MP: Morla MA noob game (running)

[triqui]

Tien Chi is facing Ermor. Yes, the battle was epic, and despise good mages and priests siding with Tien Chi, the final outcome was, I think, vastly favorable to Ermor. Apostacy is such a great national spell for Ermor that I can not praise it enough, it insta kill enemy sacreds. And that include priestly mages. Solar Rays did quite a lot of damage to Ermor sacred Vestals, though, so it wasn't a free victory.

Right now in that side of the world war, Ermor has recuperated bassically all their initial territory, but 2 provinces (one of them with a castle). Ermor is recruiting more than he is losing, and seems holding well, although still at numeric disventage when you add up both Tien Chi and Jotun troops. The SC chasis of Jotun Good is quite impressive, and it won't be really easy to face them, but at the very least, Ermor has survived the initial "shock and awe" phase of surprise war, so probably would be a long war.

On your question about Marignon: I bet, like LA Ulm and other Resource Heavy nations, that Knights of Chalice aren't easy to build up. Probably he can recruit 1, maybe 2 in the first few turns. 1 soldier, no matter how good (with maybe the exception of Niefelheim sacreds), can't take province on their own. So Marignon probably was struggling to beat the indies around their capitol slowly. Once he cleared his capitol and got full resources, there's no doubt W9 Knights of the Chalice are a force to reckon. Lots of armies fold to them like there's no hope. Tien Ch'i was wise to surrender 3 provinces to them: armies of composite bows barely scratch them before they annhilate the entire army. Probably Marignon did accept the deal from Tien Ch'i becouse of you. Facing 2 opponents is not fun, and he sealed one of the fronts before facing you with his entire army. Without you in the equation, there is no reason for Marignon to seal a pact with Tien Ch'i for 3 provinces, becouse he could just take those 3 provinces, and everyone after that, before Tien Ch'i could get a proper counter from magic. With you facing him too, his diplomatic movement makes much more sense. You are a big country (biggest right now), so he need to focus all his attention on you, and the best way to do so is with a solid friend in his other side.

PS: Assasinating a giant sized fully armored Jotun Herse with lowly cheap skeletons is sooo dirty and fun

[SpaceViking21]

Originally Posted by triqui

PS: Assasinating a giant sized fully armored Jotun Herse with lowly cheap skeletons is sooo dirty and fun

You managed to get the only guy on that stack whose entire script was holdx5 stay behind troops. Kinda wish you could script them differently for battle and for assassination attempts. Oh well.

[triqui]

Originally Posted by SpaceViking21

You managed to get the only guy on that stack whose entire script was holdx5 stay behind troops. Kinda wish you could script them differently for battle and for assassination attempts. Oh well.

Not really a difference, imho. An assasin with the skull ammulet can kill any other commander in the world, provided that that other commander don't have 2 attacks. It's absolutelly impossible that a Jotun Hirdemen kill more than 1 skellie per turn, and the assassin build 1 skellie per turn. Sooner or later the Jotun will miss an attack, even if only of pure bad luck, and then it will be dead. He can kill 1 skellie, but has 2 on him and one extra getting there every turn.

There are ways to avoid this, sure (which i'll gladly share in a couple of turns if nobody does before ), but I doubt scripting any different set up of orders will change the result.

[Olm]

I did not try yet, but I guess a vine shield would help in that situation. throw in a firebrand with its AOE and you should loose.
Fr me thats a quite common equipment on my thugs.

[Olm]

Other possibilities: take body guards, or a mage with protection high enough to stand the skeletons,summons also will help

[SpaceViking21]

Originally Posted by Olm

I did not try yet, but I guess a vine shield would help in that situation. throw in a firebrand with its AOE and you should loose.
Fr me thats a quite common equipment on my thugs.

Well, the big problems there were:

1. I can only forge frost brands at the moment. To my knowledge, frost brands are ineffective (or less effective) against skeletonspam.

2. He got a Herse, which I generally don't even bother outfitting as they're pretty mediocre unless someone else can bless them (and then I'd rather have a Jarl bless himself and go at it).

3. The big weakness of giants in this situation is their size. Since every attack towards a unit reduces their defence, he can glob more guys onto my giant commanders and win via attrition (those skeletons will hit eventually).

That said, I do have stuff in place now to help against that, but I can't talk about it now (for obvious reasons), and I'm not sure if it's going to be the silver bullet for that strat or if it will fail utterly.

[Olm]

[quote=SpaceViking21;786132]

Originally Posted by Olm

3. The big weakness of giants in this situation is their size. Since every attack towards a unit reduces their defence, he can glob more guys onto my giant commanders and win via attrition (those skeletons will hit eventually).

I don't think thats important. If you only have one unit it can be attacked from all surrounding squares. Regardless if it is a Jarl or an Hoburg.