My first CoM game AAR

[GreyWolf]

This is a report of my first CoM game, recently bought from Steam. Since my skills have grown quite rusty and I haven't played CoM before, I've picked the Normal level of difficulty. I've decided to play a largely peaceful, defensive game. Hence, I took Halflings with Guardian retort and Life books, with some Nature for flavor.



My capital soon basked in Holy Light - a nice early game power/defense spell.



Unfortunately, dungeons cut off a large part of my starting continent, which led to it being settled by High Elf followers of Tlaloc, a Peaceful Theurgist.



When I meticulously gathered Holy Armored Slingers to deal with the dungeons, their threats turned out to be largely overblown.



The Slinger force had to be used to liberate Tlaloc's elves from their evil Death master. Some of the defending elves being Wraithformed was only a minor inconvenience to the slingers.



Not even gold generously given to Tlaloc by some merchant could dissuade me.



Soon, a galley  carried the slingers over to Tlaloc's continent, as War Bears protected the capital from Tlaloc's own wraithformed animals. The slingers took Tlaloc's two northern cities with few casualties.



However, an overly optimistic assault on Tlaloc's hero army resulted in some of our slingers slain, and others risen as undead in Tlaloc's army, so we had to sign peace - a thing which Tlaloc was also happy to do. The war left him with two cities remaining.



In CoM, early game passes much faster indeed, owning to early gold and per-city immediate bonus buildings like Magic Markets.



Soon, the cities taken from Tlaloc grew, forgetting their eccentric cult leader master.



Another eccentric wizard present on Arcanus was Freya, a Peaceful Militarist who was, as it later turned out, ruling a kingdom of High Men.



This stack...



announced the presence of this wizard, the chaotic militarist Sss'ra. Note that he was on Arcanus, not on Myrror, and was leading the Orcs. In this game, all four wizard opponents were on Arcanus - a thing possible on CoM Normal.



At least, some trading with him was possible.



The Altar of Peace is a very usefu spell for peaceful strategies, as Seravy's notes say. My research rate increased significanty, as my halflings sang "I want to make the world a home..."



The ruthless expansionist Sharee, who was ruling the Gnolls on the continent NW of mine, was the only truly aggressive AI in the game, as she was eager to prove.



External aggression is as good a pretext to increase taxes as any.



I like these new CoM events. The cheaper enchantments helped me to boost my Elven Lords for some more dungeoneering.







Since Sharee was at war with everyone else, too, the most notable effect of her aggression were the corrupted lands. But my halflings had Shamen to clean them.



It appears that even some of Sharee's gnoll subjects were discontent with her rule.



Nature's Cures was a useful spell to receive from Freya.



Sharee was clearly weakening. Sss'ra had been taking over her cities on the island west of her starting continent.



Sharee's only attempt to take my cities with some Orc mercenaries did not go well for her.



It was time to take the battle to her. Elven Lord in Holy Armor were a welcome sight for allies, but a fearsome sight for enemies.





Sharee also had taken a city Tlaloc had on my starting continent, which I then took from her, resulting in me finally owning my starting landmass. All these units of my putative allies were peaceful, although slightly worrying.



Sss'ra's Orc capital.



This army of Elven Lords attempted to break through a tower of Djinns and Air Elementals on my continent, but suffered deeat.



We needed exorcising Angels to break through.



This time, we were successful, entering the wizardless Myrror.



Many lairs were demolished with the help of Unicorns and Angels (sounds like a Christmas postcard)



At this point, I was the first in power production and spell power, even through Freya had a far stronger army.



With the abundant gold and early buildings providing direct per-city bonuses (unlike in the original MoM), it was easy to build up new cities on Myrror that would quickly produce a fair amount of research. In fact, I was too slow and careful in doing so (I should've done an Infinite City Sprawl strategy there).



Freya started to settle cities, too, taking over some of my nodes with Magic Spirits. Fortunately, I was able to take them back without diplomatic incidents.



She also casted Survival Instinct.



The Angels had some difficulty taking on Gorgons.



I gladly accepted the Sage hero, Zaldron, in my ranks.



Even two Archangels couldn't take on Efreets.





Four did the trick, though.



The boosted Archangels were reasonably effective.



They were even able to take on big Drakes in towers.





Meanwhile, on Myrror, Freya finally overpowered Sss'ra.



Her military power was over 9000, if you trust the historian graph.



Her capital was quite a comfortable place to live.

[GreyWolf]

Freya helpfully (?) had her engineers build roads between my cities.



With my research focus, I researched the Spell of Mastery fairy quickly. Although I probably should have summoned more boosted Archangels and gave more enchantments to my units before starting to cast it, I was too impatient. Naturally, Freya wasn't happy with me.



The Archangels destroyed some of Freya's mundane stacks, but at the cost of having some of their enchantments dispelled.



These Jackal Riders held the Gnoll part of my holdings for quite a long time. Unfortunately, Great Wyrms eventually brought them down.



This was the first earthquake, which finally would reduce my capital almost to ruins.



Since I had a lot of power sources, this didn't have much of an effect, even though it was unpleasant. I regretted mercifully letting Tlaloc live earlier.



Eventually, my Myrror towns were brought down. My primary towns still held at that point, with the Chosen One himself defending my capital.



One of my better-defended Myrran cities was conquered by the Great Wyrms. With their Iron Skin, they were quite a threat.



The two remaining Archangels attempted to conquer Tlaloc's capital, but failed.



Massed Slingers could still pose a threat to Freya's mundane stacks.



Torin, Slingers and Zaldron repelled attacks on capital with relative ease. This was one of the hardest stack to dislodge, since the Gorgons were hard to destroy with slingstones.



Tlaloc's only massed attack on my capital.



Another potential threat from Freya, due to Spellzerkers having Missile Immunity. Good thing there were no Barbarian cities this game, just mercs. Freya correctly casted Web on Torin, and then attempted to bring him down with Cracks Call, and while Cracks Call doesn't kill large-health units outright in CoM, it was still a danger that could be realized had the battle went on for too long (it went for more than a turn only when she had Spellzerkers or multiple Great Wyrms in her armies, with everything else being gunned down by Slingers and the heroes).



All this made Torin a demigod.



Although Freya took over Myrror, a lot of my nodes there still provided mana for me.



I took over a small island town of Tlaloc...



Before finally casting the Spell of Mastery. By this point, I had three real cities - my capital and two Elven cities on Tlaloc' continent, the aforementioned island town, and a lot of Myrran mana nodes.







The heroes that defended my capital, all Demi-Gods and Grand Lords by now. Their equipment was found in all the nodes and towers I demolished.

[trial1938]

Looks fun !! thank you for sharing your play.