Test games played

[zitro1987]

9 death, specialist, omniscient, sagemaster - orcs

Feb 1410 - 310 power, first place in graph with barely 1st place in spell power and army strength. I had early research of werewolves (and bloodlust for an early war) but most of my great expansion was simply conquering 2 neutrals very early and getting orcs settling all over the place. The race economic potential is very impressive with fast growth and all building access (and omniscient). With werewolves, I don't need to have them even create their mediocre units. Eventually I had 2 towns recruiting wyvern riders (good synergy with black prayer) and researched wraiths (tho I got zombie mastery around 1407). With wraiths and wyvern riders, I attacked a capital that was partially defended stupidly by sprites and won (of course, it deterred me from using my werewolf doom stacks, but still ...sprites??)

I think omniscient is at its best with death, especially with a race like orcs or beastmen. It helps from the very beginning with klackon-like production and when cities are well developed, the production is insane - helping you build wizard towers and amplifying towers without shelling cash.

I think omniscient is at its worst with nature. The effect is not very noticeable until later. I recommend the bonus being 1/3 max pop per extra book, not a pathetic 1/4 max pop, allowing up to 5 max pop with 10 books.

[teelaurila]

Omniscient nature worked ok with nomads, to cover for the lack of granaries. Max pop increase from 15 to 20 isn't that noticeable, but 10 to 15 is. Adamantium (transmute) rangers and griffons were not bad. But it was a rainbow build with red and white.

[Nelphine]

Omniscient nature (and chaos) and dwarves is also incredible for getting hamlets on ores.

[Seravy]

Started a new game, 10 Nature, Alchemy, Artificer, Orcs. Plan is to test the Nature hero strategy which I haven't really tried yet - merging, regenerating heroes, and/or soul linkers with summons.
Started on a fairly large continent with no other wizards. Found 3 neutrals (Gnoll, Elf, High Men), and a few other targets for Sprites but no node. Finished researching Giant Spiders, unsure what I'm going to use them for without an enemy wizard on the continent, but better have them ready anyway. Sooner or later nagas or other intercontinental units will show up anyway. Tenshi and Silver used Just Cause, so while I have no contact with anyone yet, it's very likely there is a Chaos/Life and a Sorcery/Life wizard in the game.

[zitro1987]

I'm getting ridiculously ahead with my death orc game. I noticed my main opponent (playing life) is protecting her capital with 1 hero and 8 enchanted nomad magicians in year 1410. That's surprisingly weak for expert.

[Nelphine]

I want to try a game against the AI, but customize all 4 to use the builds I would use (1 for each realm, still leaving only 1 myrran wizard and 4 arcanus wizards).

However, I would need to change the starting spells, and force the chaos wizard to pour everything into research at the start of the game until they had researched their first spell (and choose that spell).

Are either of those things doable via the tweaker?

(Personally, I don't think I'll be able to remotely compare to the chaos wizard, if I can get that research change, but that's ok, that's why it's a silly one off.)

Life: Lawful Perfectionist
Barbarian
4 life, Alchemy, Astrologer, Specialist, Spellweaver, Tactician, Warlord
Endurance, Heavenly Light, Heroism

Nature: Aggressive Militarist
Nomad
9 Nature, Archmage, Conjuror, Specialist
Conjure Centaurs, Resist Elements, War Bears, Water Walking, Web
Giant Spiders, Land Linking

Sorcery: Peaceful Pragmatist
High Men
8 Sorcery, Charismatic, Specialist, Spellweaver
Nagas, Focus Magic, Blur, Resist Magic, Confusion
Aura Of Majesty, Aether Binding
Uranus' Blessing

Death: Ruthless Expansionist
High Elf
3 Death, 2 Sorcery, 2 Life, Channeler, Conjuror, Cult Leader, Specialist
Ghouls, Drain Life, Focus Magic, Heavenly Light

Chaos: Maniacal Theurgist
Dwarf
8 Chaos, Myrran, Omniscient, Sage Master, Specialist
Fire Bolt, Wall of Fire, Shatter, Warp Creature, Fire Elemental
Chimera (need to research this as first spell), Mystic Surge
Flame Strike

[Seravy]

You can change the starting spells by changing what spell is/isn't researched. You can also edit the "available for research" list - however it's important to make sure it's actually consistent with which spells are marked as such in the spell list itself
You can change the AI's power distribution but the AI will readjust it every turn - not sure if after or before it takes effect, so it might not work. It's probably better to just make the remaining RP cost zero on the turn you'd expect them to finish the research otherwise, then subtract that much from their MP.
If you don't want broken diplomacy, you have to manually update all relations between all wizards, both starting and effective. You also need to manually update the primary and secondary realm fields although I'm unsure if the current AI even uses that anymore.

[Nelphine]

Yeah 1920 research is a bit too high to simply remove that much mana on the appropriate turn. They couldn't get that high without lacking mana for some previous turns, which reduces what overland spells they could cast. Ah well, pipe dreams.

Edit: finished editting the above post with the builds I used to beat lunatic (though I have changed sorcery a touch. This is the build I WANT to win with..)

[Seravy]

Finally had some time continuing my game.
Settled most of my continent with only a single neutral on a peninsula being not mine, and red has a Nomad outpost on a small area at the edge cut off from the rest of the continent by lairs. Two wizards made it to my place : Blue is Silver, Lawful Expansionist 5 Life 5 Sorcery Alchemy, Artificer, she planted a high men outpost on a good spot so I razed it, and Red is Flandre, Aggressive Theurgist with 4 Chaos, 5 Death, 1 Nature and 1 Life, Archmage. She declared war due to the low starting relation plus my army strength being reasonably good.

For now I'm summoning spiders, and producing mithril bowmen plus some wolf riders in my gnoll city, to improve my defenses. I already own 12 cities which is a huge number in 1404 for a Fair land size game, so I don't need to worry about conquest - defending what I grabbed should be the priority while trying to mass as many Spiders as possible. Filling garrisons should enable me to raise my taxes to max as well - I'm already making 99 gold a turn and most of my new cities don't even have their marketplace yet so I expect a huge amount of money, especially when the road network completes. There are still 2 more spots left for more cities on top of the current 12 and the red one I'm going to take over eventually.

The best news? Red and Blue just started a war so they probably won't send serious troops in my direction, and there is no sign of the third player.

[zitro1987]

Playing life is fairly tough in terms of getting your historian graph making you look good, or earning 'power'.

Playing the same usual expert, fair, 3 wizards type of game on arcanus. With 9 life books, specialist, omniscient, and alchemist with high men. The tactic is get stream of life early to remove high men unrest, boost towns and max out tax. With omniscient and alchemist and prosperity, I pretty much have unlimited gold (thus unlimited mana), so I can use the little 'power' I have for research and skill.

But the challenge was being stuck on a fairly small island with mediocre territory, making some concessions and having losses due to early wars. I got only 1 hero which is painful for life. I had to survive getting one town to crank out 'knight' units and another to crank out 'priest'. In the meantime, traveling between planes helped get a few more towns in and once I researched 'altar of battle' and 'inspirations' I started cranking out tons of elite paladins and my only high elf town recruiting elite pegasi because playing mono-life high men has trouble reaching shadow demons and other fliers.


In 1415, I have 5-digit gold and mana pools, but my power level is still a pathetic 400. I'm ranked 2nd out of 4 at the moment - I think the extra skill and research and insane numbers of elite paladins helped that.