Once again, I have a confession to make. Earlier, when I wrote about choosing my religion, I neglected to tell you the main reason I chose the Council of Esus, a religion based on deception, betrayal, and the criminal underworld.

I'm about to finally tell you that reason after the jump.

When a war starts, all the units you might have running around inside your opponent's territory get kicked out to the nearest border. They then have to move back in from outside the defender's territory. Otherwise, it would be too easy to abuse an open border agreement like the one I have with the Bannor. By availing myself of our open borders, I have sailed two full Queens of the Line into Bannor territory and unloaded a sizeable army onto a citadel on a hill overlooking the port city of Tentatio. Right now, there are only an axeman and a couple of archers protecting the city. It wouldn't be fair if I could simply declare war and then immediately sweep down into Tentatio before the Bannor could mobilize their defenders.

But the Council of Esus isn't about fair. If your state religion is Council of Esus, you can declare war without having your units ejected from the defender's territory. This is an example of how - for lack of a better word - ballsy Fall from Heaven is with the basic game mechanics of Civilization IV. There's not a rule or an element of the game design that Fall from Heaven isn't willing to break for the sake of its vividly realized civilizations, factions, and magical powers. I've always felt that a central tenet of good game design is to make a rule and then break it. On the simplest level, take a platformer like Mario Bros. Mario can only jump so high. But let him jump even higher when he eats a mushroom and you've broken the rule. That's gameplay. In the case of Fall from Heaven, you can't attack immediately after declaring war because it would unbalance the mechanics of war and peace. But adopt the Council of Esus and you can break the rule. (There are trade-offs, of course, since gameplay is also all about tough choices. For instance, Esus doesn't have any provision for improving happiness, which is a major part of all the other religions.)

So as of turn 405, I've broken the rules by declaring war and immediately attacking with armies adjacent to Bannor's coastal cities, Tentatio and Kabhalq. Bannor is now cut off from the sea, and after a handful of mismatched frigate vs. galley battles, I've achieved naval supremacy in a single turn.

From here, the Council of Esus mage, Gibbon Goetia, accompanies my main army, casting his wondrous Wonder spell before each attack for 3-5 random effects. Before the army moved in Tentatio, they were healed (not that it mattered, since they weren't damaged), the enemies were entangled so they couldn't move for three turns (not that they'd live long enough to get the chance to even try to move), and my army's blades were poisoned for extra damage. A small contingent of mages tags along to cast Blur (avoid enemy first strikes), Blade Dance (bonus first strike for my units), Rust (removes the enemy's weapon bonuses), and Shadowwalk (negates a defender's terrain bonus) before each attack as well. As the Balseraph army moves across the Bannor territory, magical puppets fan out through the towns to capture workers, tie up isolated defenders, and increase my spell-casting powers with their puppet spells. Gibbon Goetia's third-level earth magic summons a force of earth elementals that serve as a screen, stomping their way ahead of my army like a blunt spearhead.

At Trinity, Goetia's Wonder belches out a powerful Ring of Fire, scorching the surrounding terrain; he inspires the army with Valour that gives them extra strength and experience points for the upcoming battle; and a Revelation reveals any invisible units (there aren't any, since the Bannor are too forthright for subterfuge). At Vallus, Goetia's Wonder inflicts crush damage on the defenders; gives my archers +1 flaming arrows (not that I have any archers along); resets any adjacent mana nodes (there aren't any); and summons a floating eyeball that I use for recon to look ahead and note that the road is wide open to the Bannor capital of Torrolerial. At the capital, Goetia's Wonder does mostly more useless stuff (Entangle, Revelation, creates magical mushrooms) but it also inflicts a plague on the city, weakening the defenders substantially. All this trouble to bring along cannons and I don't even need them.

Once Torrolerial falls, there are still a few Bannor cities through a mountain pass to the north. Rather than take the time to trudge up there and grab them, I offer to let Bannor be my vassal. They accept. The Bannor War began on turn 405 and ended in capitulation on turn 417. I seized a huge swathe of territory that will open the way to a mithril mine. I added to the Balseraph empire bananas, toads, sheep, gems, and something called gulagarm, which seems to be a magical fruit. My Mimics, warriors who steal promotions from the units they attack, are powered up and diverse. I got four workers in the process.

On the way, I lost only a single crossbowman.

Much of the credit goes to the Bannor not being very advanced (their score was about half mine), but I couldn't have done it so easily without magic and the Council of Esus surprise attack.

While I'm tidying up and checking for world opinion now that the war is resolved (sure enough, the Elohim are royally pissed off), I figure I'll check to see if the Calabim or Svartalfar want to hop on the vassal bandwagon. I'm delighted to see the Calabim realize they're never going to amount to anything, so they might as well be my vassals as well. But no go for the Svartalfar, which is what I'd expect from a bunch of uppity elves. Not to worry, as I'll have them caged up in my freak shows soon enough. But not before they manage a nasty little surprise for me.

Up next: Elves and asymmetrical warfare
(Click here for the previous Fall from Heaven II game diary.)