Early military strategy testing

[Seravy]

Game 1.

Warlord, Alchemy, Tactician, Barbarians, 8 Life books. Impossible, don't remember the other settings.
Produced 2 spearmen for scouting.
No enemy wizard on the continent, 2 neutral cities.
The small neutral city, protected by 2 shaman and 2 swordsmen (halflings) fall before the might of my swordsmen with holy armor and heroism. The other neutral has 5 cavalry and 4 shaman - I will need more than a single swordsmen to attack that.

1401 April, the Fighter's Guild is complete. Compared to how far I got by spamming bears in this time, it feels relaxing and slow. Good sign, we might not have a balance problem with Barbarians.

Made contact with a wizard. Sorcery/Nature, has Nagas and Sprites. Maniacal and Militarist. Looking towards a hard battle. I realize Nagas on their own might be enough to stop many early military strategies. No spell protects against Poison, and both Barbarians and Gnolls are low on resistance. Berserkers can slaugther them easily though, thanks to their thrown and 18 hit points so further testing is necessary.

After enchanting my berserker, I attack the other neutral city. This one unit has so much power that enemy units are trying to keep distance. Cavalry moves 5 and there is no rough terrain in the battle. My berserker cannot catch the Cavalry and with Life books I have no way to kill them through spells. I can't take the city - 3 Cavalry units survive and I can't hope to kill them using the Berserker. I'm starting to cast Endurance for the Berserker, at 4 moves it should be able to corner the enemy.

I made contact with a Death+Life wizard. Both of my enemies has Guardian btw. I still don't know where they live, the contact was made through them coming to me. I need ships. And this one is also maniacal, expansionist.
I'm finally able to corner the remaining cavalry and conquer the other neutral city.  The road made it possible - without that, I couldn't have done it.

The blue wizard has a stack of 5 Nagas and 2 Sprites on the continent. It's already turn 26 so they can attack me if I'm unlucky. I don't think I can defend myself with only 3 berserkers, out of which 2 are unbuffed. By this time, I had taken over an entire continent three times this size using Bears.

The blue wizard builds an outpost next to my capital, on a mithril ore. I was busy making berserkers so I have no settlers yet. Barbarians cannot use mithril, and the halfling city wasn't able to produce a settler this early - the only way would have been to do it before a sawmill and probably by spending gold.
I have to build at least a couple more berserkers to pick a fight with anyone. There is a Sorcery node with only Phantom Warriors nearby - but I also need more berserkers for that - 2 of them are busy defending the 2 neutral cities.

I decide to take the risk as I'm way too slow and send my berserkers to the sorcery node. The stack I saw 3 turns ago attacks my capital the turn after. Not sure how they did that, cities should have a scouting range of 2. Maybe I wasn't paying attention? Indeed, reloading shows they were on the map, there was a turn between the departure of the berserkers and the arrival of the enemy. Either way, this game is lost, and I didn't feel the strategy was anywhere near what could be considered overpowered. Sprites sealed the deal - without them I could have kited the 5 enemy nagas using my 2 spearmen, and waited for the lightning to kill them all. This shows how important it is for the AI to have flying ranged sprites - without flying they couldn't have made it to my continent, and without ranged they couldn't have won the battle.

I will try again one more time later, but I got a strong impression that barbarians are not a risk to game balance on Impossible difficulty. (they might be for hard and lower but I guess that's acceptable)
Gnolls, lizardmen and klackons will need to be tested as well, although I doubt klackons can be a risk.

[Nelphine]

Gnolls won't be a risk without ranged units for the same reason - they can't deal with sprites. At least barbarians can hurt sprites if they catch them.

Lizardmen I'm not sure. They expand fast but on impossible the AI bonus is even bigger so you're just trying to keep up. I doubt they're a problem.

[Seravy]

Game 2
Same settings.

Starting mithril silver and gold. Barbarians cannot use the mithril but the extra 12 gold is huge.

Found a neutral klackon city. pop 1, only a single spearmen. Easy - my scouting spearmen is superior.

1400 December, the Fighter's Guild is ready. The ores sure make a difference.
1401 April - finished exploring my continent. No other wizard here, again. A settler in incoming from the furthest direction. Belongs to a Death+Sorcery wizard. Berserkers are no match against that, Confuison annihilates them, so I shouldn't try to go that way. They have guardian, too.
Another incoming settler the next turn, from a chaos-nature wizard. I might be able to fight against that.
There is a node with "few nagas". I'll try to attack that with my 2 berserkers. I'll need ships to find the wizard.

The 2 berserkers with only heroism completely annihilate the nagas in the sorcery node. Got about 500 total gold+mana. I'll buy a sawmill and a trireme in the klackon city.
The wizard I consider to attack offers a wizard's pact. 2 berserkers have this much military power? Might as well accept for now. They are a chaotic so I shouldn't care about keeping it.

While death+sorcery will hurt, I'll most likely attack that wizard. The other is too weak to matter, and this one build an outpost next to the best spot on my continent - it has coal and mithril - and has gnolls. But first, there are two spots with "few hell hounds" nearby. The first one yields 278 mana. The other has 40 gold and Star Fires. Meanwhile the chaotic wizard also builds an outpost on my continent, next to the other coal. I don't think this treaty will last long. To my surprise they're also playing Gnolls.

The outpost the death wizard built now has a sawmill and smithy. I have to attack this turn, otherwise it'll start producing more units. I have 3 berserkers - one damaged from the battle against hounds - but only one has bless and two heroism. I don't know dispel magic yet. Bless doesn't work against confusion anyway so no point delaying the attack - they won't have possession this early. She used Life Drain instead of Confusion. Is it not a top 2 pick for the AI as a starting spell? ...it's 1st pick. I wonder why it wasn't used - pure luck? Life Drain wasn't a bad choice - it could have killed my damaged unit.

As we are at war now, I'll need to send s ship towards the death wizard's continent to find it. I'm having problems with gold/unrest. I need to cast Just Cause. This will take 8 turns!
Two magic spirits attack my node. They kill the spearmen I left there, but I'm able to kill them using berserkers before the meld the node next turn.
The Chaos wizard is offering me Summoning Circle for Heroism. Bad deal and I have no summoning spells anyway. There seems to be an unsettled island behind their location. I wonder if I should try to push a klackon settler there?

The death wizard attacks my node with a hero. I manage to put heroism on my spearmen and hurt the hero so it runs away. I attack it with the berserker next turn - it runs away again and damages the berserker with Heroic Shout. 5 of my berserkers land on the shore of the continent I suspect the enemy comes from. Indeed, their capital is right there, defended by 8 ghouls and a sage hero. I don't think only 5 berserkers can deal with that, but 9 should be able to. It's already 1402 december btw.

I notice the enemy hero didn't move this turn. My gnoll city was empty and in reach - I believe fleeing a battle uses up the unit's movement for the turn. Bug? Intended feature? I wonder.

It attacks my node again - the spearmen is in no condition to fight after the last one so it is killed. I retaliate using the berserker - now at a node, they can't use Heroic Shout on it. The hero runs again but this time fails and is killed. A magic spirit steals the gnoll city in the absence of the berserker. I have to get it back. A greater problem : a large stack appears nearby - 2 ghouls, 3 swordsmen and 2 skeletons. I could deal with most of that using the berserker, but Ghouls have poison which might kill it. I don't have any unit anywhere near left. I take my city back. I hope the stack will step an the node and stay there. I'm going to bring the 5 berserkers back to my continent for now.

Bad news : the large stack disappeared. It is most likely heading towards my klackon city or capital. The capital can defend itself, klackons, not so much with their 2 spearmen.


...but that's not what happens. A lone magic spirit attacks the klackon city...and I lose the battle. Life Drain and Summon Zombie kills my two spearmen. 2 berserkers disband due to low food. it's the two I had in the capital! And they raise my two spearmen.
Another Magic Spirit shows up at the Sorcery node - I can take it out with the berserker again but it's now down to 2 figures, too much battles recently. Next turn 2 ghouls show up. My 5 berserkers are back, so I attack them. I lose three berserkers - one to confusion and two to ranged attacks.
My entire army is down to 3 berserkers, so it's safe to say I'm losing. 2 berserkers arrive back to my capital a few turns later - but the large stack is nowhere to be found! Meanwhile the chaos wizard steals my node while I'm not paying attention. No units there, but she melded with it. I doubt I can recover from this situation so I RVL the map. The large stack disappeared - the two wizards are at war so it must have died. My klackon city already has a ghoul defending it, and 3 spearmen - by the time I arrive it could be even worse. 3 more stacks of 4-5 units already landed on my continent and of course the chaos wizard still has their city on it as well. 
The third arcanus wizard has a continent about as big as mine - but not fully settled yet - they aren't ahead too much. The Myrran wizard is at 5 cities. They aren't too far ahead but I can't expect to win a war with only my capital and 3 berserkers against someone who has Confusion.

Barbarians seem fairly balanced - fighter's guild and the berserkers themselves are expensive enough to make sure they aren't too fast. I don't know about using other units, barbarian swordsmen are great but I don't think they could win a game or even attack a wizard's capital on their own. And I only get 8 of them for the cost of the fighter's guild.

Next game I'll try Gnolls.

[Seravy]

Game 3
Gnolls, other settings identical.

Much faster start than barbarians. No need for the fighter's guild, and wolf riders move 5, not 3.
Found a neutral halfling city on the northern tip of the continent. The first wolf rider with just Endurance and Holy Armor was enough to deal with the 2 shaman and 2 swordsmen guarding it. There was another similar city next to it, on the adjacent continent. I spent most of my gold on a sawmill, swg and trireme, and conquered the other neutral.
Meanwhile, I found out there is a wizard on my continent in the opposite direction. They play lizardmen, sorcery, nature. I wasn't confident in my ability to fight them with only 3 wolf riders, so instead cleared some phantom warriors for 200 gold. There are a few other easy targets as well.
The AI attacked my capital using a stack of 9 - some nagas, a weak hero, and some swordsmen. Fortunately, I was able to win, barely. My Wolf Rider was able to stop the enemies, but it was confused so it didn't survive either. The capital is now down to the 1 wolf rider produced after the attack, which increased unrest. What's worse, the attack destroyed the sawmill. I have to rebuild it from gold/mana. Meanwhile they already have 5 cities on my continent. I need the 2 wolves I sent for exploring back ASAP.
I see a stack of 4 nagas, 3 bears and a hero on my way back to the capital. The path is tight, I have to risk moving close to it if I want the wolf riders back. I suspect they are targeting a lair or node in this peninsula so it should be safe. I can't imagine 2 wolf riders having a higher priority than my capital and they definitely moved towards them.
...but they attack the wolf riders anyway. How? Why? Is there a bug in the priority system? These definitely should have went for the capital instead. I need to investigate.

We aren't at war, so the fortress has a priority of 1000. At war, it would be 10000 instead. 2 Wolf Riders are worth about 100 priority. Even with a distance modifier there is no way the wolves are higher. This must be a bug, but where?
...it's the hostility level. Capitals only gain the high priority during "warlike" hostility. Otherwise, they are ignored, and treated as a city. As a city, the priority to attack is ~200, against because we aren't at war.  This is low enough to get outweigthed by the distance - the wolves were right there while the capital was further away.
This isn't a bug, more like a feature. Being at war and not being at war aren't the same, even if both allows the enemy to attack.To prove this, I reload and declare war. The stack now goes towards the capital instead, as expected.

Anyway, I'm having problems. I can most likely expand my halflings at the north, but I don't think I can take down the lizardmen AI on my continent. No matter how good Wolf Riders are, massive hordes of nagas, bears, and various lizardmen units are too much for the few I can produce. This strategy would probably take Hard and Normal difficulty by a landslide, but on impossible it struggles to stay alive, like anything else.

...the doomstack takes a nearby Nature node out and splits. It's still formidable with the 6 units it has left, while 3 Nagas are on the node now. I'm up to 5 wolf riders and was able to clear some hell hounds nearby for another 200 mana. However I can't leave my capital with that 6 stack so close. 5 wolves might take the stack out but it's risky. I'll build a few more before striking.
6 wolves now, and 3 has heroism. I'm going to risk it....we are in the Nature Node aura. This was a bad move on my part, the bears are a lot stronger. The wolf riders with no buffs melt away like butter...but those with buffs annihilate bears and don't even get damaged in the process. The extra 4 shields make a massive difference. I might stand a chance. Except, I lose my now empty capital. There were no units in a visible range of 2, yet...oh, yeah, war bears. They move 3! And with Forester, they could find a way where they could cover the 3 distance in one turn.
Game over, albeit this time it's mostly my fault. I don't think Gnolls or even the military retorts are particularly overpowered on their own, but stacking heroism and holy armor on top sure is powerful. However these units are vulnerable to confusion and dispelling, and cannot attack flying enemies. Powerful, but probably not enough to win a game on their own, unless getting lucky on the opponents.

I feel I should play one more game with Gnolls, and probably shouldn't bother with Lizardmen and Klackons who are slower.

[Seravy]

Game 4
Gnolls, second try.

I don't make spearmen first for scouting. The Wolf Riders come out fast enough to do the scouting. I discover a nice spot near by starting city with 2 wild game, 1 gold and 22 max pop, so I make a settler instead of my second wolf.


The starting sawmill has a surprising side effect. As it eats up most of the gold income as maintenance cost, I'm not getting any heroes in these games. I guess I should save 100 gold for one, but it's not easy to do.

I clear out a temple with Guardian Spirit and find Enchant Item. Not what I needed. My starting continent is small! I'll need ships ASAP but my capital has no sea access. Fortunately the good spot where I'm planning to build does. There is a place with Many Guardian Spirits. I attack after my wolf has heroism, holy armor and endurace. And the wolf dies in the battle, taking out only 4 spirits! That's an unexpected outcome. At least my gold income is no longer negative - it's back to zero. Fortunately the marketplace is completed, raising it to +7. I return and take out the last 2 spirits with 3 unbuffed wolves, and cast Just Cause meanwhile. Found 40 gold and a Wand of the Pixie. Nothing left on the continent I can fight - even the nature node with Sprites is impossible, no gnoll units can fight them. All I can do is wait for the outpost to grow and make a ship. I see a neutral gnoll city with pop 2 on the other side of the water.
It's already 1402 and I haven't done anything particularly noteworthy. My worries about overpowered military were pointless it seems.

An enemy wizard takes the neutral city. They're Maniacal with Sorcery, Chaos and Death.
Finally I get a hero. It's the Ritual Master - with Heroism I get +20 power/turn. Overpowered? I'm not sure. By this time I could have had a node for the same benefit - and to get a hero, not spending gold is necessary which slows down progress elsewhere. Aether Master and Sage bonus amounts are higher than this, though. Maybe AEther Master would be more balanced at 6. With a Sawmill start, amassing 100 gold is actually taking a while - income is a mere 0-4 gold a turn. If lower difficulty levels didn't start the player with much higher gold amounts, early heroes would not be that easy to come by. Going marketplace first would be essential to find a hero.

The wizard I found declares war. I still don't have a ship yet but getting there. They should have floating islands with that many Sorcery books. A settler arrives, belongs to a Death Nature wizard. They are at war with the other one, which is good news. Graphs say the wizard who declared was is only 2x as strong as me. The other is about 5 times stronger. I take the city that was neutral at the beginning easily. Lots of spearmen and swordsmen are no match for my 6 wolf riders. The hero loses some buffs unfortunately. The wizard is a runemaster so I might as well stop using buffs for this war. I see their next city...this is larger, lizardmen. A few halberdiers, nagas, swordsmen - but the Wall of Fire worries me. Casting Bless in combat should help against that but I don't have the skill to do that on all 6 wolves.
Another hero appears - Super Legendary and Leadership. Nice! When did I get up to 5 fame? Of course, Just Cause! That spell is way more important than it looks like. This hero is also a Noble, so my financial troubles will be gone.
I attack the city with Wall of Fire. The enemy units inside attack me when I position the units next to the fire. They're not supposed to be doing that! Wall of Fire does not apply unless I'm attacking. Bug? eww. Wall related bugs are hard to fix. But maybe not bug? There is no normal city wall to back up the Wall of Fire. Even if they don't attack I can walk right into the city and fight without getting hurt except when crossing it so maybe that behavior requires both walls to exist. I win the battle with a single wolf rider surviving - I lose the one with Heroism to confusion and the others take too much damage from Nagas and fire.

Completed casting Heroism on the Legendary hero, so now she provides me with 22 Fame. That, paired with Noble is worth 44 Gold a turn. Leadership or not, I'm not going to risk this hero in combat. Wolves are good enough without an extra attack point. the outpost the wizard had on the same continent grows into a city so I steal it. 1 Swordsmen won't stop 4 wolves. I see a node nearby, melded by this wizard. It's on an adjacent island but I should have no problem stealing that too - 3 magic spirits are guarding it. It seems the node belongs to a fairly large continent - most likely the home continent of the wizard, maybe even both wizards. Despite all my conquest, the gap between me and the enemy is growing on the graph. And let's not even think about what the OTHER wizard is doing. Fortunately wolves only need a stables - I can easily double or even triple my capacity to produce them. I steal the 1 pop city next to the node as well - my wolves are now spread out way too thin, each location having only 1 or 2. I need to consolidate for a while. The wizard retakes the city I got last. 2 damaged wolves were no match for a bear, a sprites and a swordsmen.
Then something strange happens. The sprites vanish from the city. I definitely didn't kill them so they should be still there. Does he have problems with the upkeep? At a 30% cost? No way...and the timing is weird too. They were in the battle so they had to get killed after the wizard's turn. But the AI "pays" their maintenance costs up front. They are second last in the turn order. So the only way for the unit to disappear is if another wizard attacked the city or used fire storm on it - but the fire storm should have been shown and the 4th wizard has no units nearby. I don't understand. And I can't reproduce, I saves 2 turns earlier and the stack that attacked me is consistenty getting killed by another wizard. Using the tweaker I check - the wizard has a power base of 62 (including AI modifiers). They need 200 mana upkeep (before modifications) to start disbanding stuff - I don't think they were anywhere near. They did drop 25 power due to the loss of the node though, which happened that turn. So it most likely was caused by the drop of income. Bug? Now that I think about it, those sprites should have been undead - this wizard has no Nature books. Related? I try all sorts of things but find out nothing...but I see a rampaging monster spawn during one of these attempts. I conclude one of those spawned next to the city and knocked out the sprites inside without destroying the city. I vaguely remember a unit of neutrals nearby.
Unfortunately, I saw the map and opponents due to all the investigation. I definitely can't knock out this wizard : 8 Ghouls in the capital all buffed by Sorcery, which I assume is Focus Magic. The other is 5 times more powerful than me. Their units are not really a threat but the numbers are worrying. I might be able to win this game but it's not fun to play after seeing the map. This strategy is certainly powerful - enough to have a chance to win on impossible - but I don't think it's overpowered.