I have never won a sp game...

[Endoperez]

Congratulations about the victory, and some points:

10 Nature Dragon isn't as good at summoning Lamias as 9 Nature (green) Naga. That one gets a Lamia summoning bonus, can use more items in battle and still has pretty good stats. The 10th pick of magic costs a lot, so Nature 9 would probably been enough. You would have gotten 1 lamia less pre summoning, and you units would have only lost the last point of berserk from their blessing.
Machaka Hoplites are very good infantry, and Machaka Archers are very cheap. You can make lots and lots of them, and your Black Sorcerors can cast Flaming Arrows... You researched Enchantment any way for Gift of Health, and it would have only taken some extra gems, or casting Phoenix Power first, or lucky Black Sorcerer with his random in Fire, or research in construction and Flaming Skull (1Fire 1Death miscellanous item, boosts Fire by 1) to be able to cast it in all major battles.

[sushiboat]

BigJMoney said:
Reading this thread, I decided to play on that downloadable "Talis" map. As a side note -- THAT MAP ROCKS FOR NEWBIES!

I always use Talis when I play a new land nation or try out a Pretender very different from ones I have played before. I often don't finish the game. I play long enough to see where I have made major mistakes and then start over. (See Ten Turn Challenge! for ideas about playing a strong early game.) When I have mastered a particular setup on Talis, I move on to Aran with three opponents -- which is fewer than recommended, but it works well in terms of how much time you have to develop before your first war. Also, Inland is a great wraparound map that is smaller than Orania. The problem with big maps for playtesting is that you can play a lot of bad turns before getting feedback.

[PDF]

High_Priest_Naresh said:
33 turns... turn 35 now

I'm puzzled...You say you were playing against the comp, and on turn 33-35 "Ulm has built a castle in oak of all ages defended by about 100 black plate infantries 50 trolls 4 troll kings 30 mech. men and 5 golems!"
That's just not possible any AI did that in 35 turns... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

[shovah]

thought comp didnt like castles

[Arralen]

@shovah
Actually, the AI loves castles and tries everything to conquer one as soon as it is spotted.
Saldy, the AI can't build castles, not in one and not in 10 turns!
But it is quite good in finding earth sites which give one for free - especially Ulm.
And oc. there are always those random events ...

@PDF
With high sites and richness setting, the AI has little problem building such an army... with a high (random) astral 'draw' on the pretender it's even quite possible it build those golems early