.com.unity Forums - MP Fallen Kingdoms - LA game

A brief overview of the game from my perspective:

My pretender design:
Master lich, dormant, F3S5D5N3
Dom 7, Order 3, Prod. 2, Heat 1, Growth 2, Misf. 2, Drain 3

My general plan was to go for flaming arrows first and buy lots and lots of longbowmen which the excellent scales should enable. After that I would rush to constr 8 and even if I didn't get there first it wouldn't be a waste as I would get golems which my national mages can summon. Pretender was designed to be able to go for Tartarians and wish and also to be able to teleport onto my army and cast flaming arrows without boosters. And some nature for those nature gems Chelms gets, but has no mages to use. Growth is also good for the old mages.

The game:
I formed an early alliance with Gath (jimkehn) and expanded with defenders. Utgard (to my south) very quickly became enormous by taking three provinces each turn and I formed an NAP with him. I also formed an NAP with Pythium (to my north) who was soon defeated by Ulm.

I was planning to attack Utgard because he was the strongest and we had a large front area. So, when he attacked Gath, I ended our NAP and started recruiting masses of longbowmen. Gath lost terribly to blessed woodsmen (N9F4E4S4) and his southern fort was soon sieged by about 70 woodsmen. In the meantime I made a deal with Jomon to acquire some air gems, so I had about 30 when the 3 turn NAP period with Utgard expired. Utgard had a pd of 1 in most provinces which I exploited - I teleported 10 magisters arcana and took almost half of his lands in one turn. Having saved some money I immediately bought pds of 30-35 in most of those provinces and when Utgard tried to retake them next turn with werewolves and small armies he lost. I moved my big longbowmen army in, and sieged his other fort, leaving him with just the capital and a few lands around it. Mictlan entered the war also, taking several Utgard provinces close to their capital, but fighting no Utgard armies. The huge army that was sieging Gath castle, left it and went into my lands, but I was expecting that. I guessed which province they will strike, bought 30 pd there, sent a smaller army of longbowmen (about 80) and a communion of magisters to cast flaming arrows. Almost with no losses I defeated the largest Utgard army. That was the end of Utgard and after several more turns I took the capital as well.

But, while I was fighting Utgard, my ally Gath was attacked by Mictlan from the south and Jomon from the north simultaneously and was quickly out of the game. There was nothing I could do.

Mictlan was my next target as he seemed the strongest at that point. He took a castle with elludian moon mages from Gath and was blood hunting heavily in his lands. So, I formed a NAP-5 with Ulm, my new northern neighbor, graciously leaving to him to take over the weak Ctis and formed an alliance with Jomon to attack Mictlan. It was very easy convincing others that Mictlan is a threat. The good thing about taking a weak nation is that you can always say things like: Who would you rather fight in the late game - Man or Mictlan?

My idea was that flaming arrows would work equally well against blessed jaguars (F9B4) as they did against woodsmen. In fact Jomon's strategy was also flaming arrows. But Mictlan had some eagles as well as Ozelots and flying snakes. So I decided to advance slowly and not lose my archers to his blessed fliers, until I forge a staff of storms. Mictlan decided to move his troops to fight Jomon and used a scorched earth tactic in front of my advancing army. My army was also spammed with one fires from afar and four disease demons each and every turn. There was a big battle between Jomon and Mictlan that Mictlan won, but took some very heavy loses. I was advancing steadily on the other side though. Having summoned two golems by that time and researched mind hunt, I was also raiding his provinces and hunting down his blood hunters. After a few turns Mictlan went AI before even fighting any major battles with me. After that me and Jomon divided Mictlan territory and I fought a few battles against the AI. I killed two Mictlan archdevils as well.

When Mictlan went AI, Ulm, as the only remaining nation, ended his NAP with Jomon and prepared to attack him. I ended my NAP with Ulm at once as well. Although my pre-game plan to rush towards constr 8 worked and I got there first and forged the chalice, Ulm was just one turn behind me, and he managed to forge more unique items than I did. I took mostly the astral ones as I didn't have the gems or paths for others. He took the death, the earth and the blood ones. Also Ulm had many vampire counts and almost all ice and arch devils.

The war with Ulm was a short one. He advanced into Jomon territory taking several provinces, while I took several of his provinces on the other side. He had a large army at my side and was using mostly SCs against Jomon. Having spies everywhere I saw all the battles. I reached conj 8 and on the turn I summoned my first air queen, Ulm attacked two Jomon provinces with two archdevils and two my provinces - one with an icedevil and another with a bane lord with monolith armor and the barrier. On the following turn I teleported the AQ and some mages and managed to kill both archdevils and the bane lord while the ice devil luckily survived. I killed the archdevils with orb lightning - a single casting of orb lightning with someone having A5 (after stormpower) is enough to get target's fatigue over 100. Bane lord was killed with dust to dust and earth elementals. Ice devil managed to survive magic duels (it was the one with astral). After that Ulm gave up and that was the end of the game.

On the last turn I had just researched conj 9 and started a Tartarian factory. I was going to summon a Tartarian per turn and I had the chalice. I lacked death and nature gems for the most part of the game, but managed to find some sites towards the end. I also had blood hunting operation started with elludian moon mages when I took the site from Mictlan and had collected some blood slaves by then. I was pondering whether to go alteration for wish or blood for send horror next.

What I think decided this game is that nobody took Chelms as a threat and was willing to join with me against strong nations (Utgard, Mictlan). Also what decided the late game is that I got to constr 8 first and snatched the chalice. If Ulm had managed to do it, with his huge death and nature income (as he said himself), it would probably have been a very different ending.