game discussion!

[Nelphine]

Ah. Fair enough. Yeah there was at least 6 alliances when I started casting these globals. They still can't threaten any of my important locations, but the game was slowed down immensely by the sheer mana used up in these skirmishes.

But at least I made chaos/death work finally. Just needed to go for city units at the start, not summons. Conjuror backfired each time I tried it. Just spammed eldritch weapon, boom, much better.

Only problem is.. I have no idea what death did that game. I don't think I ever actually used a death spell until Eternal Night. (Only 4 Death Books)

[Nelphine]

Trying impossible with beast men and 4 opponents. I believe this should be better than dwarves except maybe for the super early game.

Had to give up the first game. Sss'ra corrupted every single tile around my capital before I could get priests. While I might have been able to win anyway (unlikely as he would get too much of an economic advantage while I cleaned up), it isn't a good comparison. For a dwarf game, that would simply be game over, so beast men is already better.

Want a game without early gane corruption to see if beast men can survive an early nature rush (this game sorcery death (sharee) rushed me while sss' ra corrupted me; was able to not only fend her off but do so much damage that even with corruption my economy was in better shape than hers) and still end up more powerful than dwarves late game.

[Nelphine]

Impossible beast men. Got swamped with ravens sorcery nature units very early - but he was lawful and didn't actually attack me. Rushed halberdiers and started producing them just in time to meet merlin (from arcanus.. he broke at least 2 towers before I had 4 cities. ) life chaos nature, but also lawful. He allied with Sss'ra (chaos with bits of other things ).. maniacal.. who promptly declared war on me which dragged merlin into it. Raven appeared to get extremely mad at my halberdiers buildup and declared war as well.

Things were extremely dicey for a bit. Had to give up and retake a few cities but eventually I managed to lay proper claim to my whole 6 city island. Raven accepted a peace offer and I was even able to grab some nodes. Still mass producing halberdiers I reached the top of the army strength and was able to ckear a tower on my continent which led to merlin.

I'm still trying to clear lairs snd nodes on my own continent but I'm recklessly pushing against merlin. His spell skill is over 200 (mine is 89) and as soon as he gets any very Rares it's going to be brutal. He has more power production than all 3 of us myrran wizards combined (which is disgusting. It's Myrror! We have the magic! And yes raven is draconian and Sss'ra is beast man.)

I haven't yet met the second arcanus wizard. But i assume merlin has a huge controlling presence on arcanus - at the very least a large number of modes.

But I've passed both myrran wizards. So I'm very happy with how beast men are working out.


Small land masses is helping. For some reason raven keeps sending settlers and troops to my continent. He even sent engineers and connected my entire continent with roads. Sss'ra had s very badly placed capital that turned a 5 or 6 city island into s 3 city island. but my exploration is limited to 4 myrran island continents and half of one arcanus one so I really don't know how most of the world looks.


Also, I've played multiple games now without a single one or two tile node island. Whatever you did Seravy, it really cut down on them.

[Nelphine]

been trying sage master rune master for thus gane. Minimum research the whole time, and I've still got lion heart so early I've literally never cast it. 200 casting cost in the midst of 3 wars is just impossible to justify. Sage master gives some very strange results. (I saw it and rushed it cuz it's awesome. .. and now I'm just like why did I bother? )

[Nelphine]

So. 1412. I have 2 outposts on arcanus, and control 2 arcanus nodes. The 2 towers on my home continent that connect to those cities/nodes are completely up for grabs and all 3 of the enemy wizards regularly use them. No one seems to garrison them though. Sss'ra has made peace, but Merlin refuses to - and Merlin has regained top army strength. Presumably, just too many hidden cities for me to keep up with military production. Did manage to finish clearing the 3rd node on my continent, but there's still one lair I can't spare the time for. Mana is a definite problem, because I need to keep increasing spell skill just to stay within shouting distance of Merlin (who is mana focusing, sage master, astrologer. Thank god he's not an Archmage, like Raven.) But 300 gold income (soon to be increased as I finally get merchants guilds) is managing to stave off ruin on the mana side.

Raven continues to swamp my continent. I honestly have no idea what he's doing. Sss'ra is also swarming my continent, but that almost seems like he's just trying to go through the towers to Arcanus. Not sure why he's doing that when he's allied to Merlin though, and there are still uncolonized areas on Myrror. Then again, I literally haven't been able to do any exploring whatsoever in the last 5+ years, so I really still have no idea what things look like. I'm super curious about who green is. You'd think by 1412, with cities on both maps, at the very least a flying unit or a trireme would have come by. And he's never been banished or defeated. Just. Unknown. My guess is a super bad starting island, possibly with life/chaos (no chaos channels), and no ability to get off that island, wherever it is. Sadly, beastmen have poor navies, and I have no flying units of my own, so I can't explore even if I wanted to. Merlin has too many ships/angels around my continent (on both planes). I feel certain all 3 of the other wizards have met green, but I have no way of knowing if they have. (Sss'ra has a dark elf neutral city, possibly the only one in the game; and has tons of nightmares everywhere, both planes. Raven has draconian units everywhere on Myrror.. but possibly has never been to Arcanus, despite trying to get to these towers. At least I've never seen Raven units on Arcanus, not that I can see much. And Merlin of course is a monster.)

Interestingly, green has no globals cast either. Which either means a very random spread of books, or.. death maybe? But death would have wraithform. I'm so CURIOUS. Who is this mystery wizard??

[Seravy]

Just a guess, the 4th wizard is most likely at war with Merlin and stuck in a few cities filled up with whatever strong creatures they can summon, while Merlin kills any unit that leaves those cities. This means either Merlin has Militarist/Expansionist, or the other wizard has many opposite books, leaving the most likely candidates Sharee, Rjak and Tauron. Neither Chaos nor Death have globals below Rare.

[Nelphine]

Since Merlin is a lawful theurgist, my guess is they aren't at war (otherwise merlin would have defeated him by now. Unless somehow this wizard is also a superpower, I can't imagine they have remotely close to merlin spell skill, so they simply couldn't fight back in strategic combat. It appears merlin is high men and high men magicians plus high wizard skill is brutal. More importantly even if they can fight back merlin isn't taking noticeable hits to his mana so I don't think he can have another active war going.) That's why I'm guessing the super bad start. I'm aware I didn't give most of that info though. I do agree on who the likely candidates are though.

[Nelphine]

Hum. How long will it take Merlin to reach SoM? He's making almost 4 times as much power as I am (is this before or after his impossible bonus? Since the bonus is 350% according to the current game mechanics thread, that SEEMS unlikely - I only have 6 cities, only one of which has a wizards tower. I have 3 myrror nodes and 2 arcanus nodes. Surely he has more power than that?); his skill is only around twice as high. Neither of us have archmage, but it takes more and more to get skill up. But it's impossible so he gets a skill bonus. I have virtually no mana maintenance, but he has a HUGE discount on maintenance (80%) and casting (60%) due to impossible, plus he has mana focusing. I imagine he spends less (relatively) than I do on mana. He's also got astrologer just to cast even more things.

So, we both have sage master. IF we assume he spends roughly the same relative amounts as I do, he should get SoM by 1421. But it's impossible so he gets it 30% faster than that, so, late 1418. Of course, I can only expect him to get MORE power in the intervening time. So my guess is he could research it by, oh, early 1417?

Ugh. That means I have to be in position to banish him by mid 1417 at the latest (with astrologer, and based on previous games, plus innate impossible ridiculousness, I'm expecting to have 3-5 turns at most to interrupt the spell cast, or somehow get sorcery, and get spell blast, before then) - and I don't even know where his capital is yet. Nor do I have ANY naval capacity on arcanus yet.

[Nelphine]

I also totally forgot archangels have windwalker. Merlin just got even nastier for trying to get off my continent (archangel carrying stone giants, great lizards, paladins, high men magicians, high men pike men, and heroes). Sss'ra has behemoths, and Merlin has cast herb mastery. Dec 1412.

I think i have to spam summon hero until I get Jaer. Otherwise I'm going to be pinned too hard and I'll die.

Except I finally used lion heart and cleared out the last lair on my continent. So no reliable way to kill off summoned heroes instantly.

I almost think Jaer deserves to be a champion. Far better than any champion out of the box just because windwalker is that good.

Also I was wrong - and very lucky. Merlin is 6 nature 6 life. so only Raven has sorcery (6) with 4 nature and 2 chaos with it. But he has archmage. If Merlin occupies me too long Raven might just win. Although unlikely. He's simply too far behind (meaning he's barely keeping up with my power production and spell power, and his army is much weaker) If I can deal with Merlin at all, I should be able to crush Raven. Suppress magic would be SUPER bad though.

[Seravy]

All the graphs shown are after the AI bonus applied. I'll play some more impossible games and after that I'll update those numbers in that thread, they are way too outdated.


Don't forget the AI does not push the research bar up to 100%, ever. They'll either spend on mana if their skill is low, or skill if they have too much mana. They don't rush for Spell of Mastery.