Test games played

[Seravy]

It's not working. I'm losing Myrran cities at a faster rate than I gain them.
...also lost my capital. 7 turns to return but at least I'll have a draconian capital and that puts the unrest to more acceptable levels...maybe. Or maybe not, the problem is, having no units in the cities.

[Seravy]

The Myrran wizard learned Pestilence. There really is no point continuing...

I think what went wrong was, I should have bought a fantastic stables and built 2 stacks of pegasai from gold instead of spending it on magicians and stag beetles. Those could have eliminated incoming stacks more effectively, and possibly even attack cities in the process. My Shadow Demons strategy was working on Myrror, but I couldn't afford summoning them there after some time, and one stack wasn't enough.

[Seravy]

Next game.
Going to try the barbarian rush.
Extreme, all settings on medium. If I win, might try Impossible next.


Alchemy, Warlord, Tactician - all the early military retorts.
Astrologer - We are going to get a lot of nodes, better if spells don't get countered. Also this is a nice mid/late game retort in case we don't conquer late game races.
2 Life, 2 Nature, 2 Death.
Heroism (need those elite Berserkers), Wraith Form (must be able to leave continent), Earth Lore (need to find targets. Sprites are tempting though but Berserkers should do better in nodes.)

Not a fan of playing so few books - if I don't win by rushing and don't find books, I'm going to lose.

On turn 1 I check how much Omniscient is helping. 2 extra production and 1 gold. Meh. Will be better eventually.

Healing, Holy Armor, Sprites and Web in research. Nice but I won't be able to afford 100 RP any time soon with this wizard. Nearby Nature node with few Cockatrices. While berserkers have low resist, they are capable of killing these anyway due to high figures. Major losses expected though. Cavalry can't do it though.

Second earth lore reveals lots of ocean. Not lucky. I'm probably on an island. 3rd Earth Lore confirms it. I need a ship. Barbarian outpost shows up on the adjacent continent. That's where I'll need to go ASAP.
I send the boat to investigate while the rest of the 9 cavalry are produced. I did the ship first because it has no maintenance. The outpost belongs to Flandre - Tactician, Omniscient, Archmage, 5 Chaos, 5 Death. I'm suddenly not so confident in my chances, my low resistances will hurt. Probably lucky it's the first wizard and won't be able to cast more than one spell per combat - if they did more it would hurt a lot. Also, Ruthless Perfectionist.

Easily conquered the outpost which already grew to 1 pop.

Found their capital. 5 Ghouls and 3 Swordsmen. I doubt 9 Cavalry can beat that with their 4 resistance. Maybe if I had 2 stacks of 9 Cavalry...

Many Fire Giants or few Storm Giants - not the things I want to fight using only cavalry either. Will need to use the 2x9 on the enemy capital if I want any progress here I think.

...they have berserkers and a dwarf hero. I can't help to think the plan failed. Have to attack a small stack heading towards the conquered city. They slaughter the ghouls easily - maybe I underestimated them. Should have attacked the capital while it only had 5 ghouls.

...meanwhile the AI used Wall of Fire on their city. Fortunately the ghouls go outside while stepping backwards. I manage to kill two of them, and lose the 9 cavalry. All of them get raised as undead. Nope, cavalry does not work on ghouls. Game over.
(ok, I could still play but from this position, I see no reason. The only enemy I can target just gained a whole army, I have no units, and started on an island, and there are no nodes to attack either. The closest other landmass is a dozen tiles away.)

I'll try one more time.

[Nelphine]

Yeah. Its really reliant on a) lairs and (to a much lesser extent) getting bless. I've been finding that I had a (very long) lucky streak when I started the barbarian rush - 12 or 15 games in a row with multiple good lairs for my cavalry to take. It was enough that I took it to be the norm.

But, see my game 2 challenge for what happens when there aren't any. (And yup ghouls got me in that one too.)

[Seravy]

Second attempt, everything the same.

Mithril on my starting city. Can't use it...but I also have Coal, nice.

3x Just Cause happens - Vanilla, Silver and Reimu are in the game. Unless conflicts forced the AI to use nondefault portraits, that means we have all Nature with a bit of life, Nature+Sorcery, and all Life in the game.

First Earth Lore reveals I'm in the middle of a fairly large continent this time.  Many Phantom beast on what appears another continent - in a Sorcery node. Also Sky Drake with many Phantom Beat in a tower. I think Sky Drake is fairly easy for Berserkers. A cave with few Sprites and few Bears. Cavalry might be able to do this one. Few Fire Giants and few Hell Hounds in a Chaos node - harder but might also be possible.


And another Just Cause. Seravy - that implies Sorcery/Life/Nature, not necessarily all three. 

Next Earth Lore. No enemy wizard to be seen - but this continent is huge. A neutral Orc city, 2 pop, close enough to make it my first target. Would be amazing to start here with a different race that can settle all this land.

I'll invest that extra 3 turns into a Granary - I think it'll be good for my productivity, as it means an extra worker.

Third Earth Lore - found Reimu's capital. Island start for her, but with Lizardmen. Eww. Kinda far to target, about 20-25 tiles to the north.

I send the first 6 Cavalry to the orc city. Overkill! I could have done this with only one or two. There is a lot of nice land on this continent, and orcs grow fast. I'm going to use this city entirely for building settlers and pop growth buildings.

Next EL reveals a neutral High Elf city. It's at the northmost tip of the continent, some 30 tiles from my start. And it has an Alchemist Guild and Forester's Guild, so full of strong longbowmen. Still, 9 Cavalry should be able to reach and conquer in a reasonable time.

A lizardmen settler shows up next to my capital. This time it's not the bug - it simply is that much better quality land than her island - pop 25 rivers. I suppose Lizardmen cities are not that much worse than Orcs, might as well steal them. If I want to attack the nodes and caves, I'll need a second 9 stack of Cavalry, as the first is busy with the Elf city. Good thing I made that Granary. -4 gold a turn is worrying though, I need a Marketplace first.

The wizard has 8 Life, 2 Death, 2 Sorcery, Famous. I trade Wraith Form for Ghouls and start summoning them. I already revealed most of the reasonably reachable map, so no need for more Earth Lores. I could put Heroism on cavalry but I think it's a it of a waste to use it on such low tier units. Ghouls could give me extra undead - no maintenance garrisons to hold onto what I conquer.

I reach the elf city. 5 Longbowmen, 3 Cavalry, 1 swordsmen. Without Tactician this would be rough. Lost 3 Cavalry but the city is mine.
Conquering Lizardmen cities would be nice but I can't help thinking building Elf cities would be a far better plan. Slower though, much slower. Or...actually, all Lizardmen are really bad at is Research. With only 2 books in each realm, I don't need to worry about doing that at all. I can get the Amplifying Towers, and all power producing buildings except the Parthenon. So Lizardmen cities are perfect, and they produce good troops, and quickly.

[Seravy]

I conquer the lizardmen city, it's already pop 3 with a Sawmill! There is another near my elves, but still an outpost. I beat 4 Guardian spirits nearby for 318 gold instead.
Two turns later the city is ready for taking.

I take a short break from Cavalry to build a Barracks. I have 9 Cavalry ready to attack the Chaos Node, plus a few to make sure I don't lose my cities. If I find enough gold in the node I can go for Berserkers. It's about time, already 1403 March.

The Fire Giant node is too much for the cavalry. I lose all 9 of them and only kill 1 out of 4 Fire Giants, and the 3 Hell Hounds. Not sure what nodes I'm supposed to get with these units if they can't even beat something that easy.
many Phantom Beats sound worse, with their Illusion damage and chance to have up to 9 of them.

I'll build some Longbowmen in the elf city, at least those can take out Phantom Beasts without losing the whole stack.

Vanilla H shows up with some lizardmen. Great, another wizard with that race. 5 Life, 5 Nature, Tactician, Chaneller. Ruthless Expansionist and nothing to trade.

I now make 50 gold a turn. Might as well build that Fighter's Guild...wait, it only takes 5 turns? Why did I bother with the Cavalry if it's that fast, I could have used much superior Berserkers the whole time! (and this is without buying for gold...)


I lose all 6 of my cavalry but win the battle thanks to my 3 Ghouls. I score an undead Fire Giant for my efforts, 988 mana and an Earth to Mud spell. My casting skill is so crappy it'll be another 5 turns before I can have a Magic Spirit - have to finish the current Ghoul first.

[Nelphine]

Yup, one stack of 9 cavalry. Their whole job is to either crush nature/chaos wizards (sometimes life if they don't have many buffs), and/or get weak neutrals and/or get lairs to give you gold (or mana alchemy into gold). Production cost is the same as the fighters guild + 1 bezerker. 2 stacks of cavalry is enough to have almost 5 bezerkers - you should never build more than the first stack of cavalry. Magic Spirits are also a huge priority as soon as you're remotely close to getting a node. I like to have 5+ spirits floating around at all times, so I never miss out on a turn of node production. Alchemy all that mana into gold, buy the fighters guild, buy the war college. Elite Bezerkers for everyone!

[Seravy]

Meanwhile another Lizardmen city was built, near the diamond, I conquer that with the fire giant and ghouls. A free undead elite swordsmen joins the army.
I convert my mana crystals to gold and buy the War college.

VanillaH attacks my Orc city. 1 Cavalry and 3 Spearmen for defenders. They can't reach the Cavalry and I'm lucky enough they don't cast Web on it. City survives for a turn.
Ruthless and their army is about 20% more than mine. I don't think threatening to prevent a second attack will work but I'll try anyway, nothing to lose. Indeed, it had no effect.
My ghouls army should be able to beat that but won't be there in time. Berserkers are not ready. Cavalry are mostly dead.
They used web this time, city lost. That makes it a war officially.
I get a Bard hero. That's actually amazing for this tactic, with the Holy Bonus.

The city with the diamond gets razed. While I was busy heading to reclaim the other one, a stray lizardman unit found it. I split the army. Ghouls are just too slow and I have 3 Berserkers now.

I get my city back and finally meld the node.

I attack another small Lizardmen city near my capital. I lose a berserker and the fire giant to confusion (berserker kills the giant). Low resistance is definitely a problem.

I take out the "few bears, few sprites" cave. Yields a 3 DEF 3 RES amulet for my hero.

A doomstack reaches the orc city. 3 Sprites, 2 Bears, a hero. The single berserker guarding it is lost while fleeing and the city is razed.
A few turns later I attack that stack with my main, it flees. Good, I was worried the sprites could have cause more damage otherwise. Only 1 of the survives.

[Seravy]

Lost 4 of my Berserkers to Confusion when killing a single Ghoul. I don't think this strategy is good at all now. In fact, it's pretty bad. My usual strategies don't rely on such high risk moves.

...I'm wondering, did anyone manage to actually win an Impossible game in EXP9I? I'm having a hard time with Extreme as is, though I probably could do better if I used strategies I know work.

My stack of 9 Longbowmen finally make it to the Sorcery node and clear it. I get the crappy and useless Traveller's Ring and about 1000 total in mana and gold.

Next turn I finally have a full doomstack again - the hero, a warship and 7 berserkers. I sent this toward Reimu's island.
I reach their capital. 5 Ghouls, 3 heroes, a jevalineer. Don't think that can stop my army.
The berserkers slice through the 16 armor hero as if it was nothing. Then they get confused, possessed and kill my entire army.
Doomstack indeed. Doomed to fail stack.

...I'm done with this strategy. It's unplayable without 2 Sorcery books for Resist Magic. Maybe instead of Astrologer and...ehh I need everything else. Drop 1 Nature? No Earth Lore? Maybe...

[Nelphine]

Yes, I win about 80% of my impossible games. Not getting lairs so not getting bezerkers is first reason to lose. Excessive confusion is the other. But if I can stay at peace long enough, look st what a 'standard' bezerker turns into. Their thrown attack kills anything weaker than a great drake before it retaliates. And even a great Drake dies a fair amount of time without fighting back. 'But you can't possibly rely on staying at peace that long'. Yes you can. Bezerkers have such huge army strength, you'll virtually never have an ai declare war on you. So only chaotic are dangerous. And unless its chaotic sorcery you can just crush them.