My sprite strategy

[Nelphine]

Question: did you get any hero offers up to 1407?

[Nelphine]

OMG just after I asked that, I got my FIRST hero offer! Alorra the Elven Archer, turn.. late 1415.. 999 gold. Boom!

[Catwalk]

I'm playing the first Omniscient map out of curiousity, based on your report. So far I have to disagree with your assessment that this is an unfair test of sprites. One unit of sprites can take out 8 phantom warriors in 3 turns and remain undamaged afterwards. That's a much better result than you'd get with War Bears or Ghouls. The same goes for Fire Elementals. Those two rewards help massively in boosting my early game. You're looking for excuses That said, I only looked into this file out of curiousity. I agree that the pure Nature setup is the best test, not least because it's easier to play and more consistent.

[Catwalk]

More examples of sprite dominance in the above game:
1) Small elf city guarded by 6 cavalry and 1 swordsmen = dead on the spot in no time with 1-2 sprites
2) Another lair with a phantom beast and 2 phantom warriors = 500 gold
3) I should be able to clear the first sorcery node by June 1402, and I see another 5 or so nodes that I can clear with modest losses once I have big sprite stacks

This is indeed a great map, but it's an exceptional map for sprites. I predict an easy victory, will try to quickly play it through tomorrow.

[zitro1987]

3x Nature (Sprites + Earth Lore)
2x Life (Heavenly Light)
1x Chaos
1x Death
2 Spellweaver
1 Omniscient
1 Conjurer
1 Cult Leader

Really? I see the very strong push early on might work well here, but in the end, your AI opponents might be able to catch up with you with a higher selection of advanced spells.


Given Seravy's playing style, I suspect the following will yield better results:

5 nature, 5 sorcery, conjurer, archmage + gnolls - 
*strong melee race benefiting from resist magic. 
*Sprites still absurdly good with conjurer, focus magic if needed for high-armor enemies
*Guaranteed giant spiders/cockactrices for strong focus magic combos. 
*Resist Magic + Great Lizard combo.
*Select aether binding as guaranteed, have a stronger late game / goes well with archmage

4 nature, 5 sorcery, conjurer or archmage, charismatic, famous, High Men  - 
*High men benefits from resist magic and focus magic (magicians)
*High men gets you warships - flying resist-magic warships is the next stage of flying ranged unit.
*High men also give you paladins
*cockactrices/giant spiders combo with focus magic, great lizard with resist magic
*famous/charismatic blend well, give you more focus-magic heroes, give you tons of cheap recruits to protect your cities, keep you hanging on from wizards declaring war for a bit longer.
*Select aether binding as guaranteed

Other nature/sorcery combos (or maybe nature/death combo), something with spellweaver

[Seravy]

3) I should be able to clear the first sorcery node by June 1402, and I see another 5 or so nodes that I can clear with modest losses once I have big sprite stacks

Are we talking about the same map?
Those nodes all had Storm Giants or Djinn or Air Elemental and stuff like that. Not compatible with Sprites. The only other compatible one is the "Many Sprites, Few War Bears" one near the capital.
Also, I haven't found that one node that early. It's pretty far and on the edge of the continent. You got lucky with targeting Earth Lores, or idk. It doesn't really matter, node power was marginal, most of my power came from buildings and heavenly lights. The node was like, 20 out of my 300 power.

I should add that I didn't have large sprites stacks and couldn't afford moderate losses until 1404 - casting Heavenly Light on everything, plus Earth Lores used up most of my skill. I had like, 5 sprites or so total until I summoned 9 for that Nature node with many sprites.

2) Another lair with a phantom beast and 2 phantom warriors = 500 gold

As I said 500 gold is irrelevant in a game where you get 150+ per turn from taxes - and you do because you get 60% of the map empty and ready for you without enemy presence.

Either way I have two problems with this game :
-There are no enemy wizards at all - I actually thought I misclicked on the number of opponents or rolled the elusive one in a million chance 3 Myrran wizards game.
-I didn't spend a single gold on settlers (Your guide said to spend it on shrines etc). In new outposts, you only need 200 gold for a sawmill, and the rest of the buildings will get built automatically for free. Yes, you can spend 200 gold to have that shrine immediately instead of 8 turns later (and I did do that), but even at the crazy boosted effectiveness, you only get 40 additional power by that. Converting the gold to mana instead is more profitable. Ultimately, there are only 3 religious buildings you can get, and they can be built without gold in a reasonable amount of time. So...assuming I had 10 cities, 2000 of the gold I had actually contributed towards building my power base, and I earned way more than 2000 from taxes. Meaning the money from sprites had nothing to do with having the 300+ power base. I suppose it contributed to raising my skill but with 300 power income, even if the total mana looted was 3000 (doubt that) it's still a marginal amount of 10 turns of income.

[Seravy]

Completed playing the first "conjurer" map. As far as my games go, it's 1:0 for the defense but I won't spoil the game until everyone finishes their own game(s).
It's 2 am now so the next 2 maps will have to be done tomorrow.

[Catwalk]

3) I should be able to clear the first sorcery node by June 1402, and I see another 5 or so nodes that I can clear with modest losses once I have big sprite stacks

Are we talking about the same map?
Those nodes all had Storm Giants or Djinn or Air Elemental and stuff like that. Not compatible with Sprites. The only other compatible one is the "Many Sprites, Few War Bears" one near the capital.
Also, I haven't found that one node that early. It's pretty far and on the edge of the continent. You got lucky with targeting Earth Lores, or idk. It doesn't really matter, node power was marginal, most of my power came from buildings and heavenly lights. The node was like, 20 out of my 300 power.

Few Giant Spiders + Few War Bears = victory with 3 or 4 sprites lost.
Storm Giant + Many Phantom Warriors = victory with 4 sprites lost (if there's 1 storm giant)
Doom Bat + Fire Elemental = victory with 1 sprite lost (if there's 1 doom bat, else more)
Many Sprites = this one is actually tougher, and predicted loot is lower

2) Another lair with a phantom beast and 2 phantom warriors = 500 gold

As I said 500 gold is irrelevant in a game where you get 150+ per turn from taxes - and you do because you get 60% of the map empty and ready for you without enemy presence.

But you get it within the first 12 turns or so. 500 gold at that point is HUGE! Or in the words of the POTUS: It's YUGE!

I have to run, will try to do more testing on Monday or so.[/quote]

[MrBiscuits]

I never seem to get lairs/nodes/towers that I can use sprites with. My latest game has the following nearby:

Dungeon - many great lizards and a few sprites
Sorcery Node - many air elemental and a few phantom warriors
Sorcery Node - storm giants and air elementals
Chaos Node - many chaos spawn and a few chimera
Nature node - many stone giants and a few cockatrices
2 Towers - many angel and a few unicorns
Lair - few ghouls
Lair few hell hounds

Apart from the hell hounds lair sprites don't seem to help against any of the others. What am I doing wrong here?

[Catwalk]

MrBiscuits, maps like yours do happen. I've rolled a large number of maps, and I think results like yours are rare. Do you have nearby neutral cities you can conquer? These are also top priority targets.

Do you use Earth Lore? You only list 9 targets, it's often worthwhile traveling a little bit to get to the good targets. That said, it does look like bad luck in your recent game.