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[ThtblovesDF]

More banter please, reading threads is my prep phase for a real mp game : )

[Delta Foxtrot]

No one wants to spoil their hand

I guess I can confirm as much though. C'tis is indeed assisting Arcoscephale against Utgård and T'ien Ch'i against Man. Nothing major though, just a few Sauromancer-retirees walking their dogs tomb chariots.
Utgård simply left himself way too open to attack. He had everything up north against Agartha, how could I resist taking a plunge at his south? Not that it's a done deal, there's several dozen she-witches prowling the countryside for my poor elderly lizard wizards. It's his home turf and he outnumbers my mages. Arco has already faced the nether dart batteries at Utgård's disposal. Of course I would be lying, very, very much lying, if I claimed I didn't have a plan or two up my sleeve.

Man, well, oh Man oh Man. Nothing personal, but trading got us nowhere and since TC was already rummaging through your lawn, I thought I might as well join the party. At least you're going down fighting, nice to see armies and mages running about.

And somehow Agarthan player is still submitting turns. I guess some folks just want  to see the world burn. Burnt by others as the case may be, but still.

[E. Albright]

More banter please, reading threads is my prep phase for a real mp game : )

Um. Well. If you're blessed with patience, I'd direct you to this monstrosity, which will give you a ton of involved MP chattering, albeit not so much banter per se, and also a pile of somewhat-dull logistical yammering. If you've the strength of will to wade through the sea of chaff, there's some ripe grains of wisdom to be gleaned from that veritable ocean of prose...

[Delta Foxtrot]

And we're down to five submitting human players. I'd be interested to hear Antur's thoughts on the game and his performance in it.
At least tell me how your early expansion went? We were pretty far apart so by the time I scouted you out a lot of the indies were taken, all I can tell is that you seemed to have expanded pretty badly. Did your neighbours rush all your borders real quick or did you face some tough/unlucky indie fights early?

What was the gameplan? Based on the pretender I'd assume you were looking to power through the early game with E blessed sacreds and transition to mass national summons in the midgame.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Man, Tompliss, buddy, pal, how the heck did you get so many generic commanders into the Hall of Fame? I know that one of them was your prophet, but that doesn't explain the other two. I was pumping out expansion parties as fast as I could and I still couldn't get more than 2 of my guys into the thing.

[tompliss]

Honestly ? I have no idea.
I'll take a look today at them, but it shocked me too, when I saw that a few days ago.
I mean, I usually put them with the "stay behind troops" order like I do with most nations ^^"

[USEC_OFFICER]

I... Yeah, I have no idea either. They've got no kills, but tons of exp and I have no idea where all of that's from. Besides stomping my PD, I suppose.

[Antur]

And we're down to five submitting human players. I'd be interested to hear Antur's thoughts on the game and his performance in it.
At least tell me how your early expansion went? We were pretty far apart so by the time I scouted you out a lot of the indies were taken, all I can tell is that you seemed to have expanded pretty badly. Did your neighbours rush all your borders real quick or did you face some tough/unlucky indie fights early?

What was the gameplan? Based on the pretender I'd assume you were looking to power through the early game with E blessed sacreds and transition to mass national summons in the midgame.

Spoiler: How to fail at Agartha for dummies,spoiler since maybe something in here is sill relevant (click to show/hide)

Yeah i failed utterly during expansion. I barely got one province from my capital. I hoped that Prophet and few blessed sacreds with crossbow support would be enough to clear most things. Then amazonian riders (jade riders? Can't rember the exact name, anyway nothing special so i didn't expect any trouble) pulled out some unbelievably lucky charge along with sorceress hitting with something and poof goes the sacred line and my expansion army. That was in one of the first turns so i kinda lost hope for easy going from that moment. Then i wasted two turns on moving my second expansion force back and forth when the provinces i aimed for were taken by other nations. Decided i need to move fast since time will only make the provinces disadvantage greater, got stomped by utgardian bolts of death. At least i got back at them a bit during Agartha defense.

About strategy, pretty much what you said, blindfighters with crossbow support at the start but it turns out it's not enough. Blindfighers offense is painfully bad. I expected to set up some summoning and go on from that.I found W2A2 indie mages for recruitment so i thought maybe Wind Guide + Darkness (+Flaming Arrows maybe from that hero) and massing crossbowmen would be worth it. Never got to test it really but that was probably bad idea since they didn't seem much more accurate during the one fight i used it.(Also betting on getting D random necromancer whyyy i did this to myself). I need to stop shoehorning cool stuff i find into the overall strategy. In hindsight i should have thrown the necromancers into the fray earlier since skellyspam is not that bad when you got a few mages spamming.

[HopFlash]

I need to say that my anti-Nether-Darts-tactic doesn't work as well as I hoped.

This spell is "overpowered" for my taste but perhaps I hadn't recognize a good method against it.
I tried Magic Duels and Antimagic but each dart made 20-40 Dmg and only few units can withstand that for a while.

But now without a front line I hope to get to these spammers faster

[Delta Foxtrot]

Well it is an evocation-7 spell, so some power is expected.
Loose formations and unit placement helps, as does MR boosting. Were you fighting in magic dominion? Did the nether casters have high S skill or penetration boosters? Were there simply a ton of nether casters?

It absolutely is a powerful spell for any nation with cheap SD mages, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's OP.

[HopFlash]

Well it is an evocation-7 spell, so some power is expected.
Loose formations and unit placement helps, as does MR boosting. Were you fighting in magic dominion? Did the nether casters have high S skill or penetration boosters? Were there simply a ton of nether casters?

It absolutely is a powerful spell for any nation with cheap SD mages, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's OP.

sure...it's Evo 7 but it does cost nearly nothing...no gems and only 20 fatigue.

And yes...MR boosting (Antimagic spell) collided with a ton of nether casters. Utgard has cheap ones :/ And I "lost".

Loose formations and unit placement doesn't help much because if you have some hundred troops on the battlefield these darts are spread nicely over your troops...and if only 1/3 of the 15 darts (of one shot) hit your lines they drop away.

You by yourself have seen the power of the witch-king with his shadow blast...it decimates whole squads but it costs a gem and need high skills.
But 24 low cost casters spam Nether darts decimating the lines faster and more wide spreading. And if you get near (after fighting the defence line) the darts are very accurate with their mass.

Sure...Dominions 4 has some "very interesting" tactics but this one looks like to simple to reach with nothing working against it.

But perhaps only my frustation pops up in my postings...and I had posted too much details of my nation tactics I think
Or it points to a "wrong" one...who knows.

I'm excited what other things I will learn in this game.

[Delta Foxtrot]

24 mages, 24 fort turns, that's a lot of resources even if we're talking dirt cheap mages. I would expect some results if I fielded a force that great.

24 Seithkonas cost a bit over 2000 gold, more if some of those were his cap Nornas. How expensive was your force? How expensive were your mages? No need to answer if you think it reveals too much. The point is that 24 mages worth over 2k are a significant force on the battlefield if they have half decent combat paths, which SD is.

High research beats low research, lots of mages beat few mages*. Assuming comparable resources, Arco has access to lots of big AOE damage spells between evoc 1-7. Mix in Destruction from alt to ignore the enemy's protection stat.
Unboosted Nether Darts hits 5 squares worth of troops, that is entirely in line with the other high research evocation spells.


* = turn-1 killspells not withstanding

[lijacote]

snippety snip

I've thrown everything I have at you. Literally everything I have. I was hoping I'd get your pretender -- that would make my defeat worth it. Without your meddling, who knows what could have happened! You killed my god! Ruin unto death to you, Arcoscephale, Flash the Great Enchantress, ruin unto death!

[HopFlash]

snippety snip

I've thrown everything I have at you. Literally everything I have. I was hoping I'd get your pretender -- that would make my defeat worth it. Without your meddling, who knows what could have happened! You killed my god! Ruin unto death to you, Arcoscephale, Flash the Great Enchantress, ruin unto death!

there was some time you had the chance to fight side by side with me but you wanted more ambiguous future relationship...then I had no real chance other than to take a part from the cake.

but I for my part learned several things by fighting you...but thinking objectively this game will end relative soon.

[lijacote]

snippety snip

I've thrown everything I have at you. Literally everything I have. I was hoping I'd get your pretender -- that would make my defeat worth it. Without your meddling, who knows what could have happened! You killed my god! Ruin unto death to you, Arcoscephale, Flash the Great Enchantress, ruin unto death!

there was some time you had the chance to fight side by side with me but you wanted more ambiguous future relationship...then I had no real chance other than to take a part from the cake.

but I for my part learned several things by fighting you...but thinking objectively this game will end relative soon.

You could have attacked the player with the strongest position! You vulture, you cake-eater! That is why I will make you pay.