I took an E9N6W4 Dom 6 Arch Druid. I really like this pretender: a stealthy, map move 3 rainbow with recuperation. Especially with the recent changes to Eriu I don't think a full E9 bless is an optimal build but it is a fun way to play and, if nothing else, gave me a good comparison point since I have played that build so much prior to the changes. There's no good reason I can give for the W4 bless other than I like using my national troops/summons and felt the extra 2 points of defense would help them (not sure if it was worth it for the Cu Sidhe but I've tested expansion quite a bit with Daoine Sidhe and the extra 2 points of defense definitely helps their success rate). Given the way things turned out it obviously would have been smarter to get a stronger dominion instead of a W4 bless.
I was annoyed with some mistakes I made early on: I chose a poor expansion path and ended up wasting turns backtracking, instead of taking one indie province after another. Even worse, I was using mages to shuttle troops around. Then I sent out several mages for early site searching. I was hoping for a big find, something like adepts, to give me a research boost and instant magic diversity. Normally these wasted mage turns wouldn't have been a big deal but when Machaka attacked on turn 10 it meant I initially had to fall back in order to get in one more turn of preparation time. This meant that Machaka had control of 52 when a random event caused a fort to be built there. So what would have been a nice boost (a free fort) ended up slowing me down in counterattacking after I defeated Machaka's initial force since I couldn't just leave it under his control. This gave him a chance to regroup. Then, when I was finally going to make a move on his cap I got the movement bug, which resulted in me losing 30 sacred troops that had served quite well (they were arriving from a different province and weren't blocked by the bug) and delayed me going after his cap by several more turns. On top of that, his pretender had now arrived and since I couldn't afford to lose a major battle if I was to have any chance at all to win the game I withdrew so I could see what I was going to be facing. So it all added up, one thing after another. If I had been ready to fight on turn 10 when Machaka first attacked the whole war might have finished 10 turns earlier, which could have made all the difference later.
When Machaka was finally dead I of course immediately attacked you. Ermor had been putting up quite a fight and I started to think we might just have a chance but then I saw his dominion dropping. I kept hoping he'd notice as I figured if he set his H3s to preaching he might be able to avoid a dom kill but it caught him by surprise. At that point I threw everything I had into an all out attack (my research dropped to about 50 points/turn). I figured the longer the game went on, the slimmer my chances became (and they were already pretty bad). Though it didn't work out, I still think the all-out attack was the best option I had available.
Obviously your strategy was focused on pushing your dominion but I think you could have used any approach and it likely would have worked given how badly the war with Machaka had set me back. As an example, when I finally killed Machaka I was still at Constr. 4. I never reached Conj. 6 to summon spectres and try to get some mind hunt protection and never got above level 6 in any school of magic. I never finished searching my starting provinces for S sites and never searched any of them for D sites. It was really a mess. So the dom kill strategy was successful but if you gone with a different plan and been summoning demons, sending horrors, etc. I think you would have just rolled over me and won even quicker.
Quote:
Originally Posted by earcaraxe
Then those tuathas came. I had absolutely no experince in fighting them, and in retrospect i had no weapons versus them at all.
|
For a long time Abysia's warlocks were my favorite mage but I think the new CBM 1.92 version of Eriu's Tuatha have replaced them. They can perform strongly in the roles of thug, troop buffer and evocation caster. The interesting thing is that with the changes to Eriu I planned on using thugs less this game than I have in the past and in fact for most of the fight with Machaka I only had a couple of them and really what was carrying me was thunderstrike spam (I got a lot of A4 Tuatha early on). But the one piece of good luck I had this game is I've never gotten so many Hall of Famers with Toughness, Unequaled Obesity and other great combat bonuses. When an A4 I've been using for thunderstriking gets Unequaled Obesity and now has 30+ HP it's really hard not to use them as a thug since that covers up their main weakness - low HP (by thug standards).
Generally speaking, three weaknesses of glamoured thugs are: low HP, not very hard hitting, need time to buff. Abysia is actually in a good position to take advantage of these weaknesses. Later in the game of course you have spells like life for a life that will instakill the thug but early on you have flying, magic attack blood summons that can hit the thug while he's still buffing (and can knock off mistform even if he gets it cast - without mistform they are a lot more vulnerable). This of course is completely aside from the mind hunts that became deadly effective once you got penetration gear on your hunters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by earcaraxe
I researched mindhunt, and forged all the penetration items, it took me about a year... then I managed to got Strands up. I wonder, what do u think about it? Did it hinder u? to what extent? what mages did it kill or feeblemind? Then I researched Looming Hell, which seemed very weak, but on the other hand it killed one tuatha, and a dozen cu shidhe and made u assign bodyguards, for a mere 60 slaves. Still not impressive, but i wonder what ur opinion is!
|
Strands was effective. It would vary: some turns nobody got hit, other turns up to 3 commanders were hit. Between afflictions reducing/eliminating magic ability and outright kills I think this spell was definitely worth it. And that's aside from its other aspect of finding magic sites. Interesting thing about this spell: I don't recall seeing it that much in the past but in all three of my current games that have globals (the Nations game has globals modded out) someone has cast this spell.
Looming Hell was less effective, but as you mention it did force me to assign bodyguards, which reduced the units I had available to attack. It also occupied a global slot and kept it out of my hands (not that I had the research to cast anything other than Mother Oak and GoH at the end). And it costs blood slaves, not gems, so it's cheap.
The mind hunts were the worst. Before you had the mind hunters geared up it wasn't that bad. Between good MR on my commanders, rainbow armor on the thugs and scout decoys it was bearable. But as you geared up the mind hunters it became painful. And the most depressing thing is I had no astral mages to provide any protection the entire game. I had lizard shaman but they would need two boosters to teleport and, as mentioned, I didn't even have Constr. 6 for skullcaps. S random spectres would have been ideal of course but I never reached Conj. 6. At one point I spent a lot to get an S2A3 merc but, consistent with my luck this game, he promptly got an affliction and became useless when late winter hit a bit later (I even put a shroud on him hoping to protect him - couldn't forge any anti-aging gear yet).
Quote:
Originally Posted by earcaraxe
i didnt even patrol for the disease spreading scout(?) (who was he?), knewing the game wouldnt last long enough for the disease to kill anyone.
|
I flew in a Sidhe Champion with rainbow armor and an AoMR (I was expecting mind hunts and hoped he'd survive a few turns) and then had a scout fly the boots out so they weren't lost when the Sidhe Champion died.
Quote:
Originally Posted by earcaraxe
At one point, i thought about giving up, but the last 5-6 turns i was playing only for the domkill, seeing it as my only chance.
|
I'm curious for more info on this. I completely forgot about stone idols otherwise I would have patrolled far more aggressively than I did - very nicely done with that! I assumed you were blood saccing from every fort with your H3s. Were you also preaching heavily? I'm trying to get a sense of just what you were putting into it vs. what I was doing defensively (which was not much until the last three turns). This is actually the first time I've been dom killed.
In addition to not patrolling it was probably also a mistake not to build more forts/temples in my core territories. But I couldn't do that, hire 280 gold mages to preach and still sustain a war effort. And it may not have mattered anyway the way your dom push was going. I was hoping that as I took your forts and destroyed your temples it would weaken your dominion but it didn't seem to have any impact at all. At the end I saw your dominion surging and instead of immediately building temples and setting my mages to preaching I decided to try to take one more fort. That was also probably a mistake but again it may not have mattered anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by earcaraxe
Did the Melancholy spell in the last turn get thru ur air dome?
|
It did and this is actually very interesting because I didn't get a message that the dome had shattered. I just ran a test and this spell bypasses domes. I didn't know that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by earcaraxe
Thanks for the game, and showing me the true might of Eriu, i was very impressed, u played great!
|
Thanks. I guess I can take some satisfaction in having fought hard and not just submitted half-assed turns but I still kind of feel like I wasted a lot of time in a hopeless battle.
Thanks for the game and congrats on the win!
