Faerun - started

[The Panther]

My dragon (as Machaka) in the Mad-Orania game took level 9 indies all by himself from Turns 2-7. He lost an eye on Turn 2 and lost the second eye on Turn 7 after taking 6 level 9 provinces. Being blinded, he then retired to help with research. I was really pissed that he didn't get tamer afflictions, like a chest wound or battle fright. Admittedly, I did not attack anything dangerous (meaning heavy cavs or knights). It also took a lot of micro management and testing to position him in the optimum square (which depended on the type of enemy indie) and just how many of his long-range breaths he needed to cast before attacking the rear archers (which mostly depended on the Action Points of the enemy infantry). I also built him a bear claw talisman on the first turn (easy for Machaka to do on that particular map), which helped by increasing his archery range.

Then, starting on turn 4, my prophet army began to take provinces easily. But that was helped by the fact that the each player started with a bunch of pre-built sites plus the income from 5 inital provinces, thus kick-starting my non-dragon battles immensely.

On turn 13, I had a lot more provinces (maybe 21 or so) than anyone else but eventually died because Abysia had a built-in 30% blood bonus site, which terribly unbalanced the game.

I must admit I am wondering how Huzurdaddi can hope for the game to be resolved quickly without a victory condition. The only way I know how to do this is to be eliminated from the game!

[Alneyan]

Panther's way requires using a physical Pretender, but works very well, if you feel like taking a few chances. It works fine from turn 1 onwards, and you can perhaps add a couple of magic items to make your Pretender even more fearsome. The biggest advantage of such Pretenders is their very low price, but they will likely be weaker Pretenders in the long run.

The rainbow/SC combination is another way of taking provinces, and starts around turn 5 or so (depending on how quickly you can reach Alteration 2, with your Pretender having at least 20 research points). Even Alteration 2 allows you to do some damage, with spells like Stoneskin, Mirror Image, Personal Luck and the like. Some Pretenders will likely have no trouble taking weak provinces with this setup. Alteration 3 allows to breathe more easily, and can be reached around turn 8: then, most provinces should fall easily to your Pretender. Once you have done your basic research, a province per turn can be taken with your Pretender.

Other setups not relying on a SC Pretender can work well: for example, in another independent 9/Very Hard research game, I went with a bless strategy and started taking provinces on turn 3, if memory serves. This specific example involved Arcoscephale, a Fire-9 Moloch, and a holy-4 Priestess Prophet: ten Heart Companions did very well against most provinces, backed with Fanatism and the Moloch Fire Darts (a great spell when cast by a Fire-9 mage). Weak provinces fell without a loss, while tough provinces (knights) could still be taken with only two or three companions killed. This setup is fairly cheap, and allows for decent scales; it does not give much else besides fast expansion, however.

And you can still do something with regular troops, I think, but I am no expert on national units (I mostly use projectile units these days, with some infantry once in a while, and cavalry once in a blue moon).

Very hard research is the hardest research: researching level X under very hard research is equivalent to researching level X+2 in standard research. For the sake of completeness, level X in very hard research is equivalent to level X+1 in hard research, or level X-1 in easy research. So, for 60 research points, you can go from:
- 0 to 1 in very hard research
- 1 to 2 in hard research
- 2 to 3 in standard research
- 3 to 4 in easy research

[Huzurdaddi]

The Panther said:
My dragon (as Machaka) in the Mad-Orania game took level 9 indies all by himself from Turns 2-7. He lost an eye on Turn 2 and lost the second eye on Turn 7 after taking 6 level 9 provinces. Being blinded, he then retired to help with research. I was really pissed that he didn't get tamer afflictions, like a chest wound or battle fright. Admittedly, I did not attack anything dangerous (meaning heavy cavs or knights).

That's pretty much how it goes for dragons. They last between 4-12 battles or so. But in the end they get a couple of afflictions that doom them. The chest wound, btw, is a death sentence for a dragon as now a battle with just HI can become death if they do not route quickly. In the faerun game ( which had no hoarding thank god! ) my dragon lasted only 6 battles which irked the crud out of me, since it is on the lower part of the range.

Then, starting on turn 4, my prophet army began to take provinces easily. But that was helped by the fact that the each player started with a bunch of pre-built sites plus the income from 5 inital provinces, thus kick-starting my non-dragon battles immensely.

It highly nation dependent. Certianly nations with good sacred troops can start early if they have a good bless. Turn 4 is difficult for many nations, I find turn 6 to be the sweet spot for many nations.

I must admit I am wondering how Huzurdaddi can hope for the game to be resolved quickly without a victory condition. The only way I know how to do this is to be eliminated from the game

Well I was going to try the marignon strategy that I talked about in the other thread but now I am going for the elimination strategy! It requires *far* less micromanagement!

Anyway the marignon strategy (tm) is far less powerful when hoarding is allowed. But Soapy and I are sure that this game will go to the nation who is most able to hide in the background and hoard like nuts.

But I'm a belligerent *** so I'm not going to do that It will be my undoing.

BTW: Ulm is *s00pa* in this mod. Wowzie. As is Atlantis.

[Jurri]

The Panther said:
On turn 13, I had a lot more provinces (maybe 21 or so) than anyone else but eventually died because Abysia had a built-in 30% blood bonus site, which terribly unbalanced the game.

'Ey Pantha, it wasn't like that! I didn't use the blood30 site almost at all before you were down (a couple HfHs at most); What I did was build soul contracts (yes, at base 160 slaves each) with my blood-cyclops and construction-site and use the resulting devil army to pound you. The bloodsite entered the equation in force a bit later. Also mostly you fell due to diplomacy, I'm afraid to say.

Other than that, I'm with Panther in that you can certainly start taking indies with a suitable pretender from turn 2 onwards on indies 9 - turn 1, even, in certain cases. Also, assassins are a very potent means of expansion for the nations that have them, especially on high indie settings.

[The Panther]

Jurri said:
Also mostly you fell due to diplomacy, I'm afraid to say.

Heh heh, I almost forgot about that, but I do recall now. I was sorely pressed for time in RL and had entered too many games during the winter. I was very sorry I had entered that particular game (especially after I realized that Machaka is hopeless on that map) and was wanting to get out of it. So, because I hate to quit games, I instead opted for the time-honored 'elimination strategy' and declared war on the entire world. I even attacked the two AI nations next to me to get them to invade also.

It was definitely a blast fighing everybody at once, especially after Cohen gave me nearly 1000 gems right before he died. I surprised the heck out of Ulm with my mass summoning when he thought me mostly dead and gone. The only thing I regreted was that I killed only 80 or so Abysian devils before I died.

You did have a very nice victory in that game, Jurri, using the (heavily nerfed) Soul Contract strategy. I was indeed impressed with the power of the soul contracts after seeing it used against me.

[Jurri]

And good thing too that Soul Contracts were nerfed, for it would have been silly beyond words otherwise.

But so as not to hijack the thread for a trip down the memory lane (the game was great fun until the nosedive of an end, though), aren't you guys really not going to remove clams and such? Pretty hardcore!

Hey, the next time you (=someone) feel like hosting a massive game, why not the world war scenario with some sensible victory condition? I always wanted to try that one.

[PashaDawg]

So Panther & Jurri - - - you're not joining this game? Just talking about it?

[The Panther]

PashaDawg said:
So Panther & Jurri - - - you're not joining this game? Just talking about it?

Um, no, I cannot think of a game format I would like to play less than this one, except for the same settings with no mods...

Plus, I am not getting in any more games until after my trip to France. And maybe Dom 3 will be out by then and Dom 2 is history.

[PashaDawg]

When do we expect Dom 3 to be out?