Yeah, the Svarts just don't have many good options for quickly or easily taking well-defended cities. Having to use illusions really sucks, since you can't rely on fireballs and other most summons to do your killing for you. I suppose that the intention is that they'll weaken city defenders enough for your assassins / whatevers to pick them off, but that's both inefficient and dangerous to your stack. The Svarts are exceedingly deadly in the field though, with illusion specters being nasty stack defenders unless you have death immunity / can dispel them, and Svart Rangers / Assassins being able to pick apart even late game stacks. Great support civ, less impressive on their lonesome.
|
New and improved Lurker thread - Now taking bribes :]
|
|
The point of illusionist is to ensure that your real units get kills, in a stack vs stack fight it's not a real disadvantage (since the summons all die most of the time anyway.) Not being able to pick off an isolated unit with summons alone could be annoying though.
So shadowwalk isn't as effective as I first thought as I didn't realise that it didn't include cultural defences.
uberfish Wrote:The point of illusionist is to ensure that your real units get kills, in a stack vs stack fight it's not a real disadvantage (since the summons all die most of the time anyway.) Not being able to pick off an isolated unit with summons alone could be annoying though. I think it's a little bit more crippling than that, though. You can't take cities by wiping out the defenders with powered specters or any of the various elementals, which means that you will likely need to bring several additional units with your spellcasting stack to actually finish off wounded units. It also makes some of the summons much less useful- what's the point of a Wind Elemental, if it can't run deep into enemy lands and kill something, or Earth Elementals if all they can do is maim? Illusions *are* great stack defenders thanks to healing after combat, but only until someone gets Empy priests. Getting extra exp on your spellcasters or whatever by having them finish off wounded units isn't much of an advantage, since you'll either only get minimum exp from combat if the odds are great, or be risking difficult-to-replace units. Plus even regular summons are prone to dying but redlining their targets, if finishing off stuff with arcane units or whatever is really your thing.
Right, I think I'm done. Final version :
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14578363/other/f...wordWBSave Anything I've missed? Anything to fix?
Had a quick look, very interesting map.
1) East start position has ice mana in capital 5th ring, probably should be moved a bit so that everyone has to found an ice city to get it. North and south have gems in 5th ring. 2) Svart need a lot more forests in their area to be competitive 3) Hyborem rushing looks pretty scary here with his ability to use all that ice and a million barb units protecting him 4) Those million barb units are probably going to stop regular barbs and animals spawning. Not good, especially with a recon bonused civ in the game. uberfish Wrote:1) East start position has ice mana in capital 5th ring, probably should be moved a bit so that everyone has to found an ice city to get it. North and south have gems in 5th ring.The one million barbs on the ice is HN and on a scripts that will have them attack any unit or city planted on the ice. Some are also specifically set to pillage improvements built there. They will not enter the primary playing area because neither Wilbomen nor Ice Elementals can walk on desert and Mobius Witches are held. uberfish Wrote:2) Svart need a lot more forests in their area to be competitiveActually you're right, they could use some sort of a crutch, I'll place a forest on 50% of resources in their wedge. uberfish Wrote:3) Hyborem rushing looks pretty scary here with his ability to use all that ice and a million barb units protecting himAgain, these units are HN, they will attack Hyborem the same way animals usually do. I don't expect Hyborem spawned on Ice to have long lifespan. uberfish Wrote:4) Those million barb units are probably going to stop regular barbs and animals spawning. Not good, especially with a recon bonused civ in the game.Good point, I'll add some starting animals to roam around. Mardoc Wrote:Perhaps adding some lion/bear dens in the center area would help? Do those count as lairs for the purpose of the players' ban?Can do, I'm not sure what the spawn rate will be with this many barbarian units around, but worth a try. And no, they don't count as lairs and only give a handful of gold when cleared. |
