I decided to share how my games went here to have some written record. This week my goal was to test Armageddon especially, and the Chaos Global Enchantments in general.
Plan was to get to Armageddon early powered by Halfling research bonus.
1.st game
9 Chaos, Specialist, Chaneller,
Halflings, Extreme , Large land.
Built some settlers. Got attacked by two maniacal Sorcery wizards before I could build any proper defenses or research any good summons. Tried to build some magicians (as slingers are blocked by Guardian wind) but it was too few, too late. Game over.
2.nd game
10 Chaos, Specialist, Sage Master
Halflings, Extreme , Large land.
Rush researched Gargoyles. The three arcanus wizards were Suika (RB Inquisitor), Patchouli (don't remember) and Clow Reed (UR Runemaster). Went to war with Suika (don't remember who started it). Thanks to the Gargoyles I was able to hold my own continent and amass enough units to launch an attack on Suika's capital, this was accelerated significantly by finding 5 neutral cities, out of which I was able to get and hold 4. This included Lizardmen, Nomad and barbarians on my continent, and Elves somewhere far away. By the time I finished taking Suika's capital, she defeated Patchouli, leaving nothing of her cities : most of the continent was covered by her starting race, High Men. I had no trouble claiming all of those cities but some place was empty on the continent where Patchouli started. Since my goal was winning by Armageddon, I went to attack Clow Reed next - Runemasters are guaranteed to dispel global enchantments more often than what I can handle. This war went poorly. His continent was very close to mine but he didn't have much ways to attack it, however the Myrran wizard - Silver (UW Alchemy) - opened a tower on it, closer to my side and declared war, as I had too much forces, equal to hers. I managed to gather enough troops to attack Clow's capital but failed twice, losing two armies. As far as I remember both attacks were close, he had like one hero left only - but I couldn't kill that hero before losing my entire army. Meanwhile Silver managed to take a few cities I held on this continent. After I finally managed to banish Clow, I found myself having no troops left to properly attack. He had about 4 cities left and I did take some but he still had one left when he returned. What's worse, he colonized an entire other continent already and it was behind the one where Silver's armies kept coming from the tower. It took me a long time to get enough flying summons to attack that continent, and even more to take all the cities. During this time I had a hard time defending against Silver but still mostly held - I lost my lizardmen city unfortunately. She played trolls, pretty hard to deal with that using Sorcery as they all regenerate. I had to rely on Disintegrate to kill everything, after I researched it. Eventually, around 1413 I finally finished off Clow and had my Armageddon ready. Unfortunately Silver had Spell Blast and AEther Binding by this time. I dispelled those and started the Armageddon. I had to restart about 3 time to random spell blasts : her Divine Order increased the AI chance to use curse type spells (as most of those are enchantments) and being UW she only had Spell Blast in that category, so she used it quite a bit despite having a personality that doesn't use it much normally. Eventually I managed to finish Armageddon and then followed it up by Great Wasting and eventually Meteor Storm. Since she was recasting AEther Binding very quickly, I gave up on trying to dispel that, she still only had a 1/3 chance to dispel my spells, but she tried often so I had to recast them a lot, barely having time to cast other spells. Fortunately Meteor Storm has the highest priority for dispel so it acted as a protective layer, keeping the other two in play. I decided not to use Doom Mastery because both Sorcery and Life is strong against fantastic units. I also didn't cast Chaos Surge, I did not have much summoned units or chance to cast them. I lost some unimportant cities but was able to hold the one closest to the tower, mostly due to the AI's stupidity : she did not cast flight vs my flying hero in the gate, instead she used magic immunity and invulnerability and mass invisibilty to stop my 8 magicians from doing damage. Despite this, it was hard to actually kill her units, Chaos has no counters to invisibility directly. Flame Strike is ineffective against trolls, they have too much health to kill that way. I had to disintegrate but it's hard to target unseen units, I also needed to summon something to reveal them etc. Anyway, I was able to hold mostly, losing only unimportant cities taken from Clow, until about 1420. The global spells didn't work out well. The economic effects very mitigated by a bug - cities still managed to produce food with no farmers at all and didn't shrink in size - and the power from volcanoes were far less relevant than expected, only made up like 1/4 of my power base even after 100 turns of Armageddon. Eventually Silver researched Call to Arms, which made it much harder to stop her forces - my disintegrates had to be used to get rid of summoned paladins. Since halfling units have no way of damaging anything invisible effectively, the game quickly turned to a loss at this point. She also had Time Stop, so she had like twice as much turns as I did, and it was only that much because she had major economic problems. My victory plan was to use Call the Void to push her cities below the threshold where everyone is a rebel, but I couldn't cast it often enough to pull it off. I had to keep recasting enchantments, and every once in a while, start over a spell due to spell blast. My backup plan was using paladins, as I was able to fully claim and settle that continent with high men, but building the necessary buildings took a lot and...paladins don't do all that well against trolls as I found out...plus when the enemy can summon 4 of them in battle and put invulnerability and other buffs on those while I can't on mine...either way, the game rapidly turned from a standstill into a loss. Aside from these problems, she also had about 3 heroes attacking and taking cities one at a time, and I wasn't able to kill or stop any of those - not even my city with 2 doom bats held. The heroes either had magic immunity or due to the mass invisibily I couldn't target them. The worst was the teleporting hero with mass invisibility and magic immunity. Since it always teleported to the further corner, I had no way to reveal it and target it with dispel magic, and even the doom bats couldn't reach it. Eventually she also started summoning Djinn that did the same thing but at least had no magic immunity buff. Oh and unsurprisingly, Meteor Storm was ineffective against all the troll units. Game Over - but this one was close. If the Myrran wizard had any other race, or no sorcery books (or at least no spell blast PLUS aether binding at the same time) I could have won.
3rd game.
10 Chaos, Specialist, Sage Master
Halflings, Hard , Huge land.
First I researched Gargoyles like last time. I was able to wipe out a nearby wizard's capital very early, using an army of, 5 gargoyles, and it proven to be an overkill - 3 could have done the job. The other 2 arcanus wizards didn't do much better and were all wiped out in 1408. Then I filled the entire world with halfing cities, researched all enchantments, and cast them. The Meteor Storm stalled the myrran wizard so much she couldn't break any towers. The first one broke the turn after I finished researching the Spell of Mastery. Obviously I had 9 great drakes ready and won the game really easily. The difficulty was disappointingly easy compared to the how extreme went., I was wondering if I picked normal by accident, but I did not.
4th game.
10 Chaos, Specialist, Sage Master
Halflings, Extreme , Large land.
Didn't have Gargoyles for research this game so I went for Chimeras. The wizard who started to settle my terriotory was playing all Life books - yay, an easy opponent I thought. Well, my Chimeras proved inferior to her swordsmen (she used star fires on them 3 times prior though) and as I invested pretty much everything into summoning 2 of those I lost. She didn't even have Guardian, only Tactician.
5th game.
10 Chaos, Specialist, Sage Master
Halflings, Extreme , Large land.
The first two wizards I met were lawful and had plenty of powerful units so I did not dare to attack them with my crappy gargoyles. They had berserkers and such. I started on a small island, and lost the spot next to my capital to a water walking barbarian settler. I tried producing slingers and scored a nomad city on the main continent from neutrals so I had some horsebowmen too. Eventually the third wizard came along, and declared war due to Militarist. The other two followed due to their alliances, which I didn't want to wait for so I attacked first. I was able to get a few cities on the main continent and almost got the city next to my capital. Unfortunately I mistimed the movement of my troops, only the hero could enter the city after my fire storm. I was able to clear out the city but due to a summoned unit I had no way to defeat I had to retreat. Next turn I attacked with the 3 slingers...to find there was a nigh stalker inside, which got summoned this turn! After this the game got turned around - Halflings have no way of dealing with invisible enemies and I can't firebolt a night stalker if I don't see it - but to see it something has to go near and then it dies. I didn't have much hopes for a 3v1 battle anyway. Game Over.
6th game.
10 Chaos, Specialist, Sage Master
Halflings, Extreme , Huge land.
No gargoyles so I rushed Fire Giant this time. It proved to be even better, as it hits hard and can deal with ranged or fast enemies. Unfortunately, the 3 maintenance is a killer this early, and it's vulnerable to confusion. I found lizardmen settlers next to my capital by the time I finished producing my own. Oh joy! You know what this means...yep, another 6-8 of them coming. Since the strategy was supposed to be having halfling cities, I had to start a war. I kept a few lizardmen to build javeliners, but planted halflings in most places. I was able to put at least one good unit - gargoyle or fire giant in all of the cities. I was able to also pick off incoming units one at a time. My opponent was at war with another wizard, lucky for me, and that other wizard was not hostile, even offered some trades. By the time I finally claimed the entire continent, and started building up my first army of javelineers, a stack of 6 war bears landed on the continent. They reached my capital in 2 turns, which I wasn't prepared for, Game Over.
Either the game is getting too hard on extreme nowadays, or halflings with chaos suck - most likely the latter.
Plan was to get to Armageddon early powered by Halfling research bonus.
1.st game
9 Chaos, Specialist, Chaneller,
Halflings, Extreme , Large land.
Built some settlers. Got attacked by two maniacal Sorcery wizards before I could build any proper defenses or research any good summons. Tried to build some magicians (as slingers are blocked by Guardian wind) but it was too few, too late. Game over.
2.nd game
10 Chaos, Specialist, Sage Master
Halflings, Extreme , Large land.
Rush researched Gargoyles. The three arcanus wizards were Suika (RB Inquisitor), Patchouli (don't remember) and Clow Reed (UR Runemaster). Went to war with Suika (don't remember who started it). Thanks to the Gargoyles I was able to hold my own continent and amass enough units to launch an attack on Suika's capital, this was accelerated significantly by finding 5 neutral cities, out of which I was able to get and hold 4. This included Lizardmen, Nomad and barbarians on my continent, and Elves somewhere far away. By the time I finished taking Suika's capital, she defeated Patchouli, leaving nothing of her cities : most of the continent was covered by her starting race, High Men. I had no trouble claiming all of those cities but some place was empty on the continent where Patchouli started. Since my goal was winning by Armageddon, I went to attack Clow Reed next - Runemasters are guaranteed to dispel global enchantments more often than what I can handle. This war went poorly. His continent was very close to mine but he didn't have much ways to attack it, however the Myrran wizard - Silver (UW Alchemy) - opened a tower on it, closer to my side and declared war, as I had too much forces, equal to hers. I managed to gather enough troops to attack Clow's capital but failed twice, losing two armies. As far as I remember both attacks were close, he had like one hero left only - but I couldn't kill that hero before losing my entire army. Meanwhile Silver managed to take a few cities I held on this continent. After I finally managed to banish Clow, I found myself having no troops left to properly attack. He had about 4 cities left and I did take some but he still had one left when he returned. What's worse, he colonized an entire other continent already and it was behind the one where Silver's armies kept coming from the tower. It took me a long time to get enough flying summons to attack that continent, and even more to take all the cities. During this time I had a hard time defending against Silver but still mostly held - I lost my lizardmen city unfortunately. She played trolls, pretty hard to deal with that using Sorcery as they all regenerate. I had to rely on Disintegrate to kill everything, after I researched it. Eventually, around 1413 I finally finished off Clow and had my Armageddon ready. Unfortunately Silver had Spell Blast and AEther Binding by this time. I dispelled those and started the Armageddon. I had to restart about 3 time to random spell blasts : her Divine Order increased the AI chance to use curse type spells (as most of those are enchantments) and being UW she only had Spell Blast in that category, so she used it quite a bit despite having a personality that doesn't use it much normally. Eventually I managed to finish Armageddon and then followed it up by Great Wasting and eventually Meteor Storm. Since she was recasting AEther Binding very quickly, I gave up on trying to dispel that, she still only had a 1/3 chance to dispel my spells, but she tried often so I had to recast them a lot, barely having time to cast other spells. Fortunately Meteor Storm has the highest priority for dispel so it acted as a protective layer, keeping the other two in play. I decided not to use Doom Mastery because both Sorcery and Life is strong against fantastic units. I also didn't cast Chaos Surge, I did not have much summoned units or chance to cast them. I lost some unimportant cities but was able to hold the one closest to the tower, mostly due to the AI's stupidity : she did not cast flight vs my flying hero in the gate, instead she used magic immunity and invulnerability and mass invisibilty to stop my 8 magicians from doing damage. Despite this, it was hard to actually kill her units, Chaos has no counters to invisibility directly. Flame Strike is ineffective against trolls, they have too much health to kill that way. I had to disintegrate but it's hard to target unseen units, I also needed to summon something to reveal them etc. Anyway, I was able to hold mostly, losing only unimportant cities taken from Clow, until about 1420. The global spells didn't work out well. The economic effects very mitigated by a bug - cities still managed to produce food with no farmers at all and didn't shrink in size - and the power from volcanoes were far less relevant than expected, only made up like 1/4 of my power base even after 100 turns of Armageddon. Eventually Silver researched Call to Arms, which made it much harder to stop her forces - my disintegrates had to be used to get rid of summoned paladins. Since halfling units have no way of damaging anything invisible effectively, the game quickly turned to a loss at this point. She also had Time Stop, so she had like twice as much turns as I did, and it was only that much because she had major economic problems. My victory plan was to use Call the Void to push her cities below the threshold where everyone is a rebel, but I couldn't cast it often enough to pull it off. I had to keep recasting enchantments, and every once in a while, start over a spell due to spell blast. My backup plan was using paladins, as I was able to fully claim and settle that continent with high men, but building the necessary buildings took a lot and...paladins don't do all that well against trolls as I found out...plus when the enemy can summon 4 of them in battle and put invulnerability and other buffs on those while I can't on mine...either way, the game rapidly turned from a standstill into a loss. Aside from these problems, she also had about 3 heroes attacking and taking cities one at a time, and I wasn't able to kill or stop any of those - not even my city with 2 doom bats held. The heroes either had magic immunity or due to the mass invisibily I couldn't target them. The worst was the teleporting hero with mass invisibility and magic immunity. Since it always teleported to the further corner, I had no way to reveal it and target it with dispel magic, and even the doom bats couldn't reach it. Eventually she also started summoning Djinn that did the same thing but at least had no magic immunity buff. Oh and unsurprisingly, Meteor Storm was ineffective against all the troll units. Game Over - but this one was close. If the Myrran wizard had any other race, or no sorcery books (or at least no spell blast PLUS aether binding at the same time) I could have won.
3rd game.
10 Chaos, Specialist, Sage Master
Halflings, Hard , Huge land.
First I researched Gargoyles like last time. I was able to wipe out a nearby wizard's capital very early, using an army of, 5 gargoyles, and it proven to be an overkill - 3 could have done the job. The other 2 arcanus wizards didn't do much better and were all wiped out in 1408. Then I filled the entire world with halfing cities, researched all enchantments, and cast them. The Meteor Storm stalled the myrran wizard so much she couldn't break any towers. The first one broke the turn after I finished researching the Spell of Mastery. Obviously I had 9 great drakes ready and won the game really easily. The difficulty was disappointingly easy compared to the how extreme went., I was wondering if I picked normal by accident, but I did not.
4th game.
10 Chaos, Specialist, Sage Master
Halflings, Extreme , Large land.
Didn't have Gargoyles for research this game so I went for Chimeras. The wizard who started to settle my terriotory was playing all Life books - yay, an easy opponent I thought. Well, my Chimeras proved inferior to her swordsmen (she used star fires on them 3 times prior though) and as I invested pretty much everything into summoning 2 of those I lost. She didn't even have Guardian, only Tactician.
5th game.
10 Chaos, Specialist, Sage Master
Halflings, Extreme , Large land.
The first two wizards I met were lawful and had plenty of powerful units so I did not dare to attack them with my crappy gargoyles. They had berserkers and such. I started on a small island, and lost the spot next to my capital to a water walking barbarian settler. I tried producing slingers and scored a nomad city on the main continent from neutrals so I had some horsebowmen too. Eventually the third wizard came along, and declared war due to Militarist. The other two followed due to their alliances, which I didn't want to wait for so I attacked first. I was able to get a few cities on the main continent and almost got the city next to my capital. Unfortunately I mistimed the movement of my troops, only the hero could enter the city after my fire storm. I was able to clear out the city but due to a summoned unit I had no way to defeat I had to retreat. Next turn I attacked with the 3 slingers...to find there was a nigh stalker inside, which got summoned this turn! After this the game got turned around - Halflings have no way of dealing with invisible enemies and I can't firebolt a night stalker if I don't see it - but to see it something has to go near and then it dies. I didn't have much hopes for a 3v1 battle anyway. Game Over.
6th game.
10 Chaos, Specialist, Sage Master
Halflings, Extreme , Huge land.
No gargoyles so I rushed Fire Giant this time. It proved to be even better, as it hits hard and can deal with ranged or fast enemies. Unfortunately, the 3 maintenance is a killer this early, and it's vulnerable to confusion. I found lizardmen settlers next to my capital by the time I finished producing my own. Oh joy! You know what this means...yep, another 6-8 of them coming. Since the strategy was supposed to be having halfling cities, I had to start a war. I kept a few lizardmen to build javeliners, but planted halflings in most places. I was able to put at least one good unit - gargoyle or fire giant in all of the cities. I was able to also pick off incoming units one at a time. My opponent was at war with another wizard, lucky for me, and that other wizard was not hostile, even offered some trades. By the time I finally claimed the entire continent, and started building up my first army of javelineers, a stack of 6 war bears landed on the continent. They reached my capital in 2 turns, which I wasn't prepared for, Game Over.
Either the game is getting too hard on extreme nowadays, or halflings with chaos suck - most likely the latter.
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