Just making a post for anyone following the game to see my POV.
After my aborted attack on Yellow (which still made him use his worldspell) Yellow declared war on Thessalonica of the Elohim. Elohim has now top stats, great food and mfg and gnp too. Everything except for power. The attack only lasted one round, then elohim popped worldspell and shut out the Golden Horde.
A turn or two later Yellow attacked me.
So far he has burned two cities, both size 8. They used to be in the south here. I have struck back, killed 3 mounted mercs last turn and 1 more this turn (I had some moroi with burning blood to spare). My remaining mobile counterattackng force is pictured.
![[Image: 6a8r.jpg]](http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/203/6a8r.jpg)
Actually I have several bloodpets scattered around, but I'd like to keep a few in every city, the mobility of his mounted mercs is terrifying. I aim to kill as many units as I can, I'll keep my forces intact and strike back when I can do maximum damage (wiping a tile clean is good). Saving money to upgrade.
However, I'm not sure if Yellow will be angry about this:
This city has one bloodpet defender. One mounted merc will take it next turn. It is utterly indefensible. I offered it to Dain the Suttwallan as a gift, as it has no useful purpose in my empire. Delaying a mounted merc one turn? No point. Maybe Dain has a use for it, rather him than Yellow getting raze cash.
Not going to get into the habit of gifting stuff away just to spite an invader, rest of my cities can at least pump out bloodpets every turn till they croak.
If I really wanted to spite him, I would gift all cities to HK of the Elohim, they would be protected by sanctuary for quite a few rounds and then HK would probably win the game for sure (not sure what plan he has, if he has the tech to build some +power stuff soonish)
Anyway, not too many turns to live - Yellow can pretty much decide how fast he wants to take my lands by press-ganging as many mounted mercs into service. If he hasn't already turned off tech and is just buying units he should...