Current Impossible Strategy

[Nelphine]

So, in my current game against all the life wizards, I have gone to war with the myrran AI (they are at war with the barbarian AI, which is totally unfair - bezerkers against dark elves in strategic combat means the myrran AI can't win a single combat), so that the barbarian AI doesn't get ALL the dark elf cities, and their associated huge power income.

This pissed off the weak AI, who declared war on me, but cockatrices can't fight bezerkers even with angels. So I'm literally ignoring that war.

Life death ai, not at war with me, cast eternal night (to go with all his demon lords), so that's annoying. 

Barbarian AI didn't declare war on me, just started taking nodes and towers (since he's running around with as many bezerkers as I am, my tactic if bezerkers to avoid being attacked at all doesn't work.)

However, he's got 9 life books, to my 4. So I have enlightenment and archangel, which is good, but he's got enlightenment, life force, charm of life, and archangels.

The charm of life let his strategic strength increase up to about 5% lower than mine, and life force plus dark elf cities put him ahead in power production.

So, now I've gone to war with him.

Titanic battles between dozens of bezerkers!

Mine are better, he has more. He can't hurt my stack with torin, even with his own stack of 8 bezerkers plus borin or whatever his chosen one is called. 

So that stack is heading to his fortress (beastmaster plus 2 other heroes plus 6 archangels...). I'm confident I'll win, but it will be very painful.

In the meantime, I'm razing every city I can get my hands on on arcanus, and I'm only holding cities on myrror if I can leave a full stack if bezerkers there.

Was funny against the myrran AI, 8 colossus but no beastmaster, so crushed it even without torin.

[Nelphine]

September 1413

(For reference, back in October 1411, I had 1608 power production + 568 more that was research only income.)

I have 2838 power production + 904 research only income.

I have: Enlightenment and Life Force.
I have: 7 barbarian cities, 9 High Elf cities, 1 High Men city, 6 Dark Elf cities.
I have: 13 Arcanus nodes, 8 Myrran nodes.
I have: Astrologer, Spellweaver
I have: Eternal Night cast against me.

Now then; one of the AI (the Life/Death AI, who is peaceful, and who has not yet ever gone to war the entire game) has:

Enlightenment and Life Force.
17 High Elf cities, 1 Klackon city, 1 Lizardman city, 1 Halfling city.
1 Arcanus node (8 tiles), 1 Myrran node (13 tiles).
Cult Leader

And they have 15% MORE power production than I do.



Now, looking at this, I just can't imagine how he's got higher power production than I do, even with lunatic bonuses.

So I'm going to actually run math!
Nodes: 21 tiles (52 power)
Halfling: 9 population, cathedral/parthenon/amp guild/wizards guild/university/sages guild, heavenly light, dark rituals. (12 +9 +12 +12 +9 = 54 power)
Klackon: 11 population, parthenon/amp guild/wizards guild/university/sages guild, heavenly light (4+3+12 +4 = 23 power)
Lizardmen: 11 population, cathedral/amp guild/wizards guild, heavenly light, dark rituals (8+6+8 +12+9 = 43 power)
High Elf: 152 population, 2 cities with nothing; shrine/library/wizards guild (13); shrine/wizards/amp/university (15); shrine/wizards/amp/parthenon/heavenly light (28); cathedral/parthenon/amp/wizards/university/heavenly light (35); shrine/parthenon/alchemists/wizards/university/heavenly light (28); shrine/amp/wizards/university/sages/heavenly light (20); 8 with everything (8*54); cathedral/parthenon/amp/wizards/university/sages/heavenly light (42)
total: 152+13+15+28+35+28+20+432+42 = 765 power
Life Force: 183 power

Total power: 52+54+23+43+765+183 = 170+948 = 1120

I don't remember the exact Lunatic Power Bonus. Assume its 250%. Thats still only 2800. And I don't think the bonus is as high as that.

How high is the Lunatic Power Bonus? (The Game Mechanics first post lost a lot of the AI bonuses.)

Edit: Oh, he has Demon Lords on top of that (and I have archangels). Well, if the bonus IS that high, then with demon lords he would go ahead of me.

[m59gar]

that's funny, I just posted about Arch Angels and Demon Lords too. They basically break the late game.

[crusader.mike]

Nelphine, did AI ever use Earth to Mud on your berserks? I had to deal with barbarian AI recently and it was probably the most useful spell...

[Nelphine]

They have and its awful. However, it doesn't help the AI actually kill the bezerkers. So they still need enough firepower to do so before the bezerkers reach them. And you consider that it takes something like 5 colossus to kill one unit of buffed bezerkers, so getting enough firepower is actually not easy. And if even 1 figure survives, well, I've had 1 figure of bezerkers kill 9 draconian mithril veteran magicians.

Earth to mud plus 9 focus magic magicians with confusion is easily the best thing to kill my bezerkers with. However usually they do dumb things like shooting, or casting fireball instead. (Even unbuffed ultra elite tactician bezerkers with 1 unicorn and 1 angel or archangel are mostly impossible to kill though.)

[crusader.mike]

(Even unbuffed ultra elite tactician bezerkers with 1 unicorn and 1 angel or archangel are mostly impossible to kill though.)

So, if my calcs are correct you end up with each unit having: 7 figures, 4 health, 9 def, 9 res, 12 attack, 8 throw. Am I right?
(not sure if unicorn res bonus stacks up with archangel's)

So, yeah, even with Earth to Mud you need a very strong army to deal 28 dam through 9 def... 7 times. It is like fighting a high-tier ruin, only you could mass-produce these armies and buff them as needed. Bunch of pegasai with proper tactical maneuvering? Alas, AI is incapable of that.

Btw, I agree with you one one point raised earlier in this thread -- main attraction of this game is dungeon crawling. AI are mostly a distraction that makes reaching your goal sweeter. In early days all my games where about wiping out AIs asap, locking last one in one city and then research spells, building one stack (or one hero) and cleaning up all dungeons/nodes with him.

Btw, how do you deal with lack of magical weapons? (if no mithril/adamantium or transmute)

[Seravy]

After reading that, I can't help thinking "warlord and tactician really should be mutually exclusive after all". Unbuffed berserkers impossible to kill, despite it being one of the lowest defense units, ouch. That just sounds wrong. What does it do to actually high defense units...

[Nelphine]

taking out tactician doesn't really do much - difference between 7 and 8 armor isn't that amazing. The fact that a unit has 24 hit points makes a much bigger difference, as well as 10 resistance. (And a buffed unit has 11-16 armor, without chaos/nature, and it has +2 to defend instead of +1, and 30-36 hit points per unit, and upwards of 23 resistance. Taking out tactician there is completely meaningless.)

[crusader.mike]

Nelphine, how do you deal with lack of Alchemy Guild? There are quite a few monsters immune to normal weapons...

[Nelphine]

Alchemy retort. Absolutely essential for this. (Note, that I take alchemy retort for the conversion. The magic weapon is icing. Without the magic weapon I'd just holy weapon as necessary. Would almost never change anything.)