Re: Tir na n'Og
 

I thank you all for helping Jarkko on this issue, but as regards MP specific advice, he should perhaps have remembered to note that the game had only two human players and then AIs (on the mighty setting, I believe) filling in the rest of the map.

Thus when he got up to fighting with Yomi and Pangaea, both AI, there was no diplomatic solution to his woes, and when Pangaea had a huge army it wasn't because of lucky gold events, as he suggested earlier in the thread might have been the case, it was because he had set up the AIs to have a very real and significant gold advantage - knowing Jarkko, he plain forgot this detail and just wondered how get got stomped so flat so fast.

It was a very cramped map - Jarkko's Tir and 5 AIs on one land mass with 69 provinces, my Atlantis and 2 AIs in the one sea with 11 provinces. Given the facts of the situation (AI players, income bonus, idiotic AI play) I find that relying on an imprisoned pretender rather than an awake or, at worst, dormant SC was a really silly idea.

Re: Tir na n'Og
 

Whoa... I'm surprised water provinces were even used since 95% of land AI opponents have zero programming and skill for moving into water provinces. Any human players which start in the water have a massive advantage over the majority of AI land opponents.

Re: Tir na n'Og
 

I thought I mentioned Yomi and Pangaea were AI, and the reason I felt so humiliated was exactly because I got stomped by a single AI nation (Yomi) and was then finally annihilated by another AI nation; I really thought I am a better player than that :( Anyway, re-reading my first post of the thread I see that I didn't mention that Yomi and Pan were AI clearly anywhere, edited in now.


Peter, even with the AI money bonus of mighty AI, it is simply impossible Pangaea would have been able to recruit 200+ minotaurs plus the assorted troops plus the Pans. And notice, those were just the troops against me. So I still believe the AI must have got a few gold events :)


AreaOfEffect, in my experience the AI always casts shockwave if it is in melee contact and able to shockwave, except if it sees undead or imps and the thug is able to cast Banish. Apparently Banish does more damage to them rather than shockwaving the melee targets.

Re: Tir na n'Og
 

My distrust in the AI is apparently overwhelming my judgment.

Re: Tir na n'Og
 

It's quite possible to pull off a dormant SC with decent scales and an e9n4 bless.

Re: Tir na n'Og
 

AreaofEffect/Jarkko, regarding shockwave:

Having played around with EA Caelum shockwave opening, its a little more complicated than 'always casts shockwave if there are melee units around'. There seems to be some minimum number of units near the caster for it to want to cast shockwave (otherwise the EK defaults to attack). That minimum isn't especially high, but the necessary proximity of that minimum is rather close. (So i've seen sequences like: attack, shockwave, attack, shockwave, shockwave, attack, attack, shockwave, ... - where terminal shockwaves killed off sufficiently many adjacent units that it took time for the AI to surround sufficiently again, and thus the EK refused to shockwave despite some adjacent units, and sometimes the forward unit would get sufficiently thinned that the EK just attacked until unit two moved into melee).

Re: Tir na n'Og
 

Hmm, afaik a mage with enemies in melee range will be forced to do strike instead of spellcasting half of the time (something along the lines of opportunity attack in DnD - spellcasting works best from behind).
I guess if that was an issue of targeting/enough troops around the AI would just cast some other spell.

Re: Tir na n'Og
 

So, usually a mage in melee just attacks. But shockwave is basically a melee-range spell, so i figured he was attacking because he didn't like the available targets.

He also routinely attacked when there were fewer targets and shockwaved when there were more (basically in an AoE centered on him, since he tended to drop the shockwave on top of himself).

Re: Tir na n'Og
 

Casters on 'cast spells' or with a spell scripted that are in melee contact will do a 50/50 between melee and spells. If they can't cast any spells then they'll melee even when they get the 'spell' 50%.

Afaik.

Re: Tir na n'Og
 

I disagree. As early as Evoc 2 you've got an assassin that, reliably, kills most units without lightning resistance out of the box.