Decided to play a few more games on Extreme, this time using setups I know work well to see how bad the difficulty is. While it felt way too hard in previous games, I was playing wizards built around specific testing goals so they weren't very powerful.
So I want to play three wizards that are already proved to work, at least once each, but if I feel the luck factor it too great in a game, I might play that one more than once. I expect this will take at least 1-2 weeks but it'll be much easier to decide on AI resource changes afterwards. All games will be played on normal land size and high magic power.
I'm going to play these :
-3 N/3 L/4 S Archmage, Alchemy, Nomads - build a strong economy, fuel mana from gold, rely on strong sorcery spells, heroes or buffing to win, with a chance of powerful nature creatures in the mix.
-5 Chaos, 5 Sorcery, Chaneller Nomads - use combat spells to destroy opposition with attrition, take advantage of horsebowmen for the otherwise slow and weak early game. Might be better with an additional Archmage retort but spells are critical so don't want to reduce books - in fact ideal would be 6S/5C for Magic Immunity+Flame Strike
-10 D, Specialist, Archmage, High Elf - use powerful death magic to win, as it's strong in all phases in the game. Any race should work but elves can provide an additional power income to support spellcasting, and good ranged attackes (Death doesn't have spells that allows melee units to attack flying enemies)
Game 1 (N+L+S Nomads):
Started on a fairly nice size continent. Unfortunately not alone - at the far edge there is a chaos+life wizard. Went for Sprites+Earth Lore as starting picks in Nature, Heavenly Light and Just Cause in life, Resist Magic,Phantom Warriors and Guardian Wind in Sorcery.
Sprites were able to get two neutral cities - the third one which was the largest got stolen by the AI even though I went for it as quickly as it's possible. I was able to clear a Nagas node a bit later, and I think I also got a place with some unicorns, so overall the sprite paid for themselves and maybe even helped a little. However I had turn 1 Giant Spiders on my research list - going for that could have probably given me an even stronger start. Eventually I attacked the wizard on my continent and was able to take over 3 of their cities. They still had their capital and a few other cities, but they offered me Astral Gate in exchange for peace, so the war ended there for some time. I was also at war with a Life+death wizard who was their ally, but they also offered peace - my military power was stronger then theirs thanks to the spiders, mass produced horsebowmen, and buying wolf riders every turn in the captured gnoll city (the one I failed to get with sprites). I used Astral Gate as it was still very early (~1404) and I thought there is a good chance to claim vast amounts of Myrran territory if I hurry there. Instead, I found the Myrran wizard, they were right next to my capital and...they were weak, it was still too early. Dwarves are hard to take out once they start building cannons, but this is Extreme so the AI builds lots of settlers - there were no cannons to worry about yet, maybe one or two total. The rest of the dwarven units are no match for horsebowmen, and golems bought in one of the captured cities took out the capital easily.
The last Arcanus wizard is also life+death and surprisingly they were on top of the historian all game, thanks to the nodes and cult leader retort they had. At one point their power production was like 10 times mine and it's still at least 4 times but I'm ahead in military. I was able to make an Alliance with this wizard, so I don't need to fight them until all others are dead which will leave me with controlling over 2/3 of the world map on both planes - enough to win no matter what the wizard might do. For the time being I eliminated the first arcanus wizard and am fighting the second, who also has some presence on Myrror. but their overall power is about a third of mine.
I feel luck was strongly on my side in this game - all three Arcanus wizards were peaceful so I was in full control of my wars, and I got a free Astral Gate spell which allowed me to find and eliminate the Myrran wizard very early. (I did have AG on my research list but I wouldn't have went after it this early. The rest of my spells are also great - I got AEther Binding, Dispelling Wave, Incarnation, Invulnerability. I didn't get Prayer, Healing or Heroism but was able to get all three from banished wizards - everyone had at least one Life book, even the Myrran all-Chaos wizard! Furthermore no one plays Sorcery, the main weakness of this strategy, or Nature which might be able to oppose my forces with massive summoned armies or Crack's Call heroes.)
I have to rate the difficulty of this game "about right" so far but I will play this wizard again because the map was way too in my favor.
(albeit the game is not over yet - if the strong Arcanus wizard pulls out some nasty trick, things might change, but that's unlikely, we are allies. Unless they find Final Wave in a lair, they shouldn't be able to do anything dangerous.)
So I want to play three wizards that are already proved to work, at least once each, but if I feel the luck factor it too great in a game, I might play that one more than once. I expect this will take at least 1-2 weeks but it'll be much easier to decide on AI resource changes afterwards. All games will be played on normal land size and high magic power.
I'm going to play these :
-3 N/3 L/4 S Archmage, Alchemy, Nomads - build a strong economy, fuel mana from gold, rely on strong sorcery spells, heroes or buffing to win, with a chance of powerful nature creatures in the mix.
-5 Chaos, 5 Sorcery, Chaneller Nomads - use combat spells to destroy opposition with attrition, take advantage of horsebowmen for the otherwise slow and weak early game. Might be better with an additional Archmage retort but spells are critical so don't want to reduce books - in fact ideal would be 6S/5C for Magic Immunity+Flame Strike
-10 D, Specialist, Archmage, High Elf - use powerful death magic to win, as it's strong in all phases in the game. Any race should work but elves can provide an additional power income to support spellcasting, and good ranged attackes (Death doesn't have spells that allows melee units to attack flying enemies)
Game 1 (N+L+S Nomads):
Started on a fairly nice size continent. Unfortunately not alone - at the far edge there is a chaos+life wizard. Went for Sprites+Earth Lore as starting picks in Nature, Heavenly Light and Just Cause in life, Resist Magic,Phantom Warriors and Guardian Wind in Sorcery.
Sprites were able to get two neutral cities - the third one which was the largest got stolen by the AI even though I went for it as quickly as it's possible. I was able to clear a Nagas node a bit later, and I think I also got a place with some unicorns, so overall the sprite paid for themselves and maybe even helped a little. However I had turn 1 Giant Spiders on my research list - going for that could have probably given me an even stronger start. Eventually I attacked the wizard on my continent and was able to take over 3 of their cities. They still had their capital and a few other cities, but they offered me Astral Gate in exchange for peace, so the war ended there for some time. I was also at war with a Life+death wizard who was their ally, but they also offered peace - my military power was stronger then theirs thanks to the spiders, mass produced horsebowmen, and buying wolf riders every turn in the captured gnoll city (the one I failed to get with sprites). I used Astral Gate as it was still very early (~1404) and I thought there is a good chance to claim vast amounts of Myrran territory if I hurry there. Instead, I found the Myrran wizard, they were right next to my capital and...they were weak, it was still too early. Dwarves are hard to take out once they start building cannons, but this is Extreme so the AI builds lots of settlers - there were no cannons to worry about yet, maybe one or two total. The rest of the dwarven units are no match for horsebowmen, and golems bought in one of the captured cities took out the capital easily.
The last Arcanus wizard is also life+death and surprisingly they were on top of the historian all game, thanks to the nodes and cult leader retort they had. At one point their power production was like 10 times mine and it's still at least 4 times but I'm ahead in military. I was able to make an Alliance with this wizard, so I don't need to fight them until all others are dead which will leave me with controlling over 2/3 of the world map on both planes - enough to win no matter what the wizard might do. For the time being I eliminated the first arcanus wizard and am fighting the second, who also has some presence on Myrror. but their overall power is about a third of mine.
I feel luck was strongly on my side in this game - all three Arcanus wizards were peaceful so I was in full control of my wars, and I got a free Astral Gate spell which allowed me to find and eliminate the Myrran wizard very early. (I did have AG on my research list but I wouldn't have went after it this early. The rest of my spells are also great - I got AEther Binding, Dispelling Wave, Incarnation, Invulnerability. I didn't get Prayer, Healing or Heroism but was able to get all three from banished wizards - everyone had at least one Life book, even the Myrran all-Chaos wizard! Furthermore no one plays Sorcery, the main weakness of this strategy, or Nature which might be able to oppose my forces with massive summoned armies or Crack's Call heroes.)
I have to rate the difficulty of this game "about right" so far but I will play this wizard again because the map was way too in my favor.
(albeit the game is not over yet - if the strong Arcanus wizard pulls out some nasty trick, things might change, but that's unlikely, we are allies. Unless they find Final Wave in a lair, they shouldn't be able to do anything dangerous.)
