Dark Elves, Day 90

AAAAaaaarghhhhh!!!!

I didn't see the Air Galley coming, and I have Vision IV. Was it hidden in the cave, or enchanted with Concealment?

Also, good game and well played. I found this game interesting, certainly showed me various things I can learn to do more wisely.

High Men, Day 91

Well. I didn't expect the Frostling leader to teleport home just as soon as I declared war. He must have been sitting on that spell for a long time, perhaps almost since he started touring the land himself.

He assassinated a dozen or so archers, and he hit a few other structures with units around the map, but he was unaware of the 3 stacks of archers lurking on his other side. Some fierce fighting later, and it is done. The High Men reign supreme.

TS

You should know I didn't have Concealment; I didn't have Earth magic, and I only saw two wizard towers on the whole map (Freeze Water and Bird's Eye).

I brought the Air Galley (and a gold dragon and several spare archers) over with a Town Portal. My last six levels were spent buying Vision 1-4 (for vision, to be sure of my leader's safety), then Spell Casting 2 and 3 (Town Portal, and whatever else might seem relevant). I sent my leader specifically to hunt undead units for experience.

I started upgrading that size 4 human town around 20 turns ago, figuring an Air Galley would end all of you melee-only leaders with minimal fuss. I had to cancel the first upgrade when you suddenly got in range to take the city, and I left two full stacks of archers in it full time once I took it back. I was concerned you might eventually take archery or poison darts and endanger the plan, but you didn't.

I started a Gold Dragon as an extra option against Jyri, but it wasn't needed (and he had an Ice Dragon with his leader the whole time); your leader had Holy Immune from that armor, so you'd have torn the Gold Dragon apart.

Edit 1: End Screen pictures.

Edit 2: Adding the last one. Turns out "Winning" was VERY strongly correlated with "Armies", which is mildly interesting.

If I were the Frostling player, I would team up with the Dark Elves to fight you.

We did have some gold-for-mana exchanges; but I didn't want to make peace or alliance with the Frostlings, as I judged this would only prompt the Highmen to fight them sooner. Plus, as late as turn 74 or so (?) I attempted, and nearly succeded, to defeat the Frostlings and keep their city for themselves.

This ended faster than I thought it would. I had the town gate ready as I hoped to catch a glimpse of your leader with one of my scouting dragons, capture something nearby and teleport in.

Thanks for the game, everyone!

So, basically what I did to Southern, but without the Air Galley to murder with impunity. :)

I was actually sure that you aren't going to finish it until New Year.

We finished it in only about 10 months! Go us!

Definitely a great read. I was bummed that I got knocked out so early. It just goes to show how one wrong click can ruin you. I bought a 4 hex human city near the center that was well positioned to dominate that section of the map. I accidently moved the whole stack out and left it undefended when the Dark Elves took it. I knew if I didn't get it back I would suffer a slow death between the Dark Elves, Elves, Halflings, and Undead that I was at war with. I gambled everything to reclaim it and lost.

I DID offer peace with you, I think? But a Peace can be broken and it probably made you think I didn't feel ready to defend it. Anyhow taking that city was a fine case of opportunism. And Azrac elephantism...

Hope to play with you again, it was a nice epic PBEM. Still feeling regrets for mistakes made weeks and months past....

The interesting way this match developed showed - at least in my eyes - the superiority of this game to its successors. In AoW2 the ''strong fast enemy superhero with concealment'' can't develop because Wizards aren't heroes. In AoW3, haven't played it much but I think heroes can't grow half so strong. In AoW2 flyers have a limit on their ranged attacks per battle, and in AOW3 they sit on the ground when it's not their turn (PATHETIC!!!) ! AoW2 doesn't have the Town Portal spell, only Recall Hero, and AoW3's equivalent spell can only bring armies back to the throne city. Yet another case of the sequels simply not having mechanics.

Many people think (at least according to the pile of guides I have read) that it's actually bad that such superheroes are even possible, as the whole games are often about developing such a leader and destroying the enemy one. Do you disagree?

Same goes about ranged flyers and town portals, many people hate them.

I am personally not against ranged flyers, and heroes should probably be a lot stronger than regular units, but maybe just not THAT stronger.

In my view if a mechanic is too powerful then the best way of dealing with it is introducing a new countervailing mechanic (such as the OP hero being defeated by Air Galley+Town Portal in this case), the next best way is to nerf it indirectly (such as making Air Galleys more expensive, but still able to kill an infinite number of land melee enemies), the next best way is to nerf it directly (such as limiting their shots per battle), and the worst way is to remove it.

This game made me think that heroes aren't really that strong after all; but on the other hand, I think we are all not the most experienced players and we all could've levelled up our heroes twice as fast if we were better at the game - judging by comments I read on the old forums. Especially if we started with Priests or other healing.

I suppose Town Portal could be obnoxious to play against - but I think it's just really cool to use. Maybe i won't reduce its casting cost in my mod after all.....

As for ranged flyers - The solution is for melee walkers to be stronger in their niche, which is fighting things that aren't ranged and flyers. That way you get more of a lively rock-paper-scissors instead of flattening everything.

I love games where the outcomes can vary wildly based on certain conditions, and swing from you're doing fine to you get completely destroyed based on only one or two things - for example, the way I was uncatchable (barring that foolish moment of going through caves) until Town Portal+ranged flyer, but once that battle versus the Air Galley started, I was completely helpless toast. I think those wild variations in outcome are the best thing is strategy games.

A bit late to the party but that was certainly interesting to see the highmen taking this one down. The Dark Elves had double the winning chance and armies of anyone. I guess the dark elves and orcs waging war amongst each other gave the highmen a lot of time to expand, upgrade and make good troops. But hey I am happy the good guys won. :D

If by "make good troops", you mean "make lots and lots of archers, with a single city producing Titans as meatshields", then yes!

The Dark Elves focused heavily on their war with the much more dangerous (at the time) Orcs and Frostlings in the East, allowing me time to expand through Dark Elf lands in the West. Also, I managed to jump several Dark Elf armies that were in the area, wiping them out in pretty one-sided battles, which eliminated a lot of the opposition in the area. I suspect the 30 move that High Man archers have played a much larger role in my victory than even I realize, and I was counting hexes a LOT.

Around turns 60 and 61 was the real turning point, when Southern lost over 100 guys in battles with me and the Frostlings. It didn't feel like it at the time though; I was imagining his empire sprawled through what turned out to be Undead and (former) Azrac lands.

I never did find an Elf city.

Edit: Oh, did I mention how I spent 6 or 7 turns casting Resurrect Hero, finally resurrecting a hero of the Human race, and then him being unwilling to join me in spite of good race relations? I decided I couldn't let the indy hero wander around, so I attacked, and the SOB very nearly killed my leader. I didn't even get any experience for the kill. -.-