VampireBat - LA game for new players- started

[Aezeal]

you have tartarians too??? What magic have you researched I didn't think I was that much behind but I'm no where near real high level magic.

[Aezeal]

hmm I asked llama if he could set one up, I don't think he'll refuse. I guess we'll just make it an open game (not experience requirements) for a medium number of pplz 8-12 I guess.

I asked llama if he had a nice map to use.

We'll see what he says.

I'll be pythium btw

[Karlem]

Yes I have tartarians, well, one tartarian right now, one each turn from now on . Chalice to heal feeblemind from them and N4 mage to GOR. full pack

I have researched: Conj9, Alt4, Evo5, Const8, Ench4, Tau4, Blo7.

First I raced to Cons4, then after Tau2, Evo2, Conj 2 for site search Blood 6 and Alt 3. Afterwards rush for Const 8 for artifacts (chalice, sword, and some others) and then before the attack to Patala just Evo 5 and the others to get some flavour Battle Magic while going to Conj9 for Tartarians.

I got the national hero to summon them with death3 artifact to power him to 7 (and skull cap).

So Zenzei, please confirm and we close it. BTW how do we close it? Is there an admin option?

[Aezeal]

no idea I'll look when I wake up

[Zenzei]

Whoa, looks like a lot has happened since I last checked this thread(which wasn't long time ago).

Congrats to Karlem for the victory, well played all around (except for one little thing that really bugged me*). [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon44.gif[/img]

Too bad I didn't get to go away with a bang as I had planned quite an epic communion for my capital's last stand, provided Mictlan had actually attacked before all my forces deserted because of my lack of gold. I'm pretty damn sure I would have won that fight.

Aezeal: If you set up a new game, I may join in but can't make any promises because I'm already in 2 games and Kingmaker starts soon too.

If anyone cares, I had conj 6/alt 6/evo 7/const 6/ench 3/thaum 7/blood 8 researched in this game and my great master plan was to put up astral corruption and burden of time on the same turn, which would have won the game for me pretty fast I think. This didn't work out because Mictlan grew too strong/fast in the mid game and I had to start making preparations for war against Karlem, obviously I didn't prepare well enough.

*Karlem, I really wondered the gear selection of your ice/arch devils as I think they weren't exactly optimal considering your available resources and forgers or did you just get lazy in equipping the devils because you had so many of them.

[Aezeal]

well what I saw of them was pretty decent
-frostbrand
-eyeshield
-ring of regen
-amulet of antimagic
-firehelmet
-some piece of armour

[Karlem]

Zenzei, could you please elaborate a little bit your post? I mean, what would you recomend to improve?

Just take into account that I have no earth mages and just one air mage.

Ice devils are by themselves quite hot against you because you had cold 3 dominion and they increase protection in cold so they could have prot 30 with just that, adding a tueky to body ethereal they were near invulnerable.

So please recommend me a different setup.

BTW I do not like hydra armours . I know you like them a lot but they have prot 11 versus the other one's 15 and and put thems below the 'magic prot 20' that is what I consider a safe number. I had a limited ammount of nature/water gems (I used them mostly for my clams) at the beggining and was hoarding death gems for the Sceptre of Dark Regency (D5=40 gems).

[Karlem]

BTW regarding your last stand: I was going to soften you up a bit more and then have a go. My plan was to use howl multiple times (x6) so that you were attacked from behind since turn 1, a comunion for solar rays, many fliers and some BF enchants. That with the luck for entire battlefield should have give me an opportunity. Specially If I waited a little more (2 turns) before the attack.

[Zenzei]

Put myself AI this turn, I forgot to do it when I surrendered to Mictlan. Midgård is also still controlled by human, is Aezeal still playing? If not, he should go AI too so this game would actually end and Karlem wouldn't have fight nonresponsive opponents.

@Karlem, here's some late replies since I haven't been watching this thread for some time:

Zenzei, could you please elaborate a little bit your post? I mean, what would you recomend to improve?

Well, from what I saw you had neglected MR almost completely on your devil SCs. MR 18 way too low and had I realized this weakness early on my battle strategy against you would have been quite different. Remember that during my last turns I managed to kill both Nycafor and Ethanim very easily(at almost zero resource cost for myself) when I attacked their low MR. Personally, I consider MR 22 to be an absolute minumum for any kind of SC or heavily invested thug.

The second thing I considered to be sub-optimal was your armor selection(which was mostly dragon mails) combined with ring of regen. The same result and more would have been achieved with one Hydra Skin Armor (at half the gem cost and one less item slot spent). The few points of protection you lose with hydra skin are totally irrelevant when compared to the benefits imo.

So please recommend me a different setup.

It's obviously hard/impossible to give a catch all gear setup but for Magoth/Bifrons who are easily the best devil SCs my equipment selection would be like this:
-fire, frost or shadow brand
-lucky coin
-spirit or horror helmet
-hydra skin armor
-boots of quickness(Magoth) or messenger boots(biffrons)
-amulet of antimagic and amulet of reinvigoration

For more generic devil SC, say Oriax, I might give:
-fire, frost or shadow brand
-lucky coin or shield of gleaming gold
-spirit or horror helmet
-hydra skin armor or rainbow armor(MR!)
-messenger boots or boots of flying(if I needed him to be very mobile)
-amulet of antimagic and pendant of luck

regarding your last stand

Heh, the centerpiece of my plan was to totally blast the battlefield by casting fire storm + wrathful skies(combined with storm of course) via big reverse communion while making all my own mages immune to both respective damage types. Once the BEs would have been online my communion would have spammed astral spells and some gifts from heavens + falling fires. Reinvigoration would have been included of course.

BTW, what was your average blood slave income per turn? Also, how did you feel about the effectiveness of clamming, was it worth it or was the benefit coming too slowly?
I'm curious because when I do some clam hoarding it feels very wasteful without massive forge bonuses.

[Karlem]

Well, I do not like hydra armour, puts the SC too low in prto and I lilke to have innate prto of at least 20.

and about MR, I had just 2 SCs out of 7 with MR18, and one was because you feebleminded it .

Couldn't forge spirit helmet and horror helmet uses death gems so.. or them or Tartarians .

But overall I agree with you.

I had BF antimagic and BF luck so your plan was going to have some problems . Also some flyers to bypass walls and attack the mages and my own comunion to do some nasty things so it would have been quite balanced and I think jaguars would prove its value over skellies and wolves. But who knows .

I had about 100 slaves turn and the centerpiece of my plan that I have not said until now is.... a 40% BLOOD REDUCTION SITE! . I had found that site since early game and that allowed me to put big amounts of blood rituals for low cost