, despite them having dropped considerably more actions into fire spells?

I'm willing to bet they'd have a similar thought process to us, and decide not to be reactive either.

Hmm. Fair point. Improved lightning attacks may overwhelm their hypothetical defences. Sure, my vote stays on-

Rename it to the Spear of Allah and you've got my vote

Actually, yeah. A hammer hits a wide area, but so does a sword, albeit in a slicy way. A spear is a better description for a spell that targets a small area as opposed to a large one.
...the name is very important, obviously.
(Still voting for improved lightning attack, regardless of name)

[Kashyyk]

Sure, Spear of Allah it is.

[evictedSaint]

Spear of Allah: [3, 5, 2]
Lightning is...fickle.

These beasts of nature are used to obeying only Allah himself, and while they're eager to lash out when unchained, listening to mortal men is not on their agenda.  While the weaker spears of lightning will strike where directed, the truly powerful will strike indiscriminately - more than once frying the very mage who summoned it.  With no way of knowing the strength of the bolt before calling it most of our wizards refuse to call down the Spear at all outside of the most dire of circumstances.  On the bright side, summoning one Spear rather than an entire storm is easy enough that any wizard could do it with the proper training - assuming a storm is already in progress. Expensive.

[NUKE9.13]

That's kind of useless, then. Shall we spend our revision fixing it?

Improved Targeting for SoA: By firing a small magic 'marker' at the desired target, a link is established with the clouds above through which lightning can flow. This greatly improves the accuracy of the Spear.

Alternatively we could work on Extending Detect Thought's Range.

Or we could make our various weather spells naval friendly... actually, taking control of the seas might be nice.

Naval Weather Mages: By specifically training mages to operate from the deck of a ship, with the appropriate knowledge of how, where, and when to cast their spells for optimum effect, we in a stroke make our navy vastly superior to that of Arstotzka. Storms shall claim their vessels, whilst ours go untouched. They will find it nigh impossible to catch our ships, for even when becalmed, unnatural Gusts of Wind fill their sails, carrying them to safety. And should they nevertheless manage to close for battle, they will find their masts struck down by bolts of lightning.

I'm leaning towards Naval Weather Mages, if only to find out what sort of bonus control of the seas would give us. But I could totally go for either of the other two.