Turbocharged AI vs Humanities Last Hope - Running

[Thanatus del Dragos]

Are our starting positions going to be random, or did you place them? I'm bored at work, so if I knew my starting point, I could starting thinking about strategy instead of just sitting around trying to look busy...

[NTJedi]

You will be starting on Province 186 as chosen by Doo. Based on developer design Fomoria must start next to a water province.

[Doo]

For the humans:

C'tis is at 18.
Kailasa is at 36
Tir na n'Og is at 157
Fomoria is at 186
Caelum is at 195

For the AI's:

Thats a secret until you find out in game, although it can probably be guessed who starts at 92.

[Thanatus del Dragos]

Ha, awesome, I started a SP game a couple days ago to kind of practice, and I started at 186.

[Doo]

I'm trying this strategy:

Dormant Fountain of Blood
4E 2D 4B
7 Dom
3 Order
3 Production
2 Growth
2 Misfortune
1 Magic

I'm hoping to get a mini blood economy going to forge Blood Stones and Lifelong Pacts. The Death is to summon Revenants, empower in Air and forge Vision's Foe en mass (Sidhe Lords start at 16 precision and can cast both Aim and Eagle Eyes, precision overkill?). At Alt-8 Revenants plus a Skull Staff gives Disintegrate. Alt-7 is where Fog Warriors is at.

To get there I'm relying on cash and production creating large numbers of glamour troops backed up by Sidhe Lord thugs (Mirror Image and Mistform). I'm not too sure about Evocation-4 research in the early game to get Thunderstrike as we are playing Difficult Research and I want to get what I need and no more. Alt-3 gives Protection, I could spam that to increase survivability of the rank and file.

Never played Tir na n'Og before but this is my plan.

[Thanatus del Dragos]

I've got my pretended and scales decided on, Monolith 4F/4S/4E/6N with 5Dom 3O, 1M. Going to concentrate on efficiently buying troops. Unmarked as my main focus at the capital, followed by Nemedians and Firbolg javelin warriors and Fomorian warriors and Firbolg javelin warriors at others. Kings for main researchers and later as SCs, and Nemedian Champions for everything else, main troop leaders, stealth raiders, researchers when I can't afford Kings. Going to go Evo 3 for Air magic offence first, then alt 3, thaum 2, and encht 2,Con 4 to thug and SC, then back to Evo 5, and then conj all the way for death summons and unique summons like morrigans and bargest. Will be recruiting a lot of Druids to research and later to use as shocking mo-fos and Fomorian Champions to pray and then thug later on non-capital fortresses.

So Storm, lighting spells, and death summons, good bless, and dance of the morrigans, should be pretty tough. Pretty simple plan, but I think solid against AI.

So, when we starting this?

[Doo]

I've given the .map file to NT Jedi, just waiting on word back from him.

[endomorphious]

Good lord, I'm outclassed. Thankfully, this isn't a PvP game. My strategy is..uhhmmm...yeah.
1. Steal underpants. 2. uhmmm. 3. Profit.
Seriously you guys have really thought out your position well. I am waffling between an awake PoD with a 4E/4F and possibly 1 or 2 extra death. 10 Dominion. Scales are still up in the air, but I am leaning towards 03,S3,H3,G/D0,L/M0,D2.

Initial plan is rapid expansion with the PoD. Recruit lizardman elite for 2 more initial expansion parties (slow going from SP tests) then mass some chariots. Recruit Suaromancers as researchers.

Dash to Con4 for skull mentors. Begin Recruiting Shamans for research and to be skull monkeys. PoD comes back home as a forge peon. Skip the mid portion of the game.

Spam leviathan and take over the seas.

[Doo]

Originally Posted by endomorphious

Good lord, I'm outclassed. Thankfully, this isn't a PvP game. My strategy is..uhhmmm...yeah.
1. Steal underpants. 2. uhmmm. 3. Profit.
Seriously you guys have really thought out your position well.

A lot of profit to be made in underpants, just ask Calvin Klein

I made an error in my thinking, I'm used to playing CBM where the Fountain of Blood gives +3 blood slaves per month for free, this doesn't happen in vanilla and it does make a difference to the speed of setting up the blood economy.

Also in a SemiRand test game, be prepared for an AI pretender decked out in good items in the early-mid game. I'm not sure what pretenders NT Jedi was planning but this can be a killer if your not prepared (or your mages spam phantasmal warriors instead of lightning. I HATE those summon phantasmal rubbish spells). While we are not playing I suggest you give the SemiRand a test run to see what it does.

Get it here.

[Thanatus del Dragos]

I'm not expanding quick enough in my practice runs. Going to go Evo 3 THEN Con 4 in research, get those thugs and SC's out sooner.