OK. This thread got a bit overwhelming for a while. But I will try to answer some questions and post some comments below.
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Originally Posted by Zywack
I'd be willing to play for 2 turns until it's officially over if you decide to do the devil vs the invincible moose army. It should be possible for both army to meet at province 126 by two turns. Whoever wins that fight doesn't change anything since you reach the winning condition at that time anyway... It's really to see the effect of a pile of spells I never got to play with ever before. No biggy if not.
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This sounds like an excellent idea. I will bring the army to province 126 this turn. There might also be some kind of Ember lord bumming around over there. I have honestly never used one of those things before and I wonder a bit about its capabilities. Its a self buffer though so it might not mater much in the heat of a big battle though.
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Originally Posted by Zywack
3) You know the Cleansing Bell item thingy? The 10 gem anti-demon item? I had the chance to see an handful of them in action this turn for the first time ever! Hurray! Time to see what kind of ravage they can do against demons! And they couldn't even get rid of a few imps... Let's just say that I made a not terribly wise large gem investment.
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Those cleansing bells are not bad for the price I think. But you need something to hold off the demons while they do their thing. Another problem might be that I'm using the demon type with the most HP. They are more useful vs hell knights and demon thugs that relies on protection though.
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Originally Posted by Zywack
4) The largest problem is that even defeating Marignon's main armies in battle would do little to help: Their gem/slave production is through the roof, so killing armies only gives a tiny amount of time before they get replaced. Hitting their production is the only way to go, but that's only accomplishable by raiding, and they are definitively able to counter-raid and grab your own production: Even if you can somehow manage a 1-1 trades, things won't be going in your favor. When an empire gets that large, there's no key point to hit that will damage them a lot.
5) They are blood sacrificing for dominion. They are the only nation left that can blood sacrifice (Maybe Bogarus too? I'm not sure...), and even a very strong dominion score isn't going to stop that for long once they get going full-swing.
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Attacking a blood hunting operation is a ***** but can be done if you plan ahead. I think your Rocs could have won that battle with only a single F resist ring each and orders to hold in the back.
As for my blood sacrificing I am surprised at how useless it is. I have probably sacrificed about 2000 slaves over the course of the game and although I have domkilled a few people who would otherwise have died anyway, I have not managed to use it against anyone with the means to still fight back. I thought it would be more powerful than this. I mean I could have gotten some 520 devils and 800 imps for those slaves. Still useful in combination with the purgatory to keep Fomoria of my back. I'm surprised that he did not try to dispel it seeing how much it limited his strategic options. It was a minimum cast.
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Originally Posted by Zywack
Actually, I got a question about that for a future game! I've seen in a few guides things like "Just use an independent Astral mage to forge amulet of magic resistance", or "Use independent astral mages as a shield from enemy Mind Hunt".
But I fail to see how that's a viable strategy plan. While it's only my 2nd competitive multiplayer game, I've played about 8 cooperative or solo games vs the AI. In those games, I've came across independent Astral mages a grand total of 4 times (And one of those was a 1/4 pick). That number is sliiightly higher if I include those that come from site findable only with astral, but not by much.
So in my experience, you get 1 astral independent mage per about 50 provinces. Am I simply "unlucky", and if not, how can one build their initial strategy upon getting an Astral mage when odds are they'll never get one?
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The amount of astral mages that you can get without site searching depends greatly on the age you play in. The earlier the age, the more indy mage poptypes. I personally think it is fine to rely on idies for astral sometimes in the Early era. Crystal amazons and lizard tribes are common there. For a middle age nation like Shinu this is not an option. But you can still get astral, -stealthy astral even- from conj 6, Specters. I actually have two specters with astral running about in Fomorias lands in the hopes that he would try to mindhunt their provinces. But it is very hard to predict what fomoria feels like mindunting. I like mindhunting powerful, expensive creatures. Fomoria seem to mainly mindhunt my demon commanders and Ghouls? And those are not worth enough that I will bother protecting them.
The real problem with Mind hunt comes from nations with recruitable S3 mages that can also be healed. Like Arco. Or any astral with the Chalice or GoH. Even astral mages strategically placed will only offer temporary reprieve in that scenario.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zywack
Regarding the game, I really didn't have the best of time early game either. I figured I needed an awake god since it was a crowded game and that Patala has a weak early game so I picked a Deva with 4 Death/ 5 Blood, 8 Dominion with nearly no scales (3 heat, and 3 positive ones but that's it). The awake pretender was really a waste, since she got Limped in the first battle by losing an handful of hp, and she pretty much spent the rest of the game site searching, forging or researching.
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Patala is one of few nations who can actually get some use out of the deva pretender. For most nations she is overpriced. When I were supposed to play patala in a game, I used the deva in one of my tests with great success, but with a vastly different build.
Taking death on it is too expensive for what it gives you. Taking Air 1 is much more economical and allows you to summon Dakinis who themselves comes with death magic. It also helps that Dakinis are some of the most unfair commanders in the game. Just ask mattyburn7.
Another thing to remember is that you always want at least dom 9 on an awake expander unless it is a dragon. This is because they get Awe (+0) from dom 9. Fear and awe means the deva is very hard to injure in melee and Airshield from the A1 magic protects it from arrows. Very hard to stop. And later you can give it equipment and have a monkey cast body ethereal and Luck on it.
Re: Blood Bowl - Single age (Running)
Hybrid Mode
