Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Only true if you are counting my units/commanders set on fire and flee/hold hold retreat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

But, my progress towards the hill is slower than I hoped. Stupid 1-move hoplites http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

2.16, I hope you mean? Most recent version I know of unless maybe you're a beta tester. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Personally, it isn't that I'm underestimating them (and I think I've only lost once to indies), rather I have felt a need to make some gambles because of how other nations were doing.

For instance : Seeing Tien Chi's pretender massing more kills every turn without dying meant that I knew TC was taking a province a turn. To try and not fall _too_ far behind, I gambled against a province with heavy cavalry, and almost took it - killed all the HC's except a leader, might have won but my prophet paladin died, causing the troops to retreat.

Under other circumstances I would've waited the turn or two to bring more forces in, and possibly still should have. As it was, I was sorely tempted to try for them again with leftovers last turn, but didn't feel I could afford to lose troops twice.

Also handicapped a little by my choice of pretenders - I felt somewhat constrained to _not_ take advantage of foreknowledge of everyone else's pretenders and castles.

As is, I hope you'll be saving all the turns - I didn't look at the last game, but I'm definately curious to see TC's charge for the Hill that started on turn 1. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Can one of you please knock tien chi off the hill? All those turns are making me nervous http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

I will knock T'ien Ch'i as soon as possible. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Nay, don't worry, I have no strategy whatsoever, and T'ien Ch'i lives (or dies) by its strategy. They are the most versatible version around (and by far)... but you need to figure something to do with all their magic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I have the same problem in Song of the Blade: I have the brilliant idea, but not much besides that... All the opportunities I waste. *Sighs*

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

*huff* *puff* I'm getting closer to the hill! Now can I take it with what I have... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Sheesh with Pythium's income, he should be taking the hill any turn now.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Will do my best.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

I think you missed my email I sent monday. I resent it and also another email with my turn attached. I will try to check later tonight to make sure you got it.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Ooops, there was no trn-file attached on your last mail http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Scores:

Emor = 1 <-- Juhu²

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Ermor build a temple on the hill? Interesting. I figured someone would build a lab but temple...? Very confident http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I suppose you've been pillaging it this whole time too? That would be smart.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Griffin here:

Of course i do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif This was such a wealthy prov before i steped i in it.:-]

I am quite sure that i will do it, emor seems to be perfect for a king of the hill battle.

Griffin

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Heh. I should point out that in the 1st KotH I had an army of twice that many undead, backed up by more than fifty BE thaumaturges spamming nether darts (the quickest destruction being dealt out ive ever seen...), and still lost 1 turn short of the goal.
My point is, it takes more than just a big army to hold the hill for long enough... something I failed to see until it was too late.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

What do you mean by BE thaumaturges?
And who won last round?
Griffin

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Broken Empire theme ('default') for Ermor recruits thaumaturges with 1S1D2U.
Rainbow won playing T'ien Ch'i.
And he definitely deserved it...

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Will this game be 'on hold' while you are away, Panther?

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Perhaps I can find someone else to take over hosting of this game. However, I think Alneyan also wanted the game on hold around the same time I am gone, so it might be best to pause the game for a few weeks until everybody returns in July.

Opinions?

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Erh, I do not want the game to be on hold; I will simply be away for two weeks, starting from when you will be away. I should be able to find a replacing player without too much trouble.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Hmmmm... So, when should I be expecting to host the next turn?

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Sometime on Friday. Everybody is pretty good about sending in the turns fairly quickly.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Sent out new turn! Let me know if I missed any of my tasks as the surrogate host.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

No, everything was fine.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

You did miss something Pasha: you were supposed to alter Ermor's order file, thereby allowing us to take the Hill without a fight. That wasn't too hate, was it? I mean, just set all his commanders to retreat, and voilà! Instant concentrated undead soup!

Tsk, Pasha accepted my bribe but didn't go along with the rest of the plan. I thought hosts were supposed to be honest folks, sticking to the right side of the law... well, except where I have interest in them doing otherwise, of course.

In other words, I find those Ermorian troops to be quite annoying.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Bribe? Which bribe was yours... <looking around the room for a case of French wine>?

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Well, gg. We were all taken like bumpkins at the state fair...

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Untrue. Some of us - like you and me - never got a chance to assault the hill earlier.

Others who neighbored the hill ... pranced and flew about taking indies even after the matter had grown severe.

Then again - much as I enjoy the KoTH formula, I definately hope for support for it in the next patch or Dom 3 - please, whoever is hosting, don't be posting comments about pretender designs!!!

Not during the game, and most especially not before all pretenders are uploaded - it impacts game play, and it impacts pretender design.

On the other paw - obviously Marignon needs to be banned from KotH 3, since we simply masqueraded as Ermor to distract everyone as we divided and conquered. Heh.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

I wonder who prevented you from assaulting the hill earlier?

This is just low. I'd suggest that you avoid throwing provocative statements around.

I think that if we had started cooperating earlier we'd have had a better chance.
Griffin has done a fine job of securing the hill.
All that's left is to congratulate him.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Yeah good job Ermor/Griffin!

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Thank you all for your gratulations, this game was real fun to me(and the first one i won!)

My tatic was quite straight: i used the dragon to get as many indies in the bginning of the game as possible to ensure a constant stream of undeads and i chose that high domionion to force all my opponets to care on food.

I was a bit afraid of the pangae after i realized that he played as carnion woods(beacuse of his death magic).

Greets and thank you for all

Griffin, King of the Hill

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Your high dominion worked well, but food was a problem for me anyways, since the hill is surrounded by waste.

It seems to me your skeleton spamming helped you out a lot in those battles. The two bishops were good tactics as well.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

First victory? Congrats indeed!

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Meh, Carrion Woods sucks. Completely. I keep trying to make it work with different strategies and pretender designs, but the more I try to do anything with it, the more I start to think even base Ulm is better...

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

I think the only redeeming feature of CW is the ability to kind of play them like Broken Empire: they can mix living troops and their undead minions without *too* much trouble (they have a fairly slow Dominion pop loss, 30.000 pop in the capital, and resources aren't really linked to population). Problem is, I don't think the undead troops are that good to warrant the trouble, and mages aren't the greatest thing in the world either.

It is possible to do very well with base Ulm (Entwined Destiny, if nothing else), but I have yet to see an example of Carrion Woods doing well in a game where more than one player is involved (a rush could work for them... maybe).

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

I've had good success with CW, winning one small blitz game, and being in a winning position on a long term game on the cradle map. In fact, CW was what I was going to be using this game only Tauren got Pan. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

You cant really build any normal troops, though. The upkeep kills you too quickly. By about turn 20, you are down to 10k pop in your capitol. And you need all your money for mages, and even then can only get a couple, once again due to the upkeep. Because of this, you will get almost no research until you get specters, unless you put the carrion lords on research instead of reanimate, in which case you will get absolutely no troops.

So, Im curious, Cainehill, what did your winning Carrion Woods pretender designs look like? The best I came up with was a golden naga with every magic school except death and nature. She could both solo-creep (even against lvl 9 indies, with alt 3) and site search. Then, once I got specters and enough construction, I could forge boosting items with the naga, and actually start doing some usefull stuff.

My mistake this game was getting a pretender incapable of taking indies, and since carrion beasts suck completely for that, I was unable to get any territory. Taking order 3 was a waste, too. I could have traded that order 3 for turmoil 3 and then gotten the naga with the same magic paths as the damn crone, and then even have had points left over.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Golden Naga with no nature or death? Mistake IMO. You need a pretender that can expand and site search, not to mention casting to summons carrion lords, etc. By not taking D/N you need someone else to search for those, and you _have_ to have at least one Panic Apostate to do your summonings, chewing up your gold income. Also, if you don't take Nature-4 on the pretender, you need a lot of research before you'd be able to cast Mother Oak - with N4 you only need const-2 to do the +1 booster, otherwise you need const-6 for the staff, and chew up a lot more nature gems.

You can have 3 kinds of expansion pretenders, all of which can work well with CW. The supercombatant - Carrion Dragon is probably the perfect one for CW; with Zen's mods the Medusa is also possible.

A summoner - enough death magic to bring forth enough skeletons to take provinces. IMO, the lich is the only one worth doing this with, both because of cheap death magic and reincarnation for when it doesn't work.

Artillery - slower for CW because of the required research, but potentially better in the late game.

In any case - for CW I'd never take a pretender that didn't have at least 3 or 4 fire magic, probably 2 or 3 earth, plus the death and nature and depending on my whim, 2 more paths. One reason I feel fire/earth is mandatory - site searching for gems to turn to gold, which is only used to get mages or buildings, never troops.

Starting strategy : One choice is to prophetize the centaur to immediately start generating carrion, since he's not going to be much use otherwise. Another choice, and probably your best choice if you didn't take death/nature on the pretender, is to buy your one and only Panic leader for casting Carrion Lord, and prophetize him to save ... 12 gold a turn on upkeep? Or you cast your first Carrion Lord and prophetize it to give the battlefield wide regrowth, even if it doesn't affect most of your carrion because of good MR vice "easily resisted".

If the indie setting is 6 or less, you can usually take a province or two with your starting satyrs, especially if you can bring some carrion along. The point isn't just to take provinces - it's to get your satyrs killed for upkeep reasons.

And, not even counting successful finding of nature sites, you continue casting Carrion Lord every 4 turns. Each Lord is turned to reanimating 90% of the time. Temples get build in every forest province for more & better carrions to be spawned there. Research and cast Mother Oak as soon as possible to afford more Carrion Lords, also later Lamia Queens for better magic availability.

Also, some of those nature gems should go towards vine men / ogres to mix with the carrion, and for castings of Swarm. Both the vine men and the swarms help reduce the casualties for the carrion.

And in the meantime, you do a lot of site searching, hoping for mages with strengths you don't have. If you find 'em, you don't buy too many (unless, heh! You have a healthy enough income) - just enough for forging, summoning, and remote site finding spells.

That, with no-brainer cookie-cutter dominion for CW, has been enough to let me do very well with CW in general, presuming I don't screw up with getting my pretender killed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Double post bug popped up.

And yes - you messed up taking Order-3, it's pointless and counterproductive with CW. Max magic, max luck, and everything else goes to build a better beast of a pretender.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

What, no comments, Tauren? Were you already using CW somewhat as I describe, and still having no luck, or somewhat different?

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

How do you use carrion dragon well? Everytime I've tried the carrion dragon it performed rather poorly.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

200 HP of carnivorous carrion and it didn't perform well??? You simply treat it as you would most SCs - put on a bit of a range of magics, research something along the lines of Enchantment-1 and Alteration-3, park it in the back corner of the battlefield to cast some buffs before it charges into battle. If the paths are low, you might have it in the 2-legged form casting 4 buffs, then changing shape and attacking.

Buffs like fireshield, Breath of Winter, Mistform, Ironskin, Body Ethereal, Personal Luck, Quickness, etc, are all highly recommended depending on the magic you put on the dragon, and depending on what it's going against. Crossbows you might add Air Shield to the list, for example. Another trick is to send a carrion lady along with the dragon to cast carrion regrowth and retreat - that way the dragon gets regeneration. Since the lady retreats, she doesn't die and cause the dragon to retreat.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

The Carrioin Dragon has 80 points per new path, does it not? Are you seriously going to spend 240 points to get water, air, and fire on it?
Thats why I typically went with the naga; I wanted a sturdy chasis with low new magic paths cost (20 points). And it seems to me the only way to properly site search is having all the needed paths on your pretender. The reason I didnt feel the need to get death and nature was because the pans can search those. It seems to me the only reason to get any would be to get it at really high levels, like if you wanted to get like 4-5 nature to cast mother oak immediately.
Your plan doesnt seem to have much of a way to research, which to me is the biggest problem with Pan CW, and why I decided going for specters was the best bet.
I guess I never thought about getting vine ogres. That sounds like a pretty good idea; the vine ogres can stand a hell of a beating while the carrion beasts dish it out.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Yes, and you have 425 points to spend once you do CW's scales, even with a healthy 6 dominion. Carrion Woods is almost like Ermor's dying themes : you want the worst scales possibly, with the exceptions of luck and magic, and of course CW is forced to take 1 growth.

That's enough to get Fire-4, 2 of the other 3 elementals at 2, Death 3, and Nature-4, for just one example. You might choose to drop 1 or 2 elements (keeping fire) and take astral instead.

Research : I buy a dryad a turn until the gold runs out, if I don't find sages or some such first. With magic 3, that's 6 research for 110 gold, upkeep of 3.8 or so. If you don't waste gold buying and paying upkeep for a Panic Apostate, you can easily get 1 dryad a turn for most of the first 10 turns. That's 60 research a turn, _and_ your carrion dragon has been adding 20 for at least 5 of those turns. Not great - but adequate for CW Pangaea.

At some time after turn 10, you can be getting revenants for research (6 research per, 9 death gem cost), or save those gems for Conjuration 6, when you note the superior spectres, as well as lamia queens. Another option is to get some Carrion Ladies to do some research early on, and to ferry carrion / guard temples later.

Things are a bit tougher if you aren't using Zen's mods, since the balance mod actually makes Luck a good thing (most of the time) - without it, way too many of your events are outright bad, or crappy "good" - like getting militia. With the mod, Turmoil 3 / Luck 3 can wind up giving a _lot_ of gold. The test I just ran while writing this, buying a dryad per turn, at turn 11 I have 876 gold left, 30+ elemental gems, a magic item, and I haven't bothered to take a province yet, which would have given better gold income and possibly gem income or better researchers.

And yes - being able to cast Mother Oak immediately (or almost immediately, adding Const-2 for the Thistle Mace) is a good thing with Carrion Woods, considering that your nature income is the constraining factor for building your carrion hordes. If you concentrate solely on alteration at first, you can cast it between turn 10-14, at which point you can get an extra Carrion Lord every 2.5 turns, compared to one every 3.8 turns on the base nature income. That's over doubling your accumulation of carrion lords, thus essentially also doubling your carrion growth.

As far as using Panic Apostates to search for nature & death : one Apostate costs more than 3 dryads, delivering 10 research vice 18 research for over twice the gold upkeep - and if you use it for site searching, you aren't getting the research, which you say "is the biggest problem with Pan CW" : of course it is, if you're using so much gold for site searching while still missing a good chunk of the best death/nature sites.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Hmm... that bit about the site searching makes sense. So, how much death would you suggest getting on my pretender? Lets say I still go with the naga, and get F3A3W3E3N5. I guess you would need at least death 3, but is there much reason to get more? Im left with 132 points which is exactly enough to get death 5, but is there much of a reason for that?

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

I wouldn't go death 5 on something that didn't start with it, no. Unless you have a long range plan for high-death summonings / globals, D3 or D4 would be fine (especially since the naga can easily get +2 death). Similarly, N5 might be a bit too expensive, considering that Construction-2 and 10 nature gems gets you N5 for Mother Oak / Gift of Health / etc. Or are you switching to the green naga? The golden naga I'd go F4 or F5 and lower the nature a bit. (And I wouldn't take the green, because then heat-3 may cause problems with fatigue - cold with either would be suicidal.)

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Here's a link to a strategy for Carrion Woods i came up that I posted on other forum.

link

There are some useful ideas in the discussion here.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

Yeah thats what I was thinking about the death magic.
The Golden Naga allows you to easily go heat 3, so I was going to stick with it. That means I could get a higher fire level, but why exactly? What would you use it for?

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

IMO you want Fire-4 for site searching, first and foremost - fire gems do a lot to fix CW's gold income or lack thereof. Then you can get some summonings you otherwise couldn't easily get, possibly a couple forgings, and you have the option to act as an artillery platform, since with Phoenix power and 3 non-artifact boosters you hit F8. That's some serious firepower you wind up having available for the endgame.

And, of course - every point in Fire magic makes the fire shield more powerful, aiding in the early expansion.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

I guess I never really thought about alchemizing. Thats probably a great way to actually make some money, and the guy in that link Molog posted had a really good idea: fever fettishes. If you get a hefty fire gem income, who cares if your population dies off, you could still support a bunch of mages with alchemy.
Wait, what are those '3 non-artifact boosters' you mentioned? Other battle spells? I guess fire magic is always good for dishing out massive damage... and would definitely make earlier expansion easier. The thing is, level 4 sites are really few and uncommon, so I didnt think it was worth it just for the site searching.

Re: PBEM Game: King of the Hill 2 (Open)
 

3 non-artifact booster : the flame helmet, the fiery skull (only requires 1F and 1D) and a staff of elemental mastery. The first two are dead easy, as long as you acquire any amount of fire gem income, and your pretender can forge the last as well. (There's also Robe of the Magi and Ring of Wizardry, but those tend not to be easily obtainable by Pangaea of any flavor.) If you only have 2 of those, that raises you to 6, and Phoenix power gives 7 - that's a lot of devastation you can cast without too much fatigue.

And sure, the level 4 sites are few and far between - but they also tend to be better, and you really do want all the fire income you can get. Once again - if fire didn't tend to also be so handy on the battlefield, I might not recommend taking it to 4 - water and air, by comparison, have relatively little reason to take past 2 or 3 imo.