Posted November 09, 2015
Four Opponents. Medium Land. Medium Magic. Impossible. (Form Check, please)
9 Life Books + Warlord. Horus of the Halflings.
My standard start has been to keep the initial Spearman and Swordsman at home and jump the tax rate to 2.0, then cast Guardian Spirit and Endurance to explore. I have seen other videos where they use the initial troops and a Magic Spirit to explore, but I think it works out the same. The bottom line is the sooner you know what kind if island you are on, the better.
It turns out I was on a huge continent with Raven and Jafar, both of the High Men. Orcs and Barbarians also inhabited the Continent. In fact, there was a 6 Pop Orc settlement with Gems and Crysx and Mithril just four squares away. (I would have discovered this much sooner if I sent troops out in all directions.)
I built Granary->Marketplace->Farmers' Market->Armory->Slingers. For magic, I started by building Mana to cast Guardian Spirit and Endurance, then Research Bless and Star Fires, (the cheapest) then back to Mana to cast Just Cause when the Gold Reserves were over 100.
I took all the heroes that came along, thinking they will eventually become useful. The first ones I got were Gunther the Barbarian, the Beastmaster, and B'Shan the Dervish. They went out with a stack of 4 Slingers to go get some Experience.
Raven and Jafar were more than happy to supply the said Experience points They liked to send stacks of Spearmen and Swordsmen towards my cities. It was great training for the Slingers, but eventually they were able to wipe out anything with 8 hit points (new stack of Slingers) with a single Psionic Blast. Just how much Mana were they dumping into that thing?
It got frustrating, so I sent my big stack after Jafar and Banished him in a big fight that cost us Gunther the Barbarian. We will either resurrect him or replace him later. That made it easier to grab all his cities, since he was not around to cast bit Psionic Blasts or Counter Magic. Meanwhile, we had lots of gold so we built like crazy. Raven was defeated soon after. So early in the game, he just did not have much of a response against Ultra-Elite Halfling Slingers.
So the game is currently at Turn 155, or December, 1412 and it looks like we will soon have control over a big continent and have defeated two of four opponents. Oberic tops the power charts, so he is likely to be all alone on another big continent that I have not explored yet. Sss'ra is all alone on Arcanus and we will be visiting as soon as we secure control over this Continent. That Orc City is one turn away from producing its first Mithril Wyvern Riders.
It is looking good, but the lessons so far:
1. Try to explore faster. Getting two years into the game before finally finding out we are right next to a big Orc city is not good. Think of it as trading money for information.
2. More troops early in the game is a good thing, especially for a Warlord leader.
That's all I can think of so far. I might be able to wrap up the game by this upcoming weekend. Thanks for reading!
9 Life Books + Warlord. Horus of the Halflings.
My standard start has been to keep the initial Spearman and Swordsman at home and jump the tax rate to 2.0, then cast Guardian Spirit and Endurance to explore. I have seen other videos where they use the initial troops and a Magic Spirit to explore, but I think it works out the same. The bottom line is the sooner you know what kind if island you are on, the better.
It turns out I was on a huge continent with Raven and Jafar, both of the High Men. Orcs and Barbarians also inhabited the Continent. In fact, there was a 6 Pop Orc settlement with Gems and Crysx and Mithril just four squares away. (I would have discovered this much sooner if I sent troops out in all directions.)
I built Granary->Marketplace->Farmers' Market->Armory->Slingers. For magic, I started by building Mana to cast Guardian Spirit and Endurance, then Research Bless and Star Fires, (the cheapest) then back to Mana to cast Just Cause when the Gold Reserves were over 100.
I took all the heroes that came along, thinking they will eventually become useful. The first ones I got were Gunther the Barbarian, the Beastmaster, and B'Shan the Dervish. They went out with a stack of 4 Slingers to go get some Experience.
Raven and Jafar were more than happy to supply the said Experience points They liked to send stacks of Spearmen and Swordsmen towards my cities. It was great training for the Slingers, but eventually they were able to wipe out anything with 8 hit points (new stack of Slingers) with a single Psionic Blast. Just how much Mana were they dumping into that thing?
It got frustrating, so I sent my big stack after Jafar and Banished him in a big fight that cost us Gunther the Barbarian. We will either resurrect him or replace him later. That made it easier to grab all his cities, since he was not around to cast bit Psionic Blasts or Counter Magic. Meanwhile, we had lots of gold so we built like crazy. Raven was defeated soon after. So early in the game, he just did not have much of a response against Ultra-Elite Halfling Slingers.
So the game is currently at Turn 155, or December, 1412 and it looks like we will soon have control over a big continent and have defeated two of four opponents. Oberic tops the power charts, so he is likely to be all alone on another big continent that I have not explored yet. Sss'ra is all alone on Arcanus and we will be visiting as soon as we secure control over this Continent. That Orc City is one turn away from producing its first Mithril Wyvern Riders.
It is looking good, but the lessons so far:
1. Try to explore faster. Getting two years into the game before finally finding out we are right next to a big Orc city is not good. Think of it as trading money for information.
2. More troops early in the game is a good thing, especially for a Warlord leader.
That's all I can think of so far. I might be able to wrap up the game by this upcoming weekend. Thanks for reading!