Turns 10-30 or so were spent site searching, summoning Nagas to take a lake, and summoning Yakshas and Yakshinis. I also managed to forge 8 clams which would hopefully pay off in the late-mid to late game. Atlantis was knocked out early, followed by Agartha, and then I quickly scrambled my bombers…er, my Bandar Light Infantry with sticks and stones supported by a few Yakshas casting Strength of Giants and Legions of Steel. I also had combined what was left of my expansion armies and thrown a few more Yogis into the mix (Body Ethereal+Elephants=a good time). Marignon contacted me to see if I was interested in a war against Man, and I was more or less ready to throw down. I broke my NAP and moved into position, aiming to take a few of the surrounding provinces. Minimal losses netted me four new provinces, though I left the capital to Marignon, not wanting to lose my only army in one battle.
The diplomatic scene from 10-30 was interesting as well. Early on dfs, Dave, and I had talked about ganging up on Mark. Mark had played well in every game I had seen him in, and he was, in my opinion, the biggest threat. While we toyed with the idea, nothing ever developed from this.
My long term peace with Marignon and R’Lyeh were over on turn 29, so I spent that time trying to negotiate stronger peace with everyone again. I was aiming for a late-mid kill, and I was still building up my forces. I was able to summon Gandharvas at this point, but not the Rudras that I would need to raid and defend my internal territories. I did have a few of the Kinnara (flying air mages) to act as mini-thugs, but not in significant numbers. I had them forging winged shoes for my Yakshas, mostly. R’Lyeh had proven to be a wily foe, taking an obvious lead, especially in income and provinces. Dave was second in gem income as well, following me, which was another dangerous statistic. So of course I offered undying friendship! Dave was not having it though, playing a nice game of evasive emailing. Dfs was more amenable, however. We spoke of pitting Dave and Mark against each other, hopefully in a stalemate war. Dfs and Dave broke their NAPs with Mark. I believe dfs was simply trying to egg Dave on into a hasty attack that he thought would be supported. I mentioned that I was still dealing with Man and that I needed more time before I would be able to march on Mark. What I was really doing was staying the hell out of a war in order to build up further.
Mark contacted me concerned that his war with Dave would merely leave Dave even stronger than before. I agreed with him, and offered to talk to dfs in order to get him on board with a war against Dave. I also mentioned that I would need more time before I would be ready to commit to a war myself. Sound familiar yet? Yes, I was again trying to get everyone else involved in a stalemate war while I pounded out the conjuration research and forged clams. If one side would start to seem like it was winning, I’d shift my allegiance and start funding the other side.
On turn 29, I had decided to use my pretender to summon a Revenant and forge a skull staff to break into death magic. On turn 29, my pretender discovered a blood magic site that offered D2B2 mages for 100/1 and D1B1 mages for 60/1. Not only had I broken into death, I had also broken into blood! I had been blood hunting with scouts and indie commanders since the beginning of the game and had amassed around 40 blood slaves. Instead of needing to empower, I simply started by hiring the level two variety mage here. I then had him forge sanguine dowsing rods every turn while hiring the cheaper of the two mages (lack of cash being an issue most of the time, and the level 2 version mages were old age). These guys I sent out to seriously ramp up my blood hunting. Luckily, with T3L3, I didn’t care all that much about losing income in several provinces at once.
