Ok well the game is getting fun again. Pythium attacked us last turn so we are definitely at war with them as well. That's fine as actually their capital is not too far away on our Western borders and most of their armies are tied up seiging Abysia's capital. I'll just let that army sit there (I've never seen the AI break off armies that are seiging) and hopefully they'll storm the castle and take grievous casualties - Abysia has somehow been able to build up a pretty decent army there with no provinces. I suppose it must be fire summons.

To the east, R'yleh and us (Arco) both attacked the same indy sea province. We captured the province then they attacked us. So, we're not sure if that means war or not (in Dom 2 I think it usually didn't). But we have a MASSIVE water income now and I'll cast the Sea Troll's Court a couple times at least. Still have to build LOTS of sea fodder to deal with all the mind blasts. Even if we're not at war now we'll be attacking them eventually.

One thing I only briefly mentioned before is that we have also got a good blood income going now, some 40-60 slaves per turn and buying one blood mage per turn. We captured a province where you can buy sorcerers (1D 1B 2? (D,B,S) I think) - those guys are VERY NICE. Can blood hunt, cast death rituals, the 2B guys can summon fiends (which require only Blood 2 research) or if you had to use them in battle you have Nether Darts.

I got a 3B 1D guy and empowered him to 4B so he could forge the blood boosters. So he has the Blood Thorn for 5B and is now casting 'Ritual of the Five Gates' which is a nice addition to Dom 3 - you get the five solid demon troops (frost, devil, fiend, knight, and storm) in one cast. I also cast Horde from Hell so now I have a devil commander and a flying squad which is VERY handy. He has about 15 fiends and those demon guys (plus his imps).

Our gem income is HUGE now also thanks to thoroughly searching a LOT of provinces, both sea and land. Land ones get Acashic'ed of course, for the sea if you don't know this 'trick' you can cast 'Voice of Tiamat' (must be cast underwater) which fully searches a sea province for the elemental sites, then you can cast Arcane Probing, Haruspex and Dark Knowledge to take care of the sorcery sites (I don't think there are blood sites underwater). That's equal to Acashic Record for sea provinces.

BIG BATTLES AHEAD! Looking forward to the carnage. This next turn is going to be pretty complicated as I border Pythium by the sea provinces also so I have to figure out whether I want to raid him with my amphibious guys or not. (Perhaps not as I have lots of guys on land and I need the amphibious guys to continue our sea expansion.)

Comments welcome as always! Next post I'll put up a screenshot.