Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome *DELETED*
 

Hmm, server seems to be down?

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome *DELETED*
 

Down for me too.

I'm back now. And to Man: I have no idea what happened Last turn because I wasn't the one playing Last turn, but I think it should be obvious I didn't attack you on purpose.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Sorry there was a power failure Last night.

Server is returned to it's fully functioning status now.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Quickhost is temporarily off... will put it back on by tomorrow morning.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Ok we are back on quickhost...

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome *DELETED*
 

Is Nappa (Pangaea) still taking his turns? He's been the Last person the Last few turns and I haven't noticed if he's submitted his turns before the deadline or not.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome *DELETED*
 

He does seem to be moving armies around from what I can see.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome *DELETED*
 

I hope he is still in!!!

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome *DELETED*
 

I was subbing for Nappa, and going slow so as not to take too many turns for him. There was a stale on Saturday or Sunday, as I thought he was returning Friday. But he's back, and definately still in.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome *DELETED*
 

Ok, just making sure that Pangaea was still alive. Hard to tell when they always submit at the Last minute. (And I'm nowhere near them)

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome *DELETED*
 

Yep I'm back. But I'm also swamped at work and have a ton of personal commitments right now so it will be slow going for awhile.

I'm having way to much fun to go AI. Though I'm taking a beating my first game. I just hope I can stop staling turns considering I've now done it 4 times.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

this is also my ist game and have been in a war since turn 10 with no letup. but what i am most interested in what works and what is a waste of time. after all is said and done would other people be willing to share info on what worked or not. it is difficult to see if a flames from afar worked or was a waste of gems. one thing for sure i really started this game wrong (as far a units and end results).

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Well I have only been fighting Marignon and Ryleh. Ryleh was not too difficult to defeat though it required me essentially to suspend all serious operations vs Marignon.

Ryleh was however able to deal a blow to my bane lords early on with their mass-paralyze, but once I had broken up that mass of Ithilids they were less of a threat, and my celestial warriors could cope with them quite well in any case.

The bane lords in general have been quite effective. They are a cheap summons with good stats, and properly equipped can be quite fearsome (as marignon no doubt has felt). Also they are strong enough to resist the effects of purgatory pretty well.

Lastly of course, wrathful skies is the best army killing battelfield spell I have ever used. Just amazing the way it chews up troops. It does take some effort to cast, in terms of investing in equipment (winged helm, bag of air, staff of storms, ring of tamed lightning, shoes of flying, 4 gems for the casting, thats 70 gems of equipment and 4 egms per casting) but the carnage it wreaks is most gratifying...

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

I also started out poorly. I should have figured beforehand how important research would be. That being said, CW is clearly going to significantly lag living nations in research since mages tend to be expensive which CW can't afford.

The truth is, I haven't learned what works as much as what doesn't http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

I should be dead soon. I currently have naps with TC, Pangaea and Man. I hereby release you from these naps so that you are free to grab as much territory from me as you can before Arco and Mictlan grabs it all. Thanks all.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

it's going to end quickly now.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

I started off really poorly. If Marignon had pressed me early, I probably would be dead now. Now, things are a bit different...

I'm a little surprised how many of the elemental kings I was able to get. Just a few turns ago I got the Last Air Queen (I only have one). I got construction early and didn't get high summoning until recently.

What's worked for me this game is summoning lots of devils (typical for Mictlan) and making good use of all the special sites this map has so many of. Right now I'm getting Fairy Queens and Wraith Lords for 20 gems, a 20 percent discount on forging (+hammer bonuses), and 30 percent cheaper blood units. And I'm getting a lot of blood units.

Ghost riders is one of the best spells in the game and I've been using that quite a bit recently. Enough of them can take out almost any army that doesn't have some powerful mages or SCs with a lot of reinvigoration.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

"I started off really poorly. If Marignon had pressed me early, I probably would be dead now. Now, things are a bit different..."
does that me you will kill me Last http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

looks like we would need to stop fighting between each other and attack you, but not likely.
if i cann't win i prefer an ally.
BUT it is not over yet till the fat frog crocks.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Hey!! Who you callin' fat? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Well, Machaka did manage to kill an ice devil and an arch devil with mind duel by a level 1 astral mage. That was pretty lucky. But I still have 9 and those 2 are coming back next turn so it's not a huge loss I guess.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

I had about three or so astral sages doing that I think.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Looks like 2. Didn't see that second one who died on the first turn. Still, it's pretty lucky that two Astral 1 mages won against a 3 and a 4.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

I'm not paying too much attention to the battles for obvious reasons. I wonder how many devils I blinded?

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Solar Brilliance? Devils have pretty high MR so they tend not to be too affected by that.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

[Totally clueless]
...I have to ask this: How on earth did Mictlan end up with all the Arch Devils and Ice Devils? It should be nearly impossible to snag all the Ice Devils from under Jotunheim's greedy starting Skrattis and their blood site and Abysia should present a very decent competition for at least one or two Arch Devils even if most would go to Mictlan. I thought Jotunheim and Abysia were player-controlled? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
[/totally clueless]

EDIT: Or perhaps I underestimated Mictlan's bonus blood site for mass summoning the high level uniques or perhaps Jotunheim's player didn't know to go after Ice Devils ASAP?

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Abysia is not player controlled, and Jotunheim is apparently controlled by a newbie who didn't know to go after the Ice Devils.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Someone can tell me how mind duel works? I tried it and my mage just went feeble minded..

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Mind duel or mind hunt?

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Mind hunt would be a start... I would like to understand both...

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Mind Hunt: You cast it on a distant province, your mage casts mind burn or soul slay on a randomly selected, non-hidden commander. Spell is resisted as normal (i.e. base + penetration + d6oe vs target MR).

If there is an astral mage in the target province, then I think it is nearly guaranteed your mind hunting mage will be feebleminded... i.e. the astral mage detects your mind hunting mage's silver cord and severs it, resulting in feeblemind.

Mage Duel: Or Mind Duel? I forget. Basically you can cast this on the battlefield, a random astral mage on the other side is targetted, you do a contest of astral skill and the loser dies, both mages die in event of a tie (basically both sides roll d6 + astral).

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

So, you use communion to increase your skills then mind duel, right?

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Er, possibly, to be honest I have never used either communion OR mind duel...

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

You only want to use Mind Duel if you know there is an enemy astral mage you want to kill. In my case, sages are cheap, and a fully equipped Archdevil is expensive, so gambling on mind duel was a good deal.

It's astral skill + 1d6 for each, and both mages die if they get the same result.

I don't know if anyone specifically communions just for mind duel. Most likely, if they can communion, they probably have more destructive spells to cast.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Wow, I get to live another turn!!!

Here is a picture of Mictlan's invading army:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...-lament001.JPG

Notice how many blood uniques he had in that battle?

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Here is my defending army:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...-lament002.JPG

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

And here are the battle results. I believe that the only Mictlan commander to have survived was Ethanim the Archdevil. I know I won't survive another beating, but there is ever a good time to gang up on Mictlan, this is probably it.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...-lament003.JPG

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Holy CRAP!

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Oh, and Jotunheim, if you're paying attention to this thread, you really ought to try summonning some of the ice devils I just killed.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Yup, I underestimated Machaka and paid the price. Should have brought in a bigger army with more mages and/or just tried to preach Machaka to death. I'm not exactly sure on the effects of rigor mortis (some kind of fatigue loss every round) but I think that helped Machaka a lot. Those mechanical men are pretty tough too. I got a bunch lying around but didn't bring enough to that fight.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Any chance that interested readers can get that turn file (after the game) to see a most impressive battle?

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Sure I'll save it.... heck I'll run the save game utiltity and save this and all future turns!

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Well, I can send you a copy of my turn file and my own password if you want.

I don't think it was all that impressive a battle, even though it was certainly the biggest one I've had since I started playing MP. It was mostly won through brute force instead of any cool spell scripting and all of Yossar's SCs had pretty standard equipment, no artefacts.

I wasn't sure what Rigor Mortis did either, but I scripted it in anyway just for fun. I think the main thing it did was that when the Archdevils got all fatigued out from casting spells, Rigor Mortis prevented them from regaining any fatigue through rest. This was why they were unconscious when the rest of the Mictlan army (with Ethanim) routed and made them an easy kill.

Yossar had scripted all of his frost fiends for artillery duty it looked like, and I think in the beginning they hurt him more than they hurt me because my front lines were composed of cold-immune wights and mechanical men. It looked to me that the bolts from the frost fiends killed quite a few of Yossar's own devils.

Two of the ice devils and one of the Arch Devils died from mech men swarm (though my pretender helped some). When that AD died for the first time and his phoenix pyre went off, it did A LOT of damage to me in a surprisingly large radius.

Gaap had a grand time killing fall bears by the dozen until my Standard of the Damned carrying firbolg got around to targeting him with repeated castings of drain life. Why oh why didn't I spend ALL my earth gems on mech men...

Most of my mages were pretty ineffective I think, casting the occasional nether darts, useless buff spells etc., and got killed fairly quickly. My pretender survived but got blinded by Ethanim repeatedly casting Blindness at him. My bane lords were totally useless and got killed by repeated castings of incinerate. It didn't help me that most of my stuff was kitted out with lighting immune stuff because I have been mostly fighting Arco before then with his Wrathful Skies crazy harbingers and Air Queen.

Yossar was right though that the mech men were surprisingly long-lived tanks. They were cheap for me too with my construction bonus site.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Mechanical men are TOO good. IMHO they could well deserve a nerf to 75% elemental resistances.

They just become the standard late game troop, since they really have no disadvantages except low MR, and given they are lifeless and mindless and usually used en masse, this is not a huge penalty!

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

astral fires will annhilate them.

S3F1: 10 AN damage; 4+ area of effect; 100 prec; MR negates

vs. 8 hp MR 12 (-1 for magic dominion, -2 for spell focus)

so, if Magoth, w/ astral coin and cap, spell focus (runesmasher too) had been scripted for Astral FiresX5 ...

hell, even the wights would be punched up bad

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Hehe. Magoth was not at that battle. He was killed in an earlier battle by Mind Duel.

But I wouldn't agree with Soapyfrog that Mech Men are too good. I suppose that they would get owned by other MR negates spells too like Opposition and what's the other one that enslaves magic beings.

I risk sounding like a broken record here, but one thing that would help make Mech Men not such an obvious choice as late game troop would be to let mages be able to boost selected resistances to 100% for normal troops albeit expensively in terms of gems and number of mages required.

In my experience 75% resistance just isn't enough. 75% SR won't be enough to protect against Wrathful Skies. 75% CR won't protect against chill and Breath of Winter. 75% FR won't protect against heat aura effects of Abysians and devils.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Exactly, so they would not be "the obvious choice" all the time, instead you would have to mix and match your supporting troops correctly instead of mechanical men for all occasions.

Its thematic too, since one assume that fire hot enough, or cold cold enough, or sufficient wattage WOULD damage a mechanical being made of metal...

Of course mechanical men have counters, as mentioned, but they arent easy ones, and they sure arent enough to discourage everyone from fielding armies of them in the late game to support their battlefield spells.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Ah, I was wondering where that drain life kept coming from. You had a bunch of D4 casters but none of them were doing it (what were they doing if not drain life?).

And you're definitely right that I should have just had my frost fiends fly in at the beginning. Cold bolts were mostly useless.

My astral mage casting antimagic was mostly useless as well. I don't know if you used a resistable spell the whole battle. And I think I forgot battle fortune which would have helped a lot.

What spells are there that can hurt Groups of mechanical men? Astral fires, shadow bLast, nether darts, cloud of death (works on lifeless?), gifts from heaven, stellar cascades (sort of), and? Looks like I needed to bring a lot more astral and death mages. But then how many big battles are there that that isn't the case? A bunch of buffs for my devils would have helped too. Fire and Ice were pretty worthless (except for the somewhat bugged Phoenix Pyre (does physical instead of fire damage I think))

Mechanical men make some of the best fodder because they're cheap, immune to all elements, lifeless, high protection, 0 encumbrance, and non-undead. Take away any one of those things and they're not nearly as good.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

also magma spells are good; ice strike; the rust spells; acid; entanglement

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Hey, it's not like he needs even more help! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And I just downloaded the new turn while forgetting to backup the old one first, so I lost the turn file with the battle. Oops.

Re: Fools Lament II - Newbies Welcome
 

Dont worry I saved the whole kit 'n kaboodle on the server end.

Also now I have Huz's dom2save prog running so all future turns will be saved as well.