FFH2 AI Survivor - Season 1

[Psillycyber]

Here's Part 7:

[Psillycyber]

Here's Part 8.  Now, I hate to leave you all hanging, but it might be up to a week before I get time to finish Game 1 and get the rest of the parts of the report written up.  So, this will be all for now.  

If you've already made a prediction for the game and you are reading these reports and this spoiler, feel free to make some additional side-bets on whether Capria/Basium or Hannah will come out ahead in their impending clash.   

[RefSteel]

(By the way, the reason I'm doing these as PDFs is because photobucket doesn't work anymore, and I haven't found another free image hosting site to fill the gap.  So, if anyone knows of one, let me know, and that way I don't have to clog up the Realmsbeyond servers with these PDF files).

Dunno if this is the sort of thing you're looking for, but this thread describes how I host my images these days.

(I'll wait to comment on the reports until they're finished, but...)

I had no idea the AI could be so inept. Maybe they're keeping their doomstacks at home in a misguided attempt to keep defenses ready against imaginary attacks?

[Kofiman]

There's also Imgur, if you don't want your images inevitably linked with your real identity.

[haphazard1]

Just found some time to read the reports so far. Thanks for running this and writing it all up, Psillycyber!

Wildlands plus raging barbs...ouch. For the diety AIs not too bad, but for a human player that would be a really nasty combination. That combat 5 bear - Effectively strength 10, at a period in the game when most civs are running around with strength 3 or 4 units. Of course, for it to have reached combat 5 it must have eaten a whole lot of hapless warriors. Idiot AIs feeding it units without massing enough force to actually kill it.

Spoilery stuff:

Tasunke declaring on Auric with that disparity in power and tech.... Idiot deserved to die for that big a mistake.

Auric getting taken down from the top of the scoreboard to destruction was quite the reversal. He really had no friends due to his peace weight and then also his lack of religion. The mass pile on sealed his fate.

Did the Illians use their world spell? Also, do you know if they managed to grab the aggressive bonus from Laetum Frigus (sp?)? In general, have the AIs been using their world spells? You mentioned that Tasunke used his Warcry, and at a reasonable time for it as he declared on Auric. It just was not nearly enough given the situation.

Well, I was utterly wrong about the first to die. I might still be OK on the winner, but now this big number one vs. number two war has begun so we will have to see.

Fun stuff so far. Thanks again, Psillycyber!

[Psillycyber]

Re: Haphazard:

Yeah, Auric Ulvin did use his stasis spell around turn 150 if I recall correctly.  It's one factor that allowed him to tech ahead to champions while Tasunke was still using horsemen and archers.  As for whether Auric got the aggressive trait, I didn't notice, sadly.  I might have an early enough save to go back and look at, though...

[DaveV]

Wildlands plus raging barbs...ouch. For the diety AIs not too bad, but for a human player that would be a really nasty combination.[/spoiler]

It sounds bad, but in practice it's easier than straight-up raging barbs. Since the animals don't enter your culture, they're no threat to your cities, workers, or improvements. If you can generate culture (no problem for the Deity AIs), you can establish a new city just outside your culture and minimize or eliminate your exposure to attack.

Since the animals appear first, they serve as spawn busters against the warriors and goblins. I think we had at least one MP game with those settings, and the presence of barb orc units felt like it was less than the normal barb setting.

[Brian Shanahan]

Re: Haphazard:

Yeah, Auric Ulvin did use his stasis spell around turn 150 if I recall correctly.  It's one factor that allowed him to tech ahead to champions while Tasunke was still using horsemen and archers.  As for whether Auric got the aggressive trait, I didn't notice, sadly.  I might have an early enough save to go back and look at, though...

As I said above:

I do not believe that the AI gets the benefits from being first to enter Letum Frigus, even if they qualify