[SPOILERS] - Tredje and Mardoc are Sheelba of the Clan of Embers

[Bobchillingworth]

There are a lot of things that could have been done differently here, but here are a few of my most immediate suggestions:



* Don't defend with axes. They cost much more than warriors, but if you lack Iron they aren't much better on the defense. You should have sent a large pile of them against Iskender early on, not sat them around waiting to get murdered by collateral.


* Use every advantage you have. Not attacking with the Sons was a terrible and obvious mistake. They also should have been more proactive in defending cities, stacks and themselves with Elementals.


* Don't wait for Ogres. They're strong, but you already had numbers and the power of the Sons. As Iskender has demonstrated, even base strength 5 units are easily sufficient to wipe out an empire, as long as you have collateral. Ritualists and axes with shaman support would have been plenty for you.


* If your opponent is relying on tiger spam to fill out their military, build lizardmen. Not only do they get great odds vs. tigers defending, but if you had used a couple "capture animal" promoted lizards you could have turned his own spam against him.

[Mardoc]

* Don't defend with axes. They cost much more than warriors, but if you lack Iron they aren't much better on the defense. You should have sent a large pile of them against Iskender early on, not sat them around waiting to get murdered by collateral.

Agreed. At first I thought that my 4 western Warrens cities would be enough for offense. Once I realized that I was fighting a defensive war, I switched to warrior spam, but really the problem was that I thought I could outproduce Iskender and swamp him, but never actually did that.

* Use every advantage you have. Not attacking with the Sons was a terrible and obvious mistake. They also should have been more proactive in defending cities, stacks and themselves with Elementals.

At the least, I ought to have parked an elemental in every city, yes. Keeping them defensive was a matter of my hands being tied, I figured I'd rather lose than break that deal (and I did). Still, even on defense I used them very poorly.

Similarly - I should never have signed NAP with SL, the Sons alone would have been able to roll him easy right after I took out Serdoa. Same with Hyborem - should have just taken him out, then I would have been able to get Ritualists to the west. Heck, if Iskender weren't around to murder the Sons, they'd probably still have been able to take out SL now.

* Don't wait for Ogres. They're strong, but you already had numbers and the power of the Sons. As Iskender has demonstrated, even base strength 5 units are easily sufficient to wipe out an empire, as long as you have collateral. Ritualists and axes with shaman support would have been plenty for you.

Yes, yes, 100 times yes. I spent 30 turns in the east building courthouses, markets, elder councils, warrens - when I should have just been building units and more units. That would have at least doubled my army.

Should have gone HBR early to enable mobility, then to Ritualists and *turned off tech*. Ogres looked shiny but turned out just to be an endless black hole.

* If your opponent is relying on tiger spam to fill out their military, build lizardmen. Not only do they get great odds vs. tigers defending, but if you had used a couple "capture animal" promoted lizards you could have turned his own spam against him.

Probably would have been a better idea. I did build a bunch of lizards, but not nearly as many as I should have.

Mostly it comes down to me trying to play the T140-170 period as a builder. Realistically, once we committed to choking Sareln, we were committed to war without end, but that's not how I played it. Even if I didn't have Barbarian and no libraries, after spending the first part of the game building only military and overexpanding, there was no way I'd catch up peacefully.