designs for best single play experience

[Ygramul]

I had been enjoying this great game for the past few days... It is sucking away my life - I feel like like a starspawn who just entered the void gate...

Anyway, I usually don't have the patience to play a game over a month, so I play solo. I'd like to hear the advice from old timers on how to design a solo game.

First a few of my observations:

1) AI Race Choices:
So far, I noticed that having Ermor or Jotunheim (even at lower AI settings) will have them dominate the map against other AI's. Mictlan even at high AI does badly.

Playing as Ermor can also be too easy.
One fun memory was against Ulm: I as SoulGate Ermor dominated the map and with my countless legions of spirits assulted the Ulm castle their Last remaining province. The turn executions took something like an hour and the end of which my legions were slauhtered. Those mindless automatons they summoned bogged my legions while the priests banished my spirits. (Of course, then I got angry and cast an Utterdark spell. Almost a cheat.)

2) Map settings:
I wonder how the AI handles different map settings, like magic site frequency and indy strength. I find that AI gets penalized at higher indy strength. I wonder how it would deal with a high magic site setting.

I initially hoped that I can just run a magic only nation. Armies consisting of summoned critters mostly etc. I find it very hard. Magic is largely irrelevant it seems till one gets to late game.

3) Map Choice:
Big or small maps? Are the AI's better at early or late game? How good are AIs with handling water?

(Specifically, I wish to try out Ry'leh again and conquer many seas. Is there good balanced map somewhere. (Aran seems to be the best of the lot in the prepackaged set.))

4) Micromanagement:
This is a biggie. Late games of any strategy title can get cumbersome, but D2 is especially bad as you cannot cue purchase orders or assign "go-to" commands etc. (PBEM nature no doubt)

I wonder which nations are the least troublesome at this point. I hate having juggle gems to front line commanders only to see them waste the gems in a single battle for trivia. Decking your commanders with artifacts also becomes mind boggling as you have many couriers juggling items back and forth. (MOM had a teleport item feature for a mana cost)

I considered playing Mictlan just for the blood (no powerplaying here) but I fear it will be too cumbersome even in midgame with all the blood management, patrolling, sacrificing etc.


Please post your best single play experiences, including map settings, nation picks, AI choices etc.


Yg.