Round 3 (Turns 152 - 236):
Finally, we had some action going on in this game... That, of course, means WAR!!!
In the beggining of the round, I decided to tech Sanitation to boost our production while using Conquest, change civics and tech priesthood (to add some ritualists to the stack) while building Pyre Zombies. I started building Rosier in the Capital, while Grottiburg built Pyre Zombies.
After sanitation was ready, i decided to change civics:
Very military oriented. If it wasn't for conquest we'd never have built a army large enough fast enough to fight Alexis, our cities are really production poor.
One turn before I revolted, Alexis came to me with a demand. Since she was pleased, I guessed it wouldn't be a problem to deny it... Well, it wasn't, since she kept pleased. One turn later, she declared war. I don't think that the declaration had anything to do with the demand, since it was done in the next turn, but I'm not sure...
Anyway, war was our objective too, so no big deal. A very large stack of morois showed in our borders. Luckily, instead of heading to Grottiburg, they decided to go chill out a little in Adonias, Alexis city to the north of our land. Unfortunately, I'm not used of taking screenshots of stacks and I couldn't get one that showed the units that were in it. It was something like 30 morois.
Like I said, the stack went to Adonias:
After some turns of bringing precious reinforcements to Grottiburg, Alexis decided to move her stack and attack. We already had Rosier by then.
It was a bloody battle. We lost some units (I can't understand the units defending order... I didn't see any moroi with marksman, but sometimes it seemed that weaker units defended, even tough stronger ones were avaiable), but, due to pyre zombies (these guys are too good) dying damage, we managed to survive. Here's her stack after:
I used our units in the city to clear up the remainings. Our highly promoted warrior, now upgraded to pyre zombie survived the battle, but he died at 98% odds clearing a almost dead moroi... Bad luck, but Rosier survived, so that's fine.
So, I started building Pyre Zombies to attack Alexis. My plan was to keep the cities that had Ashen Veil and raze the other ones. Even tough we'd lost some nice devoled cities, our goal is to raze the Armageddon Counter. An the war would go faster without the need of defending the captured cities.
Here's our stack when i decided to move to alexis lands:
No ritualists yet, but I was confident on the strenght of the Pyre Zombies.
When i reached Nubia, another stack showed up:
I got the screenshot ready this time. You can see that Alexis got vampires already. Later, the vampires flooded us with skeletons. So, the AI actually used summons against our stack, but it took quite some turns. By the time it decided to attack, Rosier was highly promoted already and they didn't do a scratch to him (he's level 13 right now).
With priesthood, I built two ritualists and started capturing cities:
Nubia, captured and kept:
Prespur, captured and razed:
Morr'ta'nar, captured and razed:
Acaia, captured and razed:
And, finally, San'ta'ron, also captured and razed (we captured a lot of workers with the city):
After that, Alexis was ready to talk about peace. Time to do a nice catch up in techs:
We got the techs showed in the screenshot + archery.
If you look carefully in the previous screenshots, you can see that we met tasunke during the round. His lands are north of ours, separated by mountains. We made this trade with him:
We did some resource trades too. Here's his lands (we got the maps with Alexis):
So, here we are. I just made peace with Alexis to get the techs with the peace treaty. She's down to one city, so I'll heal, wait for the 10 turns, declare and wipe her from the map.
After I realized that the war was won, I revolted back to agrarianism and aristocracy. I spent a lot of turns in 0% research to avoid going bankrupt with the units upkeep. I selected Fanaticism to be researched after priesthood was done, because I plan to get Malevolent designs with the infernal grimoire. i'm doing 100% research now, but maybe I should turn it off again and wait for an academy in Grottiburg. What do you think?
We also have some settling to do in Alexis former lands. I think all cities should go in the same spots that Alexis' ones were, except for San'ta'ron, which, I think, should go 1SE to get the whales in the second ring. Do you thing we should farm over the fully developed towns or keep them?
The city that'll go in the place were Prespur were will be a very nice production city. I think i'll start the Prophecy of Ragnarok as soon as I settle it. Coupled with the heroic Epic this city will be our primary military/AC raiser city.
I switched Grottiburg and Galveholm production to settlers. After Grottiburg one is ready, i plan to employ 2 scientists and 2 priests to produce a great person. If it is a G. Prophet, I'll build the Stigmata on the Unborn and employ only scientists for an Academy next. If it is a GS, i'll make the academy and wait to pop another GP for the shrine (which can be built with a GS or a GP).
About Civics, I'm going to switch to Slavery. We could change to religion (to raise the happy cap) or Pacifism (to help getting the GP faster) too without anarchy. What do you think?
Some screenshots:
Civics:
Alexis former lands:
So, I think next round we should settle the avaiable land, finish alexis, get the needed GP's, tech fanaticism > Infernal Pact and use the grimoire to get malevolent designs, build Mardero and the Beasts of Agares and attack Tasunke. Probably raze all his cities and settle them again afterwards.
Another thing is about mana nodes. We got two in our lands. We need life mana to be able to use sanctify (if the infernals spawn near us) and water mana to use spring and turn the southern deserts into plains. I think shadow mana is a nice one to get, since coupled with our Palace Chaos and Death mana and the AV shrine Entropy mana, we'll be able to build the tower of necromancy, who makes our undeads stronger and gives one death mana. The next ones we capture should me turned into death mana, to further improve our summons (building the soul forge can help too).
I'll be waiting for your comments!