ArkhanTheBlack
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2008
- Messages
- 153
Tried the mod for the first time with a friend at the weekend.
We'd played mostly Wildmana 8 so far, besides some test games of different Master of Mana versions.
We were curious about the performance of the AI in comparison to Wildmana.
We tried a small map with quick tech and a lakes map on monarch.
Therefore the special naval AI features were probably not used that much.
In short words, I'd say that the mod performs much worse than Wildmana at the start, but slightly better than Wildmana if it comes to mid and end game.
Problems in the early game:
Two AI players chose a start position for their city at the edge of Tundra.
They were explicitly moving to those places, so it wasn't just an accident.
The only remarkably features of those places were an iron resource for the Balseraph and a bronze resource for the Khazad.
They shouldn't know this places at the start so I'm not sure if it was just an accident or 'map knowlege cheating'.
Unfortunately for them, the places were almost suicide since growth was close to zero at this places.
There were far better places available with the option to get access to the bronze or iron resources later with another city.
In addition, the Khazad built his city about 4 fields higher than mine.
Well, I was pissed, built six warriors and rushed him. And since he decided to defend just with one warrior he was toast in no time.
Civs in Wildmana usually build at least 4 warriors for defense so it's much harder to rush them at the start.
Balseraphs were rushed an killed by my friend a bit later.
Mid and late game:
Since Kazhad and Balseraph more or less commited suicide, the Malakhim, Hippus and Sheaim were left and developed surprisingly well in the later stages of the game.
Malakhim started war with me after some time but were doing nothing besides moving a stack of about 20 military units forth and back the whole time.
Then the hippus joined suddently and made some surprisingly well attacks against me.
Single cavalry riders harassing my cities by destroying tiles and workers followed by bigger stacks of military units. The Sheaim then also joined and attacked with adepts, skeletons and pyre zombies. Then the Malakhim decided that moving forth and back gets boring after about ~50 times and made an excellent attack with a military stack backed up by catapults. Corlindale then saved my ass by forcing a peace treaty (I was playing Elohim).
The good things:
- The races actually declared war at some time. In Wildmana races often build huge armies but never declare war or send them to attack.
- The Malakhim used catapults to conquer one of my heavy fortified cities. Very good, Wildmana does that very rarely to almost never.
- Especially Hippus used some good harassing tactics against me
- The Sheaim summoned a lot of skeletons and attacked with them
The bad things: (Clearly the early game)
- Bad choice of starting places for the cities
- Only build a city close to another civ if you want to rush them
- Always build a few warriors for defense at the start and...
- ...don't send away if an enemy is building an attack army just a few fields away.
- They are still teching slowly and not focused enough
We'd played mostly Wildmana 8 so far, besides some test games of different Master of Mana versions.
We were curious about the performance of the AI in comparison to Wildmana.
We tried a small map with quick tech and a lakes map on monarch.
Therefore the special naval AI features were probably not used that much.
In short words, I'd say that the mod performs much worse than Wildmana at the start, but slightly better than Wildmana if it comes to mid and end game.
Problems in the early game:
Two AI players chose a start position for their city at the edge of Tundra.
They were explicitly moving to those places, so it wasn't just an accident.
The only remarkably features of those places were an iron resource for the Balseraph and a bronze resource for the Khazad.
They shouldn't know this places at the start so I'm not sure if it was just an accident or 'map knowlege cheating'.
Unfortunately for them, the places were almost suicide since growth was close to zero at this places.
There were far better places available with the option to get access to the bronze or iron resources later with another city.
In addition, the Khazad built his city about 4 fields higher than mine.
Well, I was pissed, built six warriors and rushed him. And since he decided to defend just with one warrior he was toast in no time.
Civs in Wildmana usually build at least 4 warriors for defense so it's much harder to rush them at the start.
Balseraphs were rushed an killed by my friend a bit later.
Mid and late game:
Since Kazhad and Balseraph more or less commited suicide, the Malakhim, Hippus and Sheaim were left and developed surprisingly well in the later stages of the game.
Malakhim started war with me after some time but were doing nothing besides moving a stack of about 20 military units forth and back the whole time.
Then the hippus joined suddently and made some surprisingly well attacks against me.
Single cavalry riders harassing my cities by destroying tiles and workers followed by bigger stacks of military units. The Sheaim then also joined and attacked with adepts, skeletons and pyre zombies. Then the Malakhim decided that moving forth and back gets boring after about ~50 times and made an excellent attack with a military stack backed up by catapults. Corlindale then saved my ass by forcing a peace treaty (I was playing Elohim).
The good things:
- The races actually declared war at some time. In Wildmana races often build huge armies but never declare war or send them to attack.
- The Malakhim used catapults to conquer one of my heavy fortified cities. Very good, Wildmana does that very rarely to almost never.
- Especially Hippus used some good harassing tactics against me
- The Sheaim summoned a lot of skeletons and attacked with them
The bad things: (Clearly the early game)
- Bad choice of starting places for the cities
- Only build a city close to another civ if you want to rush them
- Always build a few warriors for defense at the start and...
- ...don't send away if an enemy is building an attack army just a few fields away.
- They are still teching slowly and not focused enough
Hi, A Moon. Keep going! It might turn out to be the quickest conquest victory ever. 
