[SPOILERS] Auro is juggling with icicles again

[Aurorarcher]

T108 pictures:

First Maelstorming alll the units. Cairo had separated his Morois to avoid getting collateral from fireballs. With Maelstorm and some combat promotions for spell damage I was able to damage over 25 units at once. Many of them got injuried over 25%.



After that fireballs went in. I didn't bother to take out city defenses as my elementals had very good odds (around 50% even attacking) so I figured I might even kill some with fireballs. Turns out I only killed one.



Then summons for cleanup. I also had to use some warriors. I avoided using PoWs because I knew Cairo would attack back especially if I were to fail with my slow spell. I kept one C2 ice mage free just for that.



End of turn stack. I was able to slow almost all units next to the city (only showing one stack but there were about 16 units next to city and 13 of them were slowed IIRC).



But turns out Cairo managed to attack out with a lot more units than I had expected.



Maybe by luck most of the troops lost slow (it's possible) or then you can use Burning Blood promotion while slowed to gain 1-movement (I think that is the case but not sure). So I lost my one of my weakest PoWs in his first defending (still C3 defending on hill... I don't know what the odds were but with injuried Morois they can't have been great, he had one C3 Moroi though, maybe he used that one?). Then I also lost one of my best mages with C4+ Ice II. I can't complain about Riuros; that guy beat 5 Morois and survived with 3 hp .

After that it was all pretty easy to eliminate Cairo as all the units were pretty much gone. This was pretty much his last chance to hurt me and he did indeed manage to kill something useful.



Things are getting interesting close to Bob. He is settling the mana site which I want as well.



There are two mud golems nearby to road the tile under the stack and also the tile where the lone warrior is (1W of the mana). Remember that golems can 1t roads. So Bob can settle 1W of the mana next turn if I don't do anything. And that prevents me settling the perfect spot. So I figured I could use my two fire II mages to kill that warrior and mud golem.



My first fireball had 65% chance to kill the warrior. Had I killed it, it would've been easy to cleanup the mud golem away. Now he can still road it and settle the city. Though if he does I will just hit the city with fireballs so not sure what Bob will do. He could also hit my stack (but only with warriors). I don't think he'll be that stupid though. I chose fireballs here because WGs are really weak against fire damage (-50%). I have about 5 mages around here and more to come. In the south where most of my stack is I have about 10 mages. I will probably move those west just to attack superjm as soon as I can. His power is very low still.

[Aurorarcher]

Bob settled, so did I. I threw 3 fireballs in, the last one killed his WG at 25% odds. Apparently the -50% resistance to fire damage means I'll get +50% strenght agains his WGs (I forgot it worked this way around). So now my otherwise Empower III fireballs are actually +80% strenght against WGs making their total strenght 4*1,8 = 7,2.



Next turn I can really hit that city, I think he'll retreat. I don't see many reinforcements behind... maybe they're stuck on superjm's front (for some reason)? They don't even have OBs while superjm and I have OBs (which gives me 24 cpt).

Scouting superjm's front city.



This is looking tasty. I can be on that hill in 2 turns. 3rd turn I take the city unless something happens. I won't show him my intentions until very last... he should know I'm coming though. Some of my units are badly injuried (like that one PoW) but I just used Regeneration; that'll make them able to heal while moving.

[Aurorarcher]

Turns are flying fast. Hard to keep up with reports (not sure there are many reading either). Anyway, here's a set of pics without text. Some things I didn't know before about the mechanism of how the game picks the defender (or maybe I did actually... it picks the one with highest base strenght if there are no hero/chenelling promotions?). Anyway, when attacking with fireballs against Bob the WGs always pop as top defender even when they get worse odds than his warriors would. Later when I attacked his other city the WG had 25% odds to win while his top warrior had 10% to win! That's pretty big difference. Anyway here are the pics.
















Trivia question: Why did I place my summons like shown in the picture?

[DaveV]

Here's a link to my theory on how the defender is chosen: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...#pid677724

Trivia question: Why did I place my summons like shown in the picture?

I assume your "ass" sign isn't just random bad language, so I'm going to guess: screening against assassins.

Still reading, by the way, although this is looking like a waste of everyone's time.

[Aurorarcher]

That's correct

Yeah, the ass is assassins. The only thing that really could kill my mages at this point (thought at the moment it'd kill my poor adept if it could reach my tile).

Waste of everyone's time... hmm, you're probably right about that. The outcome is obvious so if Bob/superjm don't feel like they want to play anymore let's just move on to... another game perhaps? Who knows. I don't mind playing on but obviously it's not very hard for me to continue bashing my opponents. For a moment I thought Bob was closer to Sorcery but he just got too many GEs instead of GS to bulb it.

EDIT: Considering the defender chosen, I think you're right about the actual strength deciding it. In my case WGs have very high actual strength.

[Aurorarcher]

I do know assassins pick the weakest target, but since chanelling I and II make adepts and mages unlikely to fight normally now they're very high on the list I guess. So Bob and superjm managed to kill two mages. Superjm had Aero's chosen unit (I think first level 5 assassin or something?), which I killed.



I think Bob just got a lucky win but superjm's hero certainly had 99% odds. He can use the illusion double of his hero as well, but that guy can't kill. It can however damage my unit down to 10 hp. I also had another very weak host of einherjar in the stack where my mage died. Is there a way to calculate when my mage will be the target and when my badly injuried summons? In this case it cannot be actual strenght that decides which unit his assassin will pick I guess?

Anyway, I razed Startcraft and took 2 cities from Bob... superjm's recons are actually making me think some now that they are 3-movers. This underlines the fact how important mobility is! As Bob has no mobility promotions and his units are so slow I can just leave my mages almost anywhere while in superjm's territory I have to be very careful.

[DaveV]

According to the manual, each channeling promotion reduces the chance of defending by 25%, so a Channeling II unit should be treated as exactly half strength for purposes of determining the defender. I've had redlined catapults killed by assassins in a stack including Channeling II units; I think the units in the stack are sorted into order by defensive strength and the assassin attacks the unit at the end of that list.