I think I might be screwed. It's taking too long to find his fortress. In only 5 turns he went from 20% behind me in power production, to 10% ahead of me. That's like.. 100+ power per turn. And I was right. I've seen at least 2 stacks of 9 doombats roaming around. When war does start, he is going to hit every one of my weakest cities without fail.
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Current Impossible Strategy
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September 25th, 2017, 07:12
(This post was last modified: September 25th, 2017, 07:13 by Nelphine.)
So, what happens if a doomstack doesn't have a single valid target?
I'm specifically thinking of 9 doombats, since 4 (very rare buffed) bezerkers are stronger than them. There are still lairs and other AI cities, but I'd consider that a temporary thing. I think what would happen is that the ai would go to the main action continent, find no valid targets, pick a new main action continent. Repeat until all continents are checked, then mark the whole plane as no targets? But when does it get rechecked due to stronger units? (For instance if he does get those great drake swarms; those would have no issues attacking bezerkers)
Welp, finally ran into the AI that ... is very bad for this strategy. Final Wave is atrociously powerful. wheeeee
I lost so many bezerkers that my overall graph went down more than 15%. Considering army strength is only one part of that graph... My guess is I lost over 100, possibly closer to 150, bezerkers. So, what do we think, how much will I lose before I can replace those bezerkers?
Turns out final wave isn't really that bad. Sorcery bezerkers - magic immunity (even resist magic) on your doomstacks, and then just play 'raze all the ai cities'. Life bezerkers - bless/lionheart on your doomstacks. Chaos bezerkers - doom mastery is your friend (hope you don't get great unsummoning AND final wave!) but chaos channels on your doomstack works. Nature bezerkers.. uh... prayer master hero! Death bezerkers.. blood lust? Does that make you count as fantastic? Probably.
So I've been trying this strategy with other realms.
Chaos is actually passable at it - chaos channels is great for some things, and flame blade is stellar on bezerkers. Elite Bezerkers are better than any summon less than rare (from any realm, and some rares) but at least chimera (like some of the other realm uncommon summons) aren't awful compared to bezerkers, and they fly, so summoning them doesn't feel like a slap in the face. However, bezerker defense become a noticeably major issue with chaos. You lose a lot more bezerkers. And chaos channels is required if you face possession. Black sleep is far tougher to deal with, although confusion is no worse (its simply still super bad). Being limited to speed 3/speed 4 warships, is also a huge blow. I still managed to win (on master only) as chaos, which at least let me play with meteor storm/Armageddon/doomsday, which is something he wanted for ages - but I had to build 8 barbarian cities, and even then, I wanted more. To play on lunatic, I'd want 12 minimum, which is frankly, unrealistic. Death: wraithform warships. So, so, so good. However, I don't think death offers literally anything else to the strategy, except free garrison's for conquered cities. Which sounds nice, but when you consider how much the strategy relies on not being attacked due to bezerker strategic strength, it really isn't great - you still need bezerkers to hold the cities so free garrisons are meaningless. You have no buffs at all for your bezerkers, so they also don't have great strategic strength. Its high, but not '4 bezerkers can hold a city forever' high. Again on master. I think I could have won, but I gave up due to sheer frustration at having literally nothing to do with my spells; I still need 8-12 barbarian cities, I still have all the downsides of chaos, but I have nothing to look forward to - unless I get lucky and just summon hordes of demon lords. Sorcery: this realm is good. Flying warships, resist magic for.. Everything. Main problem is similar to chaos - bad armor, bad mobility - but they at least shore up the worst bezerker weakness of low resistance. They also have lots of fun spells like aether binding and spell binding etc. However, the bezerker army strength is as bad as death, which means you still need 6+ barbarian cities which hurts Uranus blessing. Nature: ugh, again no buffs - although resist elements helps against ranged attack since you have no armor boosts until the monstrous iron skin. No resist boosts. No speed boosts at all. They at least have fantastic city buffs, so you dont need lots of cities.. But bad resist means you need lots of cities. Really though, mono nature is bad for this - and you simply don't have enough books to get rares from multiple realms. Life: I literally feel like life is easy mode compared to the other realms. Your economy is king (except sorcery overland casting skill), you increase movement, resist, and armor, you're immune to almost all the bad overland things (sure, sorcery can be immune to more, but only at very rare, and even then it costs a lot more than the life very rare.) The only thing you're missing is speed 4 intercontinental transport. Unless you get archangel. Which is just ludicrously good. Actually playing this with life has one downside. Call to arms compared to elite bezerkers is literally worse than the 'healing' spell, even if it cost the same mana. So I have this awful picture of paladins as being this completely garbage unit, because call to arms feels worse than summon zombie. Also generally this makes me really sad whenever I try to play any other strategy and use summons. They're just disappointing when compared to life elite bezerkers. (Or ultra elite halberdiers of the top 3 or 4 halberdier races) |
