5101

I have lost very few troops to Helheim after the battle at my capital, since I’m trying not to commit to a fight before I have a good chance of winning. I also want to avoid colliding with Mictlan, so am being extra careful with my advance warnings.

5102

I assume you have become extra careful with advance warnings after you have wiped out that Mictlan’s army that you had bumped into earlier? ;)

For a while it looked to me as if you guys are in full-scale 3 ways war, and doing your best to Balkanized the southern part of the map. =)

But recently it was mostly Mictlan against Helheim.

5103

Indeed, you finally got me. I must’ve killed thousands of jaguar warriors, but your summons finally took my vets down. My capital is yours.

5104

jaguar warriors are there for dying… and we have to wait for the final assault… im not really sure that there are no surprises left for me… but might makes right

5105

To players in CROM and MORNINGSTAR

I got a slew of complaints last night about connectivity to the games being flaky. Not sure what the issue was, my local connections were okay. Just to be on the safe side I’ve reset both games, so the timers for the current turn are reset, as well as restarting my router. Let me know if there’s any further issues.

5106

Mist Spell

I’m (Pan) back. Thanks for waiting. You can take the timer off now, but I notice that Wahoo (Ulm) hasn’t taken his turn yet, so we better wait until he does. We don’t want him to stale.

Wahoo, please let us know when you’ve taken your turn.

Thanks.

5107

Inquisitor - Impressive battle in Barrow Keep. Midgard survives a bit longer, but it looks to me like a pyrrhic victory, he doesn’t have much left.

And Jomon is taking advantage of our distraction to eat Pythium.

5108

Morning Star turn 34

Lost some more provinces to Caelum. I’ve discovered he now has crystal mages (earth 2 astral 2) - a pretty useful mage for Caelum as they don’t get natural earth 2 mages (of course he already found an indie astral mage - the sorceress).
Had a couple of victories against Abysia - I could possibly win a war against any nation in the game apart from Caelum (perhaps Sauromatia also), were several of them not hitting me at the same time.
Sauromatia grabbed one of my rear-area underwater provinces - I can forget about having a safe refuge anywhere on the map. I was hoping he would be getting stuck into Abysia, but I guess it makes just as much sense to grab my outlying provinces whilst I’m too busy to defend them.
Ermor took one of my frontline provinces, but this is no big deal as it at least denies some ground to Caelum.

All in all consider me a convert to the wraparound-style doughnut worlds - I’m starting to feel a little like Belgium in this game. Though Caelum could probably win from anywhere on the map, their mobility lets them defend a large empire with lots of mountain/swamp/forest provinces.

Inquisitor

Having taken over Midgard for GreatAtlantic a few turns ago, I had my first major victory. A very bloody battle, it has left the Norse significantly weakened. But at least I have made some impact on the game by costing Caelum a large chunk of his standing army.

5109

I think Caelum can afford those losses. At this point, Midgard can’t.

Caelum’s raven guards, mammoths, and casters were the only really high-value units he had in play, and there weren’t THAT many of them. Most of the force was archers. All of it is replaceable, particularly given Caelum’s gold income. 100 skinshifters is not, at this point - particularly given Midgard’s current income (or the unrest levels in that province). Nor are those casters - many of those lost were lightning bolters and are going to be missed.

5110

When I took over about 4 turns ago, the war was already decided in Caelum’s favour. Midgard had inferior income, army, research, gems, no alliances and very few provinces left. It was a charity case - Midgard’s only objective was to make Caelum’s mopping up operation as painful as possible.
Hopefully I’ve done a small favour to the other nations in the game by putting up some stiff resistance and forcing Caelum to spend a lot of gold replacing his losses.

5111

With Jomon being so far ahead I don’t think anyone was worrying about how strong I am. Fair play though, it was a very well executed battle on your part. Those skinshifters are surprisingly tough.

Overall I think the losses were acceptable given that I destroyed the majority of your forces in the process.

5112

Jomon has finally invaded me (Pythium) with something like 2000 troops, spread out along my southern and western borders. Mostly archers and xbows backed by mages. Now is a good time to flank him while our armies clash but do it quickly, as I’m outnumbered badly and won’t hold for long!

5113

Mist Spell

Wahoo, are you still playing?

5114

I’m bashing a colony in Ikariam right now which’s called Dominions 3.
(Hey, it said All-Purpose.)

5115

I lost a crucial battle against Caelum. Having lost 3 forts already, I tried to defend the 4th, by cloud trapezing in a few mages. It turns out that arrow fend on its own is not enough to nullify the wind-guide/flaming arrows tactic. As soon as my Fomorian Giants got into melee range, they would get vapourised by the concentrated fire from ~100 archers.
Rigor Mortis seemed to be fairly effective at fatiguing his mage support, and between that and thunder ward the impact of his thunder strikes was cut down.

Elsewhere Helheim was finally finished off by Mictlan.

Territory map, turn 36:


light green = Mictlan
dark green = Sauromatia
light purple = Fomoria
dark purple = Ermor
black = Helheim DEAD
red = Abysia
light blue = Caelum

5116

Is Crom down? I can’t connect to it or Morningstar now, so I hope Morningstar isn’t waiting on my logging in to accept my death anymore. Oddly this is the first time I’ve had any trouble with either one.

5117

I can’t connect to either one, either, so I wrote to Nick.

5118

Mist Spell:
A glorious victory! The invading armies of perfidious Marignon have been surrounded and totally annihilated! For the first time in a while I have some degree of initiative.

5119

For me trying twice to connect do the trick…

5120

For me, trying six times to connect didn’t do the trick! :(