Your most epic battles

[GePap]

Personally, I don't play fast games in which single super units wipe out everyone else. I have always been a sucker for scale and grandeur, which is why I usually play large maps on epic. This last game I decided to play as Bannor. Having secured myself as a world power, I decided to engage in a massive crusade against my enemies. At this point, what stands in my way of world domination is a Thessa/Basium allience with Khazad as their crony.

This brings me to the most ridiculously large battle I have yet fought in FfH (or any civ game). I destroyed the bullk of Basium's offensive force early on, and my huge slumbering army is clossing in on Khazad's cities (though I just saw that he has spent a while doing nothing but building stonewardens, and has around 140 of them defending three of his main cities) I decided to let the elves bash their heads against my defenses while I beat their allies (the fact they beat me to blood of the phoenix also means I would rather them exhaust their immortal units quick).

The eleves obliged me by attacking one of my well defended front cities with a stack so large that it took 25 minutes for my computer, which isn't that slow, to figure the battle out. While the battle was epic, it wasn't particularly exciting, since I didn't lose a single unit. Of course, the fact that the city was garrisoned not only by several tier four units but by 58 demagogues as well, was key. Just to give an idea of the size of the killing, I had a crossbowman with valor at level 6 when the battle began, and he gained enough experience for me to promote him to level 12 after.

 

[KillerClowns]

There's something beautiful about entire armies smashing their heads against city walls without a single loss, IMHO. I've turned on Quick Attack and Defense, so all I see is a stack burning up like a moth that flew too close to the flame. Aye, the Bannor are great for epic battles.

 

[zup]

You are not missing anything if you don't watch combat animation. I never missed them after I disabled them.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

If your unit or stack gets wiped out in a battle with quick combat on, you have no idea how badly the enemy was hurt, ever since the combat log was removed. For that reason alone, you're insane if you turn quick combat on.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I am glad to be insane and choose not to waste my time looking at the same animations over and over again

if I wanted to check out how bad the enemy was hurt, I'd mouseover.

FF has an option to re-enable combat log btw. that would be good to have in FFH too I guess.

 

[GePap]

I keep the animations out of sheer laziness I guess.

Anyways, anyone else care to share their story about some insanely massive battle?

 

[KillerClowns]

\As the Balseraphs, I picked up Empyrean (part of an experiment I was trying concerning Sun III summons and turning every drop of spare mana into Sun) and ended up the leader of the Overcouncil. Well, I was feeling pretty cocky (this was before puppets got nerfed, when Keelyn's nine summons per Archmage were all full power) so I sent Chalid and an Archmage to conquer the Undercouncil. The entire undercouncil. Sheaim. Infernal. Doviello. Hippus. Lanun. Bannor (corrupted by the Veil). Since my allies were lazy do-nothings, the second Chalid and Travis (the Archmage) stepped onto the Sheaim shores, the entire Undercouncil dropped on me like a ton of steel. Chaild held the first few turns off, while Travis prepared the dreaded puppet Stack of Doom. Oh, did I mention I'd invested in Command promos for Chalid? So that was my entire army: Travis the Archmage, Chalid, every convert I could get, and a steady stack of Sun III summons, whose name, to this day, I cannot spell. All backed up by two and a half empire's worth of Sun mana.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

In an ancient time long forgotten by most mortals, Chalid was mainly a summoner and you had to wait until strength of will to murder the crap out of stacks, and there was a map of one of Erebus's continents that looked something like this:

Both Sabathiel and Perpentach had enough on their hands in the diplomatic screen. It was clear which way the wind was blowing, just a matter of who attacked first.

Sabathiel did. My army was big but his was bigger, and he had siege to take down city defenses. So it became a matter of "hold... HOLD the damn line until perpentach saves the day." I had a few vampires with contagion (puny anti-stack spell with a terribly low damage cap that didn't affect siege units, isn't in the game anymore)

2 turns pass. Sabathiel's diseased army is right on top of my border city. One more turn passes. His catapults bombard my city's defenses to 0 in one shot and his units rest up and heal a bit. I attack it with some skeletons then resummon as many as I can. Sabathiel attacks back, killing all the skeletons, most of the vampires, and a significant chunk of his own forces (though enough remain to overpower what I have left, especially with beginning of turn promotions to heal them.) I hit regeneration on my vampires, promote them for a bit of healing, hunker down, pray, and hit end turn. War trumpets sound. Perpentach has declared war on sabathiel. 2 Bannor cities fall to the clown in a turn, and sabathiel's army turns tail to head home to clean up this mess. My vampires, almost fully healed from regeneration + promotions and with newly built reinforcements heading to the front line, reraise some skeletons and together step out of the city and start slaughtering the bannor army as it runs like hell away from them. Perpentach ignores this battle and simply burns his way through Bannor lands. Sabathiel didn't hold out long. But hey, he lasted long enough to see his entire army crushed as it desperately tried to run home with my vampires riding its collective ass the whole way.

In this day of course I'd have simply taken off most of the invading army's health with pillar of fire, blinded most of the units, and leisurely picked it apart with my vampires and skeletons, leaving nothing for perpentach to... ah... ignore.

 

[rusty217]

@ Monkeyfinger

Wow, nice battle. And the map was a nice touch aswell...

 

[Kenjister]

whoa that sounds epic Monkeyfinger!
I remeber the good old days of fire & light version. man, vamps were WAAAAAYYYY more powerful then! of course contagion was a double edged sword, as back then none of the evil priest could cure disease...

As for my own epic battle, when I first played Blood of Angles, before the Grigori nerf, I landed about 20 superpromoted Battlemasters, a few ritualist, a shaman and a superpowered blitz Rosier. I made it to the walls of Midgar, saw the size of the defending stack, and holed up on the hill surrounded by rivers. The next turn they attacked, and I was doing well until my units started to take damage (darn Berzerkers with thier collateral!). Then I watched as slowly but surely, my army was worn down by endless waves of Grigori (lots of tier 4 units) until it was finally defeated. Most of my units took down 5+ enemies (including a puny javelin archer) and Rosier took down more than 10, including a Hero Berzerker. It was epic. (but I lost eventually lol) that sinking feeling when my units first took damage gave some suspense to the whole thing. I actually lasted about two turns. The seige units that came after the first ended any hope of a retreat with my surviving units.
note to self: never attack when the AI has tier 4 units and you do

 

[Sarisin]

I was going to post about my game where four AI civs sent Superstacks of 100-200 units at me, however...

Monkeyfinger's game, particularly with those awesome visual aids, just makes mine look so, well, insignificant.

You need a job with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my man!

 

[thewyrm]

I was playing the Malakim on NK's every civ map. I was Empyrian and was suddenly attacked on all sides by an Ashen Veil coalition including the Sheiam, Svartalfar, Calabim, and Elohim! I fought for my life. My monks trading cities back and forth as my priests tried to heal everyone. I had lost over two thirds of my empire when suddenly from Golden Leane came a warrior priest who could single handedly turn the tide.

Chalid led the forces of righteousness on a crusade as Hosts of Eienherjar rained death on my foes. I actually was able to force a draw with Tebryn, convert Einion, subjugate Faeryl, and Annihilate Alexis. I will forever remember that feeling of absolute accomplishment as my holy warriors burned the Calabim Ashen Veil holy city to the ground.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Want to hear about the epic battle I had with Perpentach, who, with his massive landgrab from the Bannor war coupled with the mostly intact army he used to fight it, managed to bring me to my knees but failed to stop me from breaking him with a desperate counterattack?

Spoiler :

Too bad. That war lasted one turn, then I rushed the tower of mastery with the power of the old slave trade.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

Want to hear about the epic battle I had with Perpentach, who, with his massive landgrab from the Bannor war coupled with the mostly intact army he used to fight it, managed to bring me to my knees but failed to stop me from breaking him with a desperate counterattack?

Spoiler :

Too bad. That war lasted one turn, then I rushed the tower of mastery with the power of the old slave trade.

 

[Ashrak]

one screenshot from my best game ever

 

[rusty217]

one screenshot from my best game ever

So..... who won?

 

[Ashrak]

So..... who won?

and now high to low and my day only takes 2 minutes

 

[PratzStrike]

My friend Ice found this game a week or two ago, and linked me to it. We then spread the infection over to our friend Inquizitor. Over the past two nights, we decided to play a Warlord diff Huge Evil game, with 4 teams of 3 players apiece, us as the evil, 2 teams of Neutrals, and a team of Good. Ice picked the Calabim, Inquiz picked the Clan of Embers, and since 'quiz had been . .. .. .. .. .ing about the Balseraphs sucking a lot in the short 2 player game they'd run before I showed up, I decided to try them.

The early game was actually a lot busier than I'd expected - we were allied with the barbarians, and Inquiz used his power about 50 turns in, and got a wide scan map of the world and a bunch of troops. Ice consolidated power and researched Octopus Overlords, which we all adopted, and I did something suitably nuts - my first 50 turns was dedicated to building Loki. This turned out to be the best possible move I could've made - Jubilee got up to pop 7, and Loki, with a little micromanagement, was the most insane scout you'd ever seen.

We went right a ways and ran into Thessa, and since Quiz had a big pack of troops around her, we tore into her. We didn't actually put the kibosh on her for about 50 turns, being content holding her to 1 city the whole time and eating her settlers and workers. During this time, we hear no less than 3 Neutral races get barbarian trashed - Khazad, Lanun, and Hippus. We finally put Thessa away and raze her city, and then Quiz pulls his troops back towards the borders and I send Loki across the map for shits and giggles. He pops 6 or 8 goodie huts and two graveyards, and the tech advantage puts us well ahead of everyone else.

We decide to wardeck Sandalphon, since Quiz has so many troops up there - so Ice and Quiz go for the fight, while I stay back, trying to work on my economy. He turns out to be on a peninsula way up towards the upper right corner, and ends up vassaling to us. Around the same 100 turns or so, Ice finds Dain the Caswallen up in the upper left corner, and gets two bright ideas in a row: learn Ashen Veil, and spread it to Dain, since he doesn't have a religion. He'll flip to Evil, and team up with us, since he's alone up in his corner. We agree, and Ice founds AV and sends a disciple on a boat up there.

Fast forward 200 turns: we've beat the piddle out of Sandalphon, after Ice demanded his mana from him and he broke and wardecked us, so Ice and Quiz have a strong base to assault the good team (Luchiurp, Bannor, and Elohim), who's on the exact far side of the map from us. Just before this starts.. we hear that Dain's summoned the Infernals. Shortly thereafter, we hear that Luchiurp's summoned the Mecurials. We'd been discussing summoning them ourselves, but.. oh well.

So, we go to stomping Elohim. Ice uses skeletons and vampires to wreck the Elohim, and units go to the Mecurials. Somewhere in the middle of this, the AC hits 30 and BLIGHT. We panic, but we stand our ground. We sweep up towards Bannor/Luchiurp/Mecurials, and thanks to Obsidian Gates we bounce troops through our towns straight up onto the peninsula. Mecurial stomped, Bannor stomped. During this, AC hits 50 - and Buboes spawns in the middle of the red/orange area. Panic ensues, half a dozen vampires die, but we get War. Luchiurp, the last standing Good guy, finally panics and bows to us.. and then Ice suddenly panics.

"GUYS! When we hit 70 or 75 on the AC counter, Wrath'll show up and take 1/3 of EVERYONE'S armies with him!"

oh, damn. AC is at 65. And we've been bleeding troops to the Inferals the entire time.

Panic ensues. Someone realizes that Life mana = Sanctify, and Sanctify = no ruins and no Hell Terrain and a lower AC counter, and I start throwing out adepts all over the place, since Rites of Oghma had been finished earlier and we had lots of extra nodes. The army amasses on my borders, and then we wardeck the devils. By this time, the entire grey area on the map is Hell Terrain and the devils have a LOT of our troops. I mean, a LOT. We begin the slow march into their terrain, and I hire a stack of slaves to run into the Hell Terrain and begin building a road towards their lower area. We get there and holy Christ, there are massive stacks everywhere. The fight only takes about 10-20 turns, though - It's not a fun battle in any case, though, but somehow we manage to plow through them in the end. At that point, we had everyone else on the map vassaled, and won the game.

I forget who, but at the end of the round someone remarked, "So. The evil team, that founded the demon religion, were the ones who had to march into hell and destroy the demons at the end in a massive war for the sake of the world. Epic."

We've started a new game as the good guys this time - Ice is Beardstien McDrinkBeer of the Luchiurp, Quiz is King Fluffy Bouncy of the Bannor, and I'm Lord Dicks Everywhere of the Kuriotates. 100 or 200 turns in there's all signs that it will be just as epic as the previous game. FFH2 is win.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

DUUUDE let me have a hit!!!

(that pic reminds me of this time in the early 90's...)

 

[Sarisin]

Hey, I was going to suggest that for FFH2 Wallpaper.