The usual group was assembled at the Council Pavilion, the usual group being me, Thad, Zira, Enna, Kaila, and anybody else who was interested in hanging around and listening or joining in.

After we engaged in some morning greetings and did our best to brush aside the noises that everybody heard Enna making the night before, we got right to business and started off with me opening up the settlement menu just so that we could go over how the settlements were doing for income and population.

I was surprised for a moment to see that our population was so low in New Liberty and Mount Hound, but that went away as soon as I remembered that they weren’t able to grow their population due to being in the process of creating new units. They were both at the point where they could both go from one unit of population to two in a single day, but then the construction of a volcanic predator would keep them from ever going up to three until we were done producing new military units.

But it was because of our focus on pumping out as many Volcanic Predators as we could that we had a sizable enough military to protect ourselves with.

Ever since threatening the Viking Elves, thanks to the combined efforts of New Liberty and Mount Hound, we were able to pump out a total of 12 Volcanic Predators. We still had our two Volcanic Predators up north with some Hunters composed of Volcano Hounds, too. Then in Hylrmenel, we had a settler unit garrisoned, and our last original spearmen unit composed of the Demons was garrisoned in New Liberty. That gave us a total fighting force of 14 Volcanic Predators and a single Hunters unit. We were a single day away from having another Volcanic Predator, too. That would give us three full stacks of them given that we could put five military units into a single group at the moment.

“Three full stacks of Volcanic Predators,” I said. “If we wait until tomorrow, it’ll take them another two days to get into position if we go for the settlement that has the Living Wood. Three days if we go for their capital. Launching an all-out attack against their capital… the idea of taking their capital is a nice one, but I don’t think we should. They’ll likely see us coming, it’s probably going to be more defended than their other settlement, and it’ll leave both Mount Hound and Hylrmenel vulnerable. But if we go for their Living Wood settlement, which was the original plan anyways, we’ll be going through Mount Hound so it won’t be vulnerable, they won’t see us coming since we can stick to our territory outside of their vision range until it’s time to attack, and then we can crush them. But, if they really do consider Living Wood to be their most valuable potential resource, then they might actually have all of their defenses focused there instead of at their capital. Not to mention focusing everybody on that settlement will leave only an excess Settler unit and our Hunter unit up at Hylrmenel.”

“This is where we may have some luck,” Zira said. “Ull’s Chosen are… very traditional. Stubbornly so. To lose their capital would be an incredibly grave offense and beyond dishonorable for them. No matter how valuable the Living Wood tiles might be for their faction, they would not sacrifice defense of their capital in order to hold onto it. So long as we possess a threat to them, they should put the security of their capital above all else.”

“Good. That’s what I was hoping for.”

“But, do keep in mind that their settlements are very close together. It should be a nonissue for them to station their units closer to the second settlement, and then move them back to their capital within a day if there is any sign of danger to it. They likely would have placed their settlements so close together even if those Living Wood tiles did not exist so that they may easily move their defenses between settlements.”

“Right. That’s why I came up with this idea. So, as far as I know, none of us can examine the stack of another faction, right? All we can do is see that they exist so long as they are within three tiles of our border or one of our units, but we can’t tell what exactly is in their stack.”

Enna nodded and said, “Right.”

“So then what we’ll do is scare them. Send one stack of Volcanic Predators up north and then split them into a total of five stacks. One unit each. If we us the Settlers and Hunters, too, then it’s going to look like they have seven different stacks of enemies approaching their capital. It’ll be obvious that there’s no way those stacks are large, but they won’t know if there’s two or three units per stacks or just one. Meanwhile, our remaining two, full stacks will approach their Living Wood settlement through our territory, wait until we see if we can bait their defenses back to their capital, and then launch an assault on their Living Wood settlement.”

Thad spoke up next. “Don’t you think that might be too obvious? Seeing a bunch of stacks standing around outside their border without doing anything?”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s an obvious distraction or not. It’s going to show them that we could attack their capital with at least seven units whenever want. If it was just a single stack, they would know it’s limited to just five units. But by splitting them up, for a total of seven stacks up there, then there could be any number of units from seven to thirty-five near their capital. Obviously, they would never assume it might be in the upper reaches of that, but they might worry we have somewhere between twelve to fifteen, more likely. So even if it’s obvious, it’s still a show of force. Unless they’re somehow blowing us out of the water—or I guess I should say, lava, when it comes to labor, then they shouldn’t have us outnumbered. The only thing I’m concerned about… is their units’ range. I don’t want to see any of our units get wiped out before they even have a chance to engage with their lines. But, it could be worse. Going up against ranged units with infantry alone is something I would never do… but our Volcanic Predators are essentially cavalry units. Cavalry units that run on their arms and legs rather than ride on a mount. Throwing low-defense cavalry against ranged units isn’t the smartest idea either, but it beats throwing regular infantry against them.”

While the others thought about it, I pulled up the map and drew out how it would look on there.

“This is what I have in mind,” I continued. “There’s no way they’re not going to panic if they see that. Anybody would, unless they’re so stupid that they don’t deserve to be here in the first place, and I would rather have confidence in my enemies than believe they can be that idiotic. Even I would be assuming the worst-case scenario if I saw that sort of force surround me.”

Zira raised her hand to grab my attention and then said, “Alright, and what about after we take the Living Wood settlement? Assuming that it is successful and that we do not lose too many of our units, then could they not merge with the surrounding forces to take the capital as well? We may as well finish them off if we are going to have so many units surrounding them.”

“That’s what I’m not sure about yet. If we manage to take the Living Wood settlement without too many losses, then we may as well try to take their capital.”

“Is there any reason not to take their capital afterward?”

“No good reason, at least.”

“And what about a bad reason?”

“I love war in games. I don’t love it in real life. I only want to do what we need to do to win. Securing the Living Wood tiles deprives them of the resources they need in order to snowball and become a threat that we don’t be able to deal with, and that we will most likely lose against in the future. I have no interest in throwing people into battle when we don’t need to, especially when they are going to feel true, genuine pain and what it is like to die, even if they all expect it and if all combatants will return unharmed to their home worlds. But, if this was an actual game with all of the participants being lines of code given graphics, I wouldn’t hesitate to take over their capital for even a single second.”

Thad stood up and walked over to me, patting me on my back a couple of times before saying, “This is what I respect about you. Even though they’re our enemy, you don’t want to make them suffer.”

Zira sighed and shrugged. “My brother would spare them without a second doubt, so I can’t be too upset at your irrational want to spare them.”

I wanted to say that I didn’t think I would spare their capital, but I had also just reaffirmed my belief about how I needed to do what I believed was right. What I believed was right was sparing them so that we could end the war as soon as possible.

But I was the one who started it in the first place, and sparing them would only neuter them and give them even more reason to come back and try to take us out.

Not to mention that doing the right thing, ultimately, meant securing freedom for all of our worlds.

The right thing, and the smartest choice, were one and the same.

We needed to win and secure as many resources as possible, and not leave behind a crippled foe who would look for the first opportunity to exact their revenge.

“We’ll take the capital,” I declared.