This was my second ice age game, the last time I took the Cimmerians, attacked DuPont's UN right away, and really made no headway the entire game.
I decided against a magic or military kingdom this time, and chose the HA because I'd never played them before. I thought their trading abilities might give me an edge in a time of famine. Not so much. You need a partner to trade, and no one has anything to trade in deep winter. Finally made a deal with the DU late, and I think I should have been trying more but couldn't make the math work.
I chose Diamond Coast, and just planned on building and keeping my head down. Cosmic's Gnomes to the west in Darkover, and the DE to the South in Nyvaria. I thought the DE might have a good military advantage in the ice age with skeletons eating no food, but he dropped pretty early, to my mutual advantage.
I had foreknowledge of the invisibility ring, and send a patrol off to find it in Triumvia (DuPont's BL), but man those short legs are slow. I found some sea (frozen) PCs on that trip which came in handy later.
The other thing that came in handy was the fertile fields spell at level 2. On many turns, I cast 5+ of these. I found the twins and Nemrond the wizard in Diamond Coast, so I was loaded with wizards, all casting fertile fields and hidden ores.
I did not take the Red Elk mount, just a criminal decision in the ice age, so it took some time to take my region, and perhaps just as I took it, a BL patrol landed on my hidden village there. The Gnome had been invaded by the BL early, and I saw that I was next so declared war. It was a cold war, though, as the Black armies didn't come, and he even voted for some of my HC issues. The DE dropped and I took Nyvaria with no competition. The RA in Pellinor moved into Untamed instead and we never fought.
I think the Black had some military reverses though, at least the battle reports from my hidden village in Darkover said so, and the invasion never came as the Gnome slowed him down. DuPont had Stormgate, Triumvia and Darkover now, so I built an army led by some tough Ents and off they went on their stubby legs to take Stormgate. My king was very busy enamoring Nyvaria, Stormgate, Triumvia, then Darkover to friendly.
Food was so tight- I had to build the trading post, then I had to build a temple to divine PCs. As I divined Triumvia, I was able to take Stormgate and nab PCs in the ocean as my group headed into Black Dragon territory. He counterattacked in Diamond Coast, but only took villages. I think he groups were ill fed and battered, by now, so he didn't attack cities or towns. I moved some emis that way to retake villages, which came in handy up there later.
I counterespionaged my army and foiled several agent attacks. Later, I saw the BL had developed multiple 10+ agents, perhaps his strongest area. I only had one good agent, boosted with the ring though, and kidnapped a BL emi or agent almost every turn. Probably my most effective weapon.
The HA PC recon trait was immensely helpful, as I slept any BL emis that tried to retake Triumvia PCs. I had so many wizards, and sleep was range 10, so that was pretty easy, even with BL sleep resistance. I also slept those tough agents as many times as I could.
There really are no castles in the ice age, so my main army, even with fewer HA companions, was more than able to take his capital town, then Imril. At this point, maybe turn 20, the Black was on the run and I had 3 1/2 regions. I needed to take 2 more nearly simultaneously to prevent backlash from other kingdoms, but movement was so slow that was a little tough (darn no Red Elk mount). I figured I could do it in 2 turns, and made plans to take the BL PCs in Darkover and the remainder of Triumvia for the win. I had a smaller second force that I sent to Darkover, and retook some Diamond PCs on the way.
All went well, with the exception of a 19 brigade GN army, who realized I was no friend and delayed me a turn in Darkover. He attempted emi attacks, too, but see HA PC recon trait, above.
After missing out on Darkover by a town (luckily, I'd calculated the deficit correctly and didn't declare), I thought I had a good chance of taking at least net one more town and declared for a victory, only to lose my capital to an invisible NE army (telported from across the board). All those prisoners gone! He can tell you more, but I declared just at my zenith, because the bricks were coming down on your furry-footed protaganist. I'd thought about relocating capital to Stormgate but did not, luckily not a fatal error.
I declared and won, but lost my capital. My main army intercepted the GN force at Ramhorn- that would have been a good fight (for these relatively small armies). Congrats to podium. Nice job to GN holding of the BL. Nice job DuPont on the early victory push that the GN stopped. Good game to all.
P.S. Turn in your Alamaze card if you ever play ice age and don't take the Red Elk Mount.
P.S.S. Behold the most mighty army in Alamaze:
Morale: 135% Attrition: 17.3% Terrain Modifier: +10% Defense: Excellent
Estimated total value in terrain: 77,671
Estimated value vs. PC: 84,294
Leadership Spell Casters
Warlord Cousin Fogg Power-4 Nemrond
Lord Commander Gabbo Hardwind Power-3 Blue Eyed Robin
Centurion Xor the Great Power-3 Kiri Blackmind
Artifacts: Horn of the Intrepid, Standard of Valor, Valyrian Steel
Order of Battle:
Brigade Type Experience Number Morale Attrition Defense
Halflings Elite 3 138% 16.4% Superior
Halflings Veteran 2 142% 13.3% Very Good
Halflings Regular 1 143% 28.8% Good
Rohirrim Elite 3 137% 15.2% Renowned
Rohirrim Veteran 1 146% 15.6% Very Good
Wood Elves Elite 1 138% 17.9% Excellent
Wood Elves Veteran 3 138% 23.6% Good
Northmen Regular 2 110% 25.5% Above Average
Ents Elite 2 130% 5.0% Ultimate
Ents Veteran 1 135% 12.5% Renowned
Buddy/Ignore List
