[SPOILERS] Fall From Heaven II PBEM V Lurker's Exclusive Thread

[Ichabod]

I was heavily considering going Varn Gosam of the Sidar in the PBEM4 game

dunno why i didn't tbh

Edit: and going spiritual/charismatic

I had the same idea :neenernee

[Selrahc]

For example. The first spell/effect cast being 'escape' puts the puppet back in the capital and then he casts the rest. Some spell made the 3x3 square around my capital hell terrain.

That, as well as snowfall, is about the worst possible combo you can get. But at least with puppets you aren't accidentally teleporting your archmage back to the city!

Yeah him too. I guess you could say Cardith/Cassiel have Sprawling/Agnostic to gimp them a bit. But Varn is just ridiculous. He even starts with a good initial trait as his adaptive one.

Both sprawling and agnostic are civ traits rather than leader traits.

I quite like the method we used in PBEM 4. Adaptive leaders are forced to choose a single trait and stick with it all game. Makes them good leaders, but only in the league of people like Kandros Fir and Hanah the Irin. Losing the adaptiveness of the adaptive trait really cuts it down to size.

There is still the issue that both Cardith and Varn have very good early game traits, even if they have to settle down into a single trait afterwards.

[uberfish]

Now the wait to see if the players manage to break the start positions

[Dantski]

oh good lord, why did Sareln settle in place? Wouldn't it have been so much better to move 1 tile NW W or SW?

[uberfish]

Looking at the map again, I improved that Sheaim start position significantly from what it originally was... and I actually think it still wasn't quite enough even with the Sepulchre/copper/horse access. The map generation script really didn't like them. I hope Serdoa gets some luck with the lairs and so on to even things out. Apologies in advance.

[uberfish]

Since everyone is gearing up to explore lairs... I'll note here that I was originally going to place Held 5 str barbarian units on the Pyre/Sepulchre/Well to try and prevent the game being ruined by turn 5 mistforms. I decided against it because it'd give the Clan an unfair advantage.

[Ichabod]

Since everyone is gearing up to explore lairs... I'll note here that I was originally going to place Held 5 str barbarian units on the Pyre/Sepulchre/Well to try and prevent the game being ruined by turn 5 mistforms. I decided against it because it'd give the Clan an unfair advantage.

Clan of Embers can't explore dungeons, forts, lairs nor epic lairs...

They can only explore cemiteries...

You could also give the HN promotion to the unit, meaning that Clan units would have to kill it.

[The Reverend Doctor]

I just hope that Letus Frigum is hidden somewhere in Acheron's backyard.

Pretty perceptive.

I guess Iskender will be happy with that aspect of the map.

[uberfish]

Clan of Embers can't explore dungeons, forts, lairs nor epic lairs...

They can only explore cemiteries...

You could also give the HN promotion to the unit, meaning that Clan units would have to kill it.

One to save for next time then

[Selrahc]

I think the Amurites kind of lucked out in not being next to the Balseraphs or the Sheaim. It means the two other leaders most focussed on arcane power won't be able to launch a preemptive strike on the Amurites before they get their worldspell in play as a trump card.

If I was Bob or Serdoa I would be wanting to bribe someone into taking out that threat, if at all possible.

Of course if someone else takes on the Amurites, the worldspell is a powerful incentive for the non-arcane civs to give them sanctuary. It might be worth the Clan or Luchuirp throwing the Amurites a city and keeping them safe if it gives them the ability to press the off switch for everyone else's spells.

Perhaps most importantly, SL wants to attack Serdoa out of fear that the Sheaim will eventually grow too powerful. He's afraid to do so however, because his weak-to-fire Wood Golems are about the worst UU ever to pit against the PZ.

A pyre zombie only gets 1 point of fire damage in their attack. So I don't think it is crippling... On open terrain A C1 bronze Pyre Zombie is S6.6 against an E3 Wood Golem's S7.8. Undamaged, the golem still has the edge. Of course with the explosions, the Golem won't be undamaged for long.

Now the solution I would have for that is to bring along a lot of repair adepts so that on the attack the Golems will be strong. To make sure that the stack doesn't die on defence would need lots of sacrificial warrior units. If the Pyre Zombies are winning the battles, they aren't exploding. And as long as not enough explode in one turn to completely kill the stack the adepts should be able to repair the golems back to full health.

It would be gruelling and dangerous combat, but if done before Serdoa gets too many Pyre Zombies it could work.