Catwalk's challenge thread - Game 3

[Catwalk]

Build
Gnolls
2x Life (Holy Armor)
2x Death (Cloak of Fear)
1x Chaos
3x Nature (Resist Elements, Water Walking)
Warlord
Tactician
Omniscient

Reasoning
This build is exceptionally good at taking neutral cities early on. Wolf Riders with Water Walking can explore the entire map in no time, and they're capable of taking out many neutral cities unaided. To complement them, I've chosen cheap spells:
Cloak of Fear renders many enemy units completely useless. I've taken out a full complement of wolf riders and gnoll halberdiers with just 2 wolf riders enchanted with Holy Armor and Cloak of Fear. They had 5 resistance and did 80% less damage to me, that's crazy.
Holy Armor supplements Cloak of Fear nicely. It's a very cheap spell with no upkeep, taking my early wolf riders to an impressive 6 defense.
Resist Elements counters enemy shamans perfectly. Without this, 4-5 shamans are often able to take out a unit of wolf riders (especially those pesky Halfling shamans).
Water Walking is crucial for early exploration and conquest. I much prefer this over Earth Lore now, at least when I'm playing gnolls.
Gnolls are amazing out the gate. Wolf Riders are incredibly powerful for their cost and low building requirements, letting me field a strong force much earlier than all other races. Barbarian cavalry are also very decent, but are much more fragile and lack scouting and pathfinding. Other than wolf riders, gnolls are decent. I have access to all important mid-game buildings, and I can build Amp Towers for late game power. Basic gnoll units are also decent, gnoll spearmen are actually able to do damage. With Warlord and Tactician, they're 5/2 units out the gate.

Strategy
I'll be pushing heavily for neutral cities. With my retorts and spells, wolf riders can take out any neutral city with little trouble. I'm counting on this to give me a large economic edge early on, as well as access to additional races. Nomads and barbarians are a big scoop, giving me access to complementary 5 movers. One big downside of gnoll riders is that they can't take out sprites, horsebowmen and barbarian cavalry help with that.

Along with taking neutral cities I'll also be exploring massively. I plan on getting 4 wolf riders before moving on to other things, probably spearmen for unrest control. After taking out a handful of neutral cities I need to pick an AI early on to target for easy cities. This is where it gets tricky. Taking the cities is trivial, keeping them will tie up my forces. If I save one unit of wolf riders for each conquered city, I'll quickly run low and expose myself to sprite attacks. I will try to do so anyway, though. A handful of size 1 cities with sawmills will help tremendously. The main threat at this point is Confusion. All other common spells won't take me out, even Black Sleep can be survived if the enemy doesn't have ranged units.

I'll build a single gnoll settler to found a good production city: At least 50% production bonus, iron or coal, maybe mithril. I'll use my conquered neutral cities to settle resource sites, halflings are obviously best for this. I'll rush builder's halls in high pop sites, sawmills in high production sites.

I don't really have much of a mid-game strategy, other than what Nelphine mentioned. I'll be going for unit spam to overwhelm the AIs early on, hoping to finish off the first AI after stealing 4-5 cities and then quickly moving on to number 2. I've been doing a lot of early game practice lately, haven't really played that much to mid-game and beyond. This challenge should prove interesting! I fully expect to win all 3, but my confidence may turn out to be misplaced. I don't think I've even played with the latest build yet, these games will be played with it.

[Catwalk]

Turn 12 report (January 1401)




Income: 20 (25)
Power: 12 (12)
Armies: 2x Wolf Rider with Holy Armor, 3 Spearmen, 1 Swordsmen
Military buildings: Smithy, Stables

[occasionalplayer]

Could Alchemy possibly be stronger than tactician?

[Catwalk]

I thought about it, and decided against it. I know Nelphine is a big fan of Alchemy, and will surely pick it. For nomad and barbarian strategies I can see it working well, as they do "first strike" damage. For wolf riders, it's all about preventing damage. An extra shield makes a really big difference in how much damage you absorb early on. Add holy armor and resist elements and my wolf riders are nigh invincible early on. If I luck into nomads, horsebowmen are perfect sprite killers.

[Catwalk]

Already I'm starting to think that I should have picked Alchemy. I've gone without Spellweaver and Cult Leader this time, so I actually have to use Alchemy on occasion. Also, I can easily dispense with either my chaos book (does absolutely nothing at the start) or a life book as Holy Armor isn't all that important.

Revised setup (if I could switch)
2x Life (Just Cause)
3x Nature (Resist Elements, Water Walking)
2x Death (Cloak of Fear)
Warlord
Tactician
Alchemy
Omniscient

My start would be even faster, and speed is crucial. Just Cause is currently worth 14 spearmen and 10 gold, that's 140 hammers + 7 food per turn + 10 gold per turn. I assess food to be worth around 1 hammer each, and 1 hammer = 2 gold. So for 150 mana I save 140 hammers and get 25 gold per turn. By the time it's worth casting I have enough troops with Water Walking, and Cloak of Fear can be cast during combat.

[Catwalk]

Turn 24 report (Januar 1402)


Income: 61 (75 before upkeep)
Power: 13
Research: 0
Skill: 16 (0 points being invested)
Armies: 2x Wolf Rider with Holy Armor, 3 Spearmen, 1 Swordsmen
Military buildings: 2x Smithy, 2x Stables
Spells: Holy Armor, Water Walking, Resist Elements, Cloak of Fear, Holy Weapon (from Sssra)
Army: 5 Wolf Riders, 3 Horsebowmen, various riff raff for defense

[Catwalk]

As I suspected, I've been playing the wrong game. This is actually game 3, with mediocre terrain. There's not a single mithril or orihalcon anywhere on Arcanus, or much of anything else.

I've obviously gone for a full rush strategy, and I've now taken all 6 neutral cities present on the map. All were easy to take, with Cloak of Fear meaning auto-win in all of them. I just took an orc city with 5 cavalry and 4 shamans using 2 wolf riders. A single unit would also have sufficed, Resist Elements + Holy Armor + Cloak of Fear is extremely potent.

Ariel (Green) is full life with Guardian + Specialist + Famous. While Heroism + Heavenly Light + Guardian will be tough to chew, I expect to take her out easily. She currently has only buffed swordsmen for defense, which may actually pose a threat. They will have a combined resistance of 9 with Heavenly Light + Guardian + Heroism, so that's only 40% damage blocked by Cloak of Fear. They have 6 melee and +2 to hit, letting them damage my 6 shields easily. They have 12 hearts to my 20, I have 8 swords at no bonus vs 6 shields at +1 to defend. Hmm, maybe not so easy after all. And if she's able to add Halberdiers, that's going to spell trouble: 8 swords at +2 to hit, 7 shields at +1 to defend, 3 hearts and 10 resistance. Veteran Horsebowmen with magic weapons will have strength 6 ranged attack with +1 to hit, and there'll be city walls by then. Probably better to raze all her non-capital cities, even though I have a High Elf city on her island that I might lose. If she's able to hire buffed 20 fame heroes, I could be in real trouble. Life should work well for her in this game, and I can't allow her to build up power combos.

Sssra (Blue) is Chaos + Life + 1 Death with Runemaster. He has Wall of Fire on his capital, so I won't be going there right away. However, he is offering to trade me Bless for Cloak of Fear. I'm iffy on that one, Bless will let me cross through Wall of Fire easily (combined with Resist Elements), but Cloak of Fear will be an excellent counter against me. I could trade for it right before attacking, then cast it on 3 units during combat. He is using Hell Hounds for defense, they will be completely harmless against wolf riders (even with Heavenly Light they have 6 Resistance, so they'll be doing 70% less damage against Cloak of Fear).

Plan: Strike at Sssra's capital as soon as my entire army can get there: 5 wolf riders + 3 horsebowmen all with water walking. Leave two units for garrison and send the rest with reinforcements to Ariel's island to burn her two expansions to the ground.

On the economy side of things, I've been giving priority to marketplaces. I've burned smithies and stables in orc, high elf and high men cities. Only in my nomad city have I kept the smithy and stables already in place when I came to visit.

[Catwalk]

March 1403 (yeah, I'm forgetful as well)

I'll follow Nelphine's example and omit screenshits.

Gold income: 101 (119 before army upkeep)
Power income: 17
Spell power: 20
Research: 2
Armies: 6 wolf riders (most Veteran, 3 have Holy Armor + Cloak of Fear + Resist Elements), 3 horsebowmen (1 is Veteran)
Spells: Just found Earthquake in a lair guarded by Earth Elementals, what a waste. I could have had Lionheart, Gaia's Blessing, or all sorts of awesomeness.

[Catwalk]

Aaaaahhh I surrender March 1403. I'm unable to complete my rush for Sssra's fortress, and in general my rush has grinded to a complete halt. The early neutral cities needed Cult Leader and Heavenly Light to be profitable and to enable me to spam settlers. Nelphine has gotten off to a far better start than I have, and I concede defeat. I still think my general approach has merit, but this build was not ideal and my execution was sloppy past 1402.

So even though we're not counting, that's Nelphine 1 - 0 Catwalk ;-)