Dark Elves, Day 57

We hold most of the former Dwarven dominion, but sending our Dragons into this corner of the map is maybe not ideal even if they were good at chewing through siege engines. The chap who ran the chess club at school used to say 'A knight on the rim is dim!'

Playing against Mimo is sometimes like one of those nightmares where one can only move as if submerged in treacle.

Orcs, Day 58

Perhaps the penultimate day in the lives, perhaps not. We shall see, we shall see.

TS

Dark Elves, Day of Siege

We made a sally. Given that only 3 stacks of troops can act as an indivisible defensive force, while they can be assaulted by 4, perhaps even the losses of the sally were not too unacceptable. We had some reserves to bring the garrison back up to nearly 24.

Orcs, Day 59

The siege is over, the battle is won. We took the Dark Elves Lord Wizard away in chains for his transgressions. He will rot in an Orc dungeon with the Dwarven Lord Wizard and the Halfling Lord Wizard.

Perhaps with a little chianti and fava beans, we shall dine well after a few nights of tenderizing.

Game Over

AAR: Wow, what a crazy ass map. Very well balanced, but only Vitek figured out that the surface is nothing but a distraction. ;-)

Well done!

Clearly I wan't paranoid enough about the underworld. I should have scrambled to reinforce it the moment you came towards me there - or even before.

Takeaway lesson from this game for me - Abominations are good units, and against flying enemies, they are excellent. Against Doom Bats they are superb. I made loads of Abominations and still didn't have enough.

I am not sure what to make of Incarnates.

Also, damned Air Galleys!

I truly appreciated that the three of you (Catermune, Vitek, and Southern) agreed to fight me in sequence. Given the map parameters, there is no way I could take on more than one enemy at a time.

I was hoping to assault all three of you in the underground with zero interference from the topside. I got my portal working on the surface and sent extra units underground to bolster my forces down there. Unfortunately, Vitek sent his best units down the stairs in the middle of the map and they were too much for me.

By the time Southern declared war on me, the entire surface was irrelevant. The only way to save yourself Southern would have been to attack the stairs in the middle of the map. Your Dragon stack was stronger than my forces at the base of the stairs for sure. Especially when you still had heroes with weapons. I was just killing time and trying to keep your Dragons occupied on the surface...

I have a feeling I will have a much tougher time of it in Rise of Kings.

For some reason, I get assigned evil Wizards all the time and get to play Orcs quite frequently. The abominations are damn useful. Concealment, Forestry, Swimming, Entangle, and Venomous Spit are all great abilities and let them remain useful units even when the age of the game has everyone using Level 3 and 4 units. On this map, they sure made short work of my airborne units.

I've always struggled using Incarnates. Especially in fast combat when I have no control over whom they potentially possess.

Air Galleys are probably the single best complementary unit in the whole game. No matter the race you're playing, you are always stronger with a Human city pimped up to the point where it can make Air Galleys to take your fighting units over rivers and mountain ranges. Plus, they pack a solid javelin punch when attacked.