Here's yesterday's update that I had mostly ready to go and then just didn't post for some reason!
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Mid Spring-The magical probing for sites of power continues, with one found this month.
The expansion into the Great Desert has raised spirits in many of the provinces that used to lay on our northern border. The residents of Stone Grave Mountains even put word out to the new provinces and held a great market.
This will be going into our fourth fort!The armies' patrols of the Great Desert continue, with the primary army meeting a group of wild-eyed militia and the secondary defeating the barbarian uprising with a single volley of crossbow bolts.
Magma bolts wins another battle against independents singlehandedly. It's good against large-ish groups of weak troops with low morale... like most things.
One round and they routed. If barbarians get to you they can do a bit of damage, but with archers or mages they take enough damage that they rout before they get to you. The cavalry training was deemed complete and they moved out to meet up with the primary army along the coast northeast of R'lyeh.
It doesn't look like a lot, but these guys are pretty expensive and hit hard. The Smith will only make them hit harder, too.The magical site searching continues, with a bit of a windfall this month.
My fire and air gem income are really low and this site will double both of them!
More water and earth gems. Oh well, I can always spend more.
This guy's pretty awesome. Four gems per turn, and astral gems are useful for everything.Sermioc held a festival to celebrate the good times that we have been having, and what seems to be the end of the string of "natural" disasters.
I'm not really sure if this does anything other than boost dominion in that province. This event made Sermioc the only one of my provinces with 10 candles of dominion, simple because the max any other province can be at is 9 right now. The lords Rivia, a province on the border between the Great Desert and the heart of Ulm, are still unsure of the new lands and have boosted their defense to protect against bandits.
Always nice to have more province defense. Well, always nice to have more ULMISH province defense. R'lyeh hired another mercenary last month, the boar mage whose services we had put to use in the siege of Ermor. They send him unassisted into the province of Tirannea where he was struck down immediately by a crossbow bolt. I can't help but feel for these mercenaries sometimes. The primary army decided to split in two to increase the speed of their patrols, feeling that there weren't enough lawless rebels and crazed militia to pose much of a threat. In Belegor, the Smith Gunthamun was ambushed by a group of militia and light infantry, but his retinue of black plate infantry was more than capable of defeating the ambushing troops, especially when their armor was further enhanced with Legions of Steel.
Every round the Ulmish infantry would stand there and their armor would absorb all damage from the indie hits, then then would kill everything in front of them with their flails. It was pretty entertaining.
Similar cases were seen in Koromoo and Aole, with the only losses being to a group of cavalry who managed to bludgeon three Ulmish infanty with the force of their charge in Koromoo.
An underwater strike force was summoned using the water and earth gems that had been collecting in the magic vault. This ability to raise an army from nothing in one month is a little frightening; I can almost see how it would appeal to the Ermorian priests to use the undead for a similar purpose.
I don't really expect them to do all that well, but they'll take at least one province, probably two or more before all of the clockwork terrors die horribly. They have an unfortunate problem where they gain a lot of fatigue automatically each turn, so they rip through things at a pretty terrifying speed for a few turns and then they just stop. We'll probably see it in action. I have put together another map of the army movements for the upcoming month.
Early Summer-I'm not sure how this happened; it may have started at that painted crypt north of Ermor. I've been spending time in Ermor recently, aiding the Smiths in their research and forging, and reading some of the Ermorian texts that remained after Ulm took the fortress. As the days went by, I found myself sympathizing more and more with the priesthood. It seems this generation of priests was trying to hold back the shadow of undeath that was beginning to overtake their land. In ages past they had unleashed the shadow in their efforts to gain an upper hand, but it had been too powerful and wanted only to consume those who had unleashed it, then raise them from the dead and use them to find more victims. With the defeat of Ermor the threat of the shadow had been negated, but it had left a mark on the people and the land. I didn't realize it until it happened, but it seems this mark of death has afforded me some power over death to balance the power I have over nature and water.
I ended up empowering her so I could summon Kokythiads and Lamia queens. On my way to getting those death mages, finally. Next is Faery Queens for air and probably some Naiads so Selene isn't the only one with nature and water access.This month saw another wedding in Stone Grave Mountains
Hey, I'm ok with them having as many weddings as they want if I get free stuff out of it. Another magical site was found this month as well, along with a cache of air gems.
This one's pretty cool because I get a bunch of resources from it. I MAY have accidentally misplaced the fort in the desert too, so I'll have a fort that can actually use some of the resources from this.
This type of event happens quite often (about once per turn) and I wanted to make sure I documented at least a couple of them. More gems is always nice, especially ones I'm short on.Messengers came in from both the underwater force and cavalry force with news of victories.
Boggiton before clockwork horrors:
And after one round of clockwork horrors:
The cavalry just utterly destroyed the indies. They took almost no damage and had no losses as you can see. They were small battles, though, and their true proving will come next month when they face larger groups of defenders. This month saw the training of the first Smith who had chosen additional training with fire magic. He was able to cast Augury to search for fire-associated magical sites and settled in to devote most of his time to doing so.
FINALLY. Hopefully this will make my fire gem income semi-respectable now.
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Topic: Dominions 3 LP - Time to take out some indies! (Read 19692 times)