Re: wanted: a team of two players and a new map
 

One other thing about the assasination strategy. I did make a big mistake by not assigning adequate bodyguards to my 3 HP prophet. The fey boars were on bodyguard duty just to keep them out of harms way and prevent them from dying during a battle. I had them along solely for the 20 supply bonus, as vans do eat a lot at size 3.

While I was seiging your castle, all I had to do was put ALL my vans on bodyguard duty until the walls fell. Then there would have been exactly zero chance of ever losing my prophet to any number of assasinations.

And so, I just learned yet another key bit of information from this very game!

As for the map choice, I think that there are a lot of good maps about 100 size or less that are not wraparound. And I also think wraparound is much less important in a 2v2 than in an FFA, especially if we go with preplaced starting spots.


Panther

Re: wanted: a team of two players and a new map
 

Beware! Armies with only bodyguard units rout as soon as *one* unit/commander is killed. I do not know if you are aware of this fact, but it cannot hurt to point it out. It would hurt a lot to lose half your army because of that, in case the besieged try to attack you with more conventional means.

Re: wanted: a team of two players and a new map
 

Ah, I did not know that. So the best strat would have been to put 5 vans on bodyguard duty and leave the rest on attack closest. With the fire 9 bless, 5 vans could have won dozens of assasination battles anyway.

Re: wanted: a team of two players and a new map
 

Yeah. Those blessed Vans could clean up my assassins even if there were only one Van per leader.

Too bad I fumbled all my assassins and didn't teach you this lesson the HARD way. ;-)

Re: wanted: a team of two players and a new map
 

I'm getting all excited about designing a new nation/pretender strategy... ;-)

mods?
 

As per the "micromanagent and balance issues are due to Free-For-All" concept, I'm not so hot on Zen's Balance Mods anymore.

For example, his mods eliminate Wish. Is too much Wishing going to be a problem in any 2-vs-2 game? I think not. If anybody takes a strategy where they are able to cast Wish, then more power to them.

The Pretender Balance Mod might be okay, though, as that is intended to balance things right at opening and early game.

regenerating berserking Niefel giants
 

Yes, I really like that strategy of Niefelheim, Green Dragon, 9 Nature. That is, in fact, the strategy I used in the previous game, which was the first 2-v-2 game that arc and I ever played. Our team won that time, in large part to due the early and powerful attack of the berserking regenerating Niefel giants.

I agree that you got unlucky.

I'm surprised that it took you so long to recall your god -- didn't you hire lots of Jotun Jarls and Jotun Godes? I recall seeing a few.

I noticed you didn't have any Niefel Jarls. If I were playing that strategy I might have begged my partner for a loan of gold in order to hire a Niefel Jarl right away. :-)

Re: regenerating berserking Niefel giants
 

To tell the truth, Im not a big fan of the Niefel Jarls. I prefer getting 2 Skratti (meaning a bunch of frost fiends http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) rather than 1 Niefel Jarl...

I didnt stress to much on trying to recall my God. He needed a time out for bad behavior http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: regenerating berserking Niefel giants
 

:-)

So what is another map that is a reasonable size for a two-vs-two game? I've looked around and haven't seen any.

Re: regenerating berserking Niefel giants
 

Tauren and I discussed this at length yesterday and came up with...

Desert Eye (125/17).

It is smaller than Inland (154/5) and larger than Chandrea (103/18). It also has the HUGE advantage of being wrap-around, which means we can have random starting spots. It also allows a water race if someone was so inclined to select one. There are other options, like Aran (107/11) or Tyrande (103/21) or Northwest Middle Earth (119/6) or even a random map, but we might have to use fixed starting spots because none of those are wrap-around.


You guys get the first and fourth pick this time.