October 12th, 2016, 15:29
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(October 12th, 2016, 08:05)Seravy Wrote: I'm surprised you had growth problems with Nomads, they have a slightly above average growth rate of +7. Maybe you are too used to building Granary and Farmer's Market first with other races and take the bonus from those into account?
Well sure, you've got to consider that since those two buildings will generally be your 2nd and 4th building in any city and cash-rushed to completion ASAP except in special (dire) circumstances. Granary is giving you +30 pop growth when you include the bonus from food, and Farmer's' Market about +45, so Dwarves and Dark Elves at +20 and +30 are actually +95 and +105. (when I wrote that previous post that stated that Dwarves were the slowest, for some reason I thought that Dwarves couldn't build a Farmers Market but that isn't actually true - just tested it). On top of that, Granary and Farmers' Market let you convert some of that food into hammers via allowing you to hire more workers, and thus all of your stuff gets done faster.
So, Nomads are actually the slowest race in the game by an even greater factor than I had realized!
(October 12th, 2016, 08:05)Seravy Wrote: I completely agree but how am I supposed to do that?
My apologies; I actually don't have a very good grasp on what modification capabilities you have. Sometimes its very easy to forget that this isn't a game you made yourself from scratch!
October 13th, 2016, 00:34
(This post was last modified: October 13th, 2016, 01:13 by GermanJoey.)
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Sage Master Game 3:
Extreme; Sage Master + Inquisitor + Archmage + Specialist + Famous + 7 White, High Men. Large land size instead of Standard. I thought about taking 6 + Warlord instead of 7 life + spec, but my other games were 7 + spec so I figured I might as well keep to that.
A tale of two empires. Sss'ra's dog empire:
I have no freaking idea what happened here, but I found him last despite him being closest to me, and just couldn't stop laughing when my Magic Spirit found his capital. I busted it down with my Heroes + a pair of wolf riders + a trio of barbarian shaman, thanks Famous. He was Warlord + Mana Focusing + Conjurer + half white and half red. Take a guess which retorts he focused on, heh. I think his main problem was that he was on this little island by himself and yet his capital was freaking garbage, being half desert, no resources, and land-locked, so he just kept summoning dogs nonstop without anything better to do? And then he declared war on me randomly at a point where I didn't have any dungeons I felt confident of clearing, so he had to die.
Meanwhile, while my capital isn't much to write home about, take a look at this spot I planted my third city:
I'm High Men, so yeah, this game is a done deal, lol.  I had one more settler done when I found this place, but I stopped expansion there (at the cost of my future income) in order to funnel all my money to get this place up and running as a Paladin Pump as fast as I possibly could. (edit: and now Inspirations just came up as the next rare on my research list!)
Hero-wise, my first hire was Tumu, who is really awesome early when buffed up with Life enchantments. I wasn't able to clear very many dungeons and suchs, and most of the ones I did gave me completely garbage rewards. Did clear two nodes though. However, one of those two Nodes, a Great Lizard triplet + 6 Sprites for which Tumu did most of the heavy lifting, gave me a whopping 1946 mana reward straight-up, which has let me funnel all my power into research and skill and will continue to do so for some time into the future.
I should probably stop trying to combine SM + Inquisitor I think, as its distorting things too much. I like the idea of using SM with an economy retort but these games have all been really nuts.
October 13th, 2016, 06:49
(This post was last modified: October 13th, 2016, 06:50 by Nelphine.)
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Do you find paladins significantly stronger than high men magicians? I've always disliked high men due to their early game, but when I play against them, I find I hate their magicians far more than the paladins. 6 figures is just crazy with that ranged attack. And that city seems ideal for magicians.
October 13th, 2016, 07:48
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Their magicians are amazing but how do you pass up on Arcanus Adamantium? Massed Adamant+HA+Oricalcum+Elite Paladins will just completely mow down everything without ever needing to stop. 11/13/11, 4 figures, 6 health a piece, +2 to hit with prayer, first strike and armor piercing. They're very fast too, so you can keep conquering. And so cheap with that coal! The only thing they'll ever have trouble with is very strong flyers with breath attacks. (and for that, there's Magicians) (except for Sky Drakes!)
October 13th, 2016, 15:20
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I guess part of the issue is that I was using Life Magic here, and there wasn't a whole lot I can cast in-battle for under 20 that would really make a difference. Like, what are they gonna give me, more heals? And the Myrror wizard turned out to be using Beastmen, which just meant lots and lots of Minotaurs and such. If it were Draconians, I'd use Magicians instead.
Anyways, ended up just missing a 1409 victory by a few turns because of a small island settlement that I missed. 
October 13th, 2016, 16:11
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To be honest, I don't much care for the spell casting. Go with brute force, 6 figure, strength 12? 13? magic ranged attacks. That's why I hate them.
Spell casting and tricky strategies is all well and good, until you can simply smash all your enemies to pulp. Although I suppose ai enemies would use things like flame strike far more often than I do (since Im rarely chaos).
Maybe it's a case of 'good for ai, not so good for human'.
Congrats on 1409! I don't think I could ever win that fast.
October 13th, 2016, 23:24
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Same, this was a record for me too. April 1410. Massed magicians are definitely better for mowing down enemies fast but IMHO Paladins really pay off in the long run when you've got stuff like Healing Charge, Mass Healing, Raise Dead, etc. When battling the final (Myrror) wizard in that game, I never had to send reinforcements because I didn't take much losses... new units just went into a new stack to take lairs to fund the huge amount of mana I was blowing in battles!
October 13th, 2016, 23:30
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I'm playing a 4th SM game now, and I just realized something: the Arcanus wizards in all 4 games were Merlin, Sharee, and Tlaloc! They all had different attributes each time, but it was those 3 portraits. The Myrror wizards were Horus (in the Life game) and Jafar (in this one) - and I never saw in the Nature or Chaos games - so at least that's something.
October 14th, 2016, 07:30
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My guess is its because there are more realm combinations than portraits. So the combinations that aren't matched ate probably going to the same portraits for some reason (like I've got merlin and Tlaloc as well.)
October 14th, 2016, 08:32
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(October 14th, 2016, 07:30)Nelphine Wrote: My guess is its because there are more realm combinations than portraits. So the combinations that aren't matched ate probably going to the same portraits for some reason (like I've got merlin and Tlaloc as well.)
If multiple wizard portraits receive the same score, the first one will be used. Merlin is the first wizard, Sharee is, like, the 3rd, Tlaloc, I think he is near the end so he was pure chance.
If no retorts or third realms alter it, and the wizard with both matching realms is already taken, this is going to be the selected portrait (higher number of books take precedence) :
0-5 Nature : Merlin
6 Nature : Raven
7+ Nature : Freya
0-6 Life : Merlin
7+ Life : Ariel
0-6 Sorcery : Raven
7+ Sorcery : Jafar
0-6 Death : Sharee
7+ Death : Rjak
0-5 Chaos : Sharee
6 Chaos : Lo Pan
7+ Chaos : Tauron
Merlin and Sharee has by far the highest chances as a secondary pick for wizards whose primary choice is already taken.
Optional portraits are in a different order and have different amounts of books, so there it is like this :
0-4 Nature : Seravy
5 Nature : Patchouli
6+ Nature : Vanilla H
0-4 Life : Seravy
5+ Life : Reimu
0-6 Death : Flandre
7+ Death : Yuyuko
0-5 Chaos : Flandre
6+ Chaos : Suika
Sorcery : Aura
Of course, it's very unlikely for a wizard to not even have 1 book of another, third realm, and if they do that is likely to determine their portrait, as the wizard with that realm plus the one i the above list will rank 1 higher. Likewise if they pick any of the retorts whose default portrait shares at least one realm with the wizard, that portrait will be used instead, like, if a Life+Death wizard has Archmage, it'll use Horus instead of Merlin.
By the way, the original wizards miss the Life+Death combination, which usually results in that wizard picking Merlin (for life) or Sharee (for death).
The optional wizards miss Nature+Death, which results in Patchouli (Nature) or Flandre (Death) most often.
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