997YK Summer: Results

"The orcs stopped advancing and have consolidated their position at Threnal", the captain said.

"Because our forces were too slow to cross the plain." King Burdouc Hammerhead's voice boomed in the subterranean throne room. Sat on a large but unadorned throne of stone raised in the centre of the cavern, the duergar king would seem austere to an outsider — but his black crown shone with a faint green sheen in the torchlight, revealing to any dwarf that it was forged from adamantine. "Commander Nartar could have seized the city if he had struck faster."

"The city will be ours next year, as your grace wills," the captain replied.

"And what of the Storm Lords?"

"They have consolidated their hold of region around Stormreach, but made little progress beyond the river — the Drow were able to drive them back from Searing Heights. House Thuranni has several spies in place inside Lordsmarch Palace, and they say that the Storm Lords are already training more soldiers, and recruiting more mercenaries from Khorvaire."

"They will be coming for us — if not next year, then the year after." The king's voice boomed again, reminding the nobles present that their enemy was not resting. "But we will take the fight to them first."
Let's see how our rival empires did in their summer campaigning.

		Storm Lords	White Fang Tribe	Hammerhead Clan	Sulatar
		Human	Orcs & Goblins	Duergar	Drow
Start	Revenue	10	7	8	7
Summer start	Troops	4000	2000	3700	2700
Summer	Campaigning losses	530	-20	30	530
Winter Start	Troops	3470	2020	3670	2170
	Potential Revenue	29	20	30	16

Storm Lords

I do not think the plan worked out all that well for the Storm Lords. They constrained the Sulatar a bit, but were not able to hold any territory north of the river because of the choice not to put a larger army there. The Sulatar have 16 revenue which is enough to make them a harder nut to crack next year — I would have hoped to constrain them more, but their scouting armies were still able to get a lot done.

I also forgot that they could raze tiles (destroy settlements), which would have been the correct way to handle those tiles that they decided not to defend.

White Fang Tribe

Things went about as well as could be expected with so few scouts. Plenty was scouted and nothing lost. Bad scouting rolls from the dwarves and humans helped. However, things look bleak for the White Fang if the dwarves come after them.

Hammerhead Clan

Everything looks easy if you have no opposition. With their advance barely opposed, the already strong duergar have become the strongest empire currently, overtaking the Storm Lords for revenue and ahead on troops after taking barely any losses all summer. It was lucky indeed to find a gold mine in the mountains.

Sulatar

Much worse results could have come from such a start, though it was the Storm Lords' choice not to commit more forces to attack (and to spend time attacking independents) that allowed it to be so good. Although clearly the weakest empire, hopefully year 2 is simpler — probably one army scouting and the rest frantically defending the mountains. Hopefully the Storm Lords and Hammerheads start fighting each other soon and the pressure will be off. Or perhaps they can make an alliance with one of the larger empires.