It can summon 17 nine-strength spectres per turn. Unfortunately even this wouldn't be very strong vs Hyborem (you need actual high strength units to defeat him, or, idk, fireballs ... so we will have to wait for a few more manas, and a lot more Witches)
Nonetheless... the idea is to completely eliminate all civs that increase AC upon death, and force capitulation(?) on those that decrease AC upon death. However ... I'll have to check to see if forced capitulation also causes loss of barbarian peace. (I know that peaceful vassalage, annoyingly, causes the loss of barb peace).
At this point, before the war even started, both Lanun and Elohim would gladly become my vassals ... and, while Vassalized Lanun might be nice, I will have to utterly destroy the Elohim (and I'd have to get the Lanun w/ capitulation rather than peaceful vassalization, see above)
Here is the battle mid-progress
at 24 cities we can have a max of 48 (mostly defensive) warriors ... so that's exactly what I am going to do (build remaining warrior limit in Ragnarok city)
Oh I really, really love spell extension 1
Pillage Economy is better than ever before! With 3 move Spectres THAT CAN PILLAGE!
Quote:Q .... was City States ever +1 TR in EitB? I could have sworn it was.
No, never.
I'm not sure I see the attraction in picking up a game played by others which is (by and large) already won. In fact, I think I'll stop reading to avoid spoilers on the SG.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Here is my western post-raze dotmap. I need these nodes for the Tower of Divination. IF Elohim has any cities left over after this land is secure, I MIGHT consider capitulation
Whipped the pop down to rediculously low levels ... even using warriors/ monuments in the production que for some cities, to get the pop down low enough.
Blight incoming next turn ... so, while perhaps this pure level of whips might not have been needed ... it will be nice to know that I have a hefty health buffer .... if I had left any city at size 12 or 13 for instance, I might have seen an ENORMOUS amount of unhealthiness ... and I still didn't want to risk it with the size 7,8,9s .... so I whipped em to size 2, 4, and 6s :D
@Q , the same reason that I was initially planning on joining the SG ... to seriously abuse some Planar Gates!!!
Some people enjoy Expansion/ Building moreso (turtler/passive w/e) ... and some people enjoy the smashing faces part of it, the razing part of it, and, even, the armageddon part of it
Quote:Q .... was City States ever +1 TR in EitB? I could have sworn it was.
No, never.
I'm not sure I see the attraction in picking up a game played by others which is (by and large) already won. In fact, I think I'll stop reading to avoid spoilers on the SG.
Winnable, sure. Not Winning though. Definitely stronger than the closest opponents however. The position I came in at is truly a credit to the skills of the previous players, that is to be sure. However, I have no interest in going back and playing from turn 0.
#1) I was somewhat interested in this game from the beginning, and what they already accomplished I had no interest of repeating.
#2) When I came in there was 0 military. A handful of Chaos Maraders, 1 Succubus. Surely they laid the groundwork (ie, building Catacombs libralus -> GENIUS MOVE btw) and that is why I joined in. Precicely because the more interesting half of the game was about to begin. I've played many a Sheaim game, and the expansion phase is well and good, but in my opinion it is not that interesting. Due to the circumstances, I'm largely looking at it as more of an Adventure than an SG, one that starts on t200 with what they have already accomplished.
Maybe I want to win faster than them (in terms of in-game turn, not real life hours), or maybe I just want to have an interesting time of things. Either way, I like the map, and if there is no longer any challenge, or, say, if it gets boring, then of course I'll stop ... but as I raised the gauntlet, I would prefer to bring it to a victory condition. (and, ofc, the only victory enabled is conquest :P)
So I think I'll just have a fun time of it, playing within the same variant rule set.
---> Interestingly enough, When you have 21 planar gates, you don't really need to actually *build* units anymore ... so, by that point, yes in some ways the game has been 'won' .... but playing out the victory, that is the fun part. (also, there weren't quite 21 gates at the time I joined ... I ended up building quite a few of them, as well as the public baths ... but ... after Necromancy, the Succubi are largely just there as window dressing and city defense.)
If the game goes on for long enough, I might go for Manticores et al ... but, unless the Bannor (or Hyborem) put up much of a fight, I doubt it will last that long.
**** to clarify, at 21 planar gates, in many ways the variant has already been 'won' b/c at that point the restriction is meaningless, because you will have enough units to do whatever you want, regardless of restricting what sort of units you can build. Of course I am still adhering to the variant restrictions ... but all it really does is limit unit strategies at that point. Mobius spam is, in some ways, better than mage spam at that point. Actually much better, because you can get them faster than you could get mages at that point in the game. Largely though, I'm thinking a classic approach is still technically better than a Gate approach (however if u lowered Gate costs in 12, as I think I saw in the changelog, that could be really cool) ..... but say for instance, in the late game, if u expected your army to get destroyed somehow, either due to armageddon events, or due to a bloody battle with a human opponent ... your gates could allow you to rebuild your army MUCH faster due to the spawn mechanism. It won't help you win the overall game faster ... but it will allow for you to win (or attempt to win) at a war of attrition.
Here is the power chart from turn 199 to turn 249 .. I'd say that over the past 50 turns, our power has increased quite well ^_^
I'm no mathematician ... but Id say its increased perhaps 7 fold?
That Bump in power towards the end is probably due to an increased rate of spawning from the increased AC when I started razing Elohim cities (just a guess), although it could have also been influenced by an ever increasing amount of pillage gold
(July 24th, 2015, 08:41)flugauto Wrote: You should replay it without religions and without any magic beyond kote.
^_^
Yea, I'm thinking of replaying (From t200) while forcing myself to never pick a tier2 offensive spell ... this forces me away from Fireball/ Spectre/ and other Tier2 summons
I think, in a way, such an added restriction would be more in the theme of the variant, and also would make it far more interesting
Thanks for the suggestion!
[the thought process that lead to this conclusion]
I could certainly try a replay w/o Mobius Witches, or with a limitation on their use, perhaps.
A good variant-variant would probably include allowing the building of Adepts, and restricting Mage Guilds to non-planar-gate cities. (or something). Maybe allow only one gate city to include a Mage Guild, in case someone wanted to go full gates, with only one city on Mage-Guild/ Adept producer status.
I think, you are right, that it could be fun to play a version where we only used 'brute force' gate spawns, while enhancing them with the Adept/Tier 1 set of spells
(or alternately, not picking any 'Offensive' tier 2 spells, while turning off the Witch limitation)--> This version of the Alt might actually be more interesting, and could even be played from the current t200 save. I think I might try it out
I'd have to start from an earlier save if I wanted to avoid Mobius Witches (or I could just remove it from the que ... as it was whipped t200 w/o actually completing). If I wanted to use Adepts instead of Witches.
However I think that using Mobius Witches, but just not going for the Offensive Tier 2 spells, would be more fitting for the variant (imho), do you not agree?
