Re: what is your milleage
 

Oooops. I meant 50 Troglodytes. not 150 lol. Grrrr, sorry.
I have huge luck in this game. I had found lot of cool sites. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif I am at turn 30 now, my Troglodyte army is getting bigger and bigger. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
[Conquering indies very easily with this army.]
[[Indies str is on 9 btw, but those indy armies didnt liked trample. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ]

Re: what is your milleage
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hehe it's ok.
Btw these magic sites can unbalance the game, especially the early game. I mean Ulm Heavy Inf (resources) + Troglodytes (Gold) is an unbeatable combo in the early game. If someone is near you without any luck, he is toast.

[ October 31, 2003, 20:55: Message edited by: Particle ]

Re: what is your milleage
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Heh, nice, so did they take a chunk of your pride? Or did you defeat them anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

When Marg sent those 8 Summer Lions at me I was impressed, for turn 15 or whatever it was... I beat them back, but they did take a chunk of my army down with them... If he'd had better mages with them it could have been a problem... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Summer lions seems to me overpriced now. They doubled in cost. Sure they are nasty beasts, but are very vulnerable to damage spells (no prot). I'm very unsure I will recruit them now (keeping my gems for items or Fire Snakes).

As for my encounter with the army of Tien Chi, I have still to hand to hand the Celestial Soldiers, as it was mainly a clash between my heavy infantries of Humanbred and their pikemen. I killed most of them (poor prot), but in the end I routed before reaching the leader's line (with the Horse-Men as bodyguards it seems), thanks to a constant rain of arrows from mongols archers. I find the enemy disposition more elaborate than in doms I by the way.

Well, I'm cornering them now, the battle will be interesting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: what is your milleage
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hehe it's ok.
Btw these magic sites can unbalance the game, especially the early game. I mean Ulm Heavy Inf (resources) + Troglodytes (Gold) is an unbeatable combo in the early game. If someone is near you without any luck, he is toast. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Haha, you know, luck is very important in strategy games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
Luck + Skill = Total ownage. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: what is your milleage
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have not checked out fire snakes, but huge, strong, supply-free maintenance-free ethereal heat-radiating troops are really good, no matter how much they cost. My experience in DomsI was that seasonal spirits would have still been useful at triple the cost.

As for the celestial warriors, I know what you mean=) I was used to stomping the puny Tien Chi wimps with my big Jotun spearmen, but then these huge celestial warriors come along with insane stats, and blessed with 8 extra flaming armor-piercing damage. Wow. Even 1-on-1 I was outclassed, but I was outnumbered, too=) Are the maintenace free? They seem to be summons, not buildable... also, anyone know how much they cost (in gems, unless they're free)?

One more thing - the default Jotun theme lost the special site for summoning longdead giants. Ouch!

Re: what is your milleage
 

>I feel at Last somehow at ease with Abysia now, and get something like 1100 gold & 18 provinces at turn 20 (Eye map, indep at 4, 6 impossible AI, all other settings unchanged).

I ran a game to see how well I'd do using the same settings.

I used a red dragon (fire 2, earth 8), order3, prod 3, heat 3, death 3, luck 1, drain 3.

Totally ordrinary game, some ups, some downs. I lost an important army by surprise when Arco showed up with an unexpected army that had 8 elephants, 20 HC, and about 100 assorted junk.

On turn 20: 36 provinces, income 1602.

If I had a bit of luck or had played a shard smarter I probably could have gotten another 20% out of things.

Re: what is your milleage
 

Apoger, "wasting" 80 points just to get Earth 1 + all the way to 8 and taking Death didn't affect the outcome?

[ October 31, 2003, 21:40: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

Re: what is your milleage
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">impressive. I had only +3 order, the rest at neutral (was using a rainbow mage, which didnt pay).

Drain 3, so I suppose you didnt do any significant research? I try to not bias my pretenders just because this is the demo (you can play without research). Would you take Drain 3 as Abysia in a normal game, where there cheapest mage is at 200 gp (without blood of human theme) ?

Re: what is your milleage
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Obviously not.

The growth/death scale has never been very important for Abysia, and it's even less so in Dom II. The earth skill was important for the fast land grab. In a multiplayer game I would probably use astral-8 rather than earth-8, and use a green dragon rather than red. This would be a slower super combatant but would provide a stronger mid-game for use against human opponents who are better prepared than the computer AI.

Re: what is your milleage
 

>Would you take Drain 3 as Abysia in a normal game, where there cheapest mage is at 200 gp

The apprentice warlocks are 150.

No, I'd probably go prod-0 magic-0. I'd make many extra mages and my expansion would be slower. However I'd have a much stronger mid-end game.