Lizard Bait...
Turn 12 and a building has been completed (the mana farm in Lichton). A unit has gained a level of experience and needs to be awarded a perk. A new quest is sent to our liege for completion and our units need orders.
Without further delay I withdraw my badly injured archer unit from the north. Then proceed to use a combination of my remain archer unit and the seaborne archer unit to whittle down the health of the cockroaches to about 1/3 of maximum. The single group of warriors deliver the killing blow and take the rewards of seizing the garbage pile – 40 gold and the lesser shadow bolt spell. It causes 8 points of death magic, but as I am currently researching the full version, I doubt I will have much cause to use it. Nonetheless...
What the hell... I try an experiment on the flying serpents to the north causing 6 points of damage.
I return to review my forces east of Lichton. Moving one of the units further south-east, they uncover a mystic portal guarded by an earth elemental and a group of undead guarding what looks to be a graveyard. [Ed: Is there anything humanoid and living in this game?] Carefully I move them back to the city and pray I haven't disturbed anything or anyone from their slumber. I doubt my fragile force of undead could stomach an angry elemental charging through their ranks! I also notice that the discovery of a portal has it's own alert.... that's new!
I look to upgrade the archer unit (that was retreated after encounter with the flying serpents in the north). I choose the perk of Elemental Resistance (+15 Death & Elemental resistance). The other two choice would have been: Dodge (+25 Melee Resistance) and Perceptive (+1 XP/turn).
My first quest turns out to be a simple one... to build a farm. It can be built in any city. Doing so within 20 turns will provide a reward of 40 gold. My final action is to send my settler unit north-west to that area immediately north of Lichton, in the space between three special nodes.
The AI takes its turn, but no action is visible to me.
Its Turn 13 and the only already I have is contact.... so there are living intelligent creatures on Ardania! [Ed: Did you say intelligent? You do know they are controlled by the A.I.? Just how intelligent can they be? 2C: Well they managed to come and find us before we found them!%@!]
It is a representative of Sol de Torvega (Yellow). I can either choose to declare war, negotiate or do nothing by clicking the OK button. I choose the latter. I'm not ready to go to war – just yet! And we have nothing to discuss.
Back to the north I move the skeleton warriors from their location at the garbage pile west, towards the lair of flying serpents. I also move up my intact archer unit who manage to get into firing range. They score a critical hit and reduce the serpents by an additional (-4) points.
I move my ship mounted archers further into the body of water, to discover that it is in fact a lake, with no other easy pickings. I'll send them east next time. Once they get on shore they can scout out that area beyond our capitol.
At Lichton I move my two warrior units within the city borders, where they will wait for my other units west of the lake to finish dealing with the serpents and join them in a bit. My settlers continue at their snails pace towards their target.
The A.I doesn't take any actions in the area visible to my forces, so after another uneventful phase it is Turn 14.
Only three alerts this time. The Air Dockyard is complete, which means that the Flying Carvellus' can be recruit. Other than that I will need to issue orders to my units.
I now see where Sol de Torvega's representatives are located. Right next to my capitol. They are a goblin spearmen unit. The equivalent of my skeleton warriors. They posses the Thick Hide Perk (+25 Melee resistance) and have 100 Life Magic resistance. They have sigh of 2 hexes – the same as my warriors. An upkeep of -1 food and -1 gold, replace the food with mana and they may as well be the same.
My floating archers move east and reach the coastline. Next turn they will be able to move on land and continue eastwards, to see what awaits us there. In the north-west my warriors reach the flying serpents and await my archers to reduce their numbers. Their attack is swift causing (-3) points of casualties. However, when I try to use my warriors to attack, I receive a bit of... well all I can describe it as is a bit of an unwelcome surprise! [Ed: I don't believe you!]
My warriors are unable to attack the flying serpents as melee units cannot target airborne foes. Only ranged units (missile or machinations or casters) can attack these units.
At this juncture I'm not happy leaving my capitol unguarded, so I send one of my warrior units at Lichton back to my capitol. The other units around Lichton (2) are rested, except the settlers who move to within one turn of their destination.
Over to the A.I. Sol de Torvega's spearmen return to the east. The flying serpents avoid the skeleton warriors adjacent to them and move to the west. They target the only nearby threat posed by my archers, hitting them for a massive amount of hit-points.
It is Turn 15 and the flying serpents must pay. The archers they just attacked retaliate causing a few points of damage. The other unit of archers that were retreated a while back have gained enough health through resting to be used. I send these forwards into the fray. Their attack is clinical scoring (-5) points and killing the serpents dead.
With the danger gone the skeleton warriors are ordered to demolish the snake's nest in the adjacent hex. This provides 70 gold as reward, bringing up our pool of good to 175. Just 5 shy of being able to commender our Flying Caravellus. Skeleton Warriors cost 20 gold and Archers 25 gold by comparison.
I put my warriors in Lichton on sentry duty. They should wake if any non-faction units get within 2 hexes of it. I now check the alerts to find a building slot is open for construction and a new unit has been built. The ocean going Caravellus ship, located by the harbor, east of the capitol.
I move this new unit south through the seas and discover some unclaimed lands and a new shipwreck, which is just out of reach. In the city of Lichton I now build a mana farm, ignoring my quest objective to build a farm. I have plenty of time to achieve this, but in order to grow my army in numbers I will need more mana. The undead faction or one using a lot of magic will need lots of mana. Finally I move the archers in the lake onto the shoreline ready to move inland next turn.
With that it is the my phase, and the A.I.s turn to go.
More to follow...