Pushing the Front
Last episode, we decided to abandon the siege of Jalmarys as things were looking a little dicey and it's been a hot minute since we party-wiped... which is how we want to keep it! So we begin this ep in our trusty city of Ortysia, and take a moment to update Vara's perks.
We leave the city looking for some weaker parties to take out of play - which is a pretty reliable method of keeping enemy forces from being able to steam-roll your front-line castles and towns... and instead find ourselves getting saddled with yet another Castle that we don't actually want.
Waaa! I have too many castles! First-world problems, I know.
Now, unfortunately, there's no way we can vote our way out of this mess (thanks, democracy) so for now we have to accept this Fief... but we're going to get rid of this a little later as we really honestly aren't interested in Castles at this point.
Our current fiefdoms are the town of Ortysia, and the castles of Hertogea and Gersegos - meaning every bit of land we hold right now is on the contested front-line of the war with the Western Empire. That's not exactly an ideal set of holdings.
While speaking about not wanting the castle, Hertogea is put under siege - punctuating why I'm not keen to keep these fiefs! We do get to our first battle as we head north to investigate what kind of army they're throwing at my unwanted fortifications.
Look at that cocky smirk! Fool! Buffoon! Absolute Candlestick! You're about to be destroyed!
Three minutes later, he's got a very different look on his face.
Not so smirky now, are ya, Phospor? Didn't go the way you planned, did it?
With that party out of the way, we evaluate the ongoing siege and decide that despite numbers favouring the enemy, and despite the fact that we don't actually even want this castle, we're going to throw down and join the battle.
They've got a bunch of infantry, which may be hard to deal with... I know at this point I'm not super confident about our chances.
And with their cavalry smashing into us, things only get worse. Half our force is already wounded or dead - yikes, not a good time!
That said, with a little bit of slap-chopping, I'm blending my way to victory like a medieval Magic Bullet.
At least, for a bit that's the case - things take a turn with a few solid hits on me and it's time to do something I rarely do - retreat from battle!
Even though we have to retreat, it's still been a great battle for my character, who leaves with 18 kills.
The other to parties we've left behind though are definitely screwed. Either of the two armies we were tangling with have enough units to make it a challenge for the combined total of forces we can still field.
Both parties end up captured, which puts us at a severe disadvantage as far as capable commanders in the field goes, so it's time to consider making peace for now. 12 prisoners sitting in their dungeons does not make for easy defence or offence. There'll be other times to push this front again.
Naturally, with peace comes a bit of relaxation and a little downtime. And, what better way to fill downtime than the glory of combat in the arena?
We tackle another hideout, do some trading, and enter another tournament before closing out the session. Peace is great, but it does leave us a little directionless. We end up deciding that grinding out some Influence and then pitching a vote to go to war with Battania might be a good goal while the peace lasts, so the idea ends up being to do some off-camera farming for the boring stuff before diving into another battle. We'll see how that goes... Next time!
Until then friends, Happy Gaming!
Check out the video! The link is below.
Join the Worldbuilding Community!