This was my first Ice Age and I am pretty sure I took the SO on the recommendation by Draugr that it was a strong position for the scenario. The first few turns I kept thinking about when the bad production period would end, but would then remember this was Ice Age and Winter never ends. The entire game was sort of a race between my Sorcerors and Imperial Tark's Cimmerians. Anyway, I enjoyed the game immensely, partly because everything went great for me, and would enjoy another Ice Age.
I don't know if we have any more newbies who need advice and would benefit from a recap, but I enjoyed this one enough that I did a write-up. You don't have to read it, but I do have to post it
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There were a lot of good players in this one, many of whom had just played the previous Ice Age game, so I knew my work would be tough. The first thing I did was kill my troops and use my patrols to cover as many squares as I could in Torvale. I figured then I would never worry about food and I could always summon troops when needed. As it turns out, I never had more than 3 brigades in the game after turn 1. I did, however, summon lots and lots of Phantoms throughout the game.
I found enough on turn 1 to take the region, so I was one of the two kingdoms that got his region on turn 3 (along with IT's Cimmerians). For my Customization, I took a Governor, a point of Influence and 15,000 gold. For my ESO, I took Own a Region, 2 princes plus influence 17, and 3 Level 7 agents. Figured this would be easy for this position and it was. The Council seats were taken on turns 1-5 by DA, WA, CI, SO, BL. Huge fortune for me, the Gnome dropped on turn 4. Sad for the game, but I am in plenty where a drop was not near me. By turn 6, all regions are owned except for Runnimede. I am friendly there and my groups have covered quite a bit of the region and I have a Baron at the City there. I also own every pop center in Torvale. I have spent a lot of effort raising emissary levels and training agents, but have not done much with my wizards. I am 5th in status points on turn 6, though this early those do not reflect real strength yet.
It wasn't until turn 7 that I remembered to put my Fool to work. Oops. On turns 7-9, I am slowly taking pop centers in Runnimede, raising emissaries and agents, and finally finding some unusual sightings in Runnimede. I had not yet found any in Torvale. The CI gets his first Warlord, so we know he is busy. As of turn 9, I have seen no enemy action (except BL taking my village in Amberland), I am set for my ESO next turn and will likely take region 7 and it will be time to start raising wizards and figuring out how to avoid too much attention.
Fortunately, on turn 10 when I take Runnimede, the CI takes Talking Mountains from the WA. Ok, so maybe two of us are targets. That helps. At this point, I am making over 100,000 gold with no troop upkeep. For my ESO, I took 2 Barons, a point of influence, an Adept and the 20,000 gold. So, on turn 11 for instance, I did 6 Magic Research orders. CI is still producing Warlords and is still leading in status on turn 12, though I did move up to second with 2 regions and a handful of artifacts. I have a Maiden and I have started looking at the cities in Amberland. It appears the BL owns everything except finally the CI takes Evanon. I am still doing a lot of 603 and 799 orders and have yet to be bothered by any opponents.
On turn 14, I start to make small incursions into Amberland (this is always a mistake so I am not sure why I did that). The BL declared me enemy and denigrated me, making my job so much harder. But I persisted. Once he slept and kidnapped my Prince at Avalon, I said ok, time to do something. So, I did a full invasion. I sent in lots of emissaries, and 3 groups (like 0-1 brigades in each), including an invisible group at his capitol. All good things are happening: my Prince escaped, I meteored the BL capitol down to around 3,000 defense, I took a lot of towns and villages (avoiding the CI city for now), kidnapping some BL emissaries, etc... On turn 18, I took the BL capital and enough things to turn Amberland neutral. With plenty of wizards, I could also Dome against all four of his groups and keep him hostile in Torvale and Runnimede. By this point, I had 6 wizards who were level 5 or 6, with all the spells I could need. I was still slightly trailing the CI in status points. I took Amberland on turn 19, and bounced all 4 of the BL groups with Domes (and would keep doing this bouncing thing for a while since he refused to give up). On turn 20, the CI took a 3rd region (Eastern Steppes from Draugr's Demon Princes). The WA has dropped, so I am a bit worried about the CI moving for a 4th region. So, I decide I better make one of his regions my next target, and quickly.
I wasted some time on turns 20-22 scouting and enamoring in Arcania, but it is pretty busy there and the Illusionist is a canny player (UM). I decide to hit Eastern Steppes instead. I long ago scouted it, but have no idea who is sitting where, but I decide to just invade blindly with all emissaries and groups on turn 23. I am pretty sure the DE and CI are both active in the region, but with almost 25 influence and lots of high emissaries, I figure what the hell, let's just go nuts. I sent in 9 emissaries and 4 groups. Every emissary made it to a pop center (none bounced off of groups so that was good), and 3 of my groups were at villages alone (one landed opposite an invisible DE group). Just for fun, I attacked the DE group on a 3 (I actually won since he retreated though I took more damage 55% versus his 45% or so).
On turn 24, I went crazy with 330 orders with no idea if anybody was present or maintaining. But every one worked (though the DE did take a couple away from me on the same turn I took them). My groups all took theirs and my Count took the City, so my Rex worked. This is not the kind of blind invasion strategy I recommend, but I was getting tired and just figured I would go for broke. At the end, there were armies of DE, BL and CI at my pop centers, so the future would have been tough.
Anyway, fun game. Congrats to IT on bringing the non-magic CI to 2nd place and to Canticar for bringing the very quiet DU kingdom to 3rd place. And remember, Phantoms are your friends.
Buddy/Ignore List
