Revenge of the Elves - MoM High Elves AAR

We find Inspirations and Planar Seal in the ruins of Ariel's fortress. Soon after that, we also raid an ancient ruins and find a Holy Word spell. Their use in further game will be rather marginal. It's a relatively magic-free game on my part - I am afraid to summon Chaos units due to Nature's Wrath, and Life magic doesn't really feel as "magicky" as other schools. Mind you, my spells are still going to be essential later on.

Meanwhile, war with Sss'ra continues on. He takes a small Troll city I conquered from him,



my newly-rushed Berserkers take Hannover, one of his cities on Arcanus. He has managed to build up quite an empire on the green plane.





Ariel soon returns, and continues to frustrate me by defeating my attempt to take her capital.



Sss'ra's trolls attack and take Salamis. We successfully retake it, however, during the battle he uses this:



It automatically destroys units with a resistance parameter of 9 or lower (and doesn't cause any damage to those above 9). This is a major, and quite a nasty development.

Good thing that during another temporary truce he trades me it. But most of his units have more resistance than 9, anyway, so it's not as devastating in mine hands as in his.



Meanwhile, we lose our second stack sent to destroy Ariel. Very annoying.



Sss'ra casts this:



He then attacks a city of ours in South Gnollia, razing it (disintegrating the Wolf Riders). A turn after, he proceeds to do the same thing with the second city of South Gnollia. Good thing that Gnoll cities start to lose their relevance to the game, anyway.



The third stack send to conquer the remnant of Ariel's empire -



succeeds in capturing the capital.

Sss'ra then assaults my capital with War Trolls and Beastmen Magicians. I have heroes there, as you can see, but all of them are just-recruited. The while glow on his units is a result of them having Holy Weapons. Good thing it's not Invulnerability.



This battle ends with only two detachments of Elven Lords left standing. Beastmen Magicians were quite brutal.



And finally, Ariel's last couple of cities are captured.



Here's the situation on Arcanus at this point of the game after Oberic casts Awareness. Barbaria Orientalis is a province formed from Ariel's eastern possessions. It's constantly under siege by Sss'ra's troops. Everything else is more or less self-explanatory. Kali has only one city and is basically out of the game. The confrontation is between Sss'ra and me. The small greenish-grey circles represent the plane-travel towers.



And here's Myrror. A human player as Sss'ra would quickly conquer the two remaining cities of mine (all Dwarven, and suffering from unrest), but Sss'ra refuses to do so, although he did conquer Rastenford, my first Myrran city, and another Troll city I had captured with Dwarven troops not so long ago.

Very soon after the maps in the previous post are taken, we receive grave news:



We immediately start pouring money onto the two Dwarven Myrror cities we have, rushing Hammerhands and Golems. We rush a stack and a half of units total.

That's how Sss'ra's capital is defended now. Good thing that the Chaos Warrior is no longer there.



First army goes in. The two Gorgons have a resistance score of 9, and are quickly disintegrated.



That's who guards the gates.



Many dwarves die defeating Destin, but finally, we manage to break his resistance and start engaging more vulnerable units. Draconian Magicians are weak against our Golems and Hammerhands. We also disrupt a section of the wall, invading the city.



Here're the two remaining units in this battle. The traitorous Elven Lord mercenaries of Sss'ra do manage to hold the city -



But we have got a second army, composed largely of these Wolf Riders who were present in my first real army to invade Myrror.



The result:



Of course, Sss'ra still has a huge empire, meaning that he'll return quite soon. We still can amuse ourselves by finally taking Kali out of the game. One Holy Word decimated her army of Death creatures that were guarding her remaining city.



We further increase taxes, ignoring the howls of Gnoll hyena-men in their hovels. Everything is devoted to cash-rushing powerful units in certain cities.



Very soon (after 3-4 turns), Sss'ra is back and starts casting the Spell of Mastery the following turn.



That's where his new capital is. It's quite far from the last one still in my hands, as you can see on the minimap.



After returning, Sss'ra turns aggressive, capturing one of our Barbarian cities in Arielia and razing the other. (I have 0 mana because I've just spent it all on another battle with Sss'ra. He seems to almost deliberately time 2 battles a turn). He then captures all cities I have on Myrror. It's like the experience of being banished made him hate me even more.



Pirates stealing his gold is a small consolation.



I can't reach Sss'ra's new capital with an army located so far away. Even though it's connected with roads, I would need to make some stops on them, since on occasion a city on a road stops the movement of my troops, and moreover, the Draconian has enough troops to occasionally move them directly on his roads, further impeding the movement. We need to dispel the Planar Seal. Good thing that the dispelling is successful on the first try.



While dispelling the Seal, I rushed a lot of Griffins in Nomadia, the jewel of my empire and the only reason, besides my Elven capital, why I'm still competitive. I cast Heroism and Invulnerability on as many Griffins as possible. Furthermore, I've recently researched High Prayer, which is going to be very useful.

Before entering Myrror, a small detachment of Griffins overruns Sss'ra's tower guardians. A larger Griffin army follows them.



I was afraid that Sss'ra would attack the Griffin army with his units, damaging or killing some of them with his spells, but he doesn't. The Griffins immediately fly southwest to his new capital.



His capital is defended purely by War Mammoths. I wonder whether other 9-unit arrangements would be better for him (of course, as an AI receiving massive bonuses he could just surround his capital with 9-unit stacks of junk).

The battle starts and goes in my favor quite early. High Prayer is a dealy thing,











Sss'ra is banished again. This time we find THE SPELL OF MASTERY IN THE RUINS (it would take a forbidding number of turns for me to research it). We immediately start casting it.



Sss'ra's army suddenly emerges from South Gnollia, but it reaches my capital one turn after his banishment and is destroyed with relative ease. And yes, I've got this much mana from banishing a highly advanced enemy wizard two times.



Of course, Sss'ra is back once more, in Giant Peaks, another troll hovel of dens in the lands southwest of his second capital. He immediately reconquers his second capital, not that I care much at that point.



Sss'ra's armies capture and devastate almost all Tlalocia and even capture the second Elven city of Oberic's empire. Since most of our food and gold is supplied by Nomadia and Arielia (the latter almost completely on food production to support the Griffins), this isn't as catastrophic as it seems. We repel his attack on one of the Nomadian cities, but the sheer number of Fire Elementals he managed to summon (the Griffin just ran away from them for 50 turns) shows that he's got a really big spell skill and is still a major danger to winning the race of the two Spells of Mastery.



A Griffon army is rushed again (I don't have the time to cast Heroism on them this time), but in a battle with the tower guardians this army unexpectedly loses 3 Griffin units. Things are looking really bleak now, as the remaining 6 approach Giant Peaks. Fortunately, the Amazon defending is newly-hired and has no items.



Griffins descend on the city, their sharp talons piercing the troll skins, but the Mammoths ram the unfortunate Griffins who get too close, with their tusks and stomp on them. The last major battle of the game goes like that:



Only four Griffin figures left versus two figures of War Mammmoths and four figures of War Trolls...





And we win, with only one almost dead Griffin figure left standing. The MoM battles have a random factor, so this victory was probably by no means predetermined.



The Draconian wizard is banished again and now my victory is guaranteed. Since I'm unlikely to hold Giant Peaks even in the remaining time before my victory, I send more Griffins to Myrror for them to capture a small Troll village on a rather irrelevant island. I want to have at least one city on Myrror when I win.



Sss'ra again returns soon, but this time I'm very close to the Spell of Mastery. For some reason now he chooses to pick a Gnoll town of Mainz on Arcanus as his capital. That's how the plane looks now, BTW. Sss'ra has been quite good at conquering my cities while I was dedicating all resources to the successive capture of his three capitals.



Less than five turns after this map was taken, Oberic finally becomes the one and true Master of Magic, with the Draconian having no choice but to kneel before him.



Oberic achieved his victory in year 1436. Not that I pay any attention to score anyway, both in MoM and in Civ it doesn't really indicate anything. My Fame was higher than that for most of the game, but Sss'ra's endgame rampage against my Gnoll cities pulled it down.



Whew.

Fun read - congrats

Thanks!

Great game!