So if i understand correctly: its round 4, then war happens, then round 5, and before round 5 airships and ruins are mutually exclusive because they cost so damned much.
So i have 3 rounds of investing and plot before that, plus the immediate postwar round in the throne room, to try and accumulate the necessary funds, which means investing with an eye towards profit.
Since these items come up in battles between kings, im guessing the tradeoff is one of personal power vs the power of the doom empire (yhilin, chalice states, new givini, and takkan) as a whole. That is rough to try and decide.
But all of this is postwar. For the 3rd war itself, i still need to get a result im happy with. That could take a bit. I've got 5 extensions to work with, and can pretty definitely not spend one on the second coup and the orcs.
I need to figure out what exactly my acceptance is going into things. That would be helpful. It's pretty high since i got the 50% succubus trade, but not sure about exact numbers, especially given the -1 for the airship site. Will get back to you on that. I also forget what my focus was after the aram incident. Border score was...9 to start (impossible to get 10+ without border reinforcing?) And i had all 4 boosts, so i think i went with stall diplomatically for +6 acceptance and +10 border score (total 19). Would it have been better to focus on yhilin and take the +1 instability from border score (balanced by the -1 from focus) to give aram a bit more collateral damage, or is the big acceptance bonus worth it? (Worth at minimum +1 arclent acceptance, possibly +2 depending on what my yhilin acceptance is prior)
The ardford supplier DOES have a minor effect on the battle of yhilin btw. Its a -5 to enemy forces, which is enough that it trickles down into meaning +1 army size at the end of my clustered formation, since i end up with 37. So in totality its worth +1 quality and +6 army size long-term. Worth it considering the trash payoffs?
And regarding the battle with the incubus emperor, you dont recombine groups immediately. You stay split at first, giving you time for riala to go fetch that one chest behind the barrier cube. If you go too far north before youre ready and decline to fight, you'll automatically walk back a couple spaces. If another party is standing in your path, the game freezes because it doesn't know how to resolve this.
Also Battle Progress seems to be broken. According to the charts, you just need 8 or more to save all the bridges for +3 Ardoheim CD, and you can get a minimum of 9 just from beating the 4 seeds of corruption (2 each, and whichever one simon fights gets +1. this is the MINIMUM), yet i got "they destroyed a decent number of bridges" for +7. i should have 15 progress just from seeds and regional investigations, plus one or more from doom king actions by that point. it probably doesn't make much difference in the end since apparently CD numbers need to be pretty high to matter, but its worth pointing out.
Edit: Oh i misunderstood, battle progress is just per section, and resets for the next step. that makes much more sense.
So, of my 5 detachments, i think 4 are pretty much spoken for. 2 to reinforce both the eastern and western fronts of the war to mitigate losses, 1 for the joint operation with vhala (cant get 23 without it unless unpeople passed), and 1 to reinforce hilstara because theres not enough aram front to keep her safe otherwise. that leaves 1 to use elsewhere in the war, or after on a petition. feels like a dick move, but might need to let the refugees die.