Guess the outcome [forum mini game proposal]

[WSzaboPeter]

Greetings,
I propose a mini game. Recently I fought a battle as Man versus Abysia (controlled by Teraswaerto).
I post here a screenshot of the beginning of the battle, then feel free to guess the outcome. If you wish you can even guess the margin of victory and witch side won.
Good Luck!

[Teraswaerto]

Heh, I know this one! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sandman]

Mmm, tough one. Abysians have phenomenal staying power, so I'm be tempted to go for them, but for the fact that Man is good with cloud spells, deadly against slow moving heavy troops.

However, they don't have that many suitable casters fielded, so I'm going to go for an Abysian victory.

[lch]

Heh, since you said you were Man and fought against Abysia, it's not hard to guess that you lost this battle... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


Sandman said:
Abysians have phenomenal staying power, so I'm be tempted to go for them, but for the fact that Man is good with cloud spells, deadly against slow moving heavy troops.


Not only Man has Cloud spells, but Abysia has them, too. Lots of Fire Clouds, which the Abysians are immune against, would help to clear up the front lines, and the heavy infantery can take a few hits without problems. It seems as if Abysia has used that spell that grants Abysians increased Heat aura, so everybody that they go against in melee would be quite weakened from the fatigue and the fire clouds. I guess the battle was decided by the morale check after 50% loss or 75% loss of troops, then.

[WSzaboPeter]

Thanks a lot for the replied, I will wait for a few more and then I will post the results, but I will give clues in the mean time. Be warned that the clues are true but maybe there is no relation between them and the outcome.

Spoiler warning: magic beings number at start: Man: 61, Abysia: 0; commanders at start: Man: 19, Abysia: 8. Guess how many remained.

[Sandman]

If Man cast Howl late into the battle, it could really mess up Abysia's unguarded caster line.

[Teraswaerto]

Yeah, probably should've had guards, but Man hadn't used Howl in previous fights, nor did they use it here.

It was very tight. I couldn't tell who would win until the rout, looked very much like it could've gone either way.

[PvK]

Does Abyssia have more than one commander? Looks like only one, and no missile troops. So I'm thinking the archers are on "Fire Archers" and they all immediately shoot and take out the commander, causing Abyssia to rout. Perhaps some troops of Man catch on fire as they chase into the fleeing Abyssians' heat aura.

A casting of or two of Howl on turn 1 could have a similar effect except 2-3 turns later, resulting in more troops of Man in the heat zone.

Other things could happen, though.

PvK

[Teraswaerto]

Well, what would you call all the Demonbreds, if not commanders?

No commander died due to missile fire, and as an aside, I don't think "fire archers" targets commanders unless the commanders are equipped with missile weapons.

[FAJ]

Teraswaerto said:

No commander died due to missile fire



Lucky you.

I say Abysia wins this matchup. not much on the man side looks scary to Abysians, My guess would be that the dragon spammed fire cloud and the demonbreds cast little fireballs until man routed.

Unless it was late game and man had some nasty spells. I can't recognize Man's caster levels by sprite, but i see no strong abysian casters if this were late in the game.

I am surprised to the see the casters all alone. Man usually has some fliers, like hawks, to attack rear and slow the enemy down while the longbows do their mojo.

[PvK]

It's been a while since I've looked at Abyssian units and I didn't recognize the demonbreds as commanders. Fire Archers won't target commanders, but it will, I think, target mages, so if it was just the one mage commander...

Ok, so with those hints, I expect (not with great confidence) then that there was a big central melee where the Abyssians probably killed or ignited (via heat aura) enough of Man's fodder that Man routed after not doing much injury to Abyssia's heavy infantry, but they were too slow to chase down whoever routed on Man's side.

PvK

[Teraswaerto]

My experience is that fliers on attack rear will not target casters if they are some distance away from any troops formations, and Man did have some fliers here. Not sure what their orders were.

Main attack spells used by Abysia were Fireball and Falling Fires.

Something I noticed was that even though Abysian heavy infantry with tower shields are very resistant even against Wind Guided longbows, when the arrows come in huge massess they will have an effect.

Interestingly, Wind Guide probably ensured that no arrow ever went anywhere near the casters. Accuracy isn't all good, all the time.

I've been under the impression fire archers will not target mages. Pretty shocking news if true.

[lch]

I am under the impression that fire/attack anybody always means "the troops" first, not the commanders, and mages don't count as archers, as commanders don't count as "rearmost" unless they have some normal units around them, too. Otherwise you could always win a fight pretty quick by building some flying / cavalry squads set to "attack rearmost" that attack after a few turns, passing by the slower main army force of the enemy. I would expect that "large enemy monsters" might be an exception to that.

Maybe this is not entirely true and the units just calculate their targets by maximum possible damage they can deal, in which case tightly packed infantery are "better" units for attacking to the AI than scattered single commanders.

[Hadrian_II]

I think abysia will win, i had myself to fight abysia once as man, and as they have big shield, strong armour and fire resistance, they are almost immune to arrows (200 longbowman killing about 2-3 abysians per turn). And as i dont see much mages for man id say that the falling fires of abysia will take half of mans army, while the fireballs will do the rest.

[WSzaboPeter]

Well, I think it's time to show the results:

The battle ended with my victory.
Starting/killed:
Man: 19/2 commanders; 451/169 regulars; 61/48 magic beings.
Abysia: 8/1 commanders; 200/176 regulars.

Well, to be honest, even I was surmised that I won.

[Meglobob]

WSzaboPeter said:
Well, I think it's time to show the results:

The battle ended with my victory.
Starting/killed:
Man: 19/2 commanders; 451/169 regulars; 61/48 magic beings.
Abysia: 8/1 commanders; 200/176 regulars.




That was exactly my guess... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[FAJ]

So the bigger force with more commanders won? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif how dissappointing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif.

[Teraswaerto]

It was very close. Almost all Man's troops except the archers at the back and a few knights had routed. One more Demonbred would've done it, probably. Oh well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif