Mop, mop, mop, all day long. Mop, mop, mop while I sing this song.

Gonna slay some giants, going to make them die, and going to take off all the riffraff with Oiorpata.

My apologies to Adam Sandler.

Game is properly postponed to ~72 hours from the time the turns were resent. Due to llamaserver hangups, it was not done yesterday. Make sure you are aware of the current deadline.

Turn number 49
Next turn due: 01:25 GMT on Friday August 26th

So apparently my pretender died in the missing turn. Not even sure how that is possible. Oh well, game is pretty much a write off now.

Was he still alive on the turn 48 that you received, back when everything first went haywire?

It is possible that your enemy killed him with a remote attack spell on turn 47. If he was set to cast the spell monthly, it could have happened on turn 48, but I guess you would have had a message for that. Also, if he was involved in a battle on turn 47, he might have died legitimately.

If you will hold on another turn or two, I can take over when Sauromatia's player gets back. That will prevent C'tis' armies from suddenly doing crazy things. I would do what I can to make the aggressors pay for their victories.

If you do not want to continue on, it would be up to the rest of the group if they would prefer to have you go AI or take time to find a sub and put things on hold. At this point, it is not a huge deal to have you go AI.

Ghostwes  what happened to your pretender really bites....

Hey everyone! I'm back and will be resuming my duties in the near future.

The end of days approaches. The first of Ulm's Tartarians has been discovered. Tremble.

Ghostwes, did you still want me to take over for your C'Tis' final stand?

Essentially correct. In this case, the spell would be Dispel Magic, which is an Astral spell. Certain nations are more likely to have Astral mages with enough power to cast dispel magic than others. Relationships with other players can also give some indication. Means, motive, opportunity.

Tartarians seem to be a go-to Super Combatant for vanilla Dom 3. It can be tough to get them going, since you need a way to heal their afflictions and make them useful. They also need gear. I think someone is about to have a teachable moment, learning how to take down a SC. There are a few methods, but you have to find out how the SC is kitted out to determine what has the best chance of working.

Cheap access to the Chalice?

I have no smiths with Astral or Nature, let alone both!

I have no native mages with Astral and Nature on them either.

So either I took it on my pretender (which I didn't) or I had to throw gems to empower someone to do it. 

It's true I do have GoH up, and it's likely from my research that one could assume I have const8.  But it's not clear that I would also have the chalice, really, I don't need it with GoH (not to mention enough N income to choke a dog and summon up some healer faeries or whatever they are called).

Yes, I have a Tart out, no you don't know if she's healed or not   Well you might I suppose, if you had a scout in that Barb province.

As to how I know who took down the Well... well, I asked around, and got the answer

Oh. well it's true enough that anyone can forge the chalice if they really put their mind to it.  I can safely say that Tarts and the Chalice were not in my game plan for this game though.

I adapted as necessary though, once I realized my initial strategy was going to fail miserably.  And yes, saddly Tarts are kinda a default goto for Vanilla, in my other Ulm game (1.84) which played out not too differently from this one, in that I had no early wars (well one, but it was totally one sided because the player went AI and got eaten by 3 people) and was semi forced to pursue a heavy research strat because I couldn't win a war against my neighbors Nief or Mict with conventional forces, Tarts are not even registering, because there are other options (not necessarily better though) to go for.

But in that game I am a distant 3rd to a couple demon powerhouses so I don't hold much hope, however, my Zhemys should be able to cause some issues for them, along with my poison golems

In Vanilla PGs are so far down the research path and expensive for a relatively weak SC chasis.  Oh well.  Tarts it is!

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Tartarian_Gate

It's a cheap end-game spell that summons very strong units, though they have a lot of afflictions on them rendering them mediocre. If you can cure the afflictions, through a chalice or gift of health, they can become VERY strong heroes (Super Combatants), partly due to their various spells but mainly from their high stats and the fact that they are undead (never tire in battle). Casting the Tartarian Gate over and over is considered one of the strongest endgame strategies.