Finally decided against falling back at the southern tip of our peninsula, and instead built up provincial defense to 30 at the choke point and stocked it with as many troops as were available, including teleporting in my 5S mage. The reason I decided to do this was because in the prior turn when Ulm attacked he lost 4 of 4 commanders who led 315! troops into that same province. I figured even though he had 390 troops built up across the bridge he probably didn't have the means to lead them all. In fact the next turn there was no attack across the bridge.

We were pretty fortunate to win that battle (in the previous turn vs 315 troops) at all. We were outnumbered 3 to 1 but luckily had been building up a fairly large cavalry wing composed of heavy cavalry and chariots, something like 15 of each. When those guys hit the front line a LOT of Ulmish troops died!

It seems like chariots are really something like cruise missiles. One shot attackers, they die like flies.

Here's the map from last turn. Making progress to the north where Ulm really didn't really have much in the way of troops. Although that may change as this turn we've captured another Ulm province revealing ANOTHER Ulm fort. I don't know if Ulm built those or not but if they did that's a HUGE HUGE AI improvement over Dom 2. I think they probably did built at least one of those forts to the north as I see other AIs with more forts now as well. Good stuff.

Here's the current map centered this time on the southern area at the chokepoint to our peninsula. We now have a F2 E1 W1 S1 mystic there as well as our 5S astrologer, 2 priestesses (will arrive next turn), 2 Strategos (with +10 standards), my prophet, some raptor mercs, plus a fairly standard mix of Arco troops with lots of tribal archers and a heavy cavalry wing. The Ulm pretender is in the area, a Prince of Death and he's got a LOT of longdeads - this is why I brought up the Priestesses. I may forge a herald lance first (Solar Rays) before I move forward.

Oh yeah I have about 100 Ichytids there as well. They captured the neighboring sea province there and can possibly be used as raiders.

One final thing of note is we have increased our gem income considerably, finding about 6 or 7 magic sites including one VERY important site where we'll be able to hire sorcerors (1D 1B 2?(D,B,S)) - time to start getting some blood summons!

Comments Most Welcome!