I finally found the time to finish off my version of this game and it is my first deity win on FfH2
Thanks Horatius for that savegame, it was most enjoyable.
A domination win on turn 285 which was a nice relaxed pace and gave me enough time to do a few other things I had never done before in a game. For instance I had never used a Profane (the AV highpriest) or a Death Knight in a game before and they were very powerful and I'm glad I took it that far.
The game was essentially won once I had used the Infernal Grimoire to get Malevolent Designs and the 9 powerful units that unleashes but I wanted to explore the Summoner trait that the Infernals have. But first let's celebrate the big guys
Despite hundreds of combats, the top 10 units (including Hyborem) I only lost 2 Beasts of Agares, and that was to massive stacks of counter attacking Treants (from March of the Trees). Many of the early combats were at 95% but I got lucky and once the units gained a few promotions they could attack defenders in cities without bothering about defences and had 99% chances after the ritualists had used the Ring of Flames. I found that the march promotion was the most useful for these units as that meant they could fight a battle every turn if needed.
I had a few chariots and axemen to support the big guys and hold cities. I kept a few more cities than Horatius did but that was partly because I tackled the civs in a different order and Beeri summoned the Mercurians, so I had a lot stiffer opposition, at least in theory (but more about the AI silliness later). I declared war on the Lanun and then Beeri, bribing Flauros to attack him as well. Then Beeri summoned Basium and proceeded to bash Flauros and Tansunke taking several of their cities. Arendel Phaedra (twice) and Valledia declared war on me, (probably bribed by Beeri) and I had to fight defensive wars on two fronts as well as attack and eventually take the best 5 of Beeri's cities including his capital. This produced some manes from Beeri's troops and some angels from other of his troops. The other nations were also fighting each other and so many more manes and angles were produced from battles I couldn't see.
I could have finished the game with chariots and champions supporting the 10 big guys (like Horatius did) but I was determined to make the game last long enough to test the interactions of Spiritual and Summoning traits, that meant getting the Profanes and also to make battle mages from upgrading savants. Battle mage is my name for mages that specialise in casting strong summons (spectres in this case) and take combat and extension promotions to make these summons better. The imps took various spell promotions and became utility adepts and utility mages that provided support spells (enchant, rust, slow etc.) for the battle mages and other troops and one of them took metamagic so I could swap mana nodes around a bit using Dispel Magic. Most of the battle mages were made by building a savant and then at 10 exp promoting to a mage (with at least 3 death mana). Since the Spiritual trait gives potency I planned to allow the savants to sit around and slowly gain the 8 exp they needed. But this proved to be far too slow and also unecessary as using combat gets there much faster. Beeri and Basium kept sending raiders into my territory attacking the troops guarding my workers or a skeleton I put out as bait. I could then kill off the stranded raider with a savant or if it was too strong weaken it with a ritualist first and then kill it. Some of the savant combats were risky (65%) but I got lucky again and again
; this savant was upgraded and produced a battle mage the next turn. I now think it is worth the risk of a 60 hammer unit to get a really good mage in a few turns rather than wait 30 or more turns for unit to gain the exp passively with potency. The combination of ritualists and the way the AI moves its units makes this a viable way to get mages quickly.
The battle mages were extremely powerful in this game as there were lots of mana nodes to boost the spectres. I also managed to get several more mana sources by trading with other civs including my capitulated ones (shadow, law from Flauros) (death from Valledia) using lots of happiness and health resources that the Infernals don't need anyway. Spectres are particularly good for summoners as the mages can effectively maintain 2 spectres at once. Also for demons the Sundered promotion for the mage gives the Stigmata promotion to its summons and when the AC is say 70, that's a +35% damage bonus, better than 3 combat promotions worth of Empower promotions. At the end after I built the Tower of Necromancy my spectres were strength 10 (4 + 6 death) and had +100% strength from promotions (stigmata, empower 4 and Enchanted Blade) and these spectres were able to kill angels fortified in a city with 30% defences. As they were expendable I didn't even need to use Ring of Flames to soften the defenders, just send more spectres.
The profanes could summon Balors and these bad boys were even more obscene than the spectres if a bit more short ranged (move 1 instead of 3). Summoned in the open they were 11/7 and had the same +100% strength from promotions and able to beat nearly anything 1 v 1. If they were summoned in or entered a city they get iron weapons and became 13/9. And like the mages a Summoner profane can have 2 of them around at once. In my game the spectres were very strong (due to 6 death mana) but if there were less death nodes then the Balors would be even more useful.
The tally of dead enemies was 59 angels, 46 treant, 42 swords, 30 warrior, 25 dwarf slinger, 14 catapult and about 200 assorted others and 9 AI heroes
Finally a mention of Hyborem who was ultra powerful in this game: strength 24/21 with +120% strength + shock + stigmata and had 99.9% odds against nearly everything. He slew Basium in single combat (95% odds) and later Ars Moriendi (99.9%) and ended with 189 exp. Orthus axe, mobility and march meant he could attack stacks 3 times per turn. He was impressive
) This of course gives the Infernal player a big incentive to take over (liberate?) the citizens of other evil players 
).
Of course that sort of military rush you have demonstrated here happens in BtS as well and is a symptom of Pangea maps in particular which encourage that style of play.
