FFH II PBEM VIII Lurker's Lurking Thread (For Lurkers) [SPOILERS]

[Bobchillingworth]

In this case Bob ... should last days be enabled for every PBEM?

Well, no, if you read my post you'll note that I think that even Last Days enabled wasn't really enough to make the Armageddon Rush viable. You would certainly need it on to have any chance of success, though. But as uberfish points out, mostly all you'll do is make the game unfun for everyone by hitting people with blight before anybody can have reasonable counters set up. Kind of like deploying Statsis, except this one affects you too.

[Selrahc]

So I wrote up an alternative view last week and it was forum eaten. Since it took ages to write, I was disheartened. I'll keep it briefer this time.

In a 4 player, last days enabled setting, it takes roughly 80 turns to end the world. I.E to get from 0-100 on the AC.

If somebody is expecting this, they can probably get to Hyborem. If they aren't... I'm not convinced. That's basically what the PBEM with Bob showed. Since he wanted to evade rather than fight, that is the limit to my conclusions. If he'd gone for any alternate strategy which involved meeting the AC rush head on, I'd be in a better position to talk here.

Because the thing is, Hyborem rushes aside, I am not sure at all how well humans will deal with Armageddon. Can they ride it out building warriors in their base and hoping the Horsemen cooperate by being dumb? I don't know. With the AC 90-100 events happening in a rapid 1-2 punch I would *certainly* say that at least 1 player would be eliminated. But with one less target, that then leaves 5 incredibly powerful units rampaging over just two people, who just had their own armies wiped out around 10 turns ago and have almost no tech beyond maybe... bronze axes. My gut says everybody is wiped from that, unless they become Hyborem or manage somehow to fight.

In retrospect, I should have set the game up with two AI's involved to normalize the AC count and make target selection more dispersed for the Horsemen. And possibly banned Hyborem rushing. The scenario we played out was a fun little race, but I think Hyborem rushing from the get go is fundamentally different to either starting a Hyborem rush in response to AC raise, or playing a Civ which is bad at Hyborem rushing. In the game we played, Bob got Hyborem right as the AC hit 60. If he *started* pushing for Hyborem as the Prophecy is built, he would have had to weather high AC for a lot longer. Even in the few turns he took pressure from the Horsemen, things were looking quite hairy for the Lanun.

I think in 4 player, last days, Armageddon rush is viable. It requires the opponent not mount a credible threat prior to T75.

The various "counter" civs we talked about during the game, I'm not sure how viable they are. Illians would be kind of a nightmare to play against on a more standard land map. They mount a very early, very powerful offence, and slow down the rush immensely. Everyone else? I'd still try this strategy on them. Since most rushes seem to happen around about the time the Armageddon rush will be hitting the high AC, I think this certainly could be a viable strategy in the highly specific 4(or 5)-player Last Days scenario. Outside of that, you're drifting right into the area where early wars *normally* happen while painting a big target on yourself.


I think the settings I played the game with Bob under were pretty fair, considering we're trying to simulate a game where Bob doesn't get told before hand that I'm AC rushing. In what normal game are you going to rush for prophecy as a non-clan Civ or pick Charadon of the Doviello on a continents map? Starting on separate continents was mainly to get the effects of a PBEM against multiple humans. A duel may as well be always war, including a lot of early aggression. A multiplayer PBEM with diplo generally has a little bit of lag before that kind of stuff starts.

So imagine the scenario. Turn ~57, you get the notification that prophecy of Ragnarok has been completed. It's a last days PBEM with the clan. What do you do? Hunker down? Mount an attack(presuming you know the location of the clan)? Try to get Hyborem in the ~20 turns before armageddon?


Experimenting with AC rushing does highlight that what Ravus has done isn't realllllly an AC rush. With Prophecy not completed until 125(well after armageddon should have been nearly at hand under a proper AC rush, even in these conditions). It's more some sort of Hybrid AC-Hyborem Rush, almost tailored to getting Hyborem into the game under good conditions. Which makes it odd since Ravus wasn't planning on playing as Hyborem.

Semi-fresh views done. I could probably say some more, if people are interested. The PBEM against Bob was certainly useful for giving me some baselines if I ever revisit the idea. If anybody can beat T57 prophecy by a noticeable amount(I cost myself a few turns due to having to hold back my score from lapping over the barb limit, but if you can get Prophecy at T45 or something without any particular event/hut luck, I'd like to know.)

[Tasunke]

Imho a strong option for a human wanting to survive an Armageddon rush non evasively

non-cheaply

is to make a Formation 2, March Saverous


I mean, certainly Hyborem rushing is a strong counter, but really imho its more a synergetic co-strategy than a counter (as in the Hyborem rush player might want to be in alliance with the AC rush player ... at least until the end of the game)

Of course, in PBEM's there is only ever one winner, so the AC rush player may not want to team with the Hyborem player ... etc

[Bobchillingworth]

Eh? Saverous will only be 5 base strength, since he gets +2 unholy which will be meaningless against the Horsemen. Keelyn skeleton spam would be an option though, at least in regular FFH. Even Bubsy can only kill four units a turn, and as demonstrated in the Perpy SG, puppets are surprisingly adept at taking out horsemen.



One other comment on the viability of an Armageddon Rush- I agree with Selrahc that it makes a huge difference whether a player knows in advance whether they are going to be facing an AC push or not. But then I wonder- in a game with Last Days enabled, and someone playing as the Clan, will anyone be willing to assume that the Clan are not planning to summon the horsemen? It's like if you're in a game with the Illians- sure, Auric might not be going for a PoW rush, maybe he wants to grab Wilboman instead or something, but you can reliably assume that this will not be the case for a significant majority of games.

[Selrahc]

Imho a strong option for a human wanting to survive an Armageddon rush non-cheaply is to make a Formation 2, March Saverous

That's a great idea... for T100+

Formation 2 requires C3 and Formation 1. That's a level 6 unit, which is 26 turns of waiting. Saverous himself requires teching up to Mind Stapling and then building him, which is a loftier tech goal than Prophecy of Ragnarok.

Do you think you could build him and get him adequately promoted before Armageddon hit?

[Selrahc]

Eh? Saverous will only be 5 base strength, since he gets +2 unholy which will be meaningless against the Horsemen.

The trick with that is that he also denies the bonuses of the horsemen, and that Formation 2 is ridiculously good at killing horse units. Yersinia and Ars really hate losing death, unholy and poison damage. All the horsemen hate Formation 2.

A C5 Buboes will only count as S10 when attacking Formation 2 Saverous, since unit specific promos like formation and shock actually reduce the strength of the unit being fought.

[Tasunke]

I think that Saverous + Drown spam is a lot better than any other horseman defense for the same number of beakers and hammers. Not saying that it will always be possible to get there before the Horsemen rush ...

but even just Drowns supporting your warriors is better than having Axes. (saved my skin in an Immortal hippus game years ago)

1) immune to Horsemen bonus strengths

2) Avatar of Wrath is not immune to Tsunami, and comes later than the other horsemen

3) Saverous and all non-living units are immune to Buboes' "rage" spell

4) immune to Wraith's death damage (spawned from Ars Moriendi)

5) non livings are immune to Stephanos's "Command" promos.

6) a combat 5 Saverous is a "10" vs a Yersina's what ... "15"?

7) Yersina's cannibalize won't work on Drown (or skeletons)

8) skeletons are only 2 str vs horsemen ... which is a lot weaker than Drowns/Saverous ... BUT can really help if you have extra beakers and hammers to spend (death adepts)

Therefore, my thesis is that OO is the best 'fighting' Armageddon defense for the following reasons

-> strong undead soldiers (drown)

-> hero demon (saverous)

-> Tsunami to help whittle down Avatar of Wrath

-> no other religion has these sorts of things

-> you can always add skeleton spamming later


Depending on circumstances ... maybe you could skeleton spam before getting Saverous, but assuming you can get Saverous out before the horsemen attack you ... then geting Skeletons first is just delaying Saverous's promotions.

(Saverous strategy is probably best with a Financial leader)

[SPOILER][SPOILER][SPOILER]thank you Selrahc

[/SPOILER][/SPOILER][/SPOILER]

[Tasunke]

I don't think Ravus should be so open with Sareln ... he already 'betrayed' him once (even if it was only for the Armageddon annoyance factor).

Still, if Sareln continues to supply Mackoti with info/ or even go to war with Ravus ... I don't think it would help Sareln any.

I mean, Sareln already has a long NAP with Mackoti, so he isn't really obliged to help him if he no longer considers Ravus to be a thread. (unless its a clause in their NaP or something)

Probably Sareln's best move would be to form a coalition with either Hippus/Bannor OR Hyborem ... Although I guess if he DOES team up with Mackoti he will be a shoe in for 2nd place, but personally I think that'd be rather boring.

[Selrahc]

Probably Sareln's best move would be to form a coalition with either Hippus/Bannor OR Hyborem ... Although I guess if he DOES team up with Mackoti he will be a shoe in for 2nd place, but personally I think that'd be rather boring.

Bob's right. Sareln can ride this position into a peaceful victory pretty easily. He wants Mackoti locked into war with Ravus. But more than anything, he does not want to give Mackoti a chance to break the NAP. Mackoti is really prickly and has broken NAP's before for very minor discrepancies when it suited him in game. Sareln needs to work full pelt on peaceful victory, and not give Mackoti any excuse to snuff him out.

[Bobchillingworth]

Of note, Sareln told me a week or so in chat that he has 30+ PoL in his army, in addition to miscellaneous swords and hunters and ancient crap. So he isn't entirely defenseless militarily either, although he still really shouldn't be getting into a fight with Mack.


Last I heard, he was thinking of fighting either Yellow or Ravus, since he needs one more node. Killing Ravus might be a mistake, since the longer Mack fights him the better (plus he could actually fight back if Mack pulls out / has his local forces wiped), but I doubt that Yellow could withstand the Ljo for long.