Game Diary: Mahala tests Tholal's new patch on Diety

[Horatius]

In that night, when the last bits of the old ice were melting like tears, Mahala became the leader of the Doviello. After the forced lust, with bare hands, his neck was cracked like one of an animal to be eaten by her indignation.
Charadon was killed after his ephemeral satisfaction and so now, according to their ways, Mahala is the alpha ruling wolf. The pack will follow and will be led by her ways: less brutish, but more cunning, and just as ferocious.

It will be proven that the Doviello can be strong outside the Age of Ice. Newer war drums are being made and the Mahala raiding will soon terrorize the whole land.
It starts:



- Standard Inland sea
- normal speed
- no tribal villages
- no Acheron


After some consideration, we settle there:



What new war adventures await us in this land?

 

[Horatius]

Hearing the news of Charadon's death, the barbarian orcs turn against the Doviello. There is no longer the rude bridge between them and us.
Lucian, though, is ready to defend the developing pack with his fists, strong as wolf jaws, and his most mighty axe.
Falamar is found on the west, the worker works, we learn the name of the months:



We trade one turn of growth for some turns of research:




At size 2, the city can grow on the rice instead of the floodplain (+1 commerce) and still have the same nr of turns regarding research. At size 3, it can work the improved floodplain growing towards the grassland farm and the reagents in good timing, meaning that we think we nailed the right turn order of work.

But the barbarians pour themselves in in force and are ferocious!
Two pairs of barbs and one skeleton approach the city now:



We shall not lose any worker turns or an improvement! - Oh, you freaking barbs!!
(What the hell is that amount of barbs? Thank the Lords of Erebus we have Lucian)
We switch civics; Rhoanna and Dain are up there on the north (scout dies):



We learn how to explore and then how to chant (that sounds so pitiful to me).
The Doviello domain will soon start to grow:



They don't let up! All a board the choo-choo train in single line to kill us! (the "bleep" is this?!):



Aarghhh



Lucian gets down to 0.0 health (the bloody hell?), and as our worker was building a road on that hill we failed to notice the wolf close by forcing us to pull out the beastman from the capital which causes anger. Luckily we don't lose any turn in production or research but we won't get any overflow as well.

We settle the new city and make it work a monument. The capital builds a new worker while our existing one gets ready to work the cotton. We also get ready for some festivities (we need it, there's a harsh world all around us every single day):



OH!, you bloody freaking barbs! It's worse than ants at a picnic



Luckily we haven't lost a single unit yet (I should've lost one beastman that is a lucky bastard) and we do have some promotions. Eventually Dirage should be our third city.

To be continued...

 

[Tholal]

Lucian is turning into quite a powerhouse!

 

[Aline]

Hes friggen undead, thats what he is!!!

 

[Horatius]

Festivals is done, we build a market in the capital and run a merchant. Afterwards we go mysticism and switch to God King. Next is crafting, mining and bronze working immediately maybe even if we don't have copper.
Our second city also gets a market and Lucian, with a howl, conquers Dirage as a gift to the alpha female:




Also, Rhoanna had declared on Dain quite a few turns ago and was really giving him a nice spanking.
With nothing to fear from the Amurites we declare on them to boost relations with the horse tamers. Just like that.



Oh for the love of Perpentach's madness, can you give it a rest?:




We trade with Falamar for things that we actually will have. We are now able to let our cities grow to a higher happy cap immediately.



But we should also say that beastmen are being spammed. Mahala has cunning plans...


Anyway, even a freaking Lizardman, despising Dain's weakness shows up from miles away:



We work a couple of more resource improvements and Mahala orders a great merchant to gather precious gold and scout the Lanun.
We also have copper and don't need to build another settler to get it somewhere (alright!):



Well, turns pass, micromanagement continues, mines are worked, the army grows and Mahala, an imposing figure wrapped in shiny, beautiful disposed wolf skin, steps into the field side by side with Lucian to put her plans into motion.

It is about time.


The pack...

Is hungry.


So,
Beastmen!, get ready, set...




... - GO!



Mwahahahaha



Well, 42 offensive units at turn 114 seems about right to me.
That's the Doviello style.



We will go cartography with the pillage money first before code of laws. Some elder councils are being built to help us with that.
The Lanun have some bronze warriors, drowns, and swordsmen. We start by smashing a couple and will soon sweep all of them like a raiding storm:





Yes.
War begins.
The Doviello howls resound throughout the land announcing the want to claim more than just the tundra.
Mahala leads with severe expressions and the whole pack march to the beat of the war drum singing her name and rejoicing with the resurgence of the Doviello might!:

"Ho!,

Mahala
Ho!,

Mahala
(Dum,dum,dum,dum)

Ho!,

Mahala
Ho!,

Mahala
(Dum,dum,dum,dum)

Ho!,

Mahala
Ho!,

Mahala
(Dum,dum,dum,dum...)"

 

[Horatius]

I've been tremendously busy at work. Did anyone, by any chance, played the game using the saved states?

 

[Horatius]

Not much time, so here is a slideshow of Mahala conquering Falamar with numbers and brute strength (zoom in for better viewing):

http://img198.imageshack.us/slideshow/player.php?id=img198/1272/1322044820rxb.smil

I was actually going to ignore the big stack in his capital, but the AI split that stack coming out with some units so I went for it (losing a bunch of Sons). The rest is history while the remaining Mahala mob kept on marching on and singing "Ho, Mahala Ho".

A Son of Asena kept up with Lucian and was named Spartacus. I researched cartography for city states and to open borders, fishing for the pirate ports and such, then code of laws switching to aristocracy and going towards currency. No need for monuments when you have OO in your conquered cities, so markets and courthouses with chops are built. Another palace also. Pillage money and merchants keep us alive.

I ended up the war with some strong units but decided to try to achieve good relations with everybody and build up. I control the biggest amount of land so the game is pretty much done already with the AIs in war with each other.


Anyway, just an example of a melee Mahala push. I always find it funny how easy it is to get that many Sons with Mahala so early in some starts. Below diety there is no challenge. Only a lot of archers on hills are a problem.

Another thing to do, is to go education and horseback riding. You have ingenuity, so just build scouts and upgrade them with your Raider's pillage money. Basically a strategy to abuse your traits.

Instead of complaining that the Doviello lacks this and that just play to their strengths.

 

[Horatius]

I am just too busy nowadays so I can't make this gaming report remotely interesting.
Also I have a pretty big advantage already so whatever, it's done. The AI did not impress me in this game regarding troop usage although tech wise it seemed alright.

Things to do is to build a few rounds of shamen (no mage guilds required, yay), get military strategy first for a golden age from the great commander, trade up, get deception and control the undercouncil.
Go sorcery (level up those shamen on damaged units) or towards ritualists, get the slave trade, get money and mob like hell.

if one wants more - taxation (get the technologies that can increase money), trade up properly, go bowyers and engineering, make the infernal pact to use sacrifice the weak then build the infernal grimoire to get machinery - say hello to the terrifying war machine.

get guilds and use aristocracy, sacrifice the weak and guilds. Have many money buildings (whip if necessary), aristocratic farms, windmills, merchant specialists.... in short, lots and lots of gold...

Don't forget the gambling houses and Smugglers ports. Priesthood and sorcery for ritualists and mages. And why not iron working?

It should not take more than 100 turns to get all of that in this game keeping up relations.

Sacrifice the weak is one of the most powerful civics in the game for too many reasons.
The war machine is an insane blitzing monster that makes the game seem like a yawn.
The slave trade is, of course, what the Doviello wants and it is one of the most important things for them to be able to generate gigantic big ass armies out of nowhere.

A Doviello strat resides a lot around buying and upgrading (you don't build the expensive battlemasters). They're warmongers and stinking smugglers and pirates.

A very rich Doviello smashes Diety warrens, no problem, by using hundreds and hundreds of slaves.

They are the slave freers.

 

[SergiuSS]

Again a great diary sir. Can you make one whit the Svarts, be a treehuger and built alazkan

 

[Horatius]

Below are some images showing how easy it is. Rhoanna eventually attacked me (maelstroming part of her own troops as well) - after 2 previous defensive pacts with me - but there was nothing she could do.
Big cities (we got hit by blight though and there was a lot of whipping), big money, all the necessary tech very fast (who needs libraries?) - now you just steamroll.



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The rest is history as the slave army kept getting bigger and bigger....

"Ho!,

Mahala
Ho!,

Mahala
(Dum,dum,dum,dum)

Ho!,

Mahala
Ho!,

Mahala
(Dum,dum,dum,dum)

Ho!,

Mahala
Ho!,

Mahala
(Dum,dum,dum,dum...)"

 

[Estelindis]

Like a boss. Great stuff, as usual.

I did try to load up one of your savegames based on a previous post, by the way, but I wasn't able to load it, even though I thought I had the same Naval AI patch as yourself. Oh well; you do it all better anyway.

 

[Horatius]

Like a boss. Great stuff, as usual.

I did try to load up one of your savegames based on a previous post, by the way, but I wasn't able to load it, even though I thought I had the same Naval AI patch as yourself. Oh well; you do it all better anyway.

I think that this was played with the 1.8.4 patch. It would be fun to compare games.

In this game I had too big of an advantage too soon and got bored.
If the AI had some longbows and champions is because I gave them the respective technologies.

Truly, the best advantage that you can get in these type of games is securing a lot of land.
The Doviello can get it.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

sweet, I finally understand the true power of the Doviello now! thanks for the writeup

so their power phase basically revolves around the undercouncil... get slave trade and gambling ring, build gambling houses everywhere, switch to 100% gold for a whopping +10 happy and start the slave snowball.

how effective would you consider this strategy to be compared to the more renowned spectrespam, firebows, blasting workshops etc. ? this one seems to be VERY efficient techwise

 

[Horatius]

sweet, I finally understand the true power of the Doviello now! thanks for the writeup

so their power phase basically revolves around the undercouncil... get slave trade and gambling ring, build gambling houses everywhere, switch to 100% gold for a whopping +10 happy and start the slave snowball.

how effective would you consider this strategy to be compared to the more renowned spectrespam, firebows, blasting workshops etc. ? this one seems to be VERY efficient techwise

Yeah, contrary to other civs, the Doviello have their strength in something external to them, the slave trade, which is weird. Just gold economy, merchants's missions and upgrade. Since beastmen now do not become obsolete, well... It can be efficient. Assuming the same numbers of cities, you can spam more than the Clan or Bannor in the late game.
Magic stuff is always better though and you can take longer to get the slave trade (you have to be the head and wait for the approval...) than to get to firebows actually assuming no early wars. But you basically don't need hammers here, just gold (why build a battlemaster with hammers and also, well, remember you don't need a building to train shamen early...). War Machine is the sickest non magic hero, that thing can blitz like there's no tomorrow, better than a dragon.

Btw, no idea why i neglected the cotton with the capital, its puzzling me now. I think it had to do with faster production at the cost of beakers (that was a lot of early beastmen), but I don't play that much nowadays and can't tell, lol.