In picking a nation for this game, i knew I wanted a nation with good sacred support - I figured this was essential given the money crunch which was bound to happen. In particular, I wanted to be sure that the research support was sacred, as you could support twice as many sacred researchers as you could regular ones. I was pretty happy to see my ‘main contestants’ all selected, and particularly my ‘final 3’ including Kailasa and Lanka. In the end, I went with TNN because of their combination of stealth, magic-pathing, and the immediacey and potency of its thugs.
I decided on a sorceress rainbow pretender, and was able to get a solid minor bless(4FWES) on her in addition to 2D, and 1A. All this magic came at a price, and I had to limit her to a dominion of 5, with 3 luck and 1 magic. The astral/earth combo was essential as TNN is void of the first and almost void of the second. The levels support all the minor boosters, and i could bootstrap my way into the rings, which I could then conceivably use to boost anyone to do anything. Blood was a pure void, but one I didn’t mind. My pretender’s void of nature and (nearly) air were well covered by the tuatha and given that both her and the tuatha are stealthy, i figured I could get pretty aggressive with site searching early on.
Pre-game strategy was to get one or more thugs out, get someone site searching early for the AWN sites I’d need to support the thugs with, get my pretender out site searching and find a source of neutral S mages somewhere. The last was pretty critical. TNN’s great weakness as a nation (particularly in the mid/late game) is its void of astral - and so getting some astral mages for crafting and support was vital for me.
Turn 15
Everything is going pretty well. My initial thug sweep went northwest of my capital and then did a loop back, and now a second sweep has all but completed south and west of my capital. I’ve 3 thugs and have started equiping them with some rudimentary upgrades. My pretender has awoken and I’ve starting to site search - though funding was been so limited that I can’t even bring along a tuatha sorceress just yet, so I’m inefficiently site searching using a bean sidhe and a sidhe lord to cover air and nature. As I havent been able to do any site searching yet, I’m still only earning the original gem income, however that will change soon as my pretender starts uncovering some substantial sites.
Politically, you can see Pan above me - I had really wanted at least a 2 province buffer to my capital and Pan is seated in that island. It would annoy me some, but not enough for me to do anything about, and eventually I’d get over it as that island changed hands multiple times. Strangely, I wouldn’t find out that the lanka capital was across the lake from me for quite a while yet - as I was more focused on sending my scouts out and away. Just south of where my pretender is, this little swamp province would be a huge asset in the future TNN empire - it’s producing scouts monthly and they’re speeding away every turn in all directions and forming the information web that would last through to the end of the game. Finally, our gaze moves south to TC and the fight which, in hingsight, we know is coming. They’ve expanded very well, too well in my eyes, and have seized territory I feel is more properly TNN’s. In particular, it annoys me that I have no path to any throne and TCs over-reaching is to blame.
For now, it’s about biding time and seeing what can be worked out. NAPs and treaties are declined - TNN will stand on its own, and rely upon the unpredictability and strength of its stealth thugs to provide for its security rather than diplomacy.