[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by apoger:
Play on larger maps, or longer games with more/better opponents, and higher indy settings.

I generally play on Desert Eye with 8-12 Impossible AI's (8 for Mictlan, 12 for C'tis), Indies 5.

Higher indies impacts too heavily on the ai's. Large maps/longer games mean vastly greater MM. I'm not as young as I used to be and I just don't play the monster games anymore. I remember me first few PBEM games - and then I learnt just how big a pain a big empire is on a big map in a long game. Sure some people love it but not me.

I like to be able to get a clean finish and I find setting victory of a dom of around 656, on the Desert Eye map, gives a nice finsih and avoids unnecassary cleanup.

By the end of the game I generally have powerful summons armies assembling and they may see a little action but in truth its the mundane troops who win the game for me. Death is the exception where I get to use alot more magic. Is death a fast magic path?

The best spell I have used so far is Mass Protection which allows strong mundane to troops to transition into the mid to late game as still being very powerful in numbers.

Anyway turns out that easy research is way cheaper than 25% and I'm actually finding it a bit much. Maybe its time to create a set starting positions map which sets the magic levels at 3 in all schools at the start and research to difficult?

The possilities are many.

Truth is I miss alot of the powerful magic from dom1. As I play a fast paced games late game magic abuse wasn't a big issue - although mid game Seasonal spirits where a bit much. Still doubling their cost seems a bit harsh. Blood was nicely balenced in this style of Dom1 game though grossly overpowered in longer games. I don't miss Air elementals but I'm suprised they made other elementals so much weaker as they weren't great in dom1 - they were ok.

Still I much prefer the overall play of dom2 so I don't want to sound like a kill joy. I'm just suffering from magic withdrawel symptoms.

cheers

Keir