[Norfleet]

Originally posted by archaeolept:
How does one conquer ermorian castles defended by an uber VQ? other than by creating a vast world-wide alliance w/ a dozen committed armies...

The VQ is not the ultimate warrior for SC vs. SC combat: The VQ excels primarily in the destruction of enemy troops, preferrably living: Against non-living, particularly cold immune troops, the VQ's ability to kill is hampered by her generally mediocre strength and attack values: Combat will expire before she can even kill two dozen Jot woodsmen with N9 bless, or about a hundred ghouls.

Ermorian castles are tougher nuts to crack, but the great expense of Ermorian castles does slightly impede consolidation speed due to their longer construction times and greater cost, combined with Ermor's lack of income, even after accounting for not having to pay upkeep or buy troops any kind. This is one reason why Rabe has a larger empire than I do.

However, all you have to do is strike at an Ermorian castle with sufficient force to begin damaging the gates. Cast Crumble, and you'll have an instant breach, if you felt your regular army was not enough to breach. Do this in more than one place, and the defender will be forced to choose which province receives the aid of his pretender.

Now second-guess him: Which one do you think he'll choose to defend, based on his present location, dominion, and strategic overview.

Don't storm that castle, or withdraw completely. If the VQ teleports in, it's now stuck in that castle, and must decide whether to immediately teleport to the next hotspot, or attempt to sally and wipe out the attackers alone: Since friendly movement occurs first, if you withdraw, his VQ will encounter no resistance and have fruitlessly wasted two turns.

What can you do in two turns? Siege and storm a castle elsewhere. Congratulations. You've just cost him a castle while losing next to nothing. Wasn't that so nice of him to build you a castle to protect your new temple with?

Sooner or later, you'll be able to force your way to the capitol. He *WILL* defend that. Be sure you have a plan to kill his pretender there. Now that you have the capitol occupied....bye-bye immortality.

Originally posted by archaeolept:
I'm quite amazed by how clueless the beta-testers seem to be about all this. I guess this is just an endemic problem w/ any small closed community - certain activities will become standard, and new variants just won't occur to those living inside the gates.

Are you sure this isn't what's happening to YOU? I seem to notice that you've played many of your games against, well, me. In fact, you cite my own VQ as the canonical example. Are you sure it is not YOU who needs to get out more?

Originally posted by archaeolept:
She has the same name every game since Norfleet has no need to ever redesign her.

Actually, I've done several redesigns, but I've kept the name. Why? Because I'm terrible at names. Have you seen how I name my mages? So once I like the name, I keep it.

[ May 04, 2004, 21:41: Message edited by: Norfleet ]