Quote:Would a stacked Paladin's Holy Bonus apply against Great Unsummoning?
No, that's a combat only effect. Same for Prayermaster and Resistance to All.
...continuing.
I decided not to block the tower. It helped more by letting the blue enemy units go through and disappear than by reinforcements arriving through it at first...but this trend quickly turned around. The blue wizard is rapidly losing their power. I haven't scouted their terriotory on Arcanus yet, but I sent some pegasai and griffons to scout Myrror. Surprisingly, the blue wizard had quite some cities there, about 6-8, I assume she already lost the rest to my ally. Thanks to the flight and good mobility of griffons, and mostly my Draconian hero's phantasmal sword, I was able to take control of most of these cities. I also started building magicians to take advantage of Supreme Light. I'm hoping to clear many lairs and nodes with those and find some books or retorts. I definitely could use more very rares. I haven't used Doom Mastery yet, the enemy knows Spell Blast as well. I could dispel Detect Magic easily but they might cast it at random anyway, and my skill isn't that high, Doom Mastery would take at least 4-5 turns. Silver used Great Unsummoning the previous turn, so now I know what to expect. I could in theory only produce high resistance units, but even then they'd have 10-20% chance of getting killed...which quickly adds up if you have hundreds of those units. Flandre's historian bar dropped a good 15% even though she had no Doom Mastery, only from the loss of fantastic units. Now my military is equal to hers again.
At this point I can continue on two entirely different paths.
I could keep attacking the blue wizard and try to get as much of her territory as possible. Flandre is an Inquisitor so she is not getting anything out of this war. Or, I could give Flandre the Doom Mastery and watch while her units disappear, leaving me with two weakened opponents. The catch? If Flandre manages to eliminate Silver, she'll be that much stronger. She is playing Draconian, the race that benefits most from Doom Mastery.
Oh also, Flandre has Hydra for trade. I could get it now for Doom Mastery or Doom Bolt...but if I wait a little, I could get it for Chaos Surge instead, which means the Hydras will benefit from double Chaos Surge. I don't think the AI can cancel it once it was cast and I sure won't dispel so it might stay in effect even if I start to fight against her.
...and now Silver cast Suppress Magic. I guess I want her out of the game ASAP now.
...found Prayer in a lair. Battles will go much better now.
Realized Suppress Magic is not that bad for me, with Runemaster I can cast Hydras at a 100% success rate. I traded Chaos Surge for it as planned. Silver is eliminated from all but her main continent. The plan is to invade it first, then use the Doom Mastery+Chaos Surge combo plus Hydras to beat Flandre.
...found a Chaos spellbook. It has Disintegrate and Blazing March. Feeling much better about my chances now.
Silver only has her capital left. It has 3 Storm Giants, a Sky Drake, 3 heroes and something invisible inside. I surrounded it with armies and am ready to strike. I researched Call the Void but it will probably get blasted if I try to use it so I should attack. I traded Blazing March for Flame Strike, so I could probably do damage. Probably...I don't know how much defense those heroes have. Ehh actually I can't. With Supreme Light, all of her units except the melee hero and the Sky Drake can regenerate. I need to be able to take it out in one attack which I don't think will happen. Meanwhile Suppress Magic was dispelled. I guess I should start taking away her nodes.
Flandre has Evil Omens but it was also dispelled. Not happy about that. She also researched Doom Mastery on her own. What's worse, she also has Final Wave. I definitely need to cast my own Doom Mastery as soon as Silver is out. I started putting Consecration on all my cities, it should prevent Flandre's overland spells from hurting me. What I'm worried about is her combat spells and armies though.
...Silver has Consecration on her capital. I think I traded it with her for Incarnation or Lionheart. So using Call the Void is out. At this point I think the only thing powerful enough to take it out is a stack of hydras....except they can't enter a flying city. 9 Efreets might do the trick, I suppose I need to start summoning...problem, by the time it's done there'll be more Sky Drakes and Efreet is ineffective against those. Actually I think the best is to wait until she is low enough on mana to fail casting Supreme Light and then attack. Maybe I could send in some disposable units to cast Magic Vortex and wreck mana producing buildings.
Looked at what's inside. The two invisibles are heroes, one of them is the Necromancer. Most units have Magic Immunity on. There is a Prayermaster hero so using Disintegrate is impossible. She didn't use Supreme Light on turn 1 surprisingly. Obviously lost the attacking stack but Vortexes managed to ruin 8 buildings including the Wizard's Guild and Amplifying Tower. I failed to dispel any Magic Immunities unfortunately. Sent another stack, 9 Magicians. Managed to dispel Magic Immunity from the Necromancer and Priestess hero. Wasted a third stack but this time killed a storm giant and the Priestess hero with the vortexes, and the city lost the cathedral and parthenon. I'm starting to think either the priority of Supreme Light is too low or it's bugged. Unless...It's a rather expensive spell, maybe she doesn't have the casting skill to use it through the Evil Omens? I doubt...nope, she has 181 casting skill. So it has to be the spell priority.
...yep, Storm Giants weren't counted into Supreme Light's priority. Also Invisibility and Guardian Wind did not have a priority cap, as my attacking stack contained all ranged units, they managed to outpriorize even strong combat global enchantments.
Victory! I sent my Draconian hero with Griffons and Pegasai. Pegasai served as decoy to absorb the ranged attacks, while the hero took the enemy Soul Linker and Witch out thanks to the Merging armor and Phantasmal weapon. Griffons were useful to finish the Sky Drake before it caused too much trouble. Prayer+Blazing March saved the day...and the amazing hero I had. Now all that's left is a Myrran wizard who controls roughly half the world (the other half is fortunately mine), has about 50% more military power than me, plays Draconian, has Doom Mastery and casts Final Wave every 5-6th turn. I can't even think about starting the war until I have Consecration on every city and Doom Mastery in play with a sizeable amount of Chaos chanelled units. And this will take a while with Evil Omens slowing down spells.
I think if the AI broke the Alliance now I would lose the game, which gives me some doubts about that idea of mine. On the other hand if I can keep preparing for another 100 turns, I'll be able to launch a surprise attack with hundreds of troops and take her capital and many of her cities out in a turn which is...not a very fair way to fight a war. I still think some mechanism should be there to prevent that.
I'm planning to base my strategy on Rangers and Pegasai. Both are effective against Draconian units and durable enough not to die in a single Flame Strike (especailly with Charm of Life). I have two nomad and an elf city with Adamantium, also two High Men, not sure if I should make Paladins there or Magicians.
...Proceeding with the plan. About 2/3 done with putting Consecration on cities. Produced a whole bunch of Pegasai. A sudden drop in the AI's military power shows the max 2k unit cap was reached, so she disbanded a lot of crap. One more reason why this "final alliance" situation is bad for the AI.
Done all the city buffing needed. I still haven't produced enough troops to feel safe for a war, but getting closer. It's 1430 already and it seems this was all the preparation time I got, she started Spell of Mastery this turn. Her fortress has 8 Efreets and a Soul Linker hero. I don't think that will offer any resistance to chaos Pegasai backed by 2 Chaos Surges a Charm of Life and...the fact I have like 10 nine stacks of them. Only two of those are adamant unfortunately, I wanted to prepare 3 of those before attacking. She isn't a Theurgist, nor Sage Master, and got it this early anyway, so the AI improvement worked, she did spend more on research to get it done as soon as she didn't need to spend on wars. This might be the answer to the problem in the alliance topic : The AI pushes the research of Spell of Mastery and finishes way before a proper surprise attack can be set up. Note that this is Hard difficulty, not even Extreme or Impossible (although the AI gets a penalty for Spell of Mastery research there, otherwise those levels would be unplayable)
Attacked the capital. Wiping out the 8 Efreet proved easy...but the hero. It has one of the two predefined Magic Immunity items, has 22 armor with +2 To Def, my Pegasai can't kill it even with Prayer and Blazing March. If I do any damage, she has Healing, I traded it around turn 100 to get the Alliance...
Well, war went on for about 5-6 turns. We both lots tons of units and cities but I'm down to pretty much no mana crystals left while she still has over 10k (which is a lot of mana wasted, she started the war with 27k). I had two backup plans, using my heroes - which definitely works but I want them at my own capital, or summoning something to take out the hero - conveniently I had a city next to her capital.
I went with the second and summoned some Hydras. I wanted 5 but due to running low on mana I had to risk the attack with 3. It was an epic battle. I had everything from the nearby city's garrison with the hydras to make sure Wave of Despair can't kill the hydra. The hydras took out the hero easily, fortunately it was slow. Eventually the board simplified into 3 Doom Drakes vs my 3 Hydra. Sounds good? Not really, the drakes move 5, Hydras - I buffed them all with Endurance - move 3. Some epic chase and of course lightning bolts raining from the sky on both sides, and I was able to win. One drake went down from my Lightning Bolts. One was caught by the hydras thanks to the roads the drake cannot use. The last one managed to get away with 1 hp and I was down to 1 hydra (they also got hurt badly from all the flame strikes and lightnings), impossible to corner it anymore, but I had...enough mp left to cast exactly one fire bolt. After all this struggle, the game was decided by a single fire bolt. Now the enemy is banished...but I have no mana left so I have to think twice about attacking. At least defending will be easier for a turn or two. Problems will start again when she returns though.
