Well, allow a quick post about my second ever game (third technically). I've had a total of one skirmish against the AI, and I've played the campaign as far as the Afflicted's second mission (which is very, very hard compared to the rest of the campaign).
My first game had been on Devil's Spine against Brokensword. He selected humans while I was Random and ended up as Dwarves. He went first and I second. To cut a long story short, he walked all over me. Dwarves were not a race I felt comfortable using on such a mountain dominated map, and I never really got to grips with it, while his Prophets took over cities left right and centre.
We went for a rematch and ended up on a more open map, but his game crashed so we went at it again.
He again picked humans, while I stuck with the random race I was given in the aborted game: Arcatta (?). By a stroke of fate we were back on Devil's Spine (random map).
Feeling far more comfortable with a race which has 10 influence units I set to work. Since I'd been divided and picked apart last time I chose to initially use a couple of Apprentices, taking the city to my right and moving straight up with the second one. Then I sprang out the initiates flyng the Apprentices across the mountains (to the surprise of my opponent who admitted that he wasn't overly familiar with most of the races). Levitate was to prove a huge part of this game, and I was able to take his city in the bottom right as well as all my cities, giving me a lead of 6/4.
He decided to try a mass monk strategy, backed up by the odd paladin. He easily took back the top right, but the two monks and prophet up there did not take any further part in the game, making moves to threaten my centre right city, but never really being able to act on those threats.
On the left a big scrum was developing around the human city I had taken. I was Waterlogging everything I could to try and keep my Apprentice alive, but of course it died. By this point I had gained the money to start on the real firepower for this game: Sorceresses. I didn't bother with Arch Mages as I was trying strike hard and fast, using Levitate to move my forces around the mountains to ensure I scored kills and left his units lagging behind and unable to gang up on mine. Throwing them over the mountains I was able to ensure he never lowered the flag on that city.
Eventually I had enough spare cash to bring in an Arch Angel (which secured the city against his latest troop movement) and he was forced to withdraw, leaving his other city in the bottom left temptingly exposed. I ignored it, and using Levitate again threw my Sorceresses at his troop massing to take down his lead Paladin. He only had enough firepower now to kill one of my units, and I could bring up reserves the next turn. He surrendered.
Like the first game, superior mobility won the day. It appeared that, with Martial Arts, Monks could be quite good against Sorceresses, but since I was able to Levitate them over mountains, he could never focus enough fire power to kill anything.
I am unsure what I would have done in his place, at least, not without a replay. Rather than reacting to my moves on the left, he might have been better acting on his ownership of the top right to rush my capital. All my troops were on the wrong side to defend it after all. I was also lacking healing, so a mass wounding stratergy could have worked well, but he was never able to bring the numbers to bear as I would levitate in, pick off monks, and leave only one or two units in hitting range.
Tricky. I'd love to hear how someone would deal with Devil's Spine with Humans as player 1 and Arcatta as player 2.
It's probably more of a personally exciting game, my first real win (and on the same map, against the same opponent, player and race as I lost to!), but I just felt pretty smug that I managed to use Levitate with such powerful effect
any good games recently
Linear Mode
