what is your milleage

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Pocus:

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Originally posted by licker:

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Originally posted by Pocus:
While we were talking, I bumped on a Tien Chi army, which was - you wont believe me - full of Tien Chi (and not of woodmen and tribal archers, this is what Ulm sports against me, rat!).
So I encountered the infamous Celestial Soldiers. Wow. Respect...

Heh, nice, so did they take a chunk of your pride? Or did you defeat them anyway

When Marg sent those 8 Summer Lions at me I was impressed, for turn 15 or whatever it was... I beat them back, but they did take a chunk of my army down with them... If he'd had better mages with them it could have been a problem...

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Summer lions seems to me overpriced now. They doubled in cost. Sure they are nasty beasts, but are very vulnerable to damage spells (no prot). I'm very unsure I will recruit them now (keeping my gems for items or Fire Snakes).

As for my encounter with the army of Tien Chi, I have still to hand to hand the Celestial Soldiers, as it was mainly a clash between my heavy infantries of Humanbred and their pikemen. I killed most of them (poor prot), but in the end I routed before reaching the leader's line (with the Horse-Men as bodyguards it seems), thanks to a constant rain of arrows from mongols archers. I find the enemy disposition more elaborate than in doms I by the way.

Well, I'm cornering them now, the battle will be interesting.

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When I was playing as Machaka, I didn't have that much trouble with Tien Chi, until I tried to storm their castle and discovered the Crystal Heart bug.

But then, I did have a level 5 priest (national hero prophet) and about 10 Black Hunters... those things are amazing. (Which they ought to be for their cost of 125/38.)

[DominionsFan]

Originally posted by Pocus:

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Originally posted by apoger:
>I feel at Last somehow at ease with Abysia now, and get something like 1100 gold & 18 provinces at turn 20 (Eye map, indep at 4, 6 impossible AI, all other settings unchanged).

I ran a game to see how well I'd do using the same settings.

I used a red dragon (fire 2, earth 8), order3, prod 3, heat 3, death 3, luck 1, drain 3.

Totally ordrinary game, some ups, some downs. I lost an important army by surprise when Arco showed up with an unexpected army that had 8 elephants, 20 HC, and about 100 assorted junk.

On turn 20: 36 provinces, income 1602.

If I had a bit of luck or had played a shard smarter I probably could have gotten another 20% out of things.

impressive. I had only +3 order, the rest at neutral (was using a rainbow mage, which didnt pay).

Drain 3, so I suppose you didnt do any significant research? I try to not bias my pretenders just because this is the demo (you can play without research). Would you take Drain 3 as Abysia in a normal game, where there cheapest mage is at 200 gp (without blood of human theme) ?

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Ok may I ask that what is the whole point in this?
I mean you are grabbing 20 provinces, but you will loose them hellish fast, since you cannot protect them.

I myself prefer to get less territories and focusing to make an elite army meanwhile.
Well depends..I love to play with Indy str 9.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by apoger:
The growth/death scale has never been very important for Abysia, and it's even less so in Dom II. The earth skill was important for the fast land grab. In a multiplayer game I would probably use astral-8 rather than earth-8, and use a green dragon rather than red. This would be a slower super combatant but would provide a stronger mid-game for use against human opponents who are better prepared than the computer AI.

*Blink* You spent 360 points on an outside level 8 for a dragon? I suppose with Abysia you have a ton of extra points, but did you really think it was worth it -- e.g. wouldn't you have been better off spending 240 of those points on Magic +3? What about Air Magic?

Also what was so key about the extra reinvigoration? It seems nice, but I'm failling to see how it would be key to early expansion.

[ October 31, 2003, 23:06: Message edited by: Jasper ]

[apoger]

>Also what was so key about the extra reinvigoration? It seems nice, but I'm failling to see how it would be key to early expansion.


I took the earth magic in order to pump up the protection value of the dragon. Pro 24 is plenty good (the dragon form eats 2 levels of skill).

Place the dragon in the rear. Have it hold X2. Then attack rearmost.

Start attacking provinces from the very start. One extra province per turn is nice nice nice. The extra economy pays for mages to bring me up to speed later on.

In retrospect I should have used earth-9 in order to boost the lava warriors. I did that in a game on Tuesday and it worked great. The extra protection and reinvig is just what they need.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
Ok may I ask that what is the whole point in this?
I mean you are grabbing 20 provinces, but you will loose them hellish fast, since you cannot protect them.

I myself prefer to get less territories and focusing to make an elite army meanwhile.
Well depends..I love to play with Indy str 9. [/QB]

I dont quite understand your issue? By turn 20, I had 2 strong armies running, so I would have no problems defending against incoming threat. This is what I have done anyway, as Tien Chi started to strike at my holdings begining at turn 15. They got repulsed in a matter of turn.

If your profile is to make slow advance, turtle, then resume, then it wont work that well in multiplay, or even in solo when you face a strong AI (which has gobbled another one). Frederick the Great said that he which want to defend everything defend nothing. So you'd better have a mobile response force, and dont worry in putting some forces in each of your province.

edit : typo

[ November 01, 2003, 06:20: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[DominionsFan]

Oh yes I know Pocus, but can you expand fast, when the indy str is on 9? I cannot make it.

[Pocus]

no I wont play with indep 9 as of now, for 2 reasons :

I have only 40 turns for the demo, I dont want to fight indeps all the time.

indep 9, with the reduction of gold income, wont be seen much in MP. And when I play solo, this is to test a strategy that can be valid in MP.

[DominionsFan]

Oh I got it. Yup 9 indy str for MP sounds a little too much, however if you don't like to expand fast, it can be fun.
[I prefer to play SP anyways.]

[MStavros]

Originally posted by apoger:
>I feel at Last somehow at ease with Abysia now, and get something like 1100 gold & 18 provinces at turn 20 (Eye map, indep at 4, 6 impossible AI, all other settings unchanged).

I ran a game to see how well I'd do using the same settings.

I used a red dragon (fire 2, earth 8), order3, prod 3, heat 3, death 3, luck 1, drain 3.

Totally ordrinary game, some ups, some downs. I lost an important army by surprise when Arco showed up with an unexpected army that had 8 elephants, 20 HC, and about 100 assorted junk.

On turn 20: 36 provinces, income 1602.

If I had a bit of luck or had played a shard smarter I probably could have gotten another 20% out of things.

Indeed nice. I had almost the same results.

I met with an AI army in that game, and it had more than 300 units. [Man - Impossible.] As usual, mostly cheap units, but still that was an impressive army.

[PDF]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
Oh I got it. Yup 9 indy str for MP sounds a little too much, however if you don't like to expand fast, it can be fun.
[I prefer to play SP anyways.]

Well, I like strong indeps, so in Dom2 I play Indie 8-9 plus Rich world