Alrighty, here are the next few turns. I ended up making Selene's intro a bit... long, so if you want to skip it, just jump to where it says "late winter."
ImmediateEdit: Holy crap that's long. I'll definitely be making them shorter in the future. Hope you enjoy this though!
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When these humans, the Ulmish, settled in the Fever Fens I thought they were daft (what was there for them in the Fens?), but I allowed it. After all, I had resolved to take a less visible role in the goings on of the world. I had chosen my realm in the forests of Rafabolia. Even in the neighboring provinces I held very little sway among the native inhabitants; my role was that of a passive spirit of fertility.
When the Ulmish built their fortress and began preach the ways of their Iron Faith I took notice but, again, I allowed it. Besides, I had some ability to consciously manipulate the water and vegetation that made up their home, but nowhere near enough power to directly oppose them, even if I wanted to.
When the Ulmish army invaded my home forest of Rafabolia and conquered it as their own, I acted. I did not have the power to oppose them, but I realized that they did not know this. I held dominion over water and nature and with that I hoped I could put on a good enough show. I worked up a minor glamour I had learned from a faery queen and strode out across the river that separates Rafabolia from the Fever Fens. Running through my head were the words that would ring out as I approached their gates, "I am Selene, goddess of the rivers, fens, and forests you call your home. You have mistreated these lands, and I must rise to fight you."
--- From the logs of Selene, Queen of the forests of Rafabolia ---
I start this report still surprised at the tricks fate plays. I left my seclusion to fight for my home and was welcome by those I thought were my opponents. On the Day of River Crossing (as it has since become known), once I set foot upon the Fens, I noticed something intriguing. The Ulmish people had converted large swaths of the fens to pastures and farmland, but I did not feel any suffering from the land because of it. In fact, my presence alone was enough to cause the croplands I passed to burst forth and offer up a midwinter harvest.
As I made my way to the fortress that stood in the center of the fens, I began attracting attention and a group of Ulmish peasants began collecting behind me. I barely noticed them as I proceeded, still baffled at the connection these people had with the land. It was as if it accepted them as its own, but that almost never happened, even within the animal totem tribes scattered around the world.
I reached the gates of the fort and was met with a group who revealed themselves as the ruling council of Ulm. When they asked what my purpose was, if my intentions were malicious, I realized something.
"I am Selene, goddess of the rivers, fens, and forests you call your home."
"You have treated these lands well, and I wish to aid you."
-Entry End-Late Winter-I've been given this log and told to write a report of my observations of the nation. I'm told it's for the council to gain an outsider's perspective, but I'm sure it's simply to help deem whether I am trustworthy. Regardless, I will keep it and write an entry for each season.
It seems that the Ulmish, industrious as they are, were willing to accept my presence, if not necessarily my assistance. The ruling council saw the influence I had had on the peasants as I had passed through. They had noticed how there had been a festival in my honor and had decided it would be better to use that enthusiasm than to deny me and extinguish it. They told me I was to assist their Master Smiths in research until they decided whether I could be trusted. This I was more than happy to do, as I was curious why the lands so readily accepted the Ulmish and research would give me an opportunity to investigate. I was curious, something that had not happened in decades, and it was invigorating.
The Iron Cult of Ulm forbade all magic and even looked down upon the magic practiced by the Master Smiths. Some Smiths, however, became priests of the Iron Faith in an attempt to bridge the gap in Ulmish society. These Priest Smiths had immediately become outcasts among their peers, but were welcomed by the general populace who had, until then, had to choose sides. The Priest Smiths had since persuaded many of the leading council that this conflict was unnecessary. The Iron Faith now had room for magic in its doctrines and, because of this and the fact that I represented the land upon which they lived, many worshippers began to see me as the deity to which they prayed.
A temple was constructed amidst the forests of Rafabolia to spread the word of a new Iron Faith that included me, while Priest Smiths and the mercenary Obscuro began searching for sites of magical power.
-Entry End-Early Spring-Another group of mercenaries joined the army of Ulm this month. I've overheard plans to begin training Ulmish crossbowmen, but it seems Sanne and her Archers in White will fill their place until training has begun.
No magic sites were found in Rafabolia, even though I know there are some. I will have to reveal them once I am given permission to leave the fens. I have also overheard reports of an undead horde appearing overnight on the western border of Cerne.
I am unsure whether the council is concerned.
-Entry End-End of Year Report:
I think I'm going to take screenshots of the graphs in Early Spring each year to give you guys a snapshot of what's happening. I briefly debated not using these graphs, but then I lost most of Urist's army on the second turn and wanted to make sure I wasn't falling too far behind. I'll put each graph in a spoiler of its own with a sentence or two to point out what's what.
I'm blue in these graphs, Ermor's purple. We haven't met them yet, but the two giant nations (Jotenheim and... Vanheim?) are brown and red, C'tis is lime green, Agartha's black, and R'lyeh's dark greenyblue.
Here we can see how many provinces each nation has. This is a good indication of how well they're doing. We can see R'lyeh and Agartha are having problems expanding, with each only having one province still, and we can see Jotenheim (I think that's brown anyway) doing pretty well. Vanheim's catching up fast, though.
Here we can see everyone's income. Apparently I've been on top all game. Those good scales really DO help. It's funny, you can probably tell part of what each nation's scales are like solely by where their income starts at the left there.
I'm the only one who's getting more than the 5 gems their capital produces and I'm only getting one more, so this is pretty uninteresting right now.
The research graph. If you have a sleeping/imprisoned pretender you're going to be behind out of the gate. Here's another hint that some nations started with an awake pretender. As long as I keep making mages and don't use too many for battles, I'll overtake all of the AIs no problem. They don't research nearly as much as I (and many players in general) do.
Ahh dominion. You ARE what the game is named after, so you have to be important, right? Mostly what we see here is that the giant nations (red and brown) probably started with a fair amount of space to expand, relatively strong dominions, and awake pretenders, so their dominions are having a heyday. I'm pushing pretty hard against Ermor, but I'm kind of trapped in a corner, so my dominion can only go so high before I have to knock them out. I'm actually kind of debating domkilling them (you lose when you have no dominion), but I'd have to pretty much completely surround them with temples to do it, so it probably won't be worth it.
And here we have the army size graph. Holy crap, Ermor has a massive army! I'm probably screwed, eh? Well, no. This is one of the most misleading graphs in any game I've ever played. That spike, combined with the fact that we saw the one magic army come out of nowhere (comprised partially of militia) probably means that whole army's crap and we're going to mow them down with about 15 pikemen. We'll see when we get there though. Funny enough, even though my troops have some of the higher resource costs, the actual NUMBER of troops is third highest. I suppose that counts both groups of mercenaries (obvious from the two jumps in my blue line), but still.
Not a whole lot to see here. Urist McProphet's in there and all of our mercs started out in there. Some of them have moved up a little bit, but mostly they're not killing things, so they just sit there and gain a bit of experience.
Here you can see our nation overview. This is probably the only time I'll show the whole nation because this screen get unwieldy FAST. You can see we have a bunch of Master Smiths with F1E2/3 but none with any non-fire or -earth paths, which is a bit annoying. You can see Selene and Obscuro in there too. Selene generates water gems (2 per turn), which is why she has some here. Obscuro (and most/all mage mercs) comes with gems that you can't remove, but CAN use to cast things during battle. Hector came with a special spear that you also can't remove.
Here's our research right now. I pushed to Evocation 3 so my mages could be offensively useful in battle, then I'm switching to Construction. That's about it.It would seem Ulm's armor and weaponry is built strong, but not with a realistic armount of resources in mind. This world has always had enough for the leather and hides of the tribes, but never has an army attempted to build everything from steel. I seems this relative lack of armor, combined with the bounty of the lands upon which Ulm rests, creates a budget surplus. The only reason I report this is because yet another mercenary has been hired. Mamor the White Wizard, a mage skilled in both air and astral magic, was paid and immediately sent to aid in the search for sites of magical power.
The smiths and myself have discovered spells usable by the Priest Smiths and Master Smiths alike; one to enchant iron spikes and send them flying at the opponents, and one to launch orbs of magma. The Smiths began research in to the construction of magic items and the council, deeming I was trustworthy enough to leave the fortress (or perhaps simply not trustworthy enough to learn the secrets of Ulmish forging), asked me to aid Mamor in his searching.
-Entry End-Battle Reports:
For the most part I think battle reports are easier out of character (unless Selene's participating, I guess), so I'll probably separate them out like this.
Our army has expanded since we saw it last.
Some archers which probably can't do much against our armor, some mid-level armor on the grey ones with shields. Shouldn't be hard.
The Archers in White start to pay for themselves almost immediately. Their arrows take down probably about 15 of the enemies before they get to us and 20-25 total.
Kiron does similar amounts of damage. His Iron Darts don't do all that much, but they're good for a kill or two before they get into range of the magma bolts. The magma bolts easily take down two enemies per cast (3 bolts per cast, so they kill 1-3 enemies typically. His accuracy's getting better with each battle!).
And then, once they get to the traditional troops, practically ready to rout already, they're met with the Ulm sandwich of horses and pikes. Poor guys.
In the end, we won with only one casualty.My work takes me back to the forests of my home, but as I arrived I crossed paths with a messenger bringing word of the conquest of Sermioc. The same messenger brought news that an Ermorian army was sighted to the north, so the army will be immediately moving to the north, to Stone Grave Mountains, in order to prevent being surrounded.
Also seen, a spy going to check out that army.My searching and negotiations have gone well and the witches of the hidden forest have agreed to join Ulm.
The only other news I managed to glean was the arrival of a group of refugees, wishing only to be away from the newly risen Ermorian undead.
-Entry End-Battle Reports:
We won the battle against Stone Grave's defenders quickly because of a lucky magma bolt shot to their leader. 
Yup. Mister Priest Smith Kiron is set to use Iron Darts twice then Magma Bolts three times and hit the commander with one if the Magma Bolts on his first cast. When any army loses all of its commanders the troops automatically rout. 
Pretty much just sandwiched their swarm of militia between horsemen and pikes.
Unfortunately they're quite resource intensive, so it'll be a little while before I have a significant number of them, but they can reinforce the horsemen mercs until then.
Next on the list of conquest:
Those spells have done wonders for Kiron's Hall of Fame position too: ----------------------------------------------------
I think these are just getting longer the more I try to make them short. I'll give this an edit at some point, but feel free to point out anything big (pictures missing, stuff like that). It was just taking too long and I wanted to post it.
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Topic: Dominions 3 LP - Time to take out some indies! (Read 19703 times)