I shall have to give him a companion.... or two... with Bard's Skills. It does stack right?
I was tempted to give you a Dark Elf heroine as companion, but I think you're getting a bunch of charlatans.

Doesn't work out. The Undead player is very likely to just migrate human towns to something NOT Human; Humans aren't worth the trouble of maintaining a good relationship. The only reason I put in the effort to drag my Azrac relations out of the gutter was for access to elephants, and I strongly considered sacrificing those.

The two human charlatans in my dungeon were Unruly if I didn't stack them with a bunch of units friendly to me. I imagine the Mimo hero is going to be similarly fractious, but even worse because he is so powerful; I'm not entirely sure my leader could keep him in line.

Edit: Alternative to making him easily usable by anyone would be making him equally unfriendly to every one. However, I'm not sure how you'd accomplish this, either.

I just tested and multiple instances of Bard's Skill do stack, for the same, uh, stack of units. Mimo is getting 7. They'll stay with you unless you somehow manage to raze 20 human cities at the same time while also not paying their wages.... I THINK that'd piss them off enough.

You probably know this, but elephants aren't loyal to the Azracs, they will serve anyone just fine (unlike air galleys for the purposes of refugee status.... grr). So keeping up your Azrac relationship merely saved you from having to keep a garrison in the elephant-producing cities.

Eh, I guess that works. The Undead player still can't let Mimo wander around by himself. The Undead also can't have Mimo teleport random groups of dudes around, but I guess a strong stack would keep Mimo in line while he acts as a transport.

Edit: If you make Mimo a Frostling, is he hostile to everyone? I might be pulling from a SM memory, but I seem to recall a game where a race wasn't "on the map", and it hated me even though normally my alignment and its would mix.

I have better things for my units to do than sit around in a city to keep it sane, especially for multiple cities. It also lets me recruit Azrac towns with gold.

Undead (and Dark Elves) have a number of key advantages on the map, one option is to consider having it as a handicap for the race with the understanding that Undead will have to get incarnates to allow Mimo to move independently (if you wanted to let him move independently).

Something really needs to be done about the lopsided early access to the surface (pic attached) and the lack of Naval capability for Highmen. All it would take is a losing 1v1 match between galleons at the beginning of the game and the highmen would be sitting ducks.

Undead, Day 31

We take down more indies as our forces begin to consolidate and boat production picks up a notch.

TS

Now that the Elves have Water primary instead of Earth, I'm really not sure which races have the biggest advantage. Everyone excels in certain areas and loses out in others.

I'd maybe give top billing to the Dark Elves, having Air primary and able to work with most races; they don't really lose anything by missing out on Elves and Dwarves, and the lack of High Men true sight can be worked around. If they have the mana, then they have the best movement options.

High Men spell casting yields some of the strongest end game summons, and they have a lot of True Sight available on a map which uses a massive amount of concealment. They have more trouble dealing with water than some of the others, but they handle the lava much better than most. They also have the High Men movement advantage once they get off the bottom layer, and good race relations with the Humans.

Elven Water gives them a lot of mobility on the copious amounts of water on this map, especially on the lower level. Having Life and Earth gives them a scary number of defensive buffs. They don't have Free Movement, and they probably have the most problem dealing with the lava.

Azracs probably have the weakest magic combination, and they are definitely the weakest defensively since both their units and their magic are offense oriented. They have, by far, the best race relations, and they have no trouble dealing with the lava. They have elephants and can access the power units from nearly every race. They do have trouble dealing with water, though.

Undead have issues dealing with water as well; let me assure you, I've been having problems with this water too. The lava is effectively impassable unless I get a Gold Medal Hell Hound. Undead can Free Movement transports (if allowed; not every group of players will allow FM on boats), but they otherwise have a lot of trouble dealing with water. Race relations also work against them. The Undead have to do the most conquering of any race in order to make progress. I put in a bunch of gold and time trying to placate the Azracs; I could have done something similar with Humans if I knew it was worthwhile, but trying to make both races happy would be very, very difficult. Undead do have regeneration going for them, and Doom Priests can be good mixed with Druids, but I haven't been able to set up that combination this game after Southern tweaked the indy stacks in the middle.

I suspect most people haven't reached the middle because they have prioritized finishing up in their home area first. I made a point of sending a small force to the middle early to start claiming the resources there, while another force slowly made headway at home. We're 30 turns in to the game and I still have a bunch of unclaimed and razed sites in my home area. It took a dozen turns or more before I claimed some of the unrazed undead cities in my home area.

The High Men have one of the more defensible tunnels to their area. The Dark Elves are another one. The Undead and Elves both basically have a single doorway that spreads out into their living room, but the Dark Elves and High Men have a tunnel that takes a turn or more to traverse before you get anywhere (exceptions for breaking down the dirt, of course).

I'd be curious to see what your pic shows.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lg7uaunx58d7cap/Xelm_II%20Lowest%20%28notations%29.png?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zpgaxf1h80ezt1x/Xelm_II%20Mid%20Level%20%28notes%29.png?dl=0

TS

Ah, I see what you mean about surface access. I didn't pick up on that because I've controlled the left half of the middle in both games. Move the two blocking shipyards slightly and cut a one hex opening in the dirt wall near the diplomacy city, and that seems like it is more or less solved.

Oh! You're using screenshots from a different iteration than we're currently playing. I'm assuming this is a newly updated/posted version, with the nodes at the edge like that.

The amount of love that Southern has for druids might be Too Damn High.

TS

Thanks, next time I edit the map I shall have to refer to these screenshots.

Undead, Day 32

That is really irritating.

Also irritating is that Resurrect Hero and Animate Hero are both useless spells.

TS

Needs a harem of ladies of pain.

TS

Ya rly. Shame all mine are scattered all over the map. :-/

Undead, Day 33

Trying to stay ahead of the moles is hard work.

TS

TS