The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
I think Communal for Death sounds just right,
Master of Myrror Fantasy Mod 2.0
- Thread starter Drift
- Start date
On drafting men. The cities are over pop 7 (have one up to 10) and none have a draft box, but show men in the resource box.
Communal sounds good for Death.
I have drake ships in production and if Oberic shows up again with his navy, there will be a price to pay. I did not do Nature Summons 1 as I was behind and did not see as much value for doing it. I might rethink that at some point, but I doubt it at this point. The ability to airlift troops and that might be why I go for it eventually.
Communal sounds good for Death.
I have drake ships in production and if Oberic shows up again with his navy, there will be a price to pay. I did not do Nature Summons 1 as I was behind and did not see as much value for doing it. I might rethink that at some point, but I doubt it at this point. The ability to airlift troops and that might be why I go for it eventually.
Drift
It's a boy!
@Klyden
Sorry. I looked at my earlier patches and realized that I've fixed drafting after releasing the last patch. Latest released patch doesn't have "allows conscription of units" checked for Chaos, Nature and Life exclusive techs. Therefore, drafting doesn't work for them. Like I said, it's already fixed for next patch.
@Everyone
If Death becomes communal, what should its unit support be? Current 4/8/12 or something else? Communism style where each city size gives as much support?
Sorry. I looked at my earlier patches and realized that I've fixed drafting after releasing the last patch. Latest released patch doesn't have "allows conscription of units" checked for Chaos, Nature and Life exclusive techs. Therefore, drafting doesn't work for them. Like I said, it's already fixed for next patch.
@Everyone
If Death becomes communal, what should its unit support be? Current 4/8/12 or something else? Communism style where each city size gives as much support?
Psyringe
Scout
Here's what happened to me last night. 
Sorry if it's a bit longish, but I really like to read the game reports here and just hope that you feel the same. 
Psyringe game 2 report 1
Settings:
- MoM version beta 9 update 2
- Regent difficulty
- tiny worldmap
- five opponents
- everything else random
- fate handed me Merlin to play
1. Starting a Life (Mage)
For better understanding of the geography, here's a map of turn 72 (I'm at turn 144 now):
(Umm, this link should have been a picture. What am I doing wrong?)
I'm the light blue empire in the south. My starting position was the city in the southeast, on the eastern coast of a not-too-large peninsula with room for about three cities. The good things about my starting position were a lake and furs nearby, also a death node to the south. There also was a sweet spot to the northwest, were three nodes (life, nature, chaos) were surrounded by grasslands. This position was also strategically valuable, since it was the entry point to my peninsula. If I could secure it, then my capital and perhaps another city on the peninsula would be relatively safe. If an enemy got there first, however, I'd be stuck on my peninsula until I built ships, and also would lack three node types.
So I had to get there first, at all cost. However playing with six mages on a tiny map, there might be other wizards not to far away. So I started to build a settler right away, while my worker was already building a road to the sweet spot. I also tweaked my city's production so that the settler would be ready exactly when the city size hit three. Being Merlin, I also had a scout, which I sent out to check for competitors. He didn't have to search long. On turn 2 another scout, violet in colour, showed up right beneath my sweet spot.
2. First Contact with the Dead
Great, I thought. Mordja sitting right above my peninsula, that was just the little challenge I wanted. The undead wizard was friendly, but refused to trade his Death I technology for my Life I. I didn't have any money (put all into research as soon as I found out that it really made a difference), so I left it at that and hoped to get another tech from some other wizard, so that I could offer Mordja more. Since Mordja blocked my way to the north, I went westward and found out that there was another peninsula there, of yet unknown size. So the water to the north was a lake, with Mordjs to the east of it, me and my peninsule to its southeast, and another peninsula to its southwest. This map provides some nice bottlenecks. I sent my scout along the shore of the lake, northwards, and he soon met Ariel.
Ariel wasn't exactly what I hoped for in terms of trading for tech, as we both were racing along the life tree with little possibility to complement each other. However I welcomed her as a potential ally against Mordja.
Some turns later, my scout met Vlad in the northeast. Vlad, too, refused to trade with me, apparently he already had traded with Ariel and I had nothing new to offer. This wasn't looking good, I feared to be left behind in the tech race. However some turns later I got lucky, when I met a scout of Tlaloc before he had made contact with the others. I excessively traded techs around, mostly giving the other wizards substantially more than they gave me, but successfully catching up in the end.
Soon after meeting Tlaloc, my scout died because of acute player stupidty. Checking out a path to a larger landmass in the east, he saw two strange units of a brownish colour that he didn't know yet. So he moved beneath them in order to make contact and got killed by the jaguars. Lesson to be learned: barbarians in MoM are not white, check unknown units before moving your own defenseless units right before their fangs.
3. The War for the Sweet Spot
In the meantime, my worker just completed his road to the sweet spot, just in time to see a Settler of Mordja approaching! My settler still needed four or five turns, and two more turns to reach the place. No way I could be there first. Mordja must have completed his settler seven turns faster than me! He must (interestingly) have realized the importance of this spot and probably - like me - built a settler right away. He didn't even waste time to send an escort with it. Strange, I've never seen the AI sending settles without an escort. But knowing that I didn't have any military unit at that time, the unded king probably thought he didn't need one.
He was wrong.
I just had researched Life Magic II and switched from building a settler to a protector. In the next turn, Mordja founded his city exactly where I wanted to build mine. In the same turn, my protector emerged. You remember that my worker already built a road to the sweet spot? Well, now the speed of my protector came in handy. As his first action, he raced along that road and, still within the same turn, sacked Mordjas undefended city.
Mordja was less friendly afterwards. In the next turn I defeated a skeleton warrior, which was on its way to the sweet spot, seemingly a late escort for the late settler. Feeling strong after two victories, and also estimating that Mordja's defenses couldn't be too strong after just wasting two units, my valiant protector pushed forward. From across a lake he could see that Deathmound, Mordja's capital, was only defended by a skeleton warrior (or more). With his speed and his good attack, my protector had a reasonable chance to conquer the city and end the threat that Mordja posed for me.
However, as he approached the city, the undead king suddenly pulled a Skink out of his sleeves. So he didn't just have the ability to produce settlers seven turns faster than me, he also had Lizardmen under his command!
My protector retreated to a nearby hill, so he could see the enemy coming, if Mordja should decide to strike back. He also could protect my newly founded city on the sweet spot.
To my surprise, Mordja did not strike back. Instead, I spotted another settler moving towards the southwestern peninsula, escorted by a skeleton warrior. (Strange, why didn't he build another Skink?) This was too easy to be missed. My protector rushed in, killed the escort and got me two workers. I then made peace with Mordja, because most wizards were already larger than me and I wanted to expand instead of potentially wasting military units in an attempt to storm Deathmound. Mordja agreed and was nice enough to send me another one of his workers, apparently he intended to make this a habit. I also extracted some money from him, which was enough to hurry my next settler - which I needed to seal my border with Mordja. So the undead wizard basically paid me for hemming him in.
4. Expanding and catching up
My capital now churned out settlers (and clerics when population was low), and I was able to build two more cities. (This is the situation as you see it on the map above.) I needed to get my economy going, as I was again falling behind in tech. I still hadn't build a wizard's guild or even a life shrine, but was confident that I could do that now.
My brave protector, who singlehandedly won my war against Mordja, started exploring the southwestern peninsula, where he sadly fell prey to jaguars. Lesson to be learned: Even a seasoned fighter may still be defeated by barbarians, especially if he can't defend well. (Btw, where are those animals from? They are done extremely well imho.) The land there was not too inviting, consisting mostly of mountains and tundra, but I spotted three different types of luxuries there. Since only I had access to this area, I was pretty sure that I would finally get the strong economy that a life mage should have.
From time to time Ariel or even Freya (who occupies a piece of landbetween me and Vlad, seperated from me by the sea) would try to send units through my territory. But they always left when I told them. Tlaloc and Freya were competing with me for the score lead, but things began to look promising.
5. The second war with Mordja
Then Mordja sent a settler with a Skink escort across my empire and declared war on me when I asked him to leave. Apparantly he semed to have some kind of a grudge against me. In fact he must have been pretty desparate, I've seen one other settler of him moving nothwards, but he didn't manage to found a city there either.
So I cancelled my wizard's guilds and built bowmasters instead. I killed the skink and converted the settler into two more workers. then I sent three bowmasters to his on and only city. He defended with a single skeleton spearman, and two bowmasters were enough to defeat that one. After taking the city, poetic justice kicked in, and I renamed it from "Deathmound" to "Lifemound".
So Mordja's defeated and I can now finally, finally start building some cultural boosters and securing the luxuries on the southwestern peninsula, right? Right?
But wait.
What's that violet city suddenly doing down there between my resources?
Yep, you already guessed it: the computer managed to restart Mordja exactly on the spot where he wanted to send his settler to (and where I wouldn't let him).
Enraged, I moved my bowmasters down there, which took some time. But I defeated his capital just a turn ago, so I can do it again, just don't give Mordja time to build up defenses ... some turns later the first of my bowmasters ended its move right between two wolfpacks. Apparently Mordja didn't need defenses, he had shielded himself with barbarians. Of course I used both movement points of my bowmaster at once, ending my turn right between the wolves with no possibility to retreat. He died quickly. Lesson to be learned: Actually learn something from all these lessons, dammit!
With the remaining two bowmasters, I attacked a city that Mordja had just founded one turn ago. This city was, as was Deathmound, defended by a single skeleton spearman. At Deathmound, two bowmasters had been enough to conquer the city. This time however, the bowmasters went down without the defender even taking a dent.
Suddenly standing there without offensive units, I made peace with Mordja for the second time. He was a Gentleman and even sent me one of his workers to celebrate the end of the war.
6. Peace and Expansion
So I lost the three luxuries that I thought were secure, but I finally had the period of peaceI needed. I had fallen behind in tech, having no luck with trading Life Magic III, apparently Ariel tossed this knowledge around right before I learned it. However, some turns later I could trade Life Magic IV to Tlaloc for three other techs and some money. Apparently this tech was very valuable to him (I still wonder why exactly).
I also built some ships and started exploring. I shipped some scouts around to grab goody huts on forgotten islands. This finally put me in the tech lead. Just west of my empire I found an Island with room for three cities that I called "the promised land". It contained grassland, some nodes, and even goblins were there. Goblins will be invaluable for my coastal cities (which are in the majority) as soon as I can build fisheries, so I founded two cities there. I also found dwarves, put a city beneath them and rushed a harbour there. There may come a time when I need to strengthen my defenses.
Getting the units across to these islands actually proved to be a a challenge as some krakens were swimming around, and I had no harbor on the western coast where my ships could rest. However my ships were just fast enough to outrun them. Playing hide and seek with them around the islands was actually fun, however I wonder whether the AI can do this effectively.
7. We are the Champions
At some time during my expansion, Tlaloc out of the blue declared war on me. I didn't take it too seriously, because Freya is between me and Tlaloc, and I also have enough ships to defend against a sea attack. Even if he came, I have some sorcerers and can build more if necessary. (Speaking of sorcerers, the upgrade chain from the offensive protector to the defensive sorcerer looks a little strange, is there a reason why you don't upgrade protectors to bowmasters?)
However after some turns Tlaloc suddenly made an alliance with Ariel, my neighbour in the north. But at that point I had researched Life Magic V. I built three Champions, took over the nearest of Ariel's city (that I can defend easily because of its bottleneck position in the southwest of her empire) and made peace with her again. Tlaloc also wanted peace after I had employed my Champions. They are indeed quite powerful. Their bonus hipoint increases their chances to win a fight against a fortified veteran 3-point-defender in a town by about 14%. An elite Champion should take out a fortified skeletal spearman with a probability of 75%. Even a veteran 6-point-attacker only reaches 70%. (But I use an old combat caculator, the numbers may be wrong and should be double-checked.)
Back to my game. I now had some powerful Champions, but they had nothing to do, as (strangely) nobody was at war with me. So what could I do? There was an old bill still left open ... and thus started the third war against Mordja, which went quick and smooth. Three champions were enough to conquer both of Mordja's cities (defended by spearmen) and clear up remaining barbarians. I didn't lose a single unit in the process, although I might have lost one or even two Champion with some bad luck. However my victory over Mordja was never in question during this war.
8. Present situation
I'm now in the tech lead and score lead and should win this game. However I missed all wonders so far, I might regret this.
My score is 327, Freya (295) and Tlaloc (281) are still strong, but my lead is rather growing. Vlad (251) was a little behind and is now catching up after settling on another island. Ariel (227) is currently in a weak position, but could catch up once she got her economy running. Currently she's lacking a little in tech though.
It has been a very fascinating game for me so far, with a challenging start and some very interesting twists. But I think I'm starting to win now.
My thanks go out to Mordja. Not only has he been a worthy opponent, his continuous suppy of workers also substantially strengthened my economy. I never built a worker myself, apart from the one I started with I've only got eight of Mordja's workers running around. Rest in peace, undead wizard.
Sorry if it's a bit longish, but I really like to read the game reports here and just hope that you feel the same. Psyringe game 2 report 1
Settings:
- MoM version beta 9 update 2
- Regent difficulty
- tiny worldmap
- five opponents
- everything else random
- fate handed me Merlin to play
1. Starting a Life (Mage)
For better understanding of the geography, here's a map of turn 72 (I'm at turn 144 now):
(Umm, this link should have been a picture. What am I doing wrong?)
I'm the light blue empire in the south. My starting position was the city in the southeast, on the eastern coast of a not-too-large peninsula with room for about three cities. The good things about my starting position were a lake and furs nearby, also a death node to the south. There also was a sweet spot to the northwest, were three nodes (life, nature, chaos) were surrounded by grasslands. This position was also strategically valuable, since it was the entry point to my peninsula. If I could secure it, then my capital and perhaps another city on the peninsula would be relatively safe. If an enemy got there first, however, I'd be stuck on my peninsula until I built ships, and also would lack three node types.
So I had to get there first, at all cost. However playing with six mages on a tiny map, there might be other wizards not to far away. So I started to build a settler right away, while my worker was already building a road to the sweet spot. I also tweaked my city's production so that the settler would be ready exactly when the city size hit three. Being Merlin, I also had a scout, which I sent out to check for competitors. He didn't have to search long. On turn 2 another scout, violet in colour, showed up right beneath my sweet spot.
2. First Contact with the Dead
Great, I thought. Mordja sitting right above my peninsula, that was just the little challenge I wanted.
The undead wizard was friendly, but refused to trade his Death I technology for my Life I. I didn't have any money (put all into research as soon as I found out that it really made a difference), so I left it at that and hoped to get another tech from some other wizard, so that I could offer Mordja more. Since Mordja blocked my way to the north, I went westward and found out that there was another peninsula there, of yet unknown size. So the water to the north was a lake, with Mordjs to the east of it, me and my peninsule to its southeast, and another peninsula to its southwest. This map provides some nice bottlenecks. I sent my scout along the shore of the lake, northwards, and he soon met Ariel.Ariel wasn't exactly what I hoped for in terms of trading for tech, as we both were racing along the life tree with little possibility to complement each other. However I welcomed her as a potential ally against Mordja.
Some turns later, my scout met Vlad in the northeast. Vlad, too, refused to trade with me, apparently he already had traded with Ariel and I had nothing new to offer. This wasn't looking good, I feared to be left behind in the tech race. However some turns later I got lucky, when I met a scout of Tlaloc before he had made contact with the others. I excessively traded techs around, mostly giving the other wizards substantially more than they gave me, but successfully catching up in the end.
Soon after meeting Tlaloc, my scout died because of acute player stupidty. Checking out a path to a larger landmass in the east, he saw two strange units of a brownish colour that he didn't know yet. So he moved beneath them in order to make contact and got killed by the jaguars. Lesson to be learned: barbarians in MoM are not white, check unknown units before moving your own defenseless units right before their fangs.
3. The War for the Sweet Spot
In the meantime, my worker just completed his road to the sweet spot, just in time to see a Settler of Mordja approaching! My settler still needed four or five turns, and two more turns to reach the place. No way I could be there first. Mordja must have completed his settler seven turns faster than me! He must (interestingly) have realized the importance of this spot and probably - like me - built a settler right away. He didn't even waste time to send an escort with it. Strange, I've never seen the AI sending settles without an escort. But knowing that I didn't have any military unit at that time, the unded king probably thought he didn't need one.
He was wrong.
I just had researched Life Magic II and switched from building a settler to a protector. In the next turn, Mordja founded his city exactly where I wanted to build mine. In the same turn, my protector emerged. You remember that my worker already built a road to the sweet spot? Well, now the speed of my protector came in handy. As his first action, he raced along that road and, still within the same turn, sacked Mordjas undefended city.
Mordja was less friendly afterwards. In the next turn I defeated a skeleton warrior, which was on its way to the sweet spot, seemingly a late escort for the late settler. Feeling strong after two victories, and also estimating that Mordja's defenses couldn't be too strong after just wasting two units, my valiant protector pushed forward. From across a lake he could see that Deathmound, Mordja's capital, was only defended by a skeleton warrior (or more). With his speed and his good attack, my protector had a reasonable chance to conquer the city and end the threat that Mordja posed for me.
However, as he approached the city, the undead king suddenly pulled a Skink out of his sleeves. So he didn't just have the ability to produce settlers seven turns faster than me, he also had Lizardmen under his command!
My protector retreated to a nearby hill, so he could see the enemy coming, if Mordja should decide to strike back. He also could protect my newly founded city on the sweet spot.
To my surprise, Mordja did not strike back. Instead, I spotted another settler moving towards the southwestern peninsula, escorted by a skeleton warrior. (Strange, why didn't he build another Skink?) This was too easy to be missed. My protector rushed in, killed the escort and got me two workers. I then made peace with Mordja, because most wizards were already larger than me and I wanted to expand instead of potentially wasting military units in an attempt to storm Deathmound. Mordja agreed and was nice enough to send me another one of his workers, apparently he intended to make this a habit. I also extracted some money from him, which was enough to hurry my next settler - which I needed to seal my border with Mordja. So the undead wizard basically paid me for hemming him in.
4. Expanding and catching up
My capital now churned out settlers (and clerics when population was low), and I was able to build two more cities. (This is the situation as you see it on the map above.) I needed to get my economy going, as I was again falling behind in tech. I still hadn't build a wizard's guild or even a life shrine, but was confident that I could do that now.
My brave protector, who singlehandedly won my war against Mordja, started exploring the southwestern peninsula, where he sadly fell prey to jaguars. Lesson to be learned: Even a seasoned fighter may still be defeated by barbarians, especially if he can't defend well. (Btw, where are those animals from? They are done extremely well imho.) The land there was not too inviting, consisting mostly of mountains and tundra, but I spotted three different types of luxuries there. Since only I had access to this area, I was pretty sure that I would finally get the strong economy that a life mage should have.
From time to time Ariel or even Freya (who occupies a piece of landbetween me and Vlad, seperated from me by the sea) would try to send units through my territory. But they always left when I told them. Tlaloc and Freya were competing with me for the score lead, but things began to look promising.
5. The second war with Mordja
Then Mordja sent a settler with a Skink escort across my empire and declared war on me when I asked him to leave. Apparantly he semed to have some kind of a grudge against me. In fact he must have been pretty desparate, I've seen one other settler of him moving nothwards, but he didn't manage to found a city there either.
So I cancelled my wizard's guilds and built bowmasters instead. I killed the skink and converted the settler into two more workers. then I sent three bowmasters to his on and only city. He defended with a single skeleton spearman, and two bowmasters were enough to defeat that one. After taking the city, poetic justice kicked in, and I renamed it from "Deathmound" to "Lifemound".
So Mordja's defeated and I can now finally, finally start building some cultural boosters and securing the luxuries on the southwestern peninsula, right? Right?
But wait.
What's that violet city suddenly doing down there between my resources?
Yep, you already guessed it: the computer managed to restart Mordja exactly on the spot where he wanted to send his settler to (and where I wouldn't let him).
Enraged, I moved my bowmasters down there, which took some time. But I defeated his capital just a turn ago, so I can do it again, just don't give Mordja time to build up defenses ... some turns later the first of my bowmasters ended its move right between two wolfpacks. Apparently Mordja didn't need defenses, he had shielded himself with barbarians. Of course I used both movement points of my bowmaster at once, ending my turn right between the wolves with no possibility to retreat. He died quickly. Lesson to be learned: Actually learn something from all these lessons, dammit!
With the remaining two bowmasters, I attacked a city that Mordja had just founded one turn ago. This city was, as was Deathmound, defended by a single skeleton spearman. At Deathmound, two bowmasters had been enough to conquer the city. This time however, the bowmasters went down without the defender even taking a dent.
Suddenly standing there without offensive units, I made peace with Mordja for the second time. He was a Gentleman and even sent me one of his workers to celebrate the end of the war.
6. Peace and Expansion
So I lost the three luxuries that I thought were secure, but I finally had the period of peaceI needed. I had fallen behind in tech, having no luck with trading Life Magic III, apparently Ariel tossed this knowledge around right before I learned it. However, some turns later I could trade Life Magic IV to Tlaloc for three other techs and some money. Apparently this tech was very valuable to him (I still wonder why exactly).
I also built some ships and started exploring. I shipped some scouts around to grab goody huts on forgotten islands. This finally put me in the tech lead. Just west of my empire I found an Island with room for three cities that I called "the promised land". It contained grassland, some nodes, and even goblins were there. Goblins will be invaluable for my coastal cities (which are in the majority) as soon as I can build fisheries, so I founded two cities there. I also found dwarves, put a city beneath them and rushed a harbour there. There may come a time when I need to strengthen my defenses.
Getting the units across to these islands actually proved to be a a challenge as some krakens were swimming around, and I had no harbor on the western coast where my ships could rest. However my ships were just fast enough to outrun them. Playing hide and seek with them around the islands was actually fun, however I wonder whether the AI can do this effectively.
7. We are the Champions
At some time during my expansion, Tlaloc out of the blue declared war on me. I didn't take it too seriously, because Freya is between me and Tlaloc, and I also have enough ships to defend against a sea attack. Even if he came, I have some sorcerers and can build more if necessary. (Speaking of sorcerers, the upgrade chain from the offensive protector to the defensive sorcerer looks a little strange, is there a reason why you don't upgrade protectors to bowmasters?)
However after some turns Tlaloc suddenly made an alliance with Ariel, my neighbour in the north. But at that point I had researched Life Magic V. I built three Champions, took over the nearest of Ariel's city (that I can defend easily because of its bottleneck position in the southwest of her empire) and made peace with her again. Tlaloc also wanted peace after I had employed my Champions. They are indeed quite powerful. Their bonus hipoint increases their chances to win a fight against a fortified veteran 3-point-defender in a town by about 14%. An elite Champion should take out a fortified skeletal spearman with a probability of 75%. Even a veteran 6-point-attacker only reaches 70%. (But I use an old combat caculator, the numbers may be wrong and should be double-checked.)
Back to my game. I now had some powerful Champions, but they had nothing to do, as (strangely) nobody was at war with me. So what could I do? There was an old bill still left open ... and thus started the third war against Mordja, which went quick and smooth. Three champions were enough to conquer both of Mordja's cities (defended by spearmen) and clear up remaining barbarians. I didn't lose a single unit in the process, although I might have lost one or even two Champion with some bad luck. However my victory over Mordja was never in question during this war.
8. Present situation
I'm now in the tech lead and score lead and should win this game. However I missed all wonders so far, I might regret this.
My score is 327, Freya (295) and Tlaloc (281) are still strong, but my lead is rather growing. Vlad (251) was a little behind and is now catching up after settling on another island. Ariel (227) is currently in a weak position, but could catch up once she got her economy running. Currently she's lacking a little in tech though.
It has been a very fascinating game for me so far, with a challenging start and some very interesting twists. But I think I'm starting to win now.
My thanks go out to Mordja. Not only has he been a worthy opponent, his continuous suppy of workers also substantially strengthened my economy. I never built a worker myself, apart from the one I started with I've only got eight of Mordja's workers running around. Rest in peace, undead wizard.
Attachments
Psyringe
Scout
Drift said:
I'd leave it as is for now, I'd just change one thing (corruption level) and see how it works out.
Drift
It's a boy!
So be it. I'll make Death communal and leave their unit support intact.
@Psyringe
Really nice read! You really do seem to like the mod. Lots of interesting observations and good storytelling. It's nice to see so detailed description of a game as it tells how different units are being used and what tactics are employed.
Some comments:
- Protector -> Sorcerer is a remnant of an old patch. I've already caught it for next patch. Protectors will upgrade to Bowmasters. BTW, like your game proves, Protectors at Life II are pretty strong in right hands.
- Jaguar is an Age of Empires conversion by Aluminium and Wolves are by Embryodead. Are the Krakens too strong BTW? This is again one of those things where my lower difficulty level skews things. They may be a bit too tough.
- I believe I have underestimated the worth of bonus hitpoints. I've seen them mentioned in the feedback often lately. Must keep an eye on them. I was under the impression that Champions aren't that tough, but it does seem to make a difference.
Thank you for the feedback and a great read.
@Psyringe
Really nice read! You really do seem to like the mod.
Lots of interesting observations and good storytelling. It's nice to see so detailed description of a game as it tells how different units are being used and what tactics are employed.Some comments:
- Protector -> Sorcerer is a remnant of an old patch. I've already caught it for next patch. Protectors will upgrade to Bowmasters.
BTW, like your game proves, Protectors at Life II are pretty strong in right hands.- Jaguar is an Age of Empires conversion by Aluminium and Wolves are by Embryodead. Are the Krakens too strong BTW? This is again one of those things where my lower difficulty level skews things. They may be a bit too tough.
- I believe I have underestimated the worth of bonus hitpoints. I've seen them mentioned in the feedback often lately. Must keep an eye on them. I was under the impression that Champions aren't that tough, but it does seem to make a difference.
Thank you for the feedback and a great read.
Re: bonus hit points... they aren't a big deal in and of themselves. It's bonus hit points coupled with Civ3's low default hit point values that makes even a +1 a very signifigant change. It's not worth changing something as far reaching as the hit points per experience level (which means you also have to change artillery rate of fire, and it negatively impacts defensive bombardment as well) just so that a mere +1 doesn't make a huge difference. At least not in a mod this far advanced. I tend to increase the hit points in my own mod, though, to decrease the value of statistical flukes and to make additional hit points slightly more balanced.
azzacanth
Warlord
Drift said:
Krakens haven't been much of a problem for me on Warlord, lost a few galleys to 'em but thats all. Haven't gotten far enough in any level 3 games to tell.
Bonus hitpoints are a pretty strong factor. I wouldn't think it would make such a difference either but somehow having a bonus hp seems to make all hp harder to take, like a hidden defense boost or something. I actually noticed a similar effect in the real MOM game with zombies as compared to, say, skeletons... or spearmen or swordsmen even. May be just an illusion but it sure seems that way to me
I agree with Zurai about the difference being apparent due to Civ3's maximum of 5 hp at elite for a regular unit. I mean 5->6 hp is a much more significant difference - looking at percentages - than, say, 10->11 or like in your full blown RPG games, hundreds to hundreds.
Psyringe
Scout
For me, the kraken's stats were just right. It is slow, so that I usually could outrun it. It is strong, so that I wanted to outrun it. However it only has two hitpoints, so even if I get caught, there's a possibility that my ship will survive.
In my game I had two encounters with two krakens each. I won one of them and lost the other, which imho is a good sign considering balance.
Personally I like them, they make early seafaring much more thrilling. During the time when krakens pose problems for your ships, you're usually not too big (I think), so a shipload of settler / worker / scout is quite valuable. In my game I was very glad when my settlers finally made it across, instead of just expecting them to arrive safely as I would in unmodded Civ3.
Regarding bonus hitpoints: I'll check it with another combat calculator when I'm back at home. However there's more to it than just a comparison of numbers. Especially city defenders profit from them (e.g. devils), because being fortified and potentially walled in, their hitpoints are hardest to reduce. Also, defending cities usually have barracks, meaning that the attacker has to take out an defender in one turn or it will have full power in the next turn. Depending on the attacker's vs. defender's power, a bonus hitpoint might raise the defending unit's chance to win a fight by 30-40% (rough estimate, didn't calculate it). And for every defender that survived with one hitpoint, the attacker needs another unit to take it out in the same turn before it heals. So +1 bonus hitpoint might make it necessary to attack with 40% larger stacks.
However I'm not saying this feature is too powerful. I like powerful features, and in case of the devils it just *is* the strength of the chaos mages to have strong units. In case of the champions the bonus hitpoint might be unnecessary, but I'll leave that for further study. When others think that champions are rather weak, perhaps I just got lucky.
In my game I had two encounters with two krakens each. I won one of them and lost the other, which imho is a good sign considering balance.
Personally I like them, they make early seafaring much more thrilling. During the time when krakens pose problems for your ships, you're usually not too big (I think), so a shipload of settler / worker / scout is quite valuable. In my game I was very glad when my settlers finally made it across, instead of just expecting them to arrive safely as I would in unmodded Civ3.
Regarding bonus hitpoints: I'll check it with another combat calculator when I'm back at home. However there's more to it than just a comparison of numbers. Especially city defenders profit from them (e.g. devils), because being fortified and potentially walled in, their hitpoints are hardest to reduce. Also, defending cities usually have barracks, meaning that the attacker has to take out an defender in one turn or it will have full power in the next turn. Depending on the attacker's vs. defender's power, a bonus hitpoint might raise the defending unit's chance to win a fight by 30-40% (rough estimate, didn't calculate it). And for every defender that survived with one hitpoint, the attacker needs another unit to take it out in the same turn before it heals. So +1 bonus hitpoint might make it necessary to attack with 40% larger stacks.
However I'm not saying this feature is too powerful. I like powerful features, and in case of the devils it just *is* the strength of the chaos mages to have strong units. In case of the champions the bonus hitpoint might be unnecessary, but I'll leave that for further study. When others think that champions are rather weak, perhaps I just got lucky.
Oh, I wasn't trying to say that bonus hit points are overpowered or anything, just that a seemingly innocent +1 can have a big impact I think that the units with bonus hit points are fine (the ones I've encountered so far, anyway). It certainly makes dwarves and trolls extremely dangerous opponents.
I think that the units with bonus hit points are fine (the ones I've encountered so far, anyway). It certainly makes dwarves and trolls extremely dangerous opponents.
Drift
It's a boy!
Beta Patch 10 - pre-release version 1 (2.5MB)
This isn't the final release yet. It's meant for beta testers to check it out and report any problems it has. However, feel free to try it out just for fun too. Just remember that it's still a work in progress and some things will probably change in during the next week or so.
Changelist is humongous:
- Tech tree was spread over three eras. New tech costs and some reordering of the tech tree.
- Some new, high tech improvements
- Reworked governments.
- Some unit tweaks.
- Changes to race resource system. (just remembered that I forgot to update the civilopedia with the latest changes with this: Goblins can be drafted, Men cannot be drafted)
- Lots of bugs and mistakes fixed.
- War Guild removed (no more building armies)
- As usual, probably much more.
I felt like I couldn't take the patch much further without getting some feedback on the work done so far. I just played a quick game to the start of second era as a death mage and it seemed to run ok. I'm doing good, but the only other death mage got a crappy start even though his terrain wasn't that bad. Nature mages are pretty strong with Freya close on my heels, life mages not so, but the other started on tundra and the other got in trouble with me. Sss'ra is doing good, he eliminated Vlad and occupies large patch of land. Lo Pan seems to be rather weak. Death mage early expansion has been slow in the few games I've played. Maybe they get so excited about their cheap skeletons that they fill their pockets with them right from the start.
Anyway, hoping to hear some feedback on the new patch, but don't rush your old games for me.
- Extract to Civ3\Conquests\Scenarios\ after installing Beta 9 successfully.
This isn't the final release yet. It's meant for beta testers to check it out and report any problems it has. However, feel free to try it out just for fun too. Just remember that it's still a work in progress and some things will probably change in during the next week or so.
Changelist is humongous:
- Tech tree was spread over three eras. New tech costs and some reordering of the tech tree.
- Some new, high tech improvements
- Reworked governments.
- Some unit tweaks.
- Changes to race resource system. (just remembered that I forgot to update the civilopedia with the latest changes with this: Goblins can be drafted, Men cannot be drafted)
- Lots of bugs and mistakes fixed.
- War Guild removed (no more building armies)
- As usual, probably much more.
I felt like I couldn't take the patch much further without getting some feedback on the work done so far. I just played a quick game to the start of second era as a death mage and it seemed to run ok. I'm doing good, but the only other death mage got a crappy start even though his terrain wasn't that bad. Nature mages are pretty strong with Freya close on my heels, life mages not so, but the other started on tundra and the other got in trouble with me. Sss'ra is doing good, he eliminated Vlad and occupies large patch of land. Lo Pan seems to be rather weak. Death mage early expansion has been slow in the few games I've played. Maybe they get so excited about their cheap skeletons that they fill their pockets with them right from the start.
Anyway, hoping to hear some feedback on the new patch, but don't rush your old games for me.
I'm in the middle of a very... interesting... game right now, but I'll upgrade and give you feedback soon. I'm pretty sure I can pull this game out, it's just a matter of how many cities I'm going to lose to Ariel before I can get my armies in position to get to her cities.
Short version:
60% water pangea map. I have almost the entire west coast of the pangaea to myself. Rajk is NE of me, Tauron due E, Ariel SE on a strip of land connecting the two halves of the continent.
Sometime around turn 80-100, Rajk declares war out of the blue, taking an undefended city near his lands. I enlist Tauron in a military alliance against him, and Rajk ends up sending all of his forces against Tauron's city in his territory (and Tauron had Firewall, so it took a *lot* of troops to take that city). I start building up an Ent/Half-Gnoll army, but before I get enough to matter Rajk wants peace, and I manage to extort 3(!!) cities out of him, including the city he originally took, for peace. We never engaged in combat.
About 30-40 turns later, after Rajk and Tauron have made up, I ask Tauron to remove his large stacks of beastmen from my territory. He decides he hasn't had enough war yet and says no. I enlist Rajk and Ariel in a war against him. Ariel brings in Mordja, Merlin, and Vlad. Somewhere along the line Ariel takes one of Tauron's cities and gets peace with him. At this point I have a pretty sizeable army, including a lot of fire catapults as I was preparing to fight Tauron eventually anyway, so I march my army through his territory aiming for Hellgate, where the Firewall is built.
When I'm two cities from Hellgate (by this time I've let my alliances lapse), Ariel ROP rapes me (!!!!) and attacks a city on the southwest coast on our border. I've done NOTHING to her all game, and I've even given her stuff for free. Our armies are evenly matched according to the military advisor, but I have 40 units tied up in the spearhead thrust towards Hellgate. I call in Mordja, Vlad, and Sss'ra against her.
Ariel quickly takes my border cities, as they were only very lightly defended. Fortunately I have a large reserve of cash this game and was able to buy a half-gnoll a turn for several turns in my second rank, keeping her from taking my valuable Dwarves. One lone Ent managed to hold off three Bowmen with one hit point.
So, just as I think things are stabilizing... Vlad backstabs me (!!!!!!) and attacks one of my cities, breaking our alliance and losing the dyes I was trading him. Fortunately he's way on the opposite end of the continent, so he only had 2 Shadowmen and 2 Skeletal Warriors to attack me with, but being backstabbed *twice* by Polite allies was a real shock.
At this point I've lost 3 cities to Ariel, but I've taken Hellgate, which not only frees my main army (I immediately signed peace with Tauron, getting another city in the deal), but frees it to immediately attack Ariel, as the city she took from Tauron is right next door and leads into the border territories. I'm fairly sure I can hold out in my three cities around the Dwarves until my army smashes the border - most of her cities don't have walls (actually, only the two she took from me do), so I won't need to do more than light bombardment to soften her up. I'll keep playing until I capture her three wonder cities (Fertility, Spider Mastery, and Contact with the Dead), and then call it a game.
Short version:
60% water pangea map. I have almost the entire west coast of the pangaea to myself. Rajk is NE of me, Tauron due E, Ariel SE on a strip of land connecting the two halves of the continent.
Sometime around turn 80-100, Rajk declares war out of the blue, taking an undefended city near his lands. I enlist Tauron in a military alliance against him, and Rajk ends up sending all of his forces against Tauron's city in his territory (and Tauron had Firewall, so it took a *lot* of troops to take that city). I start building up an Ent/Half-Gnoll army, but before I get enough to matter Rajk wants peace, and I manage to extort 3(!!) cities out of him, including the city he originally took, for peace. We never engaged in combat.
About 30-40 turns later, after Rajk and Tauron have made up, I ask Tauron to remove his large stacks of beastmen from my territory. He decides he hasn't had enough war yet and says no. I enlist Rajk and Ariel in a war against him. Ariel brings in Mordja, Merlin, and Vlad. Somewhere along the line Ariel takes one of Tauron's cities and gets peace with him. At this point I have a pretty sizeable army, including a lot of fire catapults as I was preparing to fight Tauron eventually anyway, so I march my army through his territory aiming for Hellgate, where the Firewall is built.
When I'm two cities from Hellgate (by this time I've let my alliances lapse), Ariel ROP rapes me (!!!!) and attacks a city on the southwest coast on our border. I've done NOTHING to her all game, and I've even given her stuff for free. Our armies are evenly matched according to the military advisor, but I have 40 units tied up in the spearhead thrust towards Hellgate. I call in Mordja, Vlad, and Sss'ra against her.
Ariel quickly takes my border cities, as they were only very lightly defended. Fortunately I have a large reserve of cash this game and was able to buy a half-gnoll a turn for several turns in my second rank, keeping her from taking my valuable Dwarves. One lone Ent managed to hold off three Bowmen with one hit point.
So, just as I think things are stabilizing... Vlad backstabs me (!!!!!!) and attacks one of my cities, breaking our alliance and losing the dyes I was trading him. Fortunately he's way on the opposite end of the continent, so he only had 2 Shadowmen and 2 Skeletal Warriors to attack me with, but being backstabbed *twice* by Polite allies was a real shock.
At this point I've lost 3 cities to Ariel, but I've taken Hellgate, which not only frees my main army (I immediately signed peace with Tauron, getting another city in the deal), but frees it to immediately attack Ariel, as the city she took from Tauron is right next door and leads into the border territories. I'm fairly sure I can hold out in my three cities around the Dwarves until my army smashes the border - most of her cities don't have walls (actually, only the two she took from me do), so I won't need to do more than light bombardment to soften her up. I'll keep playing until I capture her three wonder cities (Fertility, Spider Mastery, and Contact with the Dead), and then call it a game.
LordGek
Prince
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2002
- Messages
- 521
Hey Folk,
I'm probably coming into this late here, but am I right in assessing that there is no way to STEAL techs as the game stands now? I see Life still mentioning its elite diplomats and I think Chaos is supposed to make elite spies...but neither of these units appear to be in the game. Are they still to be added or were they dropped to force folk to really develop independently in their various schools? As it stands now it appears that there is NO WAY to get beyond IV in any school that your mage was born into.
I'm probably coming into this late here, but am I right in assessing that there is no way to STEAL techs as the game stands now? I see Life still mentioning its elite diplomats and I think Chaos is supposed to make elite spies...but neither of these units appear to be in the game. Are they still to be added or were they dropped to force folk to really develop independently in their various schools? As it stands now it appears that there is NO WAY to get beyond IV in any school that your mage was born into.
Drift
It's a boy!
@LordGek
You can steal techs. After you have made an embassy (telepathic link) with an another mage you can steal techs (drain knowledge) from him. Life mage diplomats mean just that life mages get their diplomatic missions cheaper. Similarly, chaos spies mean that chaos gets its espionage jobs cheaper. They aren't actual units you can build.
I should probably change this so that Chaos has both elite diplomats and spies. I've been under the impression that diplomats determine how good deals you can make with AI, but now I remember that that wasn't the case.
You can get beyond IV by simply researching all required techs in the first era.
You can steal techs. After you have made an embassy (telepathic link) with an another mage you can steal techs (drain knowledge) from him. Life mage diplomats mean just that life mages get their diplomatic missions cheaper. Similarly, chaos spies mean that chaos gets its espionage jobs cheaper. They aren't actual units you can build.
I should probably change this so that Chaos has both elite diplomats and spies. I've been under the impression that diplomats determine how good deals you can make with AI, but now I remember that that wasn't the case.
You can get beyond IV by simply researching all required techs in the first era.
Drift
It's a boy!
@LordGek
Requirements from previous era don't carry over. It's a little silly to be able to 'jump over a tech', but it's a gameplay issue. With only 4 techs to research from the other branches in the first era, player advances faster to the next era and doesn't have to research techs that don't give anything to him.
Telepathic link can be established from diplomacy menu (letter "d" in the bottom right of the screen) prerequisite is Life IV.
Requirements from previous era don't carry over. It's a little silly to be able to 'jump over a tech', but it's a gameplay issue. With only 4 techs to research from the other branches in the first era, player advances faster to the next era and doesn't have to research techs that don't give anything to him.
Telepathic link can be established from diplomacy menu (letter "d" in the bottom right of the screen) prerequisite is Life IV.
The Last Conformist
Irresistibly Attractive
My patch 8 game as Tlaloc just came to a premature end:
Final save attached below.
I had carried the war against Lo Pan over to his turf, and taken three of his cities, incl the one with the Dwarf resource,
meaning that he could no longer build those horrid Berserks, and, better yet, I could have built them as soon as I
had got the road up.
I will shortly start up a game with the news patch, as a Death mage.
Final save attached below.
I had carried the war against Lo Pan over to his turf, and taken three of his cities, incl the one with the Dwarf resource,
meaning that he could no longer build those horrid Berserks, and, better yet, I could have built them as soon as I
had got the road up.
I will shortly start up a game with the news patch, as a Death mage.
Drift
It's a boy!
Sorry TLC. I should have ensured compatibility to beta 8 and the versions before it. Latest patch is compatible only with beta 9 based saves because I was stupid and deleted unused pediaentries. I'll try to add the compatibility to savegames made with beta 8 and earlier patches for the next patch I release. Sorry about the trouble. 
Similar threads
- Sticky