Test games played

[Seravy]

Continuing the game. Things are pretty random, but I seem to be able to still hold ground and even expand.
I've captured a Myrran city, which made me realize the cockatrice strategy is also weak against Mana Leak.
I don't have anything else to use, though.
Green and red are also at war with the myrran wizard so I might be able to gain territory there.
Next myrran city captured...
and the next...won't be. There are Golems in it, cockatrices can't fight those.
Fortunately this seems to be the only dwarf city around here, the rest are draconian and there is one beastmen as well.
...but those all have wall of darkness. I'm going to need to put True Sight on all cockatrices. With so many buffs on them, I might also start needing Spell Lock. At which point suddenly they'll be far too expensive to work.

I got another city and a node next to it, which I won't meld because it'll get warped. There is a Witch hero inside - amazing find for a cockatrice stack.
Then I find Yuyuko's capital :

   

Easy for cockatrices, as long as I buff them properly. Bless is a must, and even then I'm a bit worried - there is a soul linker hero and the guardian retort so those demons will hit hard. Not as hard as petrification though!
But the Sage hero knows dispelling wave!
I also don't think 6 cockatrices with the hero are enough - I would feel safe with a full stack only. So I need 2 more units, True Sight on all, and Spell Lock on all. By then I'll finish researching Magic Immunity, which would also be nice but I should probably not waste that much time.

I'm doing much better than I expected - maybe the AI advantage isn't as high as I perceived it to be when playing weak wizards.

7 hours of playing and I did, what, 4 years out of the expected 20-25? This testing will be endless, and I need a break.

[zhantul]

Your descriptions gave me an idea. Some time ago there was a discussion about Guardian Spirit being to weak. Would it be possible for a Guardian Spirit to protect against warp node as well? Perhaps with 80% chance. Or with a strenght similar to that of nightshade.

[Nelphine]

Oh that would be worth using.

[Seravy]

   
This much of each wizard's graph was the "fairy touch ranged power" strategic combat bug.
Eh...

I guess there is no need to change equal military war triggers, I had so much military power due to a bug...

No wonder the game felt unnecessarily hard, when the charts were off by this much. It consistently overrated my power in the early game, dragging me into wars and as the game progressed and the AI started making their ranged units, they got overrated too, showing an intimidating advantage that never existed.

I'm not sure if any previous difficulty tests mean anything as is.

On top of all that, the AI had "easymode" on lairs and nodes.

I think I'm going to abandon my quest of testing difficulty, as it's endless and always has to be restarted to a bug or AI change, and will just go ahead and set up new AI resource numbers right now.

[Seravy]

First Extreme difficulty game in the exp 9 version.
I'm recording it so it'll be uploaded after I finish the game - I'll keep the post short.

I play 6 Death, 2 Life, 3 Nature Cult Leader, to test the retort. Picked Heavenly Light and Dark Ritual, from Nature, I decided to risk getting Sprites and Earth Lore.

In 1410, the game looks like this :

   

-Sprites worked exceptionally well this game - I got 5 Sorcery nodes with them.
-However, I missed out on early War Bears and I still don't have Web so it had a price.
-And I've lost half those nodes already - they are so far from my territory I have no way of keeping them.
-In general, I'm at a disadvantage and have a hard time protecting the nodes - All of them are Sorcery and I have no Sorcery spells while my enemies do.
-I have a massive power base of 579, more than half coming from my cities. Cult Leader is very effective, more so than the nodes (I already have Dark Ritual researched, and node power is only "Good".). A city with dark ritual, heavenly light and the 3 buildings produces 52 power.
-There are fewer AI attacks than usual - however those that happen seem to matter more. I tend to lose defensive battles about 20-30% of the time, maybe even more. There are close to no attacks where I feel the AI is wasting their units on a battle they can't win (albeit with my spells I have the advantage against incoming nagas) . My best cities rarely get attacked as they have stronger garrisons, but every once in a while a doomstack finds one.
-Speaking of doomstacks, they can be scary despite all enemies on the plane playing Sorcery/Life, having no real "doomstack" material. I laugh at the nagas, but when a hero or two finds its way into the stack I have problems - the pile of nagas makes the stack strong enough to attack my better defended cities, and I don't have much to hurt a hero if it has all the buffs.
-Life in general appears a lot more of a threat - units often aren't missing the important "Bless" or "Resist Magic" on top of the staple combo (endurance+heroism+holy armor+holy weapon). There is a Divine Order in play which might have an influence on this. Also, the number of Divine Orders just went up to 3, so even more buffs are expected.
-The AI can keep up with me in research despite having slightly less power base - I admit I wasn't spending all that much on it but still this is a great improvement without theurgist/sage master/power advantage.
-Most of my conquest comes through using Werewolves and Shadow Demons, I have one full stack of each and will make more of Werewolves, taking advantage of Transmute and all the Divine Orders. Adamantium wolves with prayer and black prayer and darkness should be enough to fight anything at this stage of the game.
-This game will be ineffective at testing the lower summon costs and doomstacks, as there are too many Life/Sorcery wizards - so rare summons will have a low influence on the game (very rares on the other hand might matter - The wizards are Aura = Sorcery, Silver = Life+Sorcery, Reimu = Life but 2 Sorcery, Byakuren is Myrran with Life and Death but only 4 Death books so there is a chance for Sky Drakens, Djinns, Archangels, Demon Lords etc but the chance is low.)

Overall, although I had an above average start, am playing a strong wizard, and having the luck of fighting against 3 wizards that can't build strong doomstacks on my plane (and having an alliance with the Myrran wizard who hasn't reached Arcanus yet), I can't say I have won the game or that it feels too easy.

[Nelphine]

I find it curious you consider that a strong wizard. Not because you're wrong, but because I would never consider playing it.

That means I have to assume the game is balanced fairly well, and a large number of strategies are actually viable.

[Seravy]

Surprisingly, I'm somewhat stuck in this game. My werewolves don't work - all the buffs on the orc hordes make them able to beat adamant werewolves easily (invulnerability and lionheart mainly).  Ranged units are not an option - invisibility and magic immunity and hordes have large shield. I'm playing Nomads and cities I got from conquest are either orcs or halflings, so I don't have really good melee normal units.
I do have Call Lightning but it doesn't really work on elite Hordes with Invulnerability.
I have Gorgons but can't cast it - 2 Divine Orders and 2 wizards with Spell Blast (including the one I'm trying to beat). Even if I could, the enemy knows Banish and I have no way to raise their resistance against Sorcery.

I can research Pestilence and already have Evil Presence and Famine so I can go for a victory through resource advantage, and I can kill hordes with Crack's Call as long as the resources are on my side. But this tactic is ultra-slow and there is a Myrran wizard to fight after this one.

They don't know Dispelling Wave so I could buff, but their buffs are better than mine so that's pointless. (Also, I tried their capital and it has some way too strong heroes, can't banish them)
I have Wave of Despair but it costs too much to use more than once a battle. I suppose I could cancel my own divine order and then I could probably use it twice a battle but to be able to kill larger garrisons, I need more than that.
I can research Massacre, which might help by thinning defenses before using the Wave, I guess I'll have to try doing that.

Maybe I'll stop making wolves, cancel divine order and try using a "lots of swordsmen+combat spells" tactic. I wish I could produce invisible units.

[Seravy]

Managed to conquer most of blue's cities. It wasn't as bad as expected - she only had a few of those super-buffed units. No surprise, 1000 mana worth of spells is a lot per unit even if Divine Order (and an AEther Flux event) reduces costs. As powerful as these are, it now costs as much to create one of these as two Sky Drakes- and ultimately it's still just a very hard to kill basic orc unit. (Lionheart+Magic Immunity+Invulnerability+most of the common buffs)
Even with 2-3 Divine Orders (to steer the AI towards actually using the buffs often), it costs more than a Sky Drake and overall it's not even equally powerful (it might be but it's vulnerable to dispel and crack's call - Sky Drakes aren't).

Maybe it's just that the buffs are overpriced? compared to the cheaper creature costs, the rares might be.
Or I'm just lucky to have the one of the two real counters to this strategy (Crack's Call and Dispelling Wave?)

Either way, the blue wizard is now down to 3 cities (including their capital). I will be able to research Demon Lords, which will give me a good way to fight the Myrran wizard - unfortunately they already know the spell and started using it.

Cloud of Shadow is very powerful - the AI might be smarter at sending armies but this messes up their plans - the "strong enough" armies now fail to survive the first turn fairly often. Having other Death realm spells helps with that too.

If I had to guess, I'd say I have about 90% chance to win - doubt the Myrran wizard can beat me once I control all of Arcanus and have the ability to freely decide when to break the alliance and attack.

[Nelphine]

Dispelling wave is huge for fighting buffs. Buffs might be too expensive if dispelling wave is available, but cracks call is easily countered (wraithform and flight). Without dispelling wave, buffed units can easily dominate, as per all my strategic combat discussions (befire the treasure changes I've had units with attack ratings above 10,000 - one unit is better than a full stack of sky drakes). Cloud of shadows is good. It's the only non economic city buff I use (sometimes flying fortress if against a maniacal nature wizard.) But it's still defensive, so, meh.

[Seravy]

Flight doesn't counter it - You can use web first. (Yes, in this game I don't have it but that's an exception, not the norm.)
Wraith Form counters it - but it costs 75 so easy to dispel with a simple Dispel Magic first. The total chance of hitting either it or magic immunity is enough to work.

Neither really works - at least it doesn't make it expensive enough to be relevant - paying an extra 10 or 100 (in combat skill) is a bargain to kill something that costs 500-1000 to create.

I don't mind this - every strategy should have a weak point and for Sorcery/Life buffing, this one is it.

The question is, is Magic Immunity worth 250 mana? (You can get a Stone Giant for 275! You can get an entire Sky Drake for the price of two!)
Is Invulnerability worth 200? Regeneration 225? Lionheart 200?

They are definitely powerful buffs but these are the costs of an entire (better) uncommon summoned creature. Per buff, and these buffs aren't really going to do much on their own, you need 3-4 on a unit.

(looking at it from another perspective - if Stream of Life was too expensive for 200 and it is one of the best city buffs, buffing a single unit for 250...is too much?)

As the human player, would you put these buffs on your orc hordes...or would you summon 12 archangels/sky drakes instead of having 6 super-buffed hordes that can't avoid taking "damage" through dispels and whatnot, while the creatures would be invincible?

(no, I'm not suggesting to reduce the cost of every buff. Only the rare+ ones and by a moderate amount. Probably cutting off about 50 from each?)