[SPOILERS] Lurkers Lurk Thirty-Three Fools

[GreyWolf]

It just feels to me like he's gone about the Sheaim in the wrong way.
Their major calling card (apart from one trick Pyre Zombies) is that they get free production via Planar Gates.

The Sheaim are quite underpowered and don't really have that many calling cards. People usually consider Planar Gates to be not really worth it, though Mobius Witches can indeed be quite powerful. The Sheaim probably should've built some Gates, considering the high AC, but I don't think this would save them from the Doviello.

[Qgqqqqq]

Agree with everything Yell0w said, big time. Honestly, I am super impressed with TBS as a player, and I'm sure he could have dominated with Mahala, but his strategy would have needed to be totally different - the game he has played is 100% the Charadon game, and I don't think any other leader could have executed it well.

Also, Sheaim are very underpowered. If I had the time I'd try to mod some changes into them, but as is, I just wouldn't choose them.

[Yell0w]

Honestly, I am super impressed with TBS as a player[...]

Yeah, every game I've played with him so far he has won and deservedly so!
I just can recommend his ->Kuriotates<- game report I remember it being even more entertaining and educational than this one.

[superjm]

No way in hell Jim could have held out long enough to steal a Tower win, regardless of his WS. Absolutely no way maybe 20 Wizards could beat back the hordes of highly-promoted T3 and 4 units TBS could bring to bear. I'm not even sure Jim has enough nodes for the Tower- but he certainly couldn't hold them, if he does. I think he just wants to go out swinging, and good on him for that.

Bingo. I might have been able to make some noise if I managed to snag at least Strength of Will and get Archmages out, but I was far too conservative in my landgrab and didn't have enough nodes to even manage ToD, not that I would've been able to hold four nodes with how spread out they were.

In the end TBS just got too many units and too many cities too quickly for any late-game instamage push to make a difference. In hindsight maybe popping the WS earlier to give the other opponents a fighting chance against TBS would have been better in the long run, but that would have pretty much ended my game. I was not going to survive any war of aggression if TBS could simply match my magestacks with his own + T3/T4 units all over the place, firebows or no.

Blight hitting at literally the worst possible moment (during my GA after revolting to conquest/appr and starting my military buildup) didn't help matters either.

[The Black Sword]

Reading this thread is very nice for my ego.

On the Mahala vs Charadon debate, I think Charadon was stronger here, though I could be wrong. In the early game I was farming everything and building with food, with the high tech costs it took forever to get to Mining and I wouldn't really have been able to take advantage of Exp until then. Ingenuity would have saved me a bit(well, a lot) of gold but most of my upgrades occurred after the game was pretty much over. With regard to Raiders; I'm not sure how confident I would have been of rushing Tholal with Agg for the immediate shock promo and without that war, there's not that much pillage gold to multiply. I didn't really document it, but I did a fair amount of pillaging of Bob's land that was outside my borders too, but again you need to win the war first to do that. In comparison, I think each of Agg/Char/Bar really benefited me.

Also, from Dave's(I think) thread, HK was saying he felt Malevolent Designs was a poor Grimoire target. I'm curious what you think would have been better? Part of the reason is probably that I place very high value on Mardero and Wither. Wither is one of the top Archmage spells IMO, I view it alongside Chalid and Dwarven Druids as tier 2 collateral. So Mardero is a pseudo-Archmage for me, part of the reason I didn't mind giving up Gibbon. Beasts are also not that expensive, if you're smart to tech another religion for culture bombing(that was very sub-optimal from me)!

[Qgqqqqq]

You deserve the ego boost
I agree on Grimorie BTW - did you ever try ToDing anything?

[Yell0w]

Beasts are also not that expensive, if you're smart to tech another religion for culture bombing(that was very sub-optimal from me)!

I'm missing something obvious here, but I don't know what, so please explain...

[DaveV]

When you build a Beast of Agares (and you're not the Infernals), the city goes into revolt for 4 turns. You can fix the revolt by sacrificing a disciple, except for an AV disciple (Savant). Savants give 15 beakers instead of 20 culture as all the other disciples do, and won't stop the revolt.

[The Black Sword]

Dave explains it.

I agree on Grimorie BTW - did you ever try ToDing anything?

My ToD was a few turns from completing, I was pretty sure I'd take Divine Essence. Current research was on Alteration for life mana to half the cost of Blood of the Phoenix.

[Yell0w]

When you build a Beast of Agares (and you're not the Infernals), the city goes into revolt for 4 turns. You can fix the revolt by sacrificing a disciple, except for an AV disciple (Savant). Savants give 15 beakers instead of 20 culture as all the other disciples do, and won't stop the revolt.

I thought that was probably what it does, is there is list of what culture pops do, cause last time I tried it with a conquered city to make it come out of resistance, but that didn't work.