Re: Collider - Small Late Age Game (running)
 

And yes, Mictlan definitely gets the credit for killing Marignon. Kind of funny, since we never fought. But his globals crippled me badly.
Atlantis was the only player I ever fought in this game, but I drove him back pretty easily, and then we signed a truce.

Re: Collider - Small Late Age Game (running)
 

No wonder I started having problems... I was wondering how Atlantis was managing to commit such a large force against me if they were also fighting up north... guess they didn't have as large of an army as I thought after all.

Re: Collider - Small Late Age Game (running)
 

They were still keeping a contingent up north, though not a large one, as I recall. We never had an NAP, just a turn to turn cease fire agreement.

Sorry, should have told you. Burden of time was killing me and I was just trying to hold out as long as I could.

Tip to anyone that needs it. Burden of Time is the nuke against LA Marignon. Most of your mages start out old or close to it from the start, and BoT just kills them in droves. I would have somehow had to have Gift of Health up to withstand several turns of BoT.

Re: Collider - Small Late Age Game (running)
 

Well, vfb gets another victory before his exit. Congrats!

Hmm... I think Marignon can survive as well as most other human nations provided they don't heavily investment in goetic masters and inquisitors. Those are the only commanders that start out old I believe. You only need a few high inquisitors for dominion spread via blood sacrifice. Cutting back on geotic masters isn't so harmful to your blood income because of the diabolist. You also have access to royal navigators everywhere you set up shop. They are great mages in my opinion. The other bonus to using more royal navigators and diabolists is that you don't need a temple in every castle. Thanks to blood sacrifice you can use a few well placed temples to get a good spread of your dominion. You can even cut back on labs and put the money toward more castles and such by investing in chartmakers for research and communion slaves.

I survived thanks to a heavy investment in magisters and some cunning use of death magic. Granted, you can't really use death magic easily, but blood magic can easily fill in the gaps. Had I splurged on a massive number of magister arcanas instead I would probably be in the same position. Hmmm... I also had growth 3, which certianly helped a lot.

In my personal opinion the nation most effected by BoT has to be Abysia. Not only do they have a lot of old age fire mages, but they also have a smaller life span then humans. It appears that only two of the casters aren't dangerously close to old age or actually old, and those two are in no way decent battle mages. Let's not also forget their main battle tank unit, the warbred, who start at age 15 and are old at age 17.

Re: Collider - Small Late Age Game (running)
 

Heh, I lost to LA Aby in a different game where I had also cast BoT. It was too late to make much difference because Aby had already gone deep into blood and had a crapload of devil armies.

Re: Collider - Small Late Age Game (running)
 

Have you ever played MA Marignon, AoE? Your Inquisitors are your army leaders. You have to have them.

The Goetic Masters are your only good blood mages. You have to have them.

Yes, Royal Navigators, and Chartmakers, are key. You have to have them as well. But you can not round out a flaming arrows army with them, which is what Mari fights with.

Re: Collider - Small Late Age Game (running)
 

Inquisitors:
Indy commanders are plentiful, cheap, and everywhere. This is most true in the late age. I never use mages for their leadership. It is certainly a useful trait at times, but your castle recruitment should never be controlled by the need to shuttle units around. Besides, more expendable commanders with your roaming armies allows you to be more resistant to assassinations. Sermon of courage can be useful, but Marignon already has a national troop advantage of above average moral. Moral 11 for gold 10 units is rather good. Also, their only magic is fire one. They are clearly not lending that much magical support. Certianly not flamming arrows.

Goetic Masters:
These guys are great. They are the backbone of your blood magic and supplies half of your battlefield magic options. I also agree that blood one mages are a pretty bad substitute when blood hunting. However, you can still do quite well with a handful. Several for blood hunting, several more casting ritual spells, and one with each large army for your flaming arrows. Though that is a spell you could save for only hard targets. If you've crushed the main opposition, your masters can just stay behind and blood hunt the newly conquered zone.

Royal Navigators:
The rest of the battle magic is better handled by the navigators. Once you realize that inquisitors are for dominion control you will have more opportunities for making these guys. Bring three of these to a battle, communion and lay out four thunder strikes in a row, or don't communion and cast lightning bolt 15 times. People tend to forget that Marignon can cast powerful lightning spells. They are also more mobile. One in three can cloud trapeze and all of them have sailing. Want to know what makes flaming arrows better when your front liners have no shields? Wind guide. In fact, I might suggest you go for wind guide before flaming arrows since your ranged attacks are already armor piercing.

Re: Collider - Small Late Age Game (running)
 

So Atlantis went AI? I guess it is just down to Man and Ulm... And I honestly have no clue how strong you are, not having seen you the entire game.

Re: Collider - Small Late Age Game (running)
 

My scouts tended to die from burden of time... and now gold is too short to spend that way.

Re: Collider - Small Late Age Game (running)
 

Gold is plentiful still for me. I can see a little of what I'm in for. Do you want to deal with these AIs first or shuold I start warming you up?