Tip: Template for reducing late game MM hell

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Micah

Attacking gets you income but leaves your forces spread out and vulnerable. That's the tradeoff. Taking 90% of someone's lands in a turn means a huge investment of either time/money (sneaking) or gems (teleporting/trapezing) for the attacker, and then the defender has full knowledge of what each of those attack forces consists of and can prepare their counter attack accordingly. If they don't have the gems banked to survive for a few turns without their unforted gem income that's a play choice they decided on. A single SC kill by the defender can be worth a full turn's gem income, and the defender can take their pick of targets.

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A single SC kill is worth your gem income... ok... except your opponent is *getting* your gem income, so attacking you just paid for itself in gems alone. And if you can't take everything back in one turn (unlikely), he'll net profit in the long run even in the corner case where he refuses to engage you while you take your lands back.

How many multiples of your lost gem income in SCs do you have to be able to kill for it to be worth it? What if it's merely thugs with cheap gear?

And of course the entire time you're fighting in your territory, which may have morale bonuses for dominion, but that means its your land getting crapped on. 200% taxes, pillaging, and your economy is in shambles if you ever repel the attack and regain your provinces.

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Psycho: so, you want people to spend their money on castles everywhere and make ending the game even more tedious than it already is? Not to mention funneling cash into making useless fortresses and not into units that could be winning the game for you?

(1) I'm virtually certain this loses to the person who only builds a reasonable number of castles for unit production and in strategic locations, because they have more mages and thus more mage turns (forgings/ritual castings/RPs) with which to work.
(2) Isn't the whole point that endgames which last forever are obnoxious? Needing to siege every single province is just pointlessly turtly.

I have to agree with K on at least one point, its the tendency of people to Turtle which leads to unfun gameplay.