TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding

[Cohen]

I'll tell you instead it's very effective.

I played many times against Vanheim ... he raided all my provinces with his glamouring troops, except those castled. And my abysyan infantry was too slow, to resource cost, to keep the pace with Vans!

But at least my castles saved my temples.
And provinces too.
The fact is even with fiends of darkness patrolling you can catch Vans! And they can get rid of PD quite easily.

Every time I castled, I found myself better, til Norfleet come to knok to my castles gate.

The fact castling is long and requires time and efforts ... since I'm not a skilled player in having quickly some SCs I get bashed.
Get some SCs that can avoid you to buy troops, so you've more money for temples and labs, and the bigger job is done.

However to prove the effectiveness, you should hear Norfleet who's skilled not a noob like me.
Best thing to evaluate how is effective? Play against Norfleet.

[ May 27, 2004, 01:44: Message edited by: Cohen ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Cohen:
Every time I castled, I found myself better, til Norfleet come to knok to my castles gate.

That's because having done enough castling of my own, and played against fellow castlers that I trained, I'm familiar with the techniques for kicking in the doors and taking over the castle. Castles are not impregnable....but they *DO* impede anything other than serious attack: No more raiding.

It can greatly slow the advance of an enemy army, giving you time to regroup. However, if you have nothing to regroup WITH, then what's the point?

[Norfleet]

dp

[ May 27, 2004, 06:09: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[mnoracle]

Originally posted by Cohen:
And my abysyan infantry was too slow, to resource cost, to keep the pace with Vans!

Abysyan infantry why do you spend resources on that crap? It's devils who worth the effort. You should better spend your money to get huge army of devils and do not build castles. Then you can take enemy castles in two turn and build your temples in enemy castles! As simple as that.

I have to admit i don't have huge MP experience but every time my enemies tried to templing/castling they failed. It's easy to take casetles in two turns, and enemy spends his valueable resources to build castles instead of army or mages (or in terms of Abyssia blood hunters)

NB I havn't played agains Norfleet

[ May 27, 2004, 07:39: Message edited by: mnoracle ]

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

It can greatly slow the advance of an enemy army, giving you time to regroup. However, if you have nothing to regroup WITH, then what's the point?

And that's highly unlikely, since the regrouping will be all those troops built at all those other castles that aren't under siege... You end up with the nation-equivalent of a porcupine... except there is no soft part
The maneuver seems to work at top efficiency when the national troops are extra-cheap on resources (Marignon anyone?) or junk (Mictlan comes to mind) or a bit of both (um...Pangaea) . At Wizard-Tower level you start getting near-useless provinces (surrounded by 3+ of them) so it starts getting dicey (and yet: careful placement in high-value spots will work wonders for Caelum and Arcos... I may test one of those in my next test-match with T'ien Ch'i, tho it lacks the appeal with the top-class mages capital-only)

[Chazar]

Umh, I'm using the VQ myself because of her flavour, but I dont see the problem with a VQ. Can someone explain to me the problem again concisely?

Sure, the VQ is immortal, but without the right items she's not really useful - and even an immortal unit looses its items upon death...

(Or is it necessary that SC-VQ are equipped with Fire/Earth magic?)

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Chazar:
Umh, I'm using the VQ myself because of her flavour, but I dont see the problem with a VQ. Can someone explain to me the problem again concisely?

Sure, the VQ is immortal, but without the right items she's not really useful - and even an immortal unit looses its items upon death...

(Or is it necessary that SC-VQ are equipped with Fire/Earth magic?)

Some people are under the belief that VQs, inside their dominion, particularly in conjunction with "mad castling", can be lobbed over and over at an invading army with no real risk.

What they're forgetting is that if you got killed the first time, you're going to get killed again EVERY time you try that same stunt, and while it doesn't really hurt, it doesn't really accomplish anything either, and you'll just die repeatedly while losing castles and temples one by one.