How many archers should they have before getting started? I put all three casters together and sent them off, summoning spiders to supplement the stack as they trudged along. Archers won't block the bad guys from rushing the vulnerable casters and murdering them, and only two or three simply don't have the power to bring down a Yeti, or a Shadow, or several orc melee, or goblin cavalry, or dwarven cavalry, or (heaven forbid!) a warlord backed by siege and two priests. Any casualties, which will be occurring in all three directions, can't catch up unless forward progression stops.

I put together archers and orc cav from starting cities, along with a ram or two, and sent them off in a different direction from my leader stack.

I admit, maybe I misran my side. I was thinking guards wouldn't come out from behind the walls unless I had a way to break them, but a quick test indicates they did charge out if I had a spell caster in range.

I've ended the 10 DEF hero metagame by introducing its natural counter: 10 ATK, 10 DAM. I am a genius. (I assume that's why 10 def was worthless?)

I was ended by a bunch of dark elf archers and dark elf cav (T2, btw, not even the Executioners). Every other dude seemed to get a hit in. I doubt any of his stack had attack higher than 5, maybe 6 attack. Granted, I think I might have only been Def 9, but I am not a lucker. His incarnate never got the chance to swing.

He didn't even get a first hit entangle on me, which is what I was expecting happened (against my resist 10).

BTW, the rest of you are booped right and proper, because he'll be able to dominate my other two Spellcasting 5 heroes. Good luck! XD

Lizards 31

As I prepare for the inevitable dwarves-humans alliance I strengthen my position trying to get rid of the last few humans stranded behind enemy line. The dark elf cities are now almost all in my control. I control more or less half the map, and the orc spellcasters have already joined forces. Amusingly I haven't yet looked at the orc leader's treasure pile... I even take control of a highman priest with the dominated More pressing matters to attend to! In the meanwhile I start encroaching the dwarven positions to check the limits of their domains...

I wouldn't say worthless, just don't leave the leader all alone hidden in the patch of wood right next to the thing he's just captured :D

Bookwyrm, yes that's how I've used the spellcasters, it doesn't work against war machines though usually as the range is the same. Unless you play with cover but that's quite risky, I often mistake cover and a single war machine shot can kill the squishy casters, I've had a lucky miss then stopped doing that... Needless to say, air magic has chain lightning too which is fantastic against stuff like warlords or in general at the start of the game!

Lich King of the Dwarves

Nothing will break our stronghold! Now... to take care of that bird-loving lizard

TS

I received the humans' turn and forwarded it, after opening it and leaving immediately - hopefully that's not a restart.
I hit the esc key but got in the turn anyway ;-/

Heh, so my mod shifted elephants into needing installation? good.

I was counting on my defense holding your pawns off long enough that I'd kill your leader before you could kill me, at which point the rest of your guys would disengage, but I forgot to check the move of Indy units that could be dominated and then sent into battle. I anticipated the archer/priest stack moving in, and I knew the archers would be getting free swings, but the priests would have to melee (and should have died within the two swings they'd exchange with my leader).

Cover is indeed pretty goofy. Sometimes it works great, and sometimes I end up with a dead archer behind what looked like good cover. Chain Lightning IS great, but I needed multiple shots of it to reliably stun and/or kill the enemy stacks, and I was already struggling to have enough mana to cast it when all my casters were hitting the same groups of enemies; I seriously doubt my casters would have all survived if I'd split them up, considering my battles with them together. CL has a fairly low attack value of 6 compared to a lot of other spells.

Lizards 32

As the human leader captures a city solo, I home in on his position with a town portal.

I have 2 big beetles with... Physical protection?! O_O

The previous turn after wrong email gave me a restart: killing the process bad? Or is it always like that?

Artifact of Southern's mod. I charmed them from gold mine guard duty.

Day 33, Jerak of the Humans.
Oh bugger.... the Lizardman leader REALLY has been getting up to stuff! Level 17, and this turn I saw him dominate a Warlord and two orc cavalry.

Duke Jerak tries to run for a town of ours, to which we portal to meet half way - open arms and all that. We have tea in the desert, following tradition, together. Then at sundown a final duel with only what retinue we had at the moment to aid us.

The fat lizard shuts the translator down and speaks: Yessss, he wasss alone... What did you exsssspect from cold blooded reptilessss?

Now to find where the dwarves are hiding and wrap this up... But in the meanwhile let's have fun and summon some heroes! I have a bajilion artefacts to use.

The orc leader even had a level more than I did when we met. I hope you see why I said that it was lizards vs orcs from the beginning, good luck balancing that kind of progression with an expensive boats you have to wait and a level 2 buff you have to research. Making air accessible to all at the same time makes it doable. (If it's through digging ensure that no one starts with a digger!)

IIRC, no leader on this map has Fire magic. I actually left it out deliberately because it's weak and put fire magic in Wizards' Towers. If I do it to Air too, then which is the next sphere that's unacceptably strong or weak? FM warships are just a little thing, the main adjustment will be the less OP item list, the halved number of items, and the increase in gold and map accessibility, making conventional armies more relevant.

Additionally, this is an asymmetrical map from the start, so there's nothing stopping me from being disproportionately generous, in the coming edit, with non-Air starts.

Humans, Day 34

Oh Cripes! *urk*

I am deadzo.

I'm pretty sure you've got that backward. I remember noting you had managed to get a level up on me, being 15 to my 14 (and you were going to level on your next turn, which is when we'd have fought).