syndicatedragon
Warlord
What are the best leaders to play if you're just getting your feet wet with this mod?
Master of Myrror Fantasy Mod 2.0
- Thread starter Drift
- Start date
Started a game of MoM 2 with the latest patches, etc. I elected to play Galen. Setting on the game is Monarch.
Getting started was frustrated as the first game I had a great starting postion, but was immendiately hemmed in on 3 sides with little prospects for expansion. Restart game
Game 2, I started in a terrible position with no life nodes around. Restart game.
Game 3, I started on a small island. Got 5 cities built, no life nodes and no luxaries around of course. Did some exploring as I thought the map might be a series of islands. Wrong. I was the exception rather than the rule. Most of the other nations were on a giant land mass and of course, they had traded a ton of tech around, so I was hopelessly behind.
Game 4. not a bad start spot and discovered a life node close by along with probably the potential at 2 luxaries and also, the elves were within distance as well. This is the current game I am on.
I have expanded out as quick as I can, but not fast enough it seems as the AI run civs just kill me with this every game I play it seems like. At any rate, I have 2 Oberic cities to the north of me and 2 nature mage cities up there as well. I have made contact with 1 death mage and another nature mage. My position is not that hot as I am stretched out a bit. My cities produce pretty good and I do have a good military going at the moment along with the option on the elves.
The thing that also hurts in this game is that the other positions just trade tech all over the place. As a consequence of starting out pretty good, I have since fallen behind and in some cases, I am 2 levels behind. Of course, I don't have anything to trade with anyone, so this is going to get nasty. I am ahead of the nature mage to my south, but the rest are kicking my butt. In the VP race, I am next to last and am last in power as well.
Having said all this, my army is about ready to go on an offensive someplace to help this out and I will probably either attack the nature mage to my south (she has dwarf defenders tho, so she might get a pass for now) or the big death mage that is the points and power leader. I only know where two of his cities are, but both are big. Best defender he has right now is the necromancer, so it will be his 4 point defenders with 4 pips to my 4 point attackers with 5 pips. I think the death mage will have a harder time counter attacking my gains vs the nature mage.
All in all, excellent so far as far as appearance and game mechanics and such.
Will report back when I get some more turns going and see if this game is going to shape up to anything.
Getting started was frustrated as the first game I had a great starting postion, but was immendiately hemmed in on 3 sides with little prospects for expansion. Restart game
Game 2, I started in a terrible position with no life nodes around. Restart game.
Game 3, I started on a small island. Got 5 cities built, no life nodes and no luxaries around of course. Did some exploring as I thought the map might be a series of islands. Wrong. I was the exception rather than the rule. Most of the other nations were on a giant land mass and of course, they had traded a ton of tech around, so I was hopelessly behind.
Game 4. not a bad start spot and discovered a life node close by along with probably the potential at 2 luxaries and also, the elves were within distance as well. This is the current game I am on.
I have expanded out as quick as I can, but not fast enough it seems as the AI run civs just kill me with this every game I play it seems like. At any rate, I have 2 Oberic cities to the north of me and 2 nature mage cities up there as well. I have made contact with 1 death mage and another nature mage. My position is not that hot as I am stretched out a bit. My cities produce pretty good and I do have a good military going at the moment along with the option on the elves.
The thing that also hurts in this game is that the other positions just trade tech all over the place. As a consequence of starting out pretty good, I have since fallen behind and in some cases, I am 2 levels behind. Of course, I don't have anything to trade with anyone, so this is going to get nasty. I am ahead of the nature mage to my south, but the rest are kicking my butt. In the VP race, I am next to last and am last in power as well.
Having said all this, my army is about ready to go on an offensive someplace to help this out and I will probably either attack the nature mage to my south (she has dwarf defenders tho, so she might get a pass for now) or the big death mage that is the points and power leader. I only know where two of his cities are, but both are big. Best defender he has right now is the necromancer, so it will be his 4 point defenders with 4 pips to my 4 point attackers with 5 pips. I think the death mage will have a harder time counter attacking my gains vs the nature mage.
All in all, excellent so far as far as appearance and game mechanics and such.
Will report back when I get some more turns going and see if this game is going to shape up to anything.
Drift
It's a boy!
@syndicatedragon
I'd say pretty much any of the factions is good for starting. Life and Nature are probably the most 'traditional' ones so they might be a good pick for a first game. MoM is different from regular Civ3, but as it's based on the same system, you should learn it pretty quickly. Expect to have a good hang of it by the end of your first game. You may want to set the difficulty setting notch lower than you are used to.
Hope you enjoy the mod.
@Klyden
Good to have you back.
MoM is probably a little worse than regular game regarding the AI tech trade due to the four branch tech tree. Each mage researches his own branch and trades for the other branches resulting in very fast tech progress. It's pretty much unfixable.
Nice to hear that so far the mod looks good. Keep my up to date on how the game goes.
@everyone
Do you feel the race resource units provide enough punch over the mages' own units? I've found myself sticking largely to my mage's own units and used the race units mostly in a supporting role. Trolls and Dwarves are units most mages (chaos has units that mostly match the trolls) can benefit from so they are sort of an exception.
- Death lacks good cavalry so they can use all fast race units. Strong infantry doesn't hurt either. Their own defenders are strong though.
- Chaos has bad defense so they need race units with defensive orientation. Their infantry and cavalry is strong.
- Life doesn't absolutely need anything as their unit set is very balanced on its own. Strong infantry can be useful though.
- Nature can use stronger defenders and better cavalry. Infantry is strong.
Is the balance between race units and mages' own units right? Do you people play mostly with your own units or the race units? Should the race units offer more and actually be better than the mages' units? At the moment I think they are pretty much on par with the mages' units and their usefulness is often decided on what mage you are playing.
I'd say pretty much any of the factions is good for starting. Life and Nature are probably the most 'traditional' ones so they might be a good pick for a first game. MoM is different from regular Civ3, but as it's based on the same system, you should learn it pretty quickly. Expect to have a good hang of it by the end of your first game. You may want to set the difficulty setting notch lower than you are used to.
Hope you enjoy the mod.
@Klyden
Good to have you back.
MoM is probably a little worse than regular game regarding the AI tech trade due to the four branch tech tree. Each mage researches his own branch and trades for the other branches resulting in very fast tech progress. It's pretty much unfixable.
Nice to hear that so far the mod looks good. Keep my up to date on how the game goes.
@everyone
Do you feel the race resource units provide enough punch over the mages' own units? I've found myself sticking largely to my mage's own units and used the race units mostly in a supporting role. Trolls and Dwarves are units most mages (chaos has units that mostly match the trolls) can benefit from so they are sort of an exception.
- Death lacks good cavalry so they can use all fast race units. Strong infantry doesn't hurt either. Their own defenders are strong though.
- Chaos has bad defense so they need race units with defensive orientation. Their infantry and cavalry is strong.
- Life doesn't absolutely need anything as their unit set is very balanced on its own. Strong infantry can be useful though.
- Nature can use stronger defenders and better cavalry. Infantry is strong.
Is the balance between race units and mages' own units right? Do you people play mostly with your own units or the race units? Should the race units offer more and actually be better than the mages' units? At the moment I think they are pretty much on par with the mages' units and their usefulness is often decided on what mage you are playing.
One thing I noticed about the governments.
Chaos spies and diplomats are elite.
Everyone else is regular.
Not sure of the reasoning behind this, but I would think Chaos would be the last to have really good diplomats and spies could be iffy.
My thoughts:
Life Diplomats: Elite. Spies Regular
Nature Diplomats: Vet. Spies Vet
Death Diplomats: Regular. Spies Elite
Chaos Diplomats: Regular. Spies Vet.
Chaos spies and diplomats are elite.
Everyone else is regular.
Not sure of the reasoning behind this, but I would think Chaos would be the last to have really good diplomats and spies could be iffy.
My thoughts:
Life Diplomats: Elite. Spies Regular
Nature Diplomats: Vet. Spies Vet
Death Diplomats: Regular. Spies Elite
Chaos Diplomats: Regular. Spies Vet.
Drift
It's a boy!
@Klyden
The elite diplomats only affects the cost of diplomatic espionage missions. I think. It does sound a little stupid to have chaos with elite diplomats, but that's just the way the game treats the espionage system. Apart from setting up embassies, there's hardly anything diplomatic about the missions 'diplomats' can do (investigate city & steal tech)
I've treated both the diplomats and spies as simply 'espionage' and I think it fits rather well that the chaotic factions excel at it. Also, it was a nice perk for chaos mages to have. I've also kept the system simple so that the advantage of the chaos mages is clear. I could of course rename the concepts of diplomats and spies to something more fitting.
The elite diplomats only affects the cost of diplomatic espionage missions. I think. It does sound a little stupid to have chaos with elite diplomats, but that's just the way the game treats the espionage system. Apart from setting up embassies, there's hardly anything diplomatic about the missions 'diplomats' can do (investigate city & steal tech)
I've treated both the diplomats and spies as simply 'espionage' and I think it fits rather well that the chaotic factions excel at it. Also, it was a nice perk for chaos mages to have. I've also kept the system simple so that the advantage of the chaos mages is clear. I could of course rename the concepts of diplomats and spies to something more fitting.
Misfit_travel
Emperor
I guess it would depend how you look at these things....
If spies are perceived as ability to work in dark places (and with less-than-questionable individuals), I would think that Chaos would definitely have an advantage in this area relative to more ethical groups.
Certainly the opposite argument would be true for diplomats, where appearances and credibility would mean more.
I don't have a problem with Chaos' elite spies. I also think that there should be some variation between the groups, not make all of their spies veteran etc. That defeats the purpose of having each group be somewhat better at certain tasks than others.
Happy New Year to all.
Misfit
If spies are perceived as ability to work in dark places (and with less-than-questionable individuals), I would think that Chaos would definitely have an advantage in this area relative to more ethical groups.
Certainly the opposite argument would be true for diplomats, where appearances and credibility would mean more.
I don't have a problem with Chaos' elite spies. I also think that there should be some variation between the groups, not make all of their spies veteran etc. That defeats the purpose of having each group be somewhat better at certain tasks than others.
Happy New Year to all.
Misfit
Play test as Galen continues:
Around turn 108, I was able to find out about most of the other civs:
VP total on 108:
Mordja 16555
Freya 14705
Ariel 13605
Kharan 13550
Ungor 11815
Tlaloc 10380
Vlad 9255
Galen 9110
Oberic 7105
Minervia 5150
Merlin 3500
Power scale
Kharan 1272
Mordia 1269
Freya 1227
Tlaloc 1227
Minerva 1104
Ungor 1069
Vlad 1041
Merlin 895
Ariel 820
Oberic 694
Galen 510
My army is ready and it is time to pick an opponent. I decide on Kharan, despite knowing he is very powerful. I have 3 cities my units can ambush and with Death being mostly foot, I hope to hang on to what I have.
The intial attack goes pretty well as I capture 2 of the 3 cities I was aiming for and also have the third city pretty much bagged. No real response yet from Kharan, but I know he is coming.
Next turn I bag the remaining city I was going for and Kharan starts to exert pressure on the center city. Over the next couple of turns, I realize there is no way I can hold the center city, so plan on a fighting withdraw. His army is very strong and has a good mix of all units. I loose the center city and he continues to advance, taking heavy casualties as I do hit and run on him with my troops.
After doing some diplomatics with other countries, I find myself in the same old situation.. far behind in the science race. I am ahead of only 2 other civs and of course, they don't have anything to trade me for the tech I have and the other civs have nothing they want from me for me to try to catch up. I find myself really frustrated with this part of the game. I have extra luxuary items and the other civs are not interested in them at all or will offer very minimal amounts (had one offer 2 mana per turn for 2 lux). I wound up giving some away to maintain good will. It is not like I am in the diplomatic hot box with my attack as I had not broken any deals, etc.
For Minerva, I don't think she had a very good starting spot and this might explain why she is having some issues. I find it interesting that at the bottom of the power list are the life mages and the death mages are at the top.
At this point, I am going to retire from this game.. I stand little chance of stopping the hordes of Kharan and am so far behind in tech that it won't matter.
The tech issue seems to be a bigger one in this version. While I had it as an issue in the first one, by playing races with science as a trait, I was able to compensate enough. That does not appear to be holding for this version. I wish I had a better fix, because it is terribly frustrating for me. I don't really want to play on a lower setting than Monarch as most people think that is too low anyway, but I am getting beat badly in both science and expansion during the initial phases of the game.
Around turn 108, I was able to find out about most of the other civs:
VP total on 108:
Mordja 16555
Freya 14705
Ariel 13605
Kharan 13550
Ungor 11815
Tlaloc 10380
Vlad 9255
Galen 9110
Oberic 7105
Minervia 5150
Merlin 3500
Power scale
Kharan 1272
Mordia 1269
Freya 1227
Tlaloc 1227
Minerva 1104
Ungor 1069
Vlad 1041
Merlin 895
Ariel 820
Oberic 694
Galen 510
My army is ready and it is time to pick an opponent. I decide on Kharan, despite knowing he is very powerful. I have 3 cities my units can ambush and with Death being mostly foot, I hope to hang on to what I have.
The intial attack goes pretty well as I capture 2 of the 3 cities I was aiming for and also have the third city pretty much bagged. No real response yet from Kharan, but I know he is coming.
Next turn I bag the remaining city I was going for and Kharan starts to exert pressure on the center city. Over the next couple of turns, I realize there is no way I can hold the center city, so plan on a fighting withdraw. His army is very strong and has a good mix of all units. I loose the center city and he continues to advance, taking heavy casualties as I do hit and run on him with my troops.
After doing some diplomatics with other countries, I find myself in the same old situation.. far behind in the science race. I am ahead of only 2 other civs and of course, they don't have anything to trade me for the tech I have and the other civs have nothing they want from me for me to try to catch up. I find myself really frustrated with this part of the game. I have extra luxuary items and the other civs are not interested in them at all or will offer very minimal amounts (had one offer 2 mana per turn for 2 lux). I wound up giving some away to maintain good will. It is not like I am in the diplomatic hot box with my attack as I had not broken any deals, etc.
For Minerva, I don't think she had a very good starting spot and this might explain why she is having some issues. I find it interesting that at the bottom of the power list are the life mages and the death mages are at the top.
At this point, I am going to retire from this game.. I stand little chance of stopping the hordes of Kharan and am so far behind in tech that it won't matter.
The tech issue seems to be a bigger one in this version. While I had it as an issue in the first one, by playing races with science as a trait, I was able to compensate enough. That does not appear to be holding for this version. I wish I had a better fix, because it is terribly frustrating for me. I don't really want to play on a lower setting than Monarch as most people think that is too low anyway, but I am getting beat badly in both science and expansion during the initial phases of the game.
Drift
It's a boy!
@Klyden
I don't know what to say. I don't think I've done anything that should affect the tech balance from 1.0 majorly... Wait, I just rememberd that there is the AI to AI trade rate number in the editor. Currently it's the same as in regular game:
Chieftain 110
Warlord 120
Regent 130
Monarch 140
Emperor 150
Demigod 160
Deity 170
Sid 200
(I could rename those difficulty levels to something more magical BTW)
Maybe I should bring these numbers down a bit. Perhaps a reduction of 10 for all levels for starters?
I don't know what to say. I don't think I've done anything that should affect the tech balance from 1.0 majorly... Wait, I just rememberd that there is the AI to AI trade rate number in the editor. Currently it's the same as in regular game:
Chieftain 110
Warlord 120
Regent 130
Monarch 140
Emperor 150
Demigod 160
Deity 170
Sid 200
(I could rename those difficulty levels to something more magical BTW)
Maybe I should bring these numbers down a bit. Perhaps a reduction of 10 for all levels for starters?
New game as Lo Pan on Monarch.
Not the best of starting positions with no water, but there appear to be some lux items around and I also have men in easy range along with a chaos node. We shall see. Lot of hills and rough terrain. Those with ag bonus are going to be a bit better off I think.
I get going and early in the game, discover Merlin dumping settlers and such at an incredible rate. Sheesh. He pops probably 3 cities on the land mass I am on in the space of 5 turns. Well, behind already. Time to try out a early war and see what that gets me, so I start building lots of beasts. I get ready and start a war with Merlin. I managed to beat his cleric defenders and capture 2 cities. Shortly after that, he gives me a peace. Next is Raven getting agressive on the other side with city placement. I spot orcs, but get beat out by Raven there. Raven has quite the navy and we appear to have large islands in this game. I shuttle things over and build a few war barges and shuttle in some troops. My econ is feeling the effects of building so many troops and my science begins to suffer. Not much I can do about it, but plunge ahead. I am sure losses will be up there.
I start up a war with Raven and capture one city and burn another as it was in the wrong spot and immediately put a settler in where I can have ship passage in a much more strategic spot. Raven launches attacks with Bears, trees and some Beorne and we have a good slug fest for about 10 turns. Does not bother me to trade 20 point beasts with 40+ point nature units. Raven makes a last effort to take my city with a big push of Ents. I have to let him attack me and while his ents take out about 5 of my beasts, my counter attack wipes out all the attacking Ents. He has more troops on the way, but decides to offer me a peace instead. I extort a minor advancement out of him and let the war end.
The only other position I have encountered is Kharan and he is pretty far away and not in an easy spot for me to get to. Merlin has been busy researching and now has cities defended with 2-4-1 units, so the beasts are not getting anything there. The tech I extort from Raven is men, so at least I have 4-3-1 units now and I will soon have goblins as soon as I can get a road there.
On turn 73, the game stands like this:
VP
Raven 3710
Lo Pan 3475
Merlin 3200
Kharan 3140
Power Rating
Raven 739
Merlin 515
Kharan 441
Lo Pan 404
Once again, I find myself way down on where things are at. I am again way behind to all other players I know about in tech. This game is also headed for the scrap heap I think.
I will have to give this some thought. In the past, I had the best luck with Life and Nature with Chaos right behind. I don't care too much for the death postion, but have won with them. In this version, I find myself outclassed quite a bit, so if you like a hard scenario, this is a good one for you. I might have to drop down below Monarch I guess.
Not the best of starting positions with no water, but there appear to be some lux items around and I also have men in easy range along with a chaos node. We shall see. Lot of hills and rough terrain. Those with ag bonus are going to be a bit better off I think.
I get going and early in the game, discover Merlin dumping settlers and such at an incredible rate. Sheesh. He pops probably 3 cities on the land mass I am on in the space of 5 turns. Well, behind already. Time to try out a early war and see what that gets me, so I start building lots of beasts. I get ready and start a war with Merlin. I managed to beat his cleric defenders and capture 2 cities. Shortly after that, he gives me a peace. Next is Raven getting agressive on the other side with city placement. I spot orcs, but get beat out by Raven there. Raven has quite the navy and we appear to have large islands in this game. I shuttle things over and build a few war barges and shuttle in some troops. My econ is feeling the effects of building so many troops and my science begins to suffer. Not much I can do about it, but plunge ahead. I am sure losses will be up there.
I start up a war with Raven and capture one city and burn another as it was in the wrong spot and immediately put a settler in where I can have ship passage in a much more strategic spot. Raven launches attacks with Bears, trees and some Beorne and we have a good slug fest for about 10 turns. Does not bother me to trade 20 point beasts with 40+ point nature units. Raven makes a last effort to take my city with a big push of Ents. I have to let him attack me and while his ents take out about 5 of my beasts, my counter attack wipes out all the attacking Ents. He has more troops on the way, but decides to offer me a peace instead. I extort a minor advancement out of him and let the war end.
The only other position I have encountered is Kharan and he is pretty far away and not in an easy spot for me to get to. Merlin has been busy researching and now has cities defended with 2-4-1 units, so the beasts are not getting anything there. The tech I extort from Raven is men, so at least I have 4-3-1 units now and I will soon have goblins as soon as I can get a road there.
On turn 73, the game stands like this:
VP
Raven 3710
Lo Pan 3475
Merlin 3200
Kharan 3140
Power Rating
Raven 739
Merlin 515
Kharan 441
Lo Pan 404
Once again, I find myself way down on where things are at. I am again way behind to all other players I know about in tech. This game is also headed for the scrap heap I think.
I will have to give this some thought. In the past, I had the best luck with Life and Nature with Chaos right behind. I don't care too much for the death postion, but have won with them. In this version, I find myself outclassed quite a bit, so if you like a hard scenario, this is a good one for you. I might have to drop down below Monarch I guess.
Drift
It's a boy!
@Klyden
Thanks for the feedback and sorry that the mod keeps giving you trouble. The games seemed like interesting ones had the tech race not been too steep. Or is the expansion also a problem? AI may benefit from the lack of standard tile penalty during the first stages of the game, making it perform relatively better than it does in regular game.
Here's a something you could try for the tech issue. It changes the AI to Ai trade stats mentioned above with following tweaks:
Chieftain 110
Warlord 120->115
Regent 130->120
Monarch 140->125
Emperor 150->135
Demigod 160->145
Deity 170->155
Sid 200->185
Just replace the biq. Hopefully this has a desired effect.
Thanks for the feedback and sorry that the mod keeps giving you trouble. The games seemed like interesting ones had the tech race not been too steep. Or is the expansion also a problem? AI may benefit from the lack of standard tile penalty during the first stages of the game, making it perform relatively better than it does in regular game.
Here's a something you could try for the tech issue. It changes the AI to Ai trade stats mentioned above with following tweaks:
Chieftain 110
Warlord 120->115
Regent 130->120
Monarch 140->125
Emperor 150->135
Demigod 160->145
Deity 170->155
Sid 200->185
Just replace the biq. Hopefully this has a desired effect.
Drift
It's a boy!
Good ones rhialto.
I'll rename the difficulties for the next proper patch and will probably follow your suggestions pretty closely. Thank you.
I'll rename the difficulties for the next proper patch and will probably follow your suggestions pretty closely. Thank you.
Playing Tlaloc on Monarch.
Well, this certainly looks promising for a starting spot. Right next to a river and have some of the bonus shield stuff close by. Wish I had about 3 settlers right off the bat as I have some primo spots for them. I start out and try to get going on the settler units just in case some one comes in and swipes my spots. I get two down and then discover Kharan to my south and sure enough, here comes a skele with a settler unit. Sheesh. Well, I take a real risk and basically help myself to some captured workers when my military is all of 4 units, but it pays off. He tries to hammer my southern city, but the Gnolls manage to hold him off as I continue to develope other areas. Getting that first settler of his will be a blow he won't recover from.
In the area, I discover 2 lux items and while I am in a bunch of tundra, there are a lot of extra resources around, so I should be ok. I also have access to men. Not exactly helpful for nature mages, but ok. The war finally burns out with Kharan just as I get my UU (Shaman) and gear up production to put him out. I do manage to trigger my golden age. In the mean time, Merlin has now annoyed me by showing up with a pile of settlers and going nuts with the expansion. I resolve to deal with him and get into position. I get spider mastery but get beaten to spell of knowledge (one of the most important in my opinion). I start a war with Merlin and take 3 of his cities. These Shaman are pretty kick butt and are pretty cheap. If Merlin wants a piece of me, he will have to land troops.
I now head most everything back down to finish the job with Kharan. My golden age ends, so now it is important to hurry it up. I have to deal with his capital, which means just a pile of units. Fortunately, it appears he had no death node, so his units are a bit weaker than normal and he is behind tech wise. I have over 50 shaman units by this time and although I loose about 10 units, I took his capital and also attacked a big stack he had moved up to support his capital. I am pretty sure he is finished and I have enough troops to take over the other 3 cities he has left, which I do over the space of two turns. He must have a city hidden someplace as I thought for sure I would take him out, but he is still around someplace. I give him a peace.
Merlin flexes his naval muscle and one group of troops gets slaughter on the beach. He has bow hunters, so pretty nasty. I am temped to give him a peace, but not quite sure yet. I need time to consolidate and develope my land mass now (no one else on it). I am close to finished with the first era for science.
The current turn is 79 and here are the standings:
VP
Tlaloc 5975
Merlin 4525
SSs'ra 3380
Rjak 3080
Ungor 3080
KHaran 2545
Vlad 2315
Power
Merlin 827
Vlad 543
Ungor 453
Tlalac 436
SSs'ra 430
Rjak 338
Kharan 204
Overall notes:
I am not too far behind in tech (most everyone is about to enter the second era). I did manage to get some trades done before the other powers found each other. The Nature position feels very strong compared to the Chaos position of the last game. While I thought I was pretty strong as a life mage in the first game, I guess relative to others, I was not. Of course, pumping out 50 shaman will make a difference as well. They make Tlaloc really strong at this point in time with cheap 4 point attackers. I don't have much going for me on defense or much of anything else. There simply is not a good selection of units to be built it seems like.
Think I am going to continue this one at a later time.
I like the names by Rhialto's names as well.
Well, this certainly looks promising for a starting spot. Right next to a river and have some of the bonus shield stuff close by. Wish I had about 3 settlers right off the bat as I have some primo spots for them. I start out and try to get going on the settler units just in case some one comes in and swipes my spots. I get two down and then discover Kharan to my south and sure enough, here comes a skele with a settler unit. Sheesh. Well, I take a real risk and basically help myself to some captured workers when my military is all of 4 units, but it pays off. He tries to hammer my southern city, but the Gnolls manage to hold him off as I continue to develope other areas. Getting that first settler of his will be a blow he won't recover from.
In the area, I discover 2 lux items and while I am in a bunch of tundra, there are a lot of extra resources around, so I should be ok. I also have access to men. Not exactly helpful for nature mages, but ok. The war finally burns out with Kharan just as I get my UU (Shaman) and gear up production to put him out. I do manage to trigger my golden age. In the mean time, Merlin has now annoyed me by showing up with a pile of settlers and going nuts with the expansion. I resolve to deal with him and get into position. I get spider mastery but get beaten to spell of knowledge (one of the most important in my opinion). I start a war with Merlin and take 3 of his cities. These Shaman are pretty kick butt and are pretty cheap. If Merlin wants a piece of me, he will have to land troops.
I now head most everything back down to finish the job with Kharan. My golden age ends, so now it is important to hurry it up. I have to deal with his capital, which means just a pile of units. Fortunately, it appears he had no death node, so his units are a bit weaker than normal and he is behind tech wise. I have over 50 shaman units by this time and although I loose about 10 units, I took his capital and also attacked a big stack he had moved up to support his capital. I am pretty sure he is finished and I have enough troops to take over the other 3 cities he has left, which I do over the space of two turns. He must have a city hidden someplace as I thought for sure I would take him out, but he is still around someplace. I give him a peace.
Merlin flexes his naval muscle and one group of troops gets slaughter on the beach. He has bow hunters, so pretty nasty. I am temped to give him a peace, but not quite sure yet. I need time to consolidate and develope my land mass now (no one else on it). I am close to finished with the first era for science.
The current turn is 79 and here are the standings:
VP
Tlaloc 5975
Merlin 4525
SSs'ra 3380
Rjak 3080
Ungor 3080
KHaran 2545
Vlad 2315
Power
Merlin 827
Vlad 543
Ungor 453
Tlalac 436
SSs'ra 430
Rjak 338
Kharan 204
Overall notes:
I am not too far behind in tech (most everyone is about to enter the second era). I did manage to get some trades done before the other powers found each other. The Nature position feels very strong compared to the Chaos position of the last game. While I thought I was pretty strong as a life mage in the first game, I guess relative to others, I was not. Of course, pumping out 50 shaman will make a difference as well. They make Tlaloc really strong at this point in time with cheap 4 point attackers. I don't have much going for me on defense or much of anything else. There simply is not a good selection of units to be built it seems like.
Think I am going to continue this one at a later time.
I like the names by Rhialto's names as well.
Drift
It's a boy!
@Klyden
I figured the Shaman would be a rather powerful UU, but that's how I want UU's to be. Of course, if it's too bad for balance, it has to get slight cost increase.
Are you playing with the new AI to AI trade patch BTW?
Different factions seem to fare differently from game to game. The nature mages are the only ones who are almost consistently on top.
Hope to hear from you again, when you continue the game.
@rhialto
Yeah, apprentice was an addition I also thought when I looked at the original list. Enchanter is nice as well.
In other news... mad ideas come at night.
I don't want to shake up the mod and this is mostly just musing, but when thinking about the race resources, I kinda came up with an idea of how they could be done differently.
The problem with race units is that they often overlap the mage's own units and make the available unit selection a bit confusive. Also, they don't always present strong enough an asset and the player may decide to stick to his basic units.
So, I thought of race units being produced by an improvement, with the palace as a prereq. Meaning that new race units would always be spawned in the mage's capital. There would have to be 5 improvements per one race resource and each one would become obsolete with the tech that opens up the next unit in line. This would require the player to rebuild the improvement each time he gets a new unit for one of his race resources. It would cost nothing to build though.
This would make a clear difference between the race units and mage's own units. You could only build your own units and the race units would be just supplemental in their role. However, they would spawn at a rate fast enough to make them substantial part of your army (naturally depending on the size of the map and level of difficulty - this is actually the biggest flaw of the plan).
The whole system would represent the mage controlling a race and the race sending a military unit for their master regularly. I like it especially because it would simplify player's building options regarding units and make sure that the race resources see use. I believe the race units might actually be free of upkeep, just like all other spawned units of the mod.
There are naturally also disadvantages to this. You couldn't supplement your own units as well with the race units. For example chaos with dwarves defending couldn't be done in a similar fashion as before. Forcing the building that produces the units to be an improvement is due to game restrictions - I don't want to make each of the 60 required buildings into a wonder and the only building that appears in one place at a time is the palace. I haven't thought this part through yet so I may have overlooked something.
Well, I'll sleep on this before delving deeper on this one. I probably won't go through with it, but I thought I'd share my crazy ideas with you.
But to be honest, I really like it as an idea. Who knows...
I figured the Shaman would be a rather powerful UU, but that's how I want UU's to be. Of course, if it's too bad for balance, it has to get slight cost increase.
Are you playing with the new AI to AI trade patch BTW?
Different factions seem to fare differently from game to game. The nature mages are the only ones who are almost consistently on top.
Hope to hear from you again, when you continue the game.
@rhialto
Yeah, apprentice was an addition I also thought when I looked at the original list. Enchanter is nice as well.
In other news... mad ideas come at night.
I don't want to shake up the mod and this is mostly just musing, but when thinking about the race resources, I kinda came up with an idea of how they could be done differently.
The problem with race units is that they often overlap the mage's own units and make the available unit selection a bit confusive. Also, they don't always present strong enough an asset and the player may decide to stick to his basic units.
So, I thought of race units being produced by an improvement, with the palace as a prereq. Meaning that new race units would always be spawned in the mage's capital. There would have to be 5 improvements per one race resource and each one would become obsolete with the tech that opens up the next unit in line. This would require the player to rebuild the improvement each time he gets a new unit for one of his race resources. It would cost nothing to build though.
This would make a clear difference between the race units and mage's own units. You could only build your own units and the race units would be just supplemental in their role. However, they would spawn at a rate fast enough to make them substantial part of your army (naturally depending on the size of the map and level of difficulty - this is actually the biggest flaw of the plan).
The whole system would represent the mage controlling a race and the race sending a military unit for their master regularly. I like it especially because it would simplify player's building options regarding units and make sure that the race resources see use. I believe the race units might actually be free of upkeep, just like all other spawned units of the mod.
There are naturally also disadvantages to this. You couldn't supplement your own units as well with the race units. For example chaos with dwarves defending couldn't be done in a similar fashion as before. Forcing the building that produces the units to be an improvement is due to game restrictions - I don't want to make each of the 60 required buildings into a wonder and the only building that appears in one place at a time is the palace. I haven't thought this part through yet so I may have overlooked something.
Well, I'll sleep on this before delving deeper on this one. I probably won't go through with it, but I thought I'd share my crazy ideas with you.
But to be honest, I really like it as an idea. Who knows...
My game as Tlaloc was before your patch (did not see it until I was well into the game).
I like what you are discussing about the race resources, but honestly, there are some issues with this. In some games, people don't get the node they need to get some of their own units and race resources are another way to cover for this. Also, the race resources have varying uses, depending on what mage you are playing. (The dwarfs with Chaos is a classic example). This is part of the variety of the game and depending on how good of a match up also depends on how much they get built.
I like what you are discussing about the race resources, but honestly, there are some issues with this. In some games, people don't get the node they need to get some of their own units and race resources are another way to cover for this. Also, the race resources have varying uses, depending on what mage you are playing. (The dwarfs with Chaos is a classic example). This is part of the variety of the game and depending on how good of a match up also depends on how much they get built.
This is probably a crazy idea but...
How difficult would it be to give each branch of magic two sets of identical units, one of which requires the node, the other doesn't. The one that requires no node is more expensive and has weaker stats.
How difficult would it be to give each branch of magic two sets of identical units, one of which requires the node, the other doesn't. The one that requires no node is more expensive and has weaker stats.
Drift
It's a boy!
@Klyden
Adjustments to the existing system would be in order if I went through with the race unit rehaul. For example, mages' own units might be required to be free of node requirements. Also, some tweaks might be in order for their unit stats.
I like the variety of the current system, but I'm also enticed about the different kind of variety the new system would provide. I'll have to think about this a lot more.
@rhialto
It's possible, but it would really be more confusing than useful. The units with no node requirement would be in the build list even if the player had the node. Also, it would be confusing to have units with same name, but different stats.
Adjustments to the existing system would be in order if I went through with the race unit rehaul. For example, mages' own units might be required to be free of node requirements. Also, some tweaks might be in order for their unit stats.
I like the variety of the current system, but I'm also enticed about the different kind of variety the new system would provide. I'll have to think about this a lot more.
@rhialto
It's possible, but it would really be more confusing than useful. The units with no node requirement would be in the build list even if the player had the node. Also, it would be confusing to have units with same name, but different stats.
If you change the races that way I think it would be best if they cost upkeep, to limit it in some way, at least. Will the AI build this building?
This will also make it almost impossible to go for a 20k culture win in your capital, as you'd "be forced" to build wonders instead of these buildings, thus loosing out in units. I think Small Wonders would be better, you can build these wherever you want.
This will also make it almost impossible to go for a 20k culture win in your capital, as you'd "be forced" to build wonders instead of these buildings, thus loosing out in units. I think Small Wonders would be better, you can build these wherever you want.
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