V6: Chapter 12

…

They're just out there losing soldiers like it's nothing.

I mean, I get it.

The Wardens can bring their people back to life. The Guardians are mostly Undead. Finally, the Forgers weren't losing that many soldiers, since they were covered in a small sedan's worth of metal each… but they were still losing soldiers.

The Wardens can honestly afford it. If their Influence is high, they have no issues with resurrecting their troops. Resurrected troops might have lowered morale for a few turns, but with some investments and research, that morale debuff ceases to matter by the early mid game. Add a Champion to an army with the right buffs, usually a Warden themselves, and the resurrection for another fight would actually give their troops a buff for the next couple fights.

However, the Guardians and the Forgers couldn't afford the losses.

Sure, the Guardians mostly lose skeleton hordes, but those skeletons still take time and money to equip. Their cost in gold is low, and so is their maintenance, but time and money are still valuable currencies. Not to mention the fact that even if you could use necromancy to create an army of bones from your fallen enemies, those skeletons aren't exactly going to come out of their flesh prisons armed with rifles and covered in armor. I mean, they did in-game, but they certainly weren't here.

The Guardians were using their Undead hordes like they could afford to replace everything that they lost, but every coin spent replacing gear is coin not spent in building new buildings, creating new tile improvements, and maintaining infrastructure.

Overall, Celia's people needed to employ better tactics, because their long-term national strategy is going to be undercut otherwise.

As for the Forgers, normally their tactics are fine. They're a slow, armored glacier that loses few troops and dishes out a lot of damage. The problem was that, even in-game, they had the slowest rate of population growth. They don't allow immigration of other mortals into their cities, they don't have as many kids, and their eugenics programs have them getting rid of anyone they deem defective at birth. Then, of course, there's the fact that if they're too heavily injured and know that they're likely to live crippled or without a limb… they go out there and die in 'glory.'

So, the Dwarves aren't wasting much money or lives, but with their rate of growth/production capability, the casualties they're taking is already horrible.

In short, all three of my allies needed help.

In fact, the only 'ally' of mine that didn't need help were the Merchants… and I was basically using them as my personal bank.

So, on top of besieging the enemy, infiltrating their ranks of mercenaries, and coordinating logistics and transport… I also had to help my allies micro.

Honestly, given how stupid the AI is in the game, I shouldn't have been surprised that they were like this.

Should've seen it coming.

…

I arranged a meeting with Celia and surprisingly found her willing to meet with me within a week.

Giving me just the right amount of time to meet with the Dwarves, before heading her way.

The Forgers had their own manner of securing their territory. In-game, they made use of underground tunnel systems to connect resource extraction nodes to their main cities. Their playstyle was 'tall' and focused on making a very, very good single city. Instead of towns, they had resource extraction nodes where other players would put towns, which would exploit the tiles and give town-like benefits, however they didn't give more population like towns did.

Eventually, with research and cultural change, they allow non-Forgers to live around these nodes and they develop into towns with those people in them.

Notably, however, the name of the resource extraction nodes didn't change.

Why would they change when all it did was just extract more of another resource, which they'd need to send specialists over to manage?

Yeah, the Forgers really can't be reasoned with.

They consider themselves, innately, as the only 'real' people.

Their ending only lets other races persist to become tools for them to use, which they'll refine and force eugenics upon eventually, until they're satisfied with their tools.

Some idiots on forums point out that Forgers have it right, but Forgers will look at a non-Forger having a political opinion and require it be disposed of.

Always remember: the racial purists and eugenicists think they and their people can reach perfection, while everyone else should be filtered out of the gene pool.

They're not good people and need to be put down.

Anyway, I didn't bother setting up a meeting with their King, since he'd just snub me out of principle anyway.

I went and reached out for their field commander, got a meeting, and slapped down documentation on how they need to fight better within five minutes of meeting him.

"General Erlan, pleasure to meet you. I've evaluated the situation and the various ongoing battles." I'd gone from the drop point in the fortress, through the guards after they patted me down, past the entourage set to greet me and provide for me, and walked straight into the general's office. Their fortress was well-built with sturdy walls and good artillery, but honestly didn't really have anything of note. Just walls, defenses, support structures, barracks, and a headquarters. Something I can have bombed into oblivion in a few hours. "I'm afraid the current method of fighting you're employing is detrimental to your people in the long term. You need far less casualties, given the incoming calamities heading for our continent."

All statements backed with reports gathered by my people.

These guys don't do diplomacy.

Before the General could get a word in, I slapped down the first of my suggestions on the table.

"The rate of your advance is too quick and your units are being flanked deep in enemy territory. They can withstand it and win, but it's creating unnecessary casualties." The map I provided was of his unit locations in the last five weeks. It also recounted the amount of casualties we estimated his people took at those locations, and the casualties we verified coming into our transports to be flown back. That's right. Using my transportation services is basically giving me information about your people non-stop. "My proposal is to trade you several firearms produced by my Citadel and increased supplies, so that you can leapfrog the construction of outposts which will provide covering fire to your troops."

General Erlan was young for a Dwarf, meaning his beard was still a full brown and barely reached his sternum. His helmet cast a shadow down his brow and his eyes peaked behind a steel upper mask that protected his face. His armor showed signs of recent repair and even had dings and scratches on it.

Not only that, but he was close to the front line and had no clan sigils on his chest. That meant he didn't have a storied lineage. Expendable, but given how well the army has bene functioning and the shape of the fortress, that meant that he earned his place through merit. Forgers believed in merit despite one's genetic predispositions… for their own race. Then again, I doubted there were any elites here with storied bloodlines. Those weren't deployed as Tier 1 Units.

Stolen novel; please report.

An officer that rose up in the ranks and now commanded an army from the frontline suddenly found himself dealing with a king of another nation.

It was easy to hear how this would go.

"I will need to contact my superiors." Erland bluntly stated. "I have no right to broker deals between my nation and yours."

"And, I have no time to spare to wait for your people to craft a perfect response. The Death Lord is here, you are losing men, and I want you to continue your march while suffering less casualties. So, hear me out." I gave the general a smile. The same smile I'd given since a child to those who I wanted to manipulate and who I wanted to trust me. I'd gone into the Citadel's clinics just to get my teeth shiny and aligned just to beam and disarm those I spoke to. "I am planning an operation to take down one of the Death Lord's generals. Not one of the tribal chieftains he uses as officers. A general in truth. I will give you all that I have stated in exchange for fifty of your finest."

Trade offer: you get the ability to build outposts with artillery that can support your march and lower your casualty rate.

In return: I get fifty heavily armored juggernauts that swing axes and hammers around like toys to use for a very, very violent assassination.

Erland, naturally, hesitated.

He had five thousand or so men at his command.

A percent of that was my ask in exchange for increased support.

I could see the gears rotating in his mind. The offer was good, but that wasn't the clincher. Forgers calculate situations based on what they might lose just as much as what they may gain. That made them unwilling to compromise and horrible neighbors. They see peers with land as people who have stuff that they could be exploited, and other races as sub-human troglodytes that don't understand how to produce a decent bloodline to help their species prosper.

Honestly, they're just as bad as the Children of Elm lore-wise and ending-wise, but I'll use them to my own ends.

When the troubles that need their help end, then I'll handle them.

Hopefully, with the destruction of their leadership and culture, they can be turned into a decent people.

But that was for later.

Erlan finished thinking it over and nodded.

"They will need to be volunteers and I will tell them it is a suicide mission. But you will have your men, King of Wisdom, and I expect you to uphold your bargain."

I gave the general a nod and turned on my heel while waving his way.

"The supplies will be here in an hour. Try to get the men together within two weeks." Yeah, I knew you were going to agree. What are you going to do? Refuse all that I was offering when I just asked for fifty soldiers to help kill the enemy we're all fighting? That's would just be plain silly. "Don't die. There's many more foes in the coming years, General Erlan."

With that handled, I'll make a visit to Khalai before meeting with Celia.

…

Interlude: Riegert

…

While Khanrow's expedition had launched from our main Citadel at Talon Hills, heading southward, my men and I launched our own from the lands once held by the Children of the Elm. The easternmost point of our lands, we prepared to venture to find those who wielded the weapons of bronze and poison that the Ancients once faced.

Traveling through the mountains for several weeks, we set watchtowers and observer posts and staffed them with men. We left them in warm, insulated towers with plenty of supplies, while we continued our path forward. With each tower made, with new magical beacons lit, from the air we received reinforcements and supplies and some of our number were rotated out.

The beacons and towers were resupply points and relays for our fliers.

So, even though the towers were difficult to build and we loathed to leave them, the promise of resupply and reinforcement made each one easier to stomach.

Some of the men questioned why they were made so sturdy, why defenses were mounted on them, when most armies would perish trying to reach one.

Then, we breached the endless storm that guarded the mountains and our homeland.

Trees unlike any we'd ever seen before stretched endlessly before us. Rivers wider than most lakes snaked across the forest like immense roads. Flocks of massive birds flew across the air. Vines thicker than the arms of men hung up on branches and some of the vines were immense serpents. The ground was filled with life. Many creatures were venomous, and most of the plants were poisonous. Large predators stalked in every shadow, some in packs and others as lone kings of their domain. Some had fur hides, but most had scales and protruding bones, and claws instead paws.

And, in the canopies of immense trees, there were many, many villages of creatures wearing the guise of bronze-skinned, tall women.

We stayed hidden and quiet through magic and viewed our foes through familiars or through binoculars with tinted lenses… and found the tribes to be monstrous creatures. They killed and used the monsters for materials for their homes and their weapons, but they preyed upon the lesser tribes of mortals and used them like cattle. Much like in the lands of the demons, our people existed in these lands as slaves and resources, but while they were sacrificed and used as labor by the Demons… here they were flesh to be harvested.

They were cannibals, and the ones who made use of healing magic regenerate the flesh of their prey. Not only that, but they used the poison they gathered to melt the living feasts they created into brews upon which they grew drunk. They took men from the lesser races as mates, ate them during coupling, and threw from their tree tops any child that was not of their kind. Their mages practiced magics and curses upon the regressed versions of ourselves, already struggling to survive the horrible environment, and turned them into living sacks of poison or forcing them to live as rotting husks… simply for their amusement.

We found hundreds of tribes, each warring with other over hunting grounds, and each one performing the same horrible actions.

I wanted no more than to set their lands alight, to see their skies filled with fire, but I knew we could not.

As we reached the first of their true cities, and found that unlike the Demons, they held a claim over the skies.

Upon strange, un-feathered birds with long beaks filled with fangs and bat-like wings, whole armies rode to enforce the will of city-queens upon the surrounding tribes.

But they did not have mounts alone.

I knew not how, but their nobility had winged arms like Harpies, and those creatures could fly faster and longer than their aerial cavalry. They went forth to quell dissent or conquer tribes on their own, spreading poison and disease, and wading into battles with blades at their ankles which ripped through warriors with ease.

Our efforts and work to create a line of beacons for our flying fortress made sense once I saw them.

We will have need of such a great and terrible machine to put these monsters to the sword.