Game report: Nature summoner with lizardmen

[Catwalk]

Following up on the good results (and recommended by GermanJoey), I'm going to go all nature in this one.

Wizard:
6 Nature
1 Conjurer
1 Archmage
1 Specialist
1 Mana Focusing
2 Astrologer
Lizardmen

Impossible, Huge, etc (I rarely change settings).


Starting city is decent, if I get Transmute I'll be in Adamantium heaven. But for a long time now, it's all about sprites and settlers. And more sprites and settlers.

I'm inviting everybody to try their hand at this game for themselves, then we can compare results and playing styles at the end. You can find the save file here: http://www.filedropper.com/save7_1

Note that heroes are allowed in this game (I've been playing without them recently).

[Seravy]

Impossible, Huge, etc (I rarely change settings).

Assuming that means...what, exactly? all at Fair?

So are we supposed to play the same wizard on different maps, or a different wizard on this map? I'm a bit confused, but I think the former?

...impossible on huge? Don't think I ever even played that, let alone won, I guess it's about time to try

[Catwalk]

Sorry for the brief description, was in a hurry

Impossible, Huge, 4 enemies, Max Power, Fair Minerals, Fair Climate

You're all supposed to play the same wizard on the same map (for this game). I've played 20 turns or so, and I guarantee you this game can be won.
Adding to the above, Earth Lore is a life saver for utilizing your early sprites efficiently. Play your cards right and you'll be a powerhouse in no time.

[Seravy]

Isn't the Max power+Astrologer combo going to push this setup too heavily in favor of Sprites, blurring the conclusion?
That's 5 times the normal amount of power from nodes!
I think we should also play it without this combo later but for now I'll use it, then.

[Seravy]

Started my game, so far doing very well. I feel there are a bit too many contributing factors unrelated to sprites though.

-Two of the three Arcanus wizards are peaceful, so I haven't been attacked at all yet - if anyone would attack me, I'd lose all my settlements as I have only 1 swordsmen everywhere. while 9 stacks are all around them.
-Lizardmen spread like crazy - especially as I started with 2 lizardmen cities, there was a neutral next to my capital.
-Nodes are worth insane amounts of power - with only 4 of them I have over 300 power income, which is completely abnormal.
-The last Arcanus wizard which I'll attack eventually, started with Barbarians, so they not too high threat - I'm worried about their Death books though. They have the highest military by far, the highest power (but still lower than me) and the only one to control a node. And there is an open tower in their territory. They are Chaotic.
-Every Arcanus wizard plays Nature so I have plenty of trade opportunities - or could have had, in reality my research is way faster than theirs so I haven't gotten anything really useful out of this yet, but will do eventually.
-One wizard is really weak and I could make a Wizard's Pact with them. I'll need it for sure as their military is so low, I'd get into a "same military power" type war otherwise despite the Peaceful personality. If that happens I'm in trouble as they are allies with the other peaceful wizard.

Overall, if I do win this, it'll probably be due to having every AI play at least 5 Nature books and 2 out of 3 peaceful which is an amazing opportunity for early game, but it's too early to tell what to expect. I don't even know the Myrran wizard yet, but I'm planning to attack a tower with great wyrms and cockatrice soon so we'll find out.

[Nelphine]

I tried my own map - the first 9 nodes I found couldn't be attacked by sprites (the 'easiest' one had 4 doombats with some hellhounds.)

While I did get half a dozen other lairs, and certainly had tons of mana for spamming sprites (I think I had summoned about 30 by 1404), I couldn't really do anything with them. 2/3 of the neutral cities had strong range units, the enemy capitals had ghouls, sprites, and ranged heroes. I did explore the map far faster than I usually do.

I couldn't stop random incoming on my cities - my sprites moved too fast, and went too far (although I didn't have Nature's Eye, which would have helped immensely for that problem).

War Bears couldn't really handle anything that my sprites couldn't already; I didn't have enough research to get anything by 1404 that would change things.

Admittedly I was in a much better position than some impossible strategies, but, i wouldn't look at this particular sample game and say 'wow, sprites got me ahead'. It was more 'wow, sprites let me.. not be behind, although my power production is awful, but i have so much mana it might not matter for a little while, although with no nodes that I can take for a very long time, I'm not really sure if I can catch up to impossible AI'.

Tldr: sprites are great ultra early game but they rely on specific circumstances (a couple of good nodes, a couple of defeatable cities, neutral or enemy wizard) or they leave a poor mid game.

[Catwalk]

Thank you both for the feedback.
1) Power. I agree that Max Power boosts this setup. It's what I  always use regardless of setup, though. Also used Max in original MoM. We can try something else later.
2) How soon are you planning on attacking the wyrm/cockatrice lair? That's one of the easy ones, especially with Web.
3) Interesting results Nelphine. Could you upload the turn 1 save? I agree that sprites rely on easy nodes and neutrals, but in testing I found that almost all games have enough of those.
4) Nature's Eye is a hidden gem, I learned that in my last two games.
5) Did you use Earth Lore to better plan your sprite campaigns? I got 3 sprites and then 2x Earth Lore, really helped me see where to move them.

[Seravy]

Also used Max in original MoM.

In the original MoM, the highest was 1.5 (named Powerful there), not 2.5 (current Max), unless you're referring to insecticide where it got added.

I'll attack like, in a few turns. I have summoned 6 sprites in the closest city already, probably need 9 (it's MANY cockatrices - can't web them all in time so need to kill some before they reach the sprites)

I used Earth Lore to scan pretty much all of Arcanus, will do the same on Myrror after breaking the tower.

Lizardmen are doing well because the enemies are peaceful and let me overextend, otherwise it would be very different.
Sprites seem ok - I got plenty of stuff but it isn't really what is getting me ahead of the AI.
The power setting of 2.5x is very unbalanced, albeit it would backfire if the AI got too many easy nodes.
Astrologer boosts this setup immensely - it's amplifies both the power setting and Archmage. I suppose this is one of those setups that should only be played on high difficulty.

[Nelphine]

I also always play max power, specifically because I like playing with a chance at spdllbookd and retorts.

Catwalk I tried it on nyrror. I didn't expect the results to be that much worse, but it appears the extra boost to lairs, and the extra boost to nodes, really hurts. (This us al so why I didn't have nature's eye or earth lore, although I had so many sprites I didn't mind not having earth lore.)

[Catwalk]

What are all the effects of the power setting?