Game report: Nomads without heroes, mixed Life Warlord

[Catwalk]

I'll be typing a lot less in this report, just the bare essentials so you can get a feel for what's going on. Feel free to ask for elaboration.

Setup

Capital and research options

This is an acceptable start, which is what I was going for. I'm rerolling if my starting capital is crazy good or crazy bad. This one should do nicely. The spell book is excellent, most of my high priority spells are in there. I decided to mix 1x Nature and 1x Sorcery in there for late game power, I'll be picking up a lot of spells from banished wizards. Also, there are many useful common spells so I'm content with rolling the dice and seeing which 3 in each realm I get.

Opening strategy: Sawmil => Forester's Guild => Stables => Settlers => Settlers => Horsebowmen

I will summon two magic spirits once Forester's Guild has been bought, mana stays at 100% and all crystals are converted to cash. I'll summon another two magic spirits by the time my capital reaches size 6, that's when I need extra unrest control.

[Catwalk]

First hero to be rejected, sigh. This would be a ridiculously strong start if I got to keep him: +30 research + amazing scouting + several lairs he can beat with one or two horsebowmen for 100 gold and an upkeep of 2 gold and 1 mana.

In case you're wondering, I'm playing without heroes this game because I want to demonstrate the overwhelming power of horsebowmen.

[Catwalk]

Ended up building only one settler as Raven is right next door with a size 1 halfling city he just took. Cranked out three horsebowmen instead, they just took a lair with 6 nagas yielding amazing loot of 680 mana crystals. This is where Alchemy truly shines, without being able to convert those to 680 gold for rapid development I'd be progressing much slower.

[Catwalk]

July 1401

It's decision time already. My first expansion is going down where my settler is at, and I've located another city west of the halfling hamlet. It's a good guess that's either Raven's capital or it's nearby. He has a lot of sorcery, so there's a risk of Guardian Wind. While that won't ruin my strategy (he won't have it on all his units), it'll definitely slow me down. I think this mandates a major rush, cranking out a full army of 9 horsebowmen and going for the throat. I can have those ready in 6 turns, and it'll take them another 5-6 turns to reach the unknown city to the west. Will it be a record if I banish a wizard in 1402?  In 12 turns I can cast spells worth 264 mana, that's 4x Heroism. It'll cost me 72 power to increase my casting skill to 26 which would let me cast Healing or Heroism twice in battle. That's very doable.

[Catwalk]

August 1401

First glimpse of his capital:

Sprites can hurt, but they won't stop heroic horsebowmen. He doesn't have city walls yet which is nice, but I'm sure he'll have them by the time I get there.

Also, second hero I'm passing up on. Damn, this variant is painful to play out. I love seeing that hero recruitment screen, it tears me apart to click that Reject button.

[Catwalk]

January 1402



4 sprites, no city walls. I have 4 horsebowmen and a magic spirit. There's no way I can lose this.

[Catwalk]

But I almost did!


Battle went as follows:
1st round lightning struck my spirit and crack's call took out a unit of heroic horsebowmen. Sprites almost took out another, leaving me with 2 units of healthy horsebowmen, 1 magic spirit at half health and 1 badly damaged unit of horsebowmen. Ouch! I took out 1 sprite and left another at 1 figure.

2nd round he's done casting spells, lightning hits my horses for little damage. Sprites finish off a horse unit and takes another to 1 figure. I lower him to 1 unit of sprites left.

3rd round my magic spirit gets hit by lightning again, and sprites finish off my damaged horses. My last horse unit takes out the last unit of sprites. Victory! I find Nagas and Sprites in the ruins. He has enough mana to return, so I only banish him. That's excellent, lets me capture more spells later. I'm guessing it'll take him around 16 turns, assuming casting skill of 32. He even has a settler heading off somewhere, if I can keep him as my research pet that would be ideal.

With Raven out of the big picture, these sites are now available for settlement:

Nothing impressive, but the bottom one is quite decent. The top one should be pop 11 with the ocean uncovered. I can also plant another one on the hill by the hamlet on the right, once I've razed it.

More importantly, Raven was nice enough to clear a Sorcery node for me. He has 3 nagas and 1 war bear defending it, I'll whittle them down with my lone unit of heroic horsebowmen. I have spirits nearby, so this will be an early windfall for me. He also took out a lair with demons in it last turn, no idea how that happened.


I'm switching back to 100% mana for a bit, progress right now is still about gold. I want to spam 3-4 settlers to all available sites in the next dozen turns, that's going to give me the best mid-term return on my investment.

[Catwalk]

August 1402

Cities

My economy may look weak, let me assure you it's strong. I have 3 settlers about to create new outposts, I have 11 fame reducing my upkeep and I have an entire continent all to myself. I also have 4 strong units of horsebowmen which will soon be resigned to garrison duty for a little bit. I'm about to meld with a weak node, and by my capital there's another weak node with 5 cockatrices and 2 giant spiders. I might be able to take that node with 9 veteran horsebowmen armed with holy weapons, losing only 2. That's a net cost of 90 hammers = 180 gold and a further investment of 225 hammers + 9*43 mana = 837 gold. I'll start putting Holy Weapons on my units, since casting skill is a limiting factor and the upkeep is zero.

Turns out the sorcery node is 10 tiles, sweet. There are lairs on the island below me with phantom warriors, guardian spirits and chaos spawns. I'm sending sprites down there to see if I can get easy treasure. I also just located a node with great wyrms in it, I might be able to take that one out too given enough time. And this continent is rather large, I need to keep spamming settlers. Taking out Raven early was crucial, otherwise I'd be limited to horrible expansion options while he grabbed everything.

[coldsteel]

good work on Raven!  And continued success!  I noticed AI moving shooting troops out of city walls right away, aiming at wrong target, as when you beat the first wizard in your recent Just Cause game, maybe Seravy knows about this.  6 shots for horsebows wouldn't have mattered this time I take it.  Onward!

[Seravy]

good work on Raven!  And continued success!  I noticed AI moving shooting troops out of city walls right away, aiming at wrong target, as when you beat the first wizard in your recent Just Cause game, maybe Seravy knows about this.  6 shots for horsebows wouldn't have mattered this time I take it.  Onward!

When the human player has ranged superiority, the AI disables the "stay behind walls" tactic, which allows every unit outside, including ranged ones.
While it's easy to assume this is bad tactic and in this particular case it definitely is (the ranged unit is no longer gaining a defense boost from the walls), in other cases it might not be - the 3 shields from the walls hardly matters in battles with big units, but the additional distance might - plus if the enemy units can't move through walls, the unit going behind the wall, forces the player to split their melee armies into a group that goes inside the city and another to go behind the city, and even then, going behind the city is a big detour that buys at least 1-2 extra turns for the ranged unit - if it's faster than the melee units, it might even be able to keep the distance for the entire battle.

I have added a procedure for overriding AI wall tactic on a per unit basis when needed, but only "always leave walls" is implemented for the big, fast, strong units. If there is space, we can add "always stay behind walls" type override - but then I need a list of units (or other conditions) to trigger this behavior.
(maybe we can go with something like "reverse default tactic if unit is ranged with low armor" - meaning they leave if the enemy is inferior at range but stay if they are superior - the opposite of how units behave - go outside when the enemy has inferior ranged capacity and stay otherwise, which makes sense for melee units - you don't want to wait around doing nothing when the enemy is killing you from range even if it means extra armor.)

Anyway, we need good AI rules (ideas are welcome) and then I can do this - the good news, there are 144 bytes of space so the rules can be somewhat complex if needed.

PS : not sure what you mean by "shooting at the wrong target", the AI should attack the lowest armor, highest ranged attack, most damaged unit. Did it fail to do that, or is there something else it should consider that it currently does not?