Ah, dang. I didn't account for the extra hp in my tests, or I wouldn't have risked the hero. Losing him to kill you would have been worth it, but feeding you the extra XP isn't.

I'm still in pursuit, even if it is somewhat distant. Sadly, archers seem to be a much better bet than either Titans or especially Valks. You might not one shot a Titan, but you do have good odds of killing one of them each round and they all have to suffer counter attacks while still only having a 10% chance to hit. Valks have it even worse, only getting a swing each before you'd kill them, and they have low damage. Archers can attack without suffering counter attacks, they are far more expendable, and they can be split up if needed.

In the meantime, I'm already rebuilding what you've burned, and I have the luxury of researching new spells, which I assume you can't do very quickly (if at all) because of spell maintenance and spell casting.

TS

Titans have been an important unit in several of my encounters, though mostly for their decent defense and large number of hp than for their attack power. In several battles they've soaked up a lot of archer fire (usually dying in the process), which then allows my archers to tear into his archers. Titans have also been very good at mopping up small numbers of enemies on their own.

Valks have been nice because of their good movement and their flying ability, but their damage, defense, and hp are just too low to be viable as shock troops. They have been useful in confirming whether there is anything of value in the tunnels and water areas that my land based hordes haven't been able to access.

The biggest problem with either one right now is that Southern's leader has 10 def, close to 10 attack (without counting Unholy Champion), and 7 damage (without counting Unholy Champion). Add in his Parry ability, and the Titans and Valks just aren't cost efficient in assaulting his hero; they eat counter attacks when they try to do damage, and he hits too hard and too frequently for that 3 turn/unit investment to pay off when the Titans and Valks are swinging at around 10% hit chance.

Archers have the same 10% hit chance, but (as you saw above) they get a LOT more attacks because the hero has to attack each one to kill it, which helps compensate for their pitiful damage. Mimo died when he tried to have his hero solo a stack of 8 archers; there were simply too many attack rolls for his 10 defense to handle.

At this point, I expect victory (eventually) simply because Southern has very little time, very little income, and very little space to create an army while I already have a standing army and I have the land area to make reinforcements while he rampages through some other part of the map. He needs to win every single battle right now, while I only need to win one.

If I were you, I'd build a couple o' stacks of ballistae in some transport: a ballista inflicts 1 point of damage per round against a Def 10 hero. A Galleon with Wind Walking and Air Mastery on, filled with Ballistae, or 3 such Galleons, are practically unstoppable (8 and 24 damage on the first round respectively). Sounds doable with one Shipyard and one 4-hex city of any race.

But I am not you, so gonna watch your game further. Thank you again!

I considered siege equipment, but they move even slower than non-High Men archers, and they require T2 towns (and two turns each) to build. They also still only have that 10% hit chance. I'd be paying more money (and maintenance) for slower archers that hit harder (if they get connect), assuming they even get a chance to engage in combat at all.

I've got several Dragon Ships, which build much faster than Galleons, and they were crucial in helping pen Southern in some up north, but he's outdistanced most of my fleet (for now).

I have 4 Life and 3 Fire spheres, so flight is out of my reach. Most of my problem right now is that I have no way to keep up with a hasted 50 move unit that can shortcut across mountains and freeze small bodies of water.

You've had a tier 4 human town for ages, Air Galleys would eliminate the slow speed of siege equipment.

Well, in that case, it really wonders me why Bookwyrm didn't start using the Air Galley tactic yet.

...I knew I shouldn't have replied, because then no one would have brought it up and thus people might think I hadn't thought of it.

Because 3 upgrades requires 3 turns each, then 4 turns to install the thing, then another 3 turns to build each one. Add another 2 turns of lost time because I had to cancel the first upgrade because Southern was going to sweep in and take the city before I could sufficiently defend it. It took me another turn or two to take the city back, and I've already been at this plan for around 20 turns already.

The first one rolls off the line in about 2 turns. My first Gold Dragon will be complete in around the same time frame, and another city is working toward Tier 4 as well.

Archers are very overpowered, but fighting against a superpowered melee unit makes them even more useful than they usually are, due to not dying to retaliations. Bookwyrm's high-tier troops were definitely a worthy asset against my tier1 armies. And while the initial cost for upgrading cities is too high, I also spent vast amounts of money this game on per-day maintenance for my hordes; a Titan only costs twice as much as an archer in maintenance per day, and this has been a long game. Also, Jyri's Ice Drakes were fantastically painful to kill this game.

Bookwyrm's Valkyrie's would've been very useful for him to clear out my harassing Eagles if I hadn't been careless with them and got them killed anyway :p The scouting provided by one Valkyrie with its higher speed and Vision II was useful for his recent attempt to lie in wait with a force to kill me at the cave entrance. That Valkyrie also bodily blocked me from using another cave exit because I didn't want to cancel my Freeze Water spell I was preparing and thus couldn't cast other spells such as missile spells.

Titans outnumbered by Archers may indeed be peppered by arrows and slain, but Valkyries operate in the Sky, so if outnumbered they can simply run circles around the archers and arrange themselves in places where they can't be attacked (mountains, water etc), forcing the Archers to stay put in defensive garrisons while the Valkyries have impunity.

Also, I suspect Titans will use their Round Attack in auto-combat in order to not incur retailations from a dangerous enemy like my Leader, although I didn't necessarily want to tell Bookwyrm that :p

But despite these quibbles, you are totally correct that Archers are overpowered and city upgrading is too costly. In fact, the most popular mod for the game - Warlock's Ruleset - blanket nerf archers fairly heavily and makes city upgrade cost cheaper! We really ought to switch to it sometime...

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLUHFXFqlFlj8T0phLEubSgIxnekvgZyN
You might also be interested in this video series I've been making about the game since Day 19. It's patchy, and I can't update it while i'm on holiday, but it has some interesting moments. Maybe play the videos on 2x speed though.... :p

You're very welcome to play with us sometime, by the way. I'll happily talk through any issues getting the game or the PBEM Wrapper working.

They might have been useful if you hadn't slaughtered the only one that I managed to produce (right after I produced it, too!) before your eagles finally all died.

I've wondered, but I haven't been willing to spend the 3 turns on a Titan to send in to combat just to find out. Also, see above about 10% hit chance for a single swing, versus the 10% hit chance on 6 swings from 3 archers. :)

High Men, Day 86

We remove another node from Dark Elf control, though this one wasn't helping them any.

We are also comforted that our hero didn't just stand there and wait to die. He didn't shoot arrows like I expected, but at least he tried to fight.

TS

Dark Elves, Day 86

We raze just a single farm today, and tarry close enough for its avengers to die to us.
I don't think I'll ever be able to fight Golden Dragons or Air Galleys or Ice Drakes, so I'll just run like buggery when I see one.
I wonder which route would be easier for killing them though - Spellcasting V (which would also let me generate more mana) or Poison Darts+Marks IV?

My long reply to your previous posts doesn't get posted for some reason, but here is my explanation about stacks of T4 units.
Air Galleys have Def 6. Golden Dragons have Def 7, and Ice Drakes have Def 5.

The most cost-effective way to damage a flyer with magic is Ice Shards. The average damage versus Ice Drakes, Golden Dragons and Air Galleys is 6, 5.1 and 4.2. That’s 0.75, 0.63 and 0.52 average damage per mana cost. Ice Shards deal the same average damage against 3 targets (that’s the amount of “average targets” listed for usage of this spell in FC), and you should have access to it, but it splits the damage, so you cannot kill those units one after one like with Ice Shards.

They have 17, 18 and 20 HP respectively, so you can easily calculate the needed amount of castings. That’s 2.8(3) (periodic decimal), ~3.53 and ~4.76. Against more than one unit? Screwed, out of mana.


If you are against multiple Drakes/Galleys, Winds of Fury could give better results (I am not completely sure how this spell functions), but I assume that then you are in a huge trouble anyway. 4 castings of this spell shouldn’t kill any of those units (on average), and you can't afford more.

After all, you should be pretty short on mana in your situation.

Any other spell is just downright worse. Now, with Marksmanship IV Poison Darts deal 3.9/3.3/2.7 points of damage. That’s not a lot, but still more reliable than magic. A lot more reliable.

In any case, if you are against a stack of Ice Drakes, you are screwed: their average damage is 1.9.

So, actually, your best spells are Haste and Wind Walking. Run. If you manage to get many levels, you need HP and Resistance very much.

TS