My first, seemingly succesful, attempt at Arcanus Master game. Been trying "stick 'em" builds (holy+flaming weapon archers) first with high elves and now nomads. The key factor seems to be how the diplomacy goes with the arcanus AIs, with losses due to early 2-way wars. But perhaps the faster growth rate of nomads actually was important. The effect can be hard to see out.
The strategy was horsebowmen and then rangers and griffons with holy/flaming weapons. Green on top for transmute, so mithril/adamantium. Also green could help economy later on (important for nomads due to no granary).
3 white, 2 red, 5 green, warlord.
starting: Holy weapon, Just Cause, Flaming Weapon, Nature Eye, Web, Earth to Mud, Transmute.
First 2 AIs were white/blue, with the other (Lo Pan) peaceful. Both high elves, so perhaps their slow start helped me out. Took out the first upon getting my first griffons (from feeding gold from treasure to the starting city). Starting city had gold, 2nd city mithril. 2 25 pop sites for cities 3 and 4, so a pretty good start. Allied with Lo Pan.
3rd AI (Merlin) was aggressive barbarians, who declared war almost immediately upon contact, which occured just as I took the last city from the 1st. Berserkers didn't stand a chance against rangers nor griffons. But just as I was taking his last cities, Merlin broke a tower near his capital.
Myrran AI is mono black with one blue book (Rjak), trolls and increasingly dark elves. So anything fighting him needs to be blessed (10 resistance on rangers/griffons is not enough against possession and black prayer). In power graph Rjak was clearly ahead of me and Lo Pan when contacted, and very quickly had wizard pact with Lo Pan. With blessed rangers/griffons (mostly griffons), only real threat from Rjak comes from reaper slash. Attacked soon, so as to prevent alliance between Rjak and Lo Pan. Lo Pan agreed to join in the war.
I quickly took 3 cities (1 big, 1 medium and 1 small) from the small continent the tower lead to. Killed a good deal of incoming Rjak transports with Griffons and heroes. The best Rjak has for summon is Shadow Demon and Stalker. He must have ~20 stalkers whose location I do not know... Finally found his fortress defended by shadow demons only. Very easy pickings for blessed griffons. Rjak fell in power below me now.
I think I got this one. It will be somewhat interesting to see how the eventual war on Lo Pan folds, but I will be soonish controlling almost all of Myrror and 2/3 of arcanus. The AI bonuses have us almost even on power production (me ahead a bit). Lo Pan is summoning angels like no tomorrow. They pose a decent threat to holy weapon griffons, but holy+flaming can take them well (at least they can all the undead angels that result from Lo Pan fighting Rjak).
This was interesting as the first time I managed diplomacy so that I actually had an ally to fight the Myrran with. Earlier I have had the 3rd AI think me too expansive upon killing the 2nd, so I had to kill the last Arcanus AI as well before going to Myrror. In this game I could also have tried to break into Myrror early instead of attacking the 1st AI.
I recently found Volcano from a node, so now I have Transmute+Volcano+Change Terrain. And will have Gaia's Blessing in a while. So I can soon crank out masses of mithril/adamantium units. Berserkers I am producing en masse as well, but not sure I can use them that well against Lo Pan due to confusion. Barbarian cities will soon all go for warships.
Having now proven to myself I can do the early military buffs -strategy on master, I've been thinking next:
Halfling conjurer: Black might be the easiest, after that want to try green. (Green should be stronger as I understood by mod design, but I feel it will rough going compared to undead hordes)
Dark Elf sorcerer warlord: I am intrigued to try out FM apprentices. Could need specialist+spellweaver to make FM cheap enough early game, but only 6 books is meh.
The strategy was horsebowmen and then rangers and griffons with holy/flaming weapons. Green on top for transmute, so mithril/adamantium. Also green could help economy later on (important for nomads due to no granary).
3 white, 2 red, 5 green, warlord.
starting: Holy weapon, Just Cause, Flaming Weapon, Nature Eye, Web, Earth to Mud, Transmute.
First 2 AIs were white/blue, with the other (Lo Pan) peaceful. Both high elves, so perhaps their slow start helped me out. Took out the first upon getting my first griffons (from feeding gold from treasure to the starting city). Starting city had gold, 2nd city mithril. 2 25 pop sites for cities 3 and 4, so a pretty good start. Allied with Lo Pan.
3rd AI (Merlin) was aggressive barbarians, who declared war almost immediately upon contact, which occured just as I took the last city from the 1st. Berserkers didn't stand a chance against rangers nor griffons. But just as I was taking his last cities, Merlin broke a tower near his capital.
Myrran AI is mono black with one blue book (Rjak), trolls and increasingly dark elves. So anything fighting him needs to be blessed (10 resistance on rangers/griffons is not enough against possession and black prayer). In power graph Rjak was clearly ahead of me and Lo Pan when contacted, and very quickly had wizard pact with Lo Pan. With blessed rangers/griffons (mostly griffons), only real threat from Rjak comes from reaper slash. Attacked soon, so as to prevent alliance between Rjak and Lo Pan. Lo Pan agreed to join in the war.
I quickly took 3 cities (1 big, 1 medium and 1 small) from the small continent the tower lead to. Killed a good deal of incoming Rjak transports with Griffons and heroes. The best Rjak has for summon is Shadow Demon and Stalker. He must have ~20 stalkers whose location I do not know... Finally found his fortress defended by shadow demons only. Very easy pickings for blessed griffons. Rjak fell in power below me now.
I think I got this one. It will be somewhat interesting to see how the eventual war on Lo Pan folds, but I will be soonish controlling almost all of Myrror and 2/3 of arcanus. The AI bonuses have us almost even on power production (me ahead a bit). Lo Pan is summoning angels like no tomorrow. They pose a decent threat to holy weapon griffons, but holy+flaming can take them well (at least they can all the undead angels that result from Lo Pan fighting Rjak).
This was interesting as the first time I managed diplomacy so that I actually had an ally to fight the Myrran with. Earlier I have had the 3rd AI think me too expansive upon killing the 2nd, so I had to kill the last Arcanus AI as well before going to Myrror. In this game I could also have tried to break into Myrror early instead of attacking the 1st AI.
I recently found Volcano from a node, so now I have Transmute+Volcano+Change Terrain. And will have Gaia's Blessing in a while. So I can soon crank out masses of mithril/adamantium units. Berserkers I am producing en masse as well, but not sure I can use them that well against Lo Pan due to confusion. Barbarian cities will soon all go for warships.
Having now proven to myself I can do the early military buffs -strategy on master, I've been thinking next:
Halfling conjurer: Black might be the easiest, after that want to try green. (Green should be stronger as I understood by mod design, but I feel it will rough going compared to undead hordes)
Dark Elf sorcerer warlord: I am intrigued to try out FM apprentices. Could need specialist+spellweaver to make FM cheap enough early game, but only 6 books is meh.
