End game

[Saxon]

Not having played multiplayer, I have a question for you folks who do. Later in the game, it seems that everyone focuses on high powered summoned units, like the Elemental Royalty. They are indisputably powerful, but can only take one province a turn.

On the big maps, how does the end game play out? Even if one person has a few very powerful units, if the opponent has a good number of medium sized “normal” armies, the medium armies will end up taking more provinces a turn. Sure, if the medium army meets the powerful summons, they are defeated, but the other six or seven medium armies keep going.

Also, when you have two players with lots of powerful units, does it come down to a battle royale or does something else determine who gets ahead?

[Vicious Love]

Having billions of fully-equipped Tartarian commanders helps, as do trillions upon trillions of vine ogres, abominations, tarrasques, wights, and ghosts. That particular micromanagement nightmare ended long before a victor could emerge, so I can't really be more specific than that. Never even got that many opportunities to use them, what with the endless, sanity-eroding clicking and searching.

In summation: don't reach the endgame on large maps. Trust me.

Edit: But if you do, try and get Arcane Nexus up. Free Wishes!

In the unmodded game, I think victory comes down to nuking the other side's clamholders. And protecting your own. Which you will have. Nothing beats a clamhoarder by lategame on a large map, except another clamhoarder.

[Saxon]

That sounds familiar from my current single player game, which is one of the reasons I asked. I have a large army that takes a lot of management. I had grouped a lot of them in large armies, which were easier to move and destroy the huge AI armies. My management needs went down. The AI has responded by splitting into many smaller armies, which dodge around my big armies.

In other 4X games, I will stop when I know I will win and the management gets too much. In this particular game, I am not sure, which is why I want to keep playing. However, I am lucky to get through a turn a night. Do a lot of the big multiplayer games get “called?” Is there a simple and effective solution to the medium armies issue?

[shovah]

make all your SC's flying/teleporting and just crush armies quickly. another technique is go on the offensive with 1 big army, using your flying SC's as an active defense. If he stops attacking so he can defend then send up your SC's and crush him.

[Oversway]

A lot of games people use either victory points or # of provinces for the winning condition to avoid it becoming a micromanagement contest.

[shovah]

yea, so you just get a few SC's and send them to vp provinces and boom, you win.

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually most of the MP games Ive seen rarely seem to go to end game at all. They just go to "well he has wont it so everyone is dropping out".

[NTJedi]

Gandalf Parker said:
Actually most of the MP games Ive seen rarely seem to go to end game at all. They just go to "well he has wont it so everyone is dropping out".

When this happens it simply means the pretender of this kingdom committed suicide. Sometimes the kingdom uses magical means to restore the pretenders body and place another soul/mind inside the pretender yet it's kingdom/leadership skills are much weaker(means switched over to AI). Any kingdom with a pretender suicide naturally feels shame and embarassment.

[Oversway]

yea, so you just get a few SC's and send them to vp provinces and boom, you win.

Unless other players do the same thing

[Vicious Love]

Oversway said:

Unless other players do the same thing

Or just hold on to the handful of provinces they need to keep you from winning, then tear into your unprotected heartlands and let attrition do the rest.