Revenge of the Nerds: An Amurite Story
- Thread starter Shatner
- Start date
Spectral-Fremen
Chieftain
Man this is so awesome.
Shatner you are solid gold mate, huge thumbs up for this and the Khazad AAR!
Funnily enough Amurites have always been my favourite civ and Khazad are probably my second!
Shatner you are solid gold mate, huge thumbs up for this and the Khazad AAR!
Funnily enough Amurites have always been my favourite civ and Khazad are probably my second!
Shatner
Warlord
Hopefully, I will have the next and final update posted before the end of the week. Part of the reason this has been taking so long is because I would really like to finish the game this AAR is based on... but I can't. I play for two or three turns and then I have to quit the program, re-open it and resume my game from the last save; any more and I risk a crash. That MAF (Memory Allocation Failure) bug is making my games nigh-unplayable once I reach the mid-to-late part of the game, when the world has become populated with too much stuff and my machine seems incapable of keeping up. And sadly, enlarging the virtual memory on my machine (per this thread) didn't solve it.
So yeah, playing an all caster game is pretty micro-management intensive to begin with but adding in the three turn OR DIE limit means I'm not going to finish this game... Faced with that fact, I am putting a hold on advancing the game and instead am focusing on wrapping up the story... and working in a Rule of Acquisition; I haven't done that yet.
However, I will be sure to post the final save with the Scene Four so you guys with your highfalutin' "working" computers can finish the game if you are so inclined.
'til then...
Deon
Lt. of Mordor
Now let's go on and propose a secondary ability for the "haste" spell: when cast in city, it should double the growth rate and slightly increase GP growth. 
abculatter2
Warlord
- Joined
- May 23, 2008
- Messages
- 152
Now let's go on and propose a secondary ability for the "haste" spell: when cast in city, it should double the growth rate and slightly increase GP growth.
You forgot why Dain in the story marked it off as ineffective:
Friction burns. Right where it hurts.
Deon
Lt. of Mordor
Well, then it would require Pool of Tears nearby. Oh sacred waters!
Shatner
Warlord
Alright, the text shouldn't change further, aside from tiny nit-picks...
As you know, for this game I am only building caster units and probably 95% of those units are adepts and wizards. Since I’ve had to make an army out of one type of unit, I have specialized those units heavily and given those specializations names. However, I’m picking up on some confusion concerning what everything means, so I’d like to use this space to clarify.
Battlecaster: A unit specialized in combat promotions and, later, Earth 1 and 2. Sometimes you need a big tough unit to crack a particularly stubborn defender or guard a stack of softer units. Park one of these guys in a city and you suddenly have a Defense 7, energy resistant, 3-first-strikes unit enjoying an additional +25% defense bonus. Really, an expensive warrior but the passive XP gain is nice.
Generalist: A unit specialized in being able to cast as many spheres of magic as possible. While the battlecasters smash, the Generalists hasten, spy via floating eyes and burn down troublesome jungles. Later on, they regenerate, lob fireballs and dispel mana nodes for repurposing. This “specialization” becomes obsolete once Govannon shows up.
Summoner: Death 1+2 and Extend Spell 1+2 for great justice!
Bombardier: Fire 1+2 and Extend Spell 1+2 to better burninate the countryside and thatched roof cottages.
Domestic Caster: Takes Mind 1, Spirit 1+2, Earth 1+2 and maybe Water 1. Sits around and keeps the city happy, inspired and well defended. Springs any nearby desert.
For the record, I gave Hemah Fire 1-3, Earth 1-3 and Extend Spell 1+2. While Twincast is awesome, I didn’t want to wait on accumulating the 6 non-casty promotions needed to get it and instead had Hemah burn and crush my enemies immediately (mainly Svartalfar and demons from Bradelines Well).
Now, a wizard is simply the mage UU for the Amurites and the Battlemage is the archmage UU. I realize that the Battlemage and the Battlecaster sound similar but they aren’t necessarily the same thing (a Battlemage could, and arguably should, be a Battlecaster but it isn’t required).
And now, we commence with the next, and last, act of Revenge of the Nerds with...
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Scene Four
The Place: The Super-Continent of Erebus
The Time: The Age of Rebirth, Year 198 to Year 257
The Cast:
Dain the Caswallan: Prime Procreator of his people, has had some long days and bad nights of lateScene Four
The Place: The Super-Continent of Erebus
The Time: The Age of Rebirth, Year 198 to Year 257
The Cast:
Tebryn: An impotent potentate, never moved out of his parent’s palace in Gavelhome
Capria: Has a worrisome crusade-reflex triggered by literacy, death mana or other religions
Jonas: Alpha Orc of the Clan, carries a torch for Bhall both figuratively and literally
Faeryl: Queen of the Winter Court, she is renowned for her huuuge… tracks of land
Sandalphon: Supreme Spook of the Sidar, is more transparent than his motives
Valledia the Even: A wily wizardess, has a chip on each shoulder and a copy of Il Principe
Hemah: A waking dream made manifest, he has a nasty habit of ret-conning reality when he dozes off
Dain is leaving the cafeteria when suddenly Faeryl is walking beside him (how do the Svartalfar do that!?). She’s wearing a clingy dress (does she own any other kind) which makes Dain’s mouth go dry and his palms, moist. “You know, you’re pretty good at sorcery, Dain. Do you think you and I could do a little after school study session for this week’s thaumaturgy exam? I know this room in the library that’s perfect; (she places her hand on his chest, making his pubescent body go crazy) no one ever goes there so we’d be alllll alone. Just you and...” She stops suddenly, her head tilting ever upward. With an exertion of will, Dain takes his eyes off of Faeryl and follows her gaze over to the flag pole where Jonas is hoisting some ratty looking, strangely shaped flag. Which isn’t. A flag. At. ALL.
How Jonas got a hold of his gym shorts, Dain will never know for sure. Dain had bound an elemental spirit to his locker to curtail him being stuffed into it every other week or having a stink-imp summoned inside; perhaps Dain didn’t explicitly forbid anything being taken out of it. Oops. And now, everyone is laughing at Dain. Sandalphon, Jonas, Daracaat, Hannah. Even Capria is failing in her effort to cover the smirk with a disapproving scowl. And Faerly... she has no desire to study eldritch bindings with a man who’s under garments and cod piece are blowing like some icon of Tali. Instead she walks over to Tebryn, whispers something in his ear and leads him in the direction of the library... giggling.
Dain wakes up with a start, accidentally jostling Noranna the Taciturn awake.
“What’s the matter?” she asks sleepily.
“He was having a nightmare.” muttered Gamela, who was already sitting up in bed, “He’s been muttering in his sleep for half an hour.”
Tilania, who had been laying on the side by the brazier, yawned and propped herself up on her elbow. “If it would help, I can make you some tea. No? What about you, Liara?”
“No thank you. I’d have to brush my teeth afterwards and Marial the Limber has already claimed the bathroom.”
Ever since Capria had declared war, Dain had been forced to consolidate his schedule more and more to accommodate the additional demands placed on him; as a result, his days and bed had become increasingly crowded. Oye Vey.
There exist other worlds beyond Erebus. Worlds filled with beings beyond count, some terrifying, others merely strange. There exist entire planes containing nothing but infinite elemental energy. The wizards of the Amurites could, in their own limited way, access those places. So long as there were casters, the Amurites would never run out of fireballs or specters or anything else they cared to summon. How did Capria think she could compete when each of her axmen had to be raised, trained, fed, armed and marched all the way from some distant Bannor city to Dain’s border? Was it even moral to sacrifice real, feeling people against an ablative layer of summoned foes? Regardless of what she thought, the answer was... she couldn’t. A single circle of wizards could summon the equivalent of a terror-inducing squadron of swordsman or catapult-shot of pure flame. And they could do this every day, with each circle matching the military output of the proudest Bannorian fortress. Attrition FTW.
In the year 206, the defenders of Tentationis were defeated and the city captured by a battlecaster wielding Orthus’ Ax. In 209, Astrium was razed and pillaged by undead at the behest of their robed masters. Dain kept sending messengers offering Capria the chance to surrender and save her people from further losses but those messengers kept coming back with the same response: “When Hell freezes over.”
In 210, on the unveiling of the Catacomb Libralis in Cevedes, Sandalphon’s shadowy legion went to Capria’s aid. Anta, the former capitol of the multi-limbed Archos, was suddenly surrounded. When danger reared its ugly head, the resident battlecaster told his squad of skeletons to “keep ‘em busy” while he bravely turned his tail and fled. While not the most honorable form of combat, it got results: Anta was recaptured in 213 without the loss of any “real” troops and Sandalphon would never again manage to budge the wizards and their arcane cannon fodder.
In 216, Vallus was captured; ectoplasm intermixing with the blood of its broken defenders. On 219, a cold snap unlike any since Mulcarn was forcibly retired was felt across Erebus; hills and plains were frozen over and coated in snow. That same year Trinity was captured after a force of five wizards exhausted their spellstaves to summon a second barrage of fireballs; partly to reduce the militia to barbecue but mainly to stave off the cold. Capria, seeing that even Bhall was wearing a sweater, signed the statement of capitulation even before the last of the fires in Trinity had been extinguished. Dain wanted to be there in person but he was tied up by other things (namely Marial, who was surprisingly adept with knots).
The Library of Cevedes had been under renovation continuously and for longer than Dain could remember. Abnoba, mad prophet of the Overlords, had been the chief architect directing its expansion; or rather, Mikel Dylantyr had been until Hemah began napping in the reference section… then Abnoba was suddenly-had always been (Editors note: conjugating the preterit future durative tense is a pain. I blame Danalin). In 221, Abnoba led a great ceremony beseeching the inscrutable submerged powers to bless the sprawling academic edifice, pronouncing that the Great Library was completed (it was originally going to be called the Librum Ubiquitous but Hemah had nodded off while Abnoba was rehearsing his speech). Abnoba’s true desire was to find the famed Necronomicon, an ancient tome revered by the Overlords which, according to legend, had been misshelved centuries ago by a Beadel driven mad just by reading the book’s “About the Author” page. After a year of searching, Abnoba was compelled by a dream to visit the rustic hinterland of the building: the reference section. There he found the book set beside a sleeping figure whose snores made the air change color . Abnoba gingerly lifted the volume and tiptoed away, making sure not to disturb the archmage; you didn’t last long as a cultist if you didn’t let sleeping gods lie.
Peace had cost Capria her mana and no small part of her pride. Furthermore, she was forced to turn against her former ally, Sandalphon. However, Dain had made good on his tirade to the Bannorian envoy so long ago because the Bannor mainly had to stay out of the way of the fireballs, lest their precious armaments get melted. In 231, Stakrus was razed and its inhabitants driven out... or so it’s thought; the garrison seemed to keep finding shades skulking in out-of-the-way places, single-mindedly carving this or composing that. The wizards had taken to leaving art supplies in conspicuous locations as a kind of Sidar-trap and every six weeks or so they’d catch another one. In 234 Vetus was occupied and Sandalphon was finally willing to call a truce (Rule of Acquisition #76: Every once in a while, declare peace... it confuses the hell out of your enemies). That or maybe he’d been willing beforehand and the Amurites simply didn’t notice his messenger until then...
“Valledia, I saw the upcoming itinerary for the Academy and couldn’t help but notice my directives had been changed.”
“Oh, I thought your secretary had simply botched something because the draft I received from you-”
Ahem
"The draft that somehow found its way into my office through undisclosed channels... better? Anyway, that document said you wanted to research currency. What purpose have we for coinage when we could instead mint the currency of the cosmos by researching Elementalism, Divination and Alteration?”
“A valid point, however, we previously pursued the arcane to the exclusion of all else because our survival depended on it. Now, we have cowed our neighbors, become the envy of all other nations and have more sage specialists than most people have teeth.”
Several thoughts seemed to cross Valledia’s mind all at once. Her face, normally a carefully maintained facade of feigned patience, twitched momentarily while she worked through some inner turmoil. Recomposed, Valledia drew a long breath, exhaled and steepled her fingers. “Dain, go back to your book-filled bungalow and bury yourself in your research or your secretary’s cleavage or something. Go and live your little nerdy fantasy of books and boobies because I’m busy dealing with the real world where people want to kill us. Remember that, Dain? Remember when the Archos and the Sheaim and the Bannor wanted to flex their mighty muscles and cut the nerds to ribbons? It was me, Dain, not you, that got our people out of those situations with all their organs still on the inside. You’re a dreamer, Dain, a philosopher; you’re not organized like I am and you have no concept of just how many enemies within and without are seeking, right now, to give you and me and every last ivory-tower egg head a terminal wedgie.
“I’m not a monster, Dain. I don’t seek power because I enjoy it or because I have nothing better to fill my time. I wield it because if I don’t than We. All. DIE. I have more blood on my hands than you can even imagine Dain and I will not hesitate for a second to spill yours if I have to. Our people don’t need money. They don’t need choices and they don’t need to know how things REALLY work. They just need to ‘know’ that everything is hunky-dory and that Dain’s magic and loins will save us all. So go smile for the masses, make lots of little caster babies and get the hell out of my office... I have work to do.”
Whimper…
Dain began work on Elementalism the next morning. In 235, when that task was completed, he turned to Alteration and in 240, he went to work on unlocking the secrets of Divination. No matter how many wards he created, no matter how many locks (mundane and magical) he installed or ephemeral sentries he summoned, Dain slept poorly and the nightmares continued.
Magic is unfair. A wizened craftsman can pass his teachings onto his apprentices provided they have the wit and skill needed. It is a merit-based system; if you are talented or determined you can ascend to the rank of master. However, magic is not so kind and some people are objectively superior to others at wielding it… which is why Dain’s bedchamber has a revolving door. Once the Amurites tapped into all the raw mana dotting their dominion, along with the mana being extorted from the Bannor, a new breed of casters came to be. Suffused since birth with copious amounts of mana, these adepts left the Cave of the Ancients already prepared to receive their spellstaff as a full wizard. Furthermore, they had innate understanding of numerous schools of magic and what they didn’t know was freely taught to them by Govannon, an archmage who had dedicated himself to learning the low-level magics and bestowing them indiscriminately to others. The first generalist, more experienced than any other caster in existence, was put to shame by this new generation. It was during this time that gave rise to the first Domestic Casters, those who used their magic to enhance, rather than expand, the empire. Valledia wasn’t pleased by the new curriculum but the domestic caster program was endorsed by Dain AND Govannon so there was little she could do. That said, Dain’s anxiety worsened as he anticipated the wrath that Valledia may or may not eventually visit upon him.
Standing within a wheeled cage, surrounded by bars of unattainium (the only material known to resist retroactive continuity), Hemah was brought into the Palace of Cevedes. Eventually word had reached Valledia that there was a portion of the Great Library where stranger things than usual happened; furniture becoming ambulatory, librarians being transmogrified into primates, that sort of thing. After her third spy had returned from the reference section convinced that he was a bowl of petunias (“oh no, not again…”), Valledia sent in a crack squad of Beadels to apprehend Hemah. For the charge of “altering the very tapestry of creation and messing with forces beyond mortal ken… without a permit”, Hemah was given two years of community service. However, after a nap in the holding cell turned the bailiff into an eldritch horror, his term was increased considerably. To put it mildly, Hemah would be casting on behalf of the Amurites until Cardith Lorda hit puberty.
Years passed and Dain slowly withdrawn from larger society. Valledia led the Amurites in their defense against Faeryl’s invasion, while directing the construction of the Tower of Divination within Cevedes. The Sidar had suffered the loss of two cities from the demons pouring out of Bradelines Well and Vetus wasn’t giving us anything but grief so we gave it back to Sandalphon (hopefully he’ll act as a buffer between us and the demonic rabble). This marked a substantial improvement for our financial situation and relations with the Sidar. Faeryl invaded over the western border but her units are just as flammable as everyone else’s (except Tebryn’s Pyre Zombies; catching those on fire is kind of redundant). Hemah and a handful of Bombardiers have been doing long range bombardment of the Svartalfar border cities (fire elementals and fireballs can cover a lot of open ground with the right promotions). Everything was progressing more or less to Valledia’s satisfaction until 255, when one of her (literally) undercover contacts reported that the “Dain” she had been spying on was really a simulacrum. No wonder he’d kept it so cold of late; normally that made it hard for him to...
It wasn’t until 257 that Dain was found. Rather, in 257 the many layers of illusions, false walls and hidden passageways shrouding Dain’s inner sanctum were opened. Dain, the real Dain, not the one made of animate snow, strolled out accompanied by a spectral assistant carrying a great pile of books, dockets and scrolls. Several of Valledia’s agents, who had been given orders to disable the Caswallan on sight, were repulsed by a crackling barrier of energy. By unseen forces, crowds were parted and obstructing carts and tents were rent asunder to make way for the archmage. Once he reached the palace, Dain and his ethereal escort flew up to the third story office where Ms. The Even performed her cloak-and-daggers brand of leadership. The door was blasted off its hinges, immolated and disintegrated, all in one display of raw magical might and gingerly Dain entered while a crowd gathered outside. Valledia looked up from her desk seemingly unshaken, though her hand moved imperceptibly to rest on a dagger she always had tucked away... just in case.
“Valledia, you scare the hell out of me. You are a conniving, Machiavellian and cutthroat ruler and you have been coercing me as your figurehead for longer than I care to imagine.”
So surprised (or enraged, it was hard to tell) was Valledia that she did nothing but stare and tighten her grip on the dagger, which carried a number of very nasty hexes.
“My malleability and your ruthlessness prove that neither of us are fit to lead the most powerful nation on Erebus. Therefore, I am about to resign and, as my last act in office, abolish the position of Caswallan. Before that, I am making a few changes to ensure the power vacuum left in our wake is filled wisely. From here on out the Amurites will be a republic; one leader can be controlled where an entire delegation cannot. Furthermore, the apprenticeship system has ossified our civilization, ensuring that the powerful and influential stay in control by grooming their own replacements, continuing cycles of ideological nepotism. I am replacing that with a meritorious caste-system in which all people may rise to the rank their talent and magical prowess affords them. These castes will be too large and autonomous to be manipulated. So, pack up your things, Valledia; you’re fired.”
There was a long silence, during which Valledia seemed to size Dain up, as though to decide whether to attack him outright or wait for a better opportunity to punish him for his sudden possession of a spine.
“You are a petulant child and your tantrum is as piteous as it is naïve. A bunch of Ivory-Tower academics can’t even hold a symposium without getting into a nerd-fight, let alone make life-and-death decisions in any sort of intelligent fashion. I have allowed the Amurites to concern themselves with learned things while I make the hard choices, while my conscience is burdened. These people don’t want suffrage; they want to be free of suffering and dilemmas. If you open their cell then all they are going to do is elect a new jailer to close it once more.”
“Perhaps, but it isn’t our decision any more. If we, the Amurites, can’t govern ourselves then we have no business ruling this world. We can’t allow the Age of Magic to happen again; down that road lays strife, misery and caster-lynching mobs. The nerds have had their revenge and now we need to move on.
Goodbye Valledia.”
As Dain was summoning a nimbus to carry him to the ground, Valledia reared back and hurled her dagger at the Caswallan. True to its enchantments, the blade travelled unfettered through Dain’s wards, cut through his clean and regal robe of office, buried itself in his side and burst into an unnatural green flame. A steady trickle of water flowed out of the wound; Dain slowly crumbled onto the floor in a heap of ice and snow, ruining what was surely a very expensive rug.
“You may be a top notch dictator, Valledia, but you are mediocre wizard.” The ethereal steward morphed as the shadow-magic fell away, leaving Dain in its place, holding his own books and standing over the remains of his simulacrum. He was wearing his robes from high school, burnt and tattered but somehow capturing the proud determination that Dain possessed now as he had so long ago. Furthermore, a pair of floating eyes, one hovering over each shoulder, was now visible and the two viewed the whole scene. At a distant location, trusted sages were busily recording the exchange from their scrying glass into a magical storage medium; soon everyone in Cevedes and beyond would bear witness to the entire scene.
“Valledia, you are so boned right now.” With that, Dain departed on a platform of air and that night he enjoyed two things he had not experienced in a long, long time: a bed all to himself and a good night’s sleep.
And so it was that the Amurites became self-governed and kicked all sorts of butt using only their wits and their wands. The story from here is not yet written (mainly because my computer keeps bogging down this late in the game) but on the eve of the first election, while the ballots were filled and the votes cast (literally in the case of the wizards who had to poll remotely via astral projection), a robed figure strolled along the streets of Cevedes, humming a little tune and occasionally sipping a cup of very strong coffee.
“You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And Erebus will be as one.”
End Scene Four
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All lyrics were pulled from http://www.lyricsfreak.com/ and mangled by me when appropriate.
Further observations on gameplay and strategy to come soon. Until then, you can look over the game (I have included many little, snarky comments) and, if you are so inclined, continue it.
Spectral-Fremen
Chieftain
So Awesome.
Shatner that is brilliant work mate!
Shatner that is brilliant work mate!
Shatner
Warlord
You said that at the end of Industry and Isolation too!? Observe...
In the next day or so I'm going to post my strategies and observations concerning this game. Then I'm going to comb through this and the Khazad thread, tally all the suggestions for the next AAR and go with the civ that has the most votes/best ideas (it's a complex formula).
That said, my computer was damaged in a recent storm and needs to be replaced (hopefully the new one won't get so bogged down in the late game), I have another DnD campaign to put together and I need to, you know, actually play the game I end up writing the AAR about. As such, it'll be a while before it's posted here in the forum.
KillerClowns
Emperor
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2007
- Messages
- 1,139
Well, I am going to, once again, propose you dream up a Sheaim game style and play it. I don't plan on being silent until I have witnessed you destroying the world, in your usual unique style, which I doubt I'd even attempt to emulate under normal circumstances.
Quetz
The Tallest Lilliputian
I have such a computer, and let me tell you I still get the 3-turn crash. I run Prototype on absolute maximum settings, yet can't finish a single game of FFH...
HadesScorn
Warlord
Whhoooo to prototype!
Now, confusingly, I have never had a FfH crash on my system despite playing on Huge Maps, Marathon difficulty...do we know if its based on map type at all? IE, could Erebus be responsible?
Shatner
Warlord
Observations and Strategies
While playing Revenge of the Nerds, I was a feeble kitten in the early game and a raging powerhouse by the end. Having to research two techs (mysticism, KotE), build an expensive building (mage guild) and spend 90 hammers on a str 3 unit is real rough. Having to then research another, expensive tech (necromancy) and take a diplo penalty with just about everyone to get my first direct-combat spell (Animate Skeleton) doesn't help either.
Before I continue, let me say that this was a lot of fun once I had a bit of momentum. I never ended up training any firebows, I trained a few OO acolytes to spread the faith and I trained a single Cultist just to try it out (while tsunami is nice, it isn't actually better than anything a properly promoted wizard could do). As such, every unit I had that mattered was once an adept. I've played games in the past where I did nothing but spam melee units and others where I had nothing but mounted units and those were fun but ultimately monotonous; going from warrior to axman to champion isn't doing much beside giving you bigger numbers. Boring. However, adepts are highly customizable and each tier (adept -> mage/wizard -> archmage/battlemage) unlocks radically new stuff to play with.
Furthermore, having all your goodies in one branch of the tech tree is nice because, although the arcane techs are expensive, you aren't researching anything else so it goes quicker than you'd think. Now, let me make one thing crystal clear:
YOU ARE LIVING ON BORROWED TIME UNTIL YOU RESEARCH SORCERY!
Everything I did before I researched that lynchpin tech involved me harassing people with skeletons and slowly losing territory. After I hit sorcery I rocketted to the top of the leaderboard, annihilated my main rival, vassalized another and whooped up on a third. I never actually reached battlemages (my machine crapped out before then) but I apparently didn't need them. That said, I could AND SHOULD have researched Strength of Will sooner.
Summoning is the bomb-diggity. Each time one of your wizards summons a specter, he is effectively making a 60 hammer unit with mobility promotions... for free. A high-end industrial city is hard pressed to churn out a swordsman every turn in the early-to-mid game. And even if it could, those units have to move all the way to the enemy AND their death causes war weariness. That's an effective production advantage for the casters that is hard for others to beat.
Aside from acting like a production multiplier, arcane casters have some other subtle yet powerful advantages. Inspiration is an Elder Council without the specialist slot: a 60 hammer building for free. Hope gives +1 happy and +4 culture AS WELL as permanently granting bravery (immune to fear and medic 1) to all units in the city. Ignoring the promotion for a moment, that's roughly the equivalent to a carnival that you aren't spending 120 hammers on (better, in fact, because a flat +4 culture is larger than a +20% to culture for all cities with less than +20 culture per turn... as in, most of them) . To name a few others... Earth 1 saves you 120 hammers and the time it would take to build a wall, haste is a free mobility 1 promotion (saving your units XP), and Water 1 effectively gives your desert cities one or more tiles in their fat cross. For a clever player, you can get a LOT of mileage out of your arcane units; perks that offer real and measurable economic and military advantages in a game that is primarily a competition of economic and military strength. Note that I intentionally avoided Charm Person and Domination because they feel too powerful against the AI.
I decided to use Govannon as a full-time teacher rather than an archmage. I could have trained him up to Fire 3 and sent him out to burn a trail to my opponents' capitol but I had Hemah to do that instead. As such, I tried to have Govannon start with as many free promotions (making a second Death Node so he got Death 1 free, converting a sun node to a body node so he got Body 1 free then converting it back after he was built), then I had him take as many level 1 promotions as I could. He never got a tier 2 promotion at all and he always stayed well away from combat. The reason for this is because each adept I trained was given Fire 1, Mind 1, Spirit 1, Body 1, Earth 1, Death 1, Metamagic 1 (and probably a few more) for free by my civ's hero. Since an adept has to take four promotions before they can become a wizard, they would use their free XP (from Cave of the Ancients) to purchase spell extension 1+2 and one or two specialized promotions (combat 1+2 if they're a battlecaster, water 1 and law 1 if they're a domestic caster, etc.). As such, all of my casters could animate skeletons, haste themselves, erect walls of stone and grant their summons +2 move effectively free-of-charge. Once you get Govannon and enough mana, you really get a lot for the 90 hammer investment you put in your adepts.
By the way, Hemah is dirt cheap (180 hammers) and Govannon is massively expensive (450 hammers). I made the mistake of building the former after the latter; I should have got Hemah first and had him blowing up my enemies rather than wait an extra 25 turns to train Govannon first. Plus, Hemah's special ability (Hastur's Razor) can be used to heal a stack while harming the enemy if used carefully. Hemah + culture is the main mechanical reason I grabbed OO over AV. While Ritualists are nice when Govannon is there to train them, they don't start with Potency from my Arcane Trait, they don't get the free XP from Cave of the Ancients, they don't get the Kyloran's Legacy promotion and they cost 30 hammers more than an adept that is instantly going to upgrade to a wizard. Also, I preferred the story impact of OO over AV (Hemah is very fun to write about).
Using Great Scientiests to bulb arcane techs is very useful in getting through your weak early-phase as quickly as possible. Dain makes a specialist-heavy strategy more feasible and makes sage specialists easy to get with his double speed Elder Councils and Libraries. As such, it seems natural to push a heavy sage-specialist strategy. By the time I had Scholarship, Caste System and the Great Library, each of my sages were producing 6 science and 2 culture. When I traded City States for Republic I had to drop my science bar down from 70% to 20%; this didn't lower my actual research by much because the majority of it was coming from specialists. For example, Cevedes had an academy (+50%), a library (+25%), a laboratory (+10%), Scholarship (+10%) and an Asylum (+15%) for 110% bonus to all research (and that's not including the Crown of Akharien for another +100%). Add in a couple of settled GSs, the various beaker buildings (Elder Council, Inspiration, laboratory), my free Great Library sage plus all my regular sages and that city alone was matching the research of entire civs. Woot!
Tips:
1) rush sorcery and consider rushing necromancy for the death mana
2) keep your casters alive at (almost) any cost. Each one represents a big investment (especially early on) and each one is potentially a mobile unit factory. These guys are not expendable.
3) Rush sorcery
4) bulb the arcane branch early and often. Using that first GS to bulb KotE really helped.
5) Seriously, rush sorcery
6) before sorcery, use haste and floating eye to allow your battlecasters to use hit-and-run tactics
7) RUSH SORCERY BEFORE YOU GET CURB-STOMPED
8) train a few battlecasters early on to hold the barbarians at bay
9) FOR THE LOVE OF OGHMA, RUSH SORCERY!!!
Bugs:
1) you can't get rid of smokey forests/jungles NOR can you build improvements on them. You can chop them and even get the hammer bonus from chopping but the forest/jungle remains. For this reason, I discourage you all from using Fire 1 to clean out jungles
2) Govannon doesn't train Creation 1. He might not train the other FF spheres (dimension, force, ice) but I haven't tested it
3) The Amurite UB wizard hall and the Amurite UU battlemage are not currently available for anyone, Amurite or otherwise. I fixed this by downloading the tiny patch from this post
Shatner
Warlord
To be honest, I didn't do anything special. When I was trudging around in jungles and the like I always tried to keep a battlecaster in the stack to protect them. None of my opponents sent invisible units and aside from maybe three or four attacks in the early game, invisible units (spiders or otherwise) just weren't a problem.
As far as how to deal with them... I don't know. If it becomes too problematic, I don't think it would violate the spirit of this challenge to train the occasional scout to keep watch; just don't use the scouts for combat or garrison duty and you're good. Beyond that, it might be balanced and thematic to make floating eyes capable of spotting invisible units. What do ya'll think about that? If that seems too much, make it only capable of revealing hidden animal units.
Also, archery units can, if I remember correctly, gain the Perfect Sight promotion in FF, meaning that firebows could act as spotters. Granted, this wouldn't be at all practical early on but it's the only solution I can think of that adheres to a strict interpretation of the original challenge.
WarKirby
Arty person
Thanks for this report, by the way. The first one is something xienwolf will have to fix, but I'll personally make sure 2 and 3 are fixed in the next FF patch. I already fixed the wizard's hall actually, but didn't know about the battlemage.
About 1, though. Spring will remove the smoke, making it a normal forest/jungle again. And I believe smoke tiles have a chance of turning into fire each turn, which is dependant on the AC. So Fire I should be more useful if you go AV and force the AC up.
WarKirby
Arty person
They're supposed to. I believe this is a bug also.
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