Checked the game, you're definitely in a winning position there. Lots of territory and pretty powerful heroes. Shame that the game generates so much territory in 13 wizard games - all it does is delay the player's victory by forcing them to engage in repetitive conquest for longer. It's why I rarely play with that many wizards myself.
(December 26th, 2023, 08:45)nkoulaf Wrote: I checked your game, how did you end up with so many books and retorts?
from the game manual:
-If the player starts on Arcanus, Arcanus has total picks between 1 and (3+total number of players on the plane).
-If the player starts on Arcanus, Myrror has total picks (between 1 and 3) times the number of players on Myrror.
and because I played with 13 other wizrads, Arcanus has between 1 and 14 picks and Myrror has between 3 and 9 picks. overall there were between 4 and 23 picks on both planes, on average: there were 13.5 picks, since all node and lairs were cleared before 1510, and each pick can be either a double book/double pick retort or a double book, there were on average 18 books or equivalent to find.
so the number of retorts/books = picks this game is actually below average for 13 wizards in my opinion.
So, there are many picks to be found on average to begin with because of 13 wizards game.
Now, you must be wondering, how did I manage to find so many of them for myself? and this is describe in the thread I started called My CoM effective strategy which you can find in this forum.
Edit:
actually the average number of books or equivalent to find in a max (13 other) wizards game is 17.333
(December 18th, 2023, 23:40)WhiteMage Wrote: I went back to my original PC and found my last save. https://www.mediafire.com/file/wdcknnj8o...7.sav/file
Here is my current game in progress. I made my last move on Jan 20, 2023. Then I temporarily stopped playing this game due to 3 reasons:
1.I made a minor mistake that resulted in heavy losses in this game. I did not see a 1 figure dark green enemy magician hiding in forest. I could have easily killed it. As a result, I lost my best army of 9 units effectively setting me back about 2 year in my game progress.
2.Suddenly I had to work a lot for my job.
3.I wanted to work on my own software development projects instead of just playing game.
For 9 months I have not played any game, which is the longest period in my life in the past 48 years without playing. Then since October, I played several other 4X TBS games and an RPG: Wizardry 7, Civilization 6, Civilization, C-Evo, Interstellar Space: Genesis, Master of Magic 2022, Sword of the Stars, and I found them all unsatisfying with numerous problems with them each.
As of today I am not yet decided if I will come back to continue this particular COM II game, or come back to start a new COM II game. 50% I will abandon it. 50% that I will continue. Steam shows I spent 571 hours on this game so far. My settings were: I must play the first game rolled. All events must be accepted including real life events, bad luck, mouse slip, game bugs, I made unintended move, etc. Save is required before quitting game. Load only allowed to continue last save. On: Random events, More Random Items, Show Enemy Moves, Show Neutral Node Auras, Show Enemy Spells, Show Fog of War, Unit Counter Difficulty: Lunatic Opponents: Random (probably rolled 8) Game size: Random Continents: Random Magic: Random Climate: Random Minerals: Random Wizard: Random (picture Tlaloc) Picks: Random: 4 Nature, 6 Chaos, Omniscient, Archmage Starting Spells: Random: Earth to Mud, Web, Water Walking, Animate Ammo, Wall of Fire, Warp Creature, Hell Hounds, Fire Elemental: Mystic Surge, Fire Storm My Race: Random: Barbarian Score Modifiers: Undeveloped Start, Plane of Water, No Trading, Monsters Gone Wild, Final War My estimated chances to win: Before game 15% I lost last game. I play by same rules 1500Jan 7% Random rolled huge map, Barbarian, 6 Chaos books, 4 nature Books. Start on peninsula. Max pop 13, Prod 30%, Gold 10% 1501Mar 11% captured neutral Klackon town. I see gold, orihalcon, and 3 coal tiles ready for settlers. 1505Jun 19% Strong start. I control an island with 8 towns so far. 6 more are on the way to be settled. No contact with AI or raiders yet. I have 3 nodes. Other lairs are surrounded. About to start to leave my island. Plenty of special resources 1513Nov 43% Captured 6 towns from 3 AIs. Pushing borders and able to defend myself. 1518Jan 48% Pushing borders and able to defend myself. Not enough mana + gold income. Not enough skill. I only have 1 war. Strongest AI on my plane has 3 wars. All towers still sealed. 2 AIs in Myrror. I have 34 settlements My game starting moves were: Hell Hounds, Magic Market, Hell Hounds, Settlers, Hell Hounds, Research Summoning Circle, Hell Hounds, Marketplace Main reasons for result: AI4 only had 1 Chaos book. With no trading AI4 was very lucky to have Raise Volcano spell. Only 1 uncommon chaos spell allowed for 1 chaos spell book. 10% chance or found it in lair. This crossed my strategy forcing me to fight their first wave of attack on water, in which I failed miserably. I got surprised that AI2 attacked my 9 Galleys with 1 Spider and 7 Cockatrices. AIs lost at least 3 towns to rampaging monsters. My Major Mistakes: I did not check battle prediction. I could have attacked 2 Klackon Spearmen with 1 Hell Hounds. I waited to get reinforcements before my attack. I settled in wrong place. I denied settling place for another city trying to take advantage of a resource. I attacked Nagas on Sorcery node with Hell Hounds. I allowed them to First strike my Hounds. I should have forced more attacks with my Fire Breath even with <4 figures. I assumed they will chase my hero, but they were smart and attacked my hounds in reach. I was pumping spearmen from all towns, but I did not see that one of them was not going to complete it by next turn. I stayed up the whole night. I was tired. I made mistake not surrounding lair when I moved away. They spawned, it caused me delays and resources to kill them. I accidentally moved 2 units out of town instead of 1, causing rebels. I must watch what I select carefully. I started war, but did not build navy. I still pushed for economy. It was predictable that after I start war they will attack me over water. AI I attacked had 1 chaos book and was lucky to have Raise Volcano uncommon spell (~11% chance). It had 7 nature books and Earthquake was very likely. I should have fought early not to allow that AI to discover my cities. I attacked 6 sprites with 1 Trireme, 2 war bears with Water walking, and 2 Hell Hounds with Water Walking. AI killed them all without taking loss. It successfully cast 2 dispel magic on my 2 bears. I did not know AI has Dispel Magic in 1507Dec. Next time estimate that AI has Dispel Magic by that time. I started war too early. I was not ready. I had small military. The town I captured was next to a node and a Tower that kept attacking me very often. I did not have plan to contain them. It drained me to fight them. I accidentally sent 6 units out of city to far away place by misclick due to poor UI. I chased high armor heroes with my triremes in battle. I should have fought the Javelineers directly next to me. I lost everything without killing anyone. I pressed end turn with too high extra food production. I went too close to AI city with navy. It summoned new spider outside of its city due to being full then cast water walking on it. It sneaked out fast that I could not chase it down. I did not scout ahead with 1 out of 8 units moving together. I attacked Amazon hero with 7 Gladiators and lost. I attacked Javelineers with an injured Pegasi. AI cast Fairy Dust on it then Javelineers killed it. I intentionally allowed an enemy settler to pass through my land to build city on the other side. I did not allow it to discover new town, but allowed it to discover more land within my town. As a result it cast more Raise Volcanos on my land. I missed a node in my area possibly generating new monsters due to Call of the Wild spell. I did not respond for a long time. I cast Land Linking on wrong unit at the beginning of a turn not paying attention due to being eager to attack. I missed opportunity to heal with my Crusaders in battle. I killed enemy too soon. I stopped surrounding enemy city by forgetting about it: they produced new unit that was placed outside. I attacked a solo caster hero with 3 my Lizardmen spearmen. The hero and the wizard together were able to heal the hero all the way up. I forgot to use galley's melee instead of ranged attack and missed opportunity to kill enemy sooner. I cast Fireball on wrong target due to not watching the label. I brought in a wrong unit into battle. I did not follow my plan to send it to city. I moved my injured unit to wrong city without Animist. I was too fast to melee attack enemy unit and forgot to make place for others to attack. I attacked 2 Water Walking Gorgons and casted max Dispel Magic twice. They resisted both. I should have attacked with individual units and not 4 strong units. I had heavy losses. When an opponent wizard was eliminated, I did not notice that their units also disappeared that were blocking Nodes from spawning. I should have replaced them quickly. I made good plan how to move my units far in the same turn, but did not follow the plan and failed to reach destination. I must watch every step. I did not plan for future rebels due to city growth: I built University instead of Oracle. Screen saver made screen dark. I pressed mouse to wake it up. It moved my units to wrong place: never use left mouse button to wake up screen saver, never leave computer screen saver on active game. I cast Web on NonCorporeal unit. Spellserkers had spell, I wrongly assumed it was Chaos Channels. I was surprised in battle that AI cast Possession on it. I did not see 1 figure Green Magicians survived my attack hiding under tree. I got shocked by Mana leak spell. I casted Fire Storm on Stream of Life town: it was ineffective. Personal fun score and Notes: 99%. First monsters appeared early. I was lucky they spawned away from my city tile. Could have spawned directly next to my town. This way I had time to react. Devastating Enemy Spells and positions: How I could have prevented and responded to them:
Night Stalkers in Cave: Warp Creature + Cockatrices;
AI solo Giant Spiders with Water Walking: 9 Galleys, Web, Dispel Magic;
Captured AI town on new Island, but 2 nearby lairs spam monsters: Surround lairs immediately when taking AI town;
Black Prayer + Terror + Invulnerability: Shadow Demons + Mind Storm My strong strategies that worked well: Fire Storm on cities with 8 magicians. Then I attacked them immediately to take city.
well, a few things:
When I studied in a university after a few months I understood that can't have a computer with me and I just left my computer at home and lived in the dormitories without a personal computer, it is important to remove distractions when you are trying to reach a goal.
Huge map can lead to a very long game, as you know, as of current technology our time is limited in this world.
These settings are hard:
Undeveloped Start, Plane of Water, No Trading, Monsters Gone Wild, Final War
Hardest for me will be: No Trading
I think if you focused on clearing nodes/lairs towers and getting better heroes you had a better chance to win.
(December 18th, 2023, 23:40)WhiteMage Wrote: I went back to my original PC and found my last save. https://www.mediafire.com/file/wdcknnj8o...7.sav/file
Here is my current game in progress. I made my last move on Jan 20, 2023. Then I temporarily stopped playing this game due to 3 reasons:
1.I made a minor mistake that resulted in heavy losses in this game. I did not see a 1 figure dark green enemy magician hiding in forest. I could have easily killed it. As a result, I lost my best army of 9 units effectively setting me back about 2 year in my game progress.
2.Suddenly I had to work a lot for my job.
3.I wanted to work on my own software development projects instead of just playing game.
For 9 months I have not played any game, which is the longest period in my life in the past 48 years without playing. Then since October, I played several other 4X TBS games and an RPG: Wizardry 7, Civilization 6, Civilization, C-Evo, Interstellar Space: Genesis, Master of Magic 2022, Sword of the Stars, and I found them all unsatisfying with numerous problems with them each.
As of today I am not yet decided if I will come back to continue this particular COM II game, or come back to start a new COM II game. 50% I will abandon it. 50% that I will continue. Steam shows I spent 571 hours on this game so far. My settings were: I must play the first game rolled. All events must be accepted including real life events, bad luck, mouse slip, game bugs, I made unintended move, etc. Save is required before quitting game. Load only allowed to continue last save. On: Random events, More Random Items, Show Enemy Moves, Show Neutral Node Auras, Show Enemy Spells, Show Fog of War, Unit Counter Difficulty: Lunatic Opponents: Random (probably rolled 8) Game size: Random Continents: Random Magic: Random Climate: Random Minerals: Random Wizard: Random (picture Tlaloc) Picks: Random: 4 Nature, 6 Chaos, Omniscient, Archmage Starting Spells: Random: Earth to Mud, Web, Water Walking, Animate Ammo, Wall of Fire, Warp Creature, Hell Hounds, Fire Elemental: Mystic Surge, Fire Storm My Race: Random: Barbarian Score Modifiers: Undeveloped Start, Plane of Water, No Trading, Monsters Gone Wild, Final War My estimated chances to win: Before game 15% I lost last game. I play by same rules 1500Jan 7% Random rolled huge map, Barbarian, 6 Chaos books, 4 nature Books. Start on peninsula. Max pop 13, Prod 30%, Gold 10% 1501Mar 11% captured neutral Klackon town. I see gold, orihalcon, and 3 coal tiles ready for settlers. 1505Jun 19% Strong start. I control an island with 8 towns so far. 6 more are on the way to be settled. No contact with AI or raiders yet. I have 3 nodes. Other lairs are surrounded. About to start to leave my island. Plenty of special resources 1513Nov 43% Captured 6 towns from 3 AIs. Pushing borders and able to defend myself. 1518Jan 48% Pushing borders and able to defend myself. Not enough mana + gold income. Not enough skill. I only have 1 war. Strongest AI on my plane has 3 wars. All towers still sealed. 2 AIs in Myrror. I have 34 settlements My game starting moves were: Hell Hounds, Magic Market, Hell Hounds, Settlers, Hell Hounds, Research Summoning Circle, Hell Hounds, Marketplace Main reasons for result: AI4 only had 1 Chaos book. With no trading AI4 was very lucky to have Raise Volcano spell. Only 1 uncommon chaos spell allowed for 1 chaos spell book. 10% chance or found it in lair. This crossed my strategy forcing me to fight their first wave of attack on water, in which I failed miserably. I got surprised that AI2 attacked my 9 Galleys with 1 Spider and 7 Cockatrices. AIs lost at least 3 towns to rampaging monsters. My Major Mistakes: I did not check battle prediction. I could have attacked 2 Klackon Spearmen with 1 Hell Hounds. I waited to get reinforcements before my attack. I settled in wrong place. I denied settling place for another city trying to take advantage of a resource. I attacked Nagas on Sorcery node with Hell Hounds. I allowed them to First strike my Hounds. I should have forced more attacks with my Fire Breath even with <4 figures. I assumed they will chase my hero, but they were smart and attacked my hounds in reach. I was pumping spearmen from all towns, but I did not see that one of them was not going to complete it by next turn. I stayed up the whole night. I was tired. I made mistake not surrounding lair when I moved away. They spawned, it caused me delays and resources to kill them. I accidentally moved 2 units out of town instead of 1, causing rebels. I must watch what I select carefully. I started war, but did not build navy. I still pushed for economy. It was predictable that after I start war they will attack me over water. AI I attacked had 1 chaos book and was lucky to have Raise Volcano uncommon spell (~11% chance). It had 7 nature books and Earthquake was very likely. I should have fought early not to allow that AI to discover my cities. I attacked 6 sprites with 1 Trireme, 2 war bears with Water walking, and 2 Hell Hounds with Water Walking. AI killed them all without taking loss. It successfully cast 2 dispel magic on my 2 bears. I did not know AI has Dispel Magic in 1507Dec. Next time estimate that AI has Dispel Magic by that time. I started war too early. I was not ready. I had small military. The town I captured was next to a node and a Tower that kept attacking me very often. I did not have plan to contain them. It drained me to fight them. I accidentally sent 6 units out of city to far away place by misclick due to poor UI. I chased high armor heroes with my triremes in battle. I should have fought the Javelineers directly next to me. I lost everything without killing anyone. I pressed end turn with too high extra food production. I went too close to AI city with navy. It summoned new spider outside of its city due to being full then cast water walking on it. It sneaked out fast that I could not chase it down. I did not scout ahead with 1 out of 8 units moving together. I attacked Amazon hero with 7 Gladiators and lost. I attacked Javelineers with an injured Pegasi. AI cast Fairy Dust on it then Javelineers killed it. I intentionally allowed an enemy settler to pass through my land to build city on the other side. I did not allow it to discover new town, but allowed it to discover more land within my town. As a result it cast more Raise Volcanos on my land. I missed a node in my area possibly generating new monsters due to Call of the Wild spell. I did not respond for a long time. I cast Land Linking on wrong unit at the beginning of a turn not paying attention due to being eager to attack. I missed opportunity to heal with my Crusaders in battle. I killed enemy too soon. I stopped surrounding enemy city by forgetting about it: they produced new unit that was placed outside. I attacked a solo caster hero with 3 my Lizardmen spearmen. The hero and the wizard together were able to heal the hero all the way up. I forgot to use galley's melee instead of ranged attack and missed opportunity to kill enemy sooner. I cast Fireball on wrong target due to not watching the label. I brought in a wrong unit into battle. I did not follow my plan to send it to city. I moved my injured unit to wrong city without Animist. I was too fast to melee attack enemy unit and forgot to make place for others to attack. I attacked 2 Water Walking Gorgons and casted max Dispel Magic twice. They resisted both. I should have attacked with individual units and not 4 strong units. I had heavy losses. When an opponent wizard was eliminated, I did not notice that their units also disappeared that were blocking Nodes from spawning. I should have replaced them quickly. I made good plan how to move my units far in the same turn, but did not follow the plan and failed to reach destination. I must watch every step. I did not plan for future rebels due to city growth: I built University instead of Oracle. Screen saver made screen dark. I pressed mouse to wake it up. It moved my units to wrong place: never use left mouse button to wake up screen saver, never leave computer screen saver on active game. I cast Web on NonCorporeal unit. Spellserkers had spell, I wrongly assumed it was Chaos Channels. I was surprised in battle that AI cast Possession on it. I did not see 1 figure Green Magicians survived my attack hiding under tree. I got shocked by Mana leak spell. I casted Fire Storm on Stream of Life town: it was ineffective. Personal fun score and Notes: 99%. First monsters appeared early. I was lucky they spawned away from my city tile. Could have spawned directly next to my town. This way I had time to react. Devastating Enemy Spells and positions: How I could have prevented and responded to them:
Night Stalkers in Cave: Warp Creature + Cockatrices;
AI solo Giant Spiders with Water Walking: 9 Galleys, Web, Dispel Magic;
Captured AI town on new Island, but 2 nearby lairs spam monsters: Surround lairs immediately when taking AI town;
Black Prayer + Terror + Invulnerability: Shadow Demons + Mind Storm My strong strategies that worked well: Fire Storm on cities with 8 magicians. Then I attacked them immediately to take city.
well, a few things:
When I studied in a university after a few months I understood that can't have a computer with me and I just left my computer at home and lived in the dormitories without a personal computer, it is important to remove distractions when you are trying to reach a goal.
Huge map can lead to a very long game, as you know, as of current technology our time is limited in this world.
These settings are hard:
Undeveloped Start, Plane of Water, No Trading, Monsters Gone Wild, Final War
Hardest for me will be: No Trading
I think if you focused on clearing nodes/lairs towers and getting better heroes you had a better chance to win.
I mostly agree with you, but
I always had a computer with me since high school including my university student time. I played a lot, but also managed to get my computer science and math degrees without delay, and I wrote my MS thesis and my dissertation on strategy games and AI. So I was able to connect my passion to my education then later to my career.
Yes, a Huge map is a huge time commitment (to me). To complete a game takes thousands of game hours for me; that means years may pass from start to finish. Especially, since I micro all the >1000 units individually in each turn, then all citizens individually to optimize my moves. It becomes tedious, painful, boring, to the point I must stop to rest my wrist.
I almost always play by those settings I posted above. Yes, No Trading is the hardest rule from those, and I think the second hardest setting is that I randomly choose starting spells individually, third is random wizard setup, fourth random race. This way each new game is very unique. I can't repeat my favorite strategies, but I try.
About focusing on heroes and artifacts, I usually try to do, but I am more focused on my border defense strategy. Stack of invisible 9 heroes+very rare monsters can easily roll me over and even take my fortress if I don't defend border. In this game instance above having an adventuring hero was out of reach for me since I was constantly attacked and multiple volcanoes, Earthquakes, drain mana, and various anti city spells were cast on me along with the waves of units coming from far away. Also I was starving for mana and gold all the time. On top of that I had no city that can build any magician unit, nor flying unit having only Barbarian, Klackon, and Lizardmen cities until recently.
I cleared almost all nodes/lairs. Only 5 towers I did not and that was intentional, not wanting to contact Myrror Wizards yet.
I broke many strong artifacts in order to be able to cast my spells in battles in each turn.
Maybe playing with strong hero+artifact would have been a stronger play on this map, but probably not. I can send you my Turn 1 save file and you can give this game a try using your strategy. Let me know if you are interested. But since you know the map that is a huge advantage already. Estimated +10% chance to win.
And I give my uploaded game state 48% chance that I would win from here if I continued.
(December 18th, 2023, 23:40)WhiteMage Wrote: I went back to my original PC and found my last save. https://www.mediafire.com/file/wdcknnj8o...7.sav/file
Here is my current game in progress. I made my last move on Jan 20, 2023. Then I temporarily stopped playing this game due to 3 reasons:
1.I made a minor mistake that resulted in heavy losses in this game. I did not see a 1 figure dark green enemy magician hiding in forest. I could have easily killed it. As a result, I lost my best army of 9 units effectively setting me back about 2 year in my game progress.
2.Suddenly I had to work a lot for my job.
3.I wanted to work on my own software development projects instead of just playing game.
For 9 months I have not played any game, which is the longest period in my life in the past 48 years without playing. Then since October, I played several other 4X TBS games and an RPG: Wizardry 7, Civilization 6, Civilization, C-Evo, Interstellar Space: Genesis, Master of Magic 2022, Sword of the Stars, and I found them all unsatisfying with numerous problems with them each.
As of today I am not yet decided if I will come back to continue this particular COM II game, or come back to start a new COM II game. 50% I will abandon it. 50% that I will continue. Steam shows I spent 571 hours on this game so far. My settings were: I must play the first game rolled. All events must be accepted including real life events, bad luck, mouse slip, game bugs, I made unintended move, etc. Save is required before quitting game. Load only allowed to continue last save. On: Random events, More Random Items, Show Enemy Moves, Show Neutral Node Auras, Show Enemy Spells, Show Fog of War, Unit Counter Difficulty: Lunatic Opponents: Random (probably rolled 8) Game size: Random Continents: Random Magic: Random Climate: Random Minerals: Random Wizard: Random (picture Tlaloc) Picks: Random: 4 Nature, 6 Chaos, Omniscient, Archmage Starting Spells: Random: Earth to Mud, Web, Water Walking, Animate Ammo, Wall of Fire, Warp Creature, Hell Hounds, Fire Elemental: Mystic Surge, Fire Storm My Race: Random: Barbarian Score Modifiers: Undeveloped Start, Plane of Water, No Trading, Monsters Gone Wild, Final War My estimated chances to win: Before game 15% I lost last game. I play by same rules 1500Jan 7% Random rolled huge map, Barbarian, 6 Chaos books, 4 nature Books. Start on peninsula. Max pop 13, Prod 30%, Gold 10% 1501Mar 11% captured neutral Klackon town. I see gold, orihalcon, and 3 coal tiles ready for settlers. 1505Jun 19% Strong start. I control an island with 8 towns so far. 6 more are on the way to be settled. No contact with AI or raiders yet. I have 3 nodes. Other lairs are surrounded. About to start to leave my island. Plenty of special resources 1513Nov 43% Captured 6 towns from 3 AIs. Pushing borders and able to defend myself. 1518Jan 48% Pushing borders and able to defend myself. Not enough mana + gold income. Not enough skill. I only have 1 war. Strongest AI on my plane has 3 wars. All towers still sealed. 2 AIs in Myrror. I have 34 settlements My game starting moves were: Hell Hounds, Magic Market, Hell Hounds, Settlers, Hell Hounds, Research Summoning Circle, Hell Hounds, Marketplace Main reasons for result: AI4 only had 1 Chaos book. With no trading AI4 was very lucky to have Raise Volcano spell. Only 1 uncommon chaos spell allowed for 1 chaos spell book. 10% chance or found it in lair. This crossed my strategy forcing me to fight their first wave of attack on water, in which I failed miserably. I got surprised that AI2 attacked my 9 Galleys with 1 Spider and 7 Cockatrices. AIs lost at least 3 towns to rampaging monsters. My Major Mistakes: I did not check battle prediction. I could have attacked 2 Klackon Spearmen with 1 Hell Hounds. I waited to get reinforcements before my attack. I settled in wrong place. I denied settling place for another city trying to take advantage of a resource. I attacked Nagas on Sorcery node with Hell Hounds. I allowed them to First strike my Hounds. I should have forced more attacks with my Fire Breath even with <4 figures. I assumed they will chase my hero, but they were smart and attacked my hounds in reach. I was pumping spearmen from all towns, but I did not see that one of them was not going to complete it by next turn. I stayed up the whole night. I was tired. I made mistake not surrounding lair when I moved away. They spawned, it caused me delays and resources to kill them. I accidentally moved 2 units out of town instead of 1, causing rebels. I must watch what I select carefully. I started war, but did not build navy. I still pushed for economy. It was predictable that after I start war they will attack me over water. AI I attacked had 1 chaos book and was lucky to have Raise Volcano uncommon spell (~11% chance). It had 7 nature books and Earthquake was very likely. I should have fought early not to allow that AI to discover my cities. I attacked 6 sprites with 1 Trireme, 2 war bears with Water walking, and 2 Hell Hounds with Water Walking. AI killed them all without taking loss. It successfully cast 2 dispel magic on my 2 bears. I did not know AI has Dispel Magic in 1507Dec. Next time estimate that AI has Dispel Magic by that time. I started war too early. I was not ready. I had small military. The town I captured was next to a node and a Tower that kept attacking me very often. I did not have plan to contain them. It drained me to fight them. I accidentally sent 6 units out of city to far away place by misclick due to poor UI. I chased high armor heroes with my triremes in battle. I should have fought the Javelineers directly next to me. I lost everything without killing anyone. I pressed end turn with too high extra food production. I went too close to AI city with navy. It summoned new spider outside of its city due to being full then cast water walking on it. It sneaked out fast that I could not chase it down. I did not scout ahead with 1 out of 8 units moving together. I attacked Amazon hero with 7 Gladiators and lost. I attacked Javelineers with an injured Pegasi. AI cast Fairy Dust on it then Javelineers killed it. I intentionally allowed an enemy settler to pass through my land to build city on the other side. I did not allow it to discover new town, but allowed it to discover more land within my town. As a result it cast more Raise Volcanos on my land. I missed a node in my area possibly generating new monsters due to Call of the Wild spell. I did not respond for a long time. I cast Land Linking on wrong unit at the beginning of a turn not paying attention due to being eager to attack. I missed opportunity to heal with my Crusaders in battle. I killed enemy too soon. I stopped surrounding enemy city by forgetting about it: they produced new unit that was placed outside. I attacked a solo caster hero with 3 my Lizardmen spearmen. The hero and the wizard together were able to heal the hero all the way up. I forgot to use galley's melee instead of ranged attack and missed opportunity to kill enemy sooner. I cast Fireball on wrong target due to not watching the label. I brought in a wrong unit into battle. I did not follow my plan to send it to city. I moved my injured unit to wrong city without Animist. I was too fast to melee attack enemy unit and forgot to make place for others to attack. I attacked 2 Water Walking Gorgons and casted max Dispel Magic twice. They resisted both. I should have attacked with individual units and not 4 strong units. I had heavy losses. When an opponent wizard was eliminated, I did not notice that their units also disappeared that were blocking Nodes from spawning. I should have replaced them quickly. I made good plan how to move my units far in the same turn, but did not follow the plan and failed to reach destination. I must watch every step. I did not plan for future rebels due to city growth: I built University instead of Oracle. Screen saver made screen dark. I pressed mouse to wake it up. It moved my units to wrong place: never use left mouse button to wake up screen saver, never leave computer screen saver on active game. I cast Web on NonCorporeal unit. Spellserkers had spell, I wrongly assumed it was Chaos Channels. I was surprised in battle that AI cast Possession on it. I did not see 1 figure Green Magicians survived my attack hiding under tree. I got shocked by Mana leak spell. I casted Fire Storm on Stream of Life town: it was ineffective. Personal fun score and Notes: 99%. First monsters appeared early. I was lucky they spawned away from my city tile. Could have spawned directly next to my town. This way I had time to react. Devastating Enemy Spells and positions: How I could have prevented and responded to them:
Night Stalkers in Cave: Warp Creature + Cockatrices;
AI solo Giant Spiders with Water Walking: 9 Galleys, Web, Dispel Magic;
Captured AI town on new Island, but 2 nearby lairs spam monsters: Surround lairs immediately when taking AI town;
Black Prayer + Terror + Invulnerability: Shadow Demons + Mind Storm My strong strategies that worked well: Fire Storm on cities with 8 magicians. Then I attacked them immediately to take city.
well, a few things:
When I studied in a university after a few months I understood that can't have a computer with me and I just left my computer at home and lived in the dormitories without a personal computer, it is important to remove distractions when you are trying to reach a goal.
Huge map can lead to a very long game, as you know, as of current technology our time is limited in this world.
These settings are hard:
Undeveloped Start, Plane of Water, No Trading, Monsters Gone Wild, Final War
Hardest for me will be: No Trading
I think if you focused on clearing nodes/lairs towers and getting better heroes you had a better chance to win.
I mostly agree with you, but
I always had a computer with me since high school including my university student time. I played a lot, but also managed to get my computer science and math degrees without delay, and I wrote my MS thesis and my dissertation on strategy games and AI. So I was able to connect my passion to my education then later to my career.
Yes, a Huge map is a huge time commitment (to me). To complete a game takes thousands of game hours for me; that means years may pass from start to finish. Especially, since I micro all the >1000 units individually in each turn, then all citizens individually to optimize my moves. It becomes tedious, painful, boring, to the point I must stop to rest my wrist.
I almost always play by those settings I posted above. Yes, No Trading is the hardest rule from those, and I think the second hardest setting is that I randomly choose starting spells individually, third is random wizard setup, fourth random race. This way each new game is very unique. I can't repeat my favorite strategies, but I try.
About focusing on heroes and artifacts, I usually try to do, but I am more focused on my border defense strategy. Stack of invisible 9 heroes+very rare monsters can easily roll me over and even take my fortress if I don't defend border. In this game instance above having an adventuring hero was out of reach for me since I was constantly attacked and multiple volcanoes, Earthquakes, drain mana, and various anti city spells were cast on me along with the waves of units coming from far away. Also I was starving for mana and gold all the time. On top of that I had no city that can build any magician unit, nor flying unit having only Barbarian, Klackon, and Lizardmen cities until recently.
I cleared almost all nodes/lairs. Only 5 towers I did not and that was intentional, not wanting to contact Myrror Wizards yet.
I broke many strong artifacts in order to be able to cast my spells in battles in each turn.
Maybe playing with strong hero+artifact would have been a stronger play on this map, but probably not. I can send you my Turn 1 save file and you can give this game a try using your strategy. Let me know if you are interested. But since you know the map that is a huge advantage already. Estimated +10% chance to win.
And I give my uploaded game state 48% chance that I would win from here if I continued.
We have a lot of things in common, we are at the same age, we both have Master in Sciences degree in computer sciences, we are both working on AI as a hobby and have about 20 years of experience of software development, and love COM, about the save, if you have a save on a normal sized map I will be happy to try it, huge is just too big for me even to try.
(February 4th, 2024, 06:51)GMBarak Wrote: We have a lot of things in common, we are at the same age, we both have Master in Sciences degree in computer sciences, we are both working on AI as a hobby and have about 20 years of experience of software development, and love COM, about the save, if you have a save on a normal sized map I will be happy to try it, huge is just too big for me even to try.
I sent you PM. Let's be friends. Maybe we can join forces to achieve something great.
I tried to make buffed Ghouls work in this. It sort of did but it took a loooonng while for them to really take off...Honestly, it probably would've worked a lot better if I had just leaned into combining Sorcery and Death more.
(February 15th, 2024, 10:31)Anskiy Wrote: I tried to make buffed Ghouls work in this. It sort of did but it took a loooonng while for them to really take off...Honestly, it probably would've worked a lot better if I had just leaned into combining Sorcery and Death more.
