Lich King of The Dwarves, Day 29

We are thwarted from a mana node due to having no means of passing over a hex of water.

TS

Humans, Day 29

Mwahaha! an enterprising Azrac hero in our service has, after many days travelling north in secret, struck against some of the orc's most northerly holdings, taking a town by surprise! A taste of the bird-summoner's own medicine!

Lizards, day 29

Backstabbing being as normal as it is in these cursed lands the betrayal of the dwarves doesn't even raise a frog's eye, and that's something. On the other forelimb, the orcs whining and crying that their birds lose against us - without buffs and forfeiting initiative - is surprise comedy.
We enjoy the good news of our human friends dealing to the orcs some of their own medicine while we try to keep up with the no flight zone. But for each killed bird we see two more! How many mana nodes have the orcs conquered to be able to hatch that many?!

Lich King of the Dwarves, Day 30

An acursed bird flies no more. Now to find more birds to revenge against

TS

Lizards 30

Reading a report that the orc leader captured a dilapidated doom pillar I send a swordsman to recapture it and... Surprise! Lo and behold, there is the orc, all alone, hiding behind a blade of grass. He kills our swordsman but then I and the rest of my recently dominated army walk the woods until we find him and kindly help him finding the road again.

You haven't watched very closely :) only 1 unbuffed attack, all the others had at least bless or magic weapon and sometimes both. I don't think you got it right with the attacks, I think it's more nuanced and haste has a role but I am not sure.

Fully agreed, and in this map, and similar resource scarce maps, haste and flight make a tremendous difference. I've visited I think 2 dungeons and 6-7 ruins and you seem to have visited a lot too Book. I just saw the human leader and the difference is enormous, ~10 levels, and next turn I can start summoning heroes to distribute all the items I've gathered... Basically it was a fight between the 2 air players, who are simply on another level because of items multiplied by air magic. And it was decided by items: entangle strike and dominate are both preposterous, and together they make it quite easy. Otherwise, it looks like the orcs have a small advantage due to starting positions - the caves can't be exploited by birds and the north seems to have relatively many nodes.

Thereunto do you still "prefer earth spheres"? I don't see how it can come anywhere close.

BTW - some items that don't work are still around: I've found a spellcasting scepter that can only be used in automatic fights, not in tactical or on the overland map.

So, am I dead yet? I figured it was a decent possibility, but I might win the fighting and it was worth the risk after seeing your massive number of units and that your leader had a Dominate item.

Unless you've been buffing just before attacking me, I beg to differ! I've actually been checking your birds every time I see them, and few of them have had buffs when I've ended my turn.

I don't think haste plays a role in the fighting itself since they just peck away until one of them dies.

So I am dead then. That's almost certainly game, adding my awesome stuff to his awesome stuff.

I'd say the Orcs definitely don't have an advantageous starting position. My fighting stacks have crawling agonizingly slowly. Birds sniped some structures, but most of those were effectively non-gains since enemy players had to clear them before I could snipe. I'm strung out all along the north of the map, but it is several turns between fights and nothing would join me.

My appearance of having a lot of mana was because I was spending it all on casting instead of research. Chain Lightning was amazing for farming XP for my leader, but required lots of mana to use alongside the spiders and birds.

Air is good. Lots of utility. Solid magic choice.

In a game of level V spellcasters, the balancing point of eagle+haste is if you allow freemovement dragon-ships in the game. FM transports are easy prey over water and mountains, FM warships are scary networking machines that steamroll the landscape. An eagle caster might be more cautious if they had to worry about FM warships.

Earth magic works great for entangle+dominate, stoneskin to early 10 def, inexpensive boars, inexpensive mountaineering, probably the best tracking spell (FM enemy leader @ 4 mana / turn & well-timed removal poses a risk to them).

I prefer earth, but the amount of easy-grab objectives on the map (purchasable cities, unguarded locations) can make it so that air is unquestionably the better choice.

Yes Book, I've attacked unbuffed exactly once.
You don't know what agonising means until you've played the first ten turns of the lizards in the deep, trust me...
Thé game is decided by items, which are found by the leader in the first 10/20 turns. How do fm warships help with that? You need to build them. They're for turns behind your leader.
Can you cast spells on the enemy leader without seeing them?

FM warships almost completely dominates eagles because warships can actually fight, and they can carry a payload of extra fighters to help, like a ram or two for walls. :-/

The map was definitely balanced differently per player. Except for my first city and watch tower, the only unguarded things I could find were underground towers and shipyards, and sites one of you people had already cleared. My first and only purchase was a dark elven city that was on the other side of the map and in the bottom layer of the map!

Then your spellcasters must have nearly always been nearby. That sounds nice.

I suspect I know agonizing better than you might think. :)

Everything was guarded. Everywhere was covered in forests. Everything had walls. Everything had to be conquered. Everything was 2-3 turns apart. x.x

No.

...And that is why the fight was between 2 air wizards? Where are these FM ships you speak of?
OK, FM warships also have a use. So it's air>>>>>>>>>earth>others.

It sounds more like I've not sent the birds all alone at max speed. Of course that meant you razed some structures, but also that you entered enemy sight range unaware and left me initiative and planning time. Buffs have 12 squares radius... For the very first bird casualty in the SW corner for example I lost 2 turns of the leader as I had to go back and buff it before it went against yours. Couldn't do it on the same turn as I spotted it, so I put those 2 archers around the mine on purpose to prevent you from razing my mine then you moved in range.

Yes, but now think that, PLUS being railroaded by tunnels. Don't believe me? Happy to try swapping roles... But I'd really rather suggest Southern to drop air spheres from this map, they multiply with his items just too well. Maybe leave some air wizard towers in some difficult to access neutral area (as in ensured to not be reached in 25 turns)

10 def is key to snowballing experience. Stone skin is great for defence, and entangle helps secure experience. Fewer items needed to get 10 def when you have earth magic.

I'm interested to see how the game plays out with all of these super powered items.

Yeah def 10 is nice, but it's not so essential... I've even started pumping speed before reaching it and that seems to be working out rather well. But even if you want def 10, haste lets you level faster so it has the same effect as a direct stat buff but what's more important, it keeps you levelling faster after you reach that, surpassing the effect of stone skin very quickly. Moreover that experience comes from cities, mines nodes etc, which you get quicker too as well as the map info of their sight radius...

Oh well, if you prefer to test it out then sure, I'm all for the scientific method. Let's base our balance theorycrafting on facts :)

House rules forbid FM on warships, so you're not going to see them. I would very likely not be defeated yet if they were allowed because my leader would be busy actually fighting the dwarves instead of over on the right side of the map where we finally clashed.

My birds were actively scouting, so yeah, they were mostly reaching as far as they could to uncover more of the map in all directions. They served to hamstring Southern pretty well; I burned close to half a dozen gold sources and got an earth node, so he has lacking some 60 gold and 25-30 mana per turn for the cost of two or three birds.

Doesn't help that my spells are all offense, so they aren't suited for light weight scouts. Dark Gift and Enchanted Weapon aren't a big help for a solo flimsy melee unit, and I had no way of healing. Two archers were sufficient to keep my bird off anything, and adding my buffs would just make it a more expensive victim for two archers.

Out of curiosity, what did you have your birds doing?

*shrug* If the map is available for download, we can each take a look and compare notes.

http://aow.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=1216