Oh man, Barbarians are very possibly the strongest race in the game. So good.
Hopefully I’ll have some time tonight to jump in myself. If I can make another successful sacrifice to the terrible god IKEA I may have enough domestic stability to do so after dinnertime…
I think I’ll call my Jafar/Barbarians game a warm up. This has of course nothing to do with the fact that I didn’t pay attention and all lost my standing forces due to lack of food after Raven recaptured a city I took from him.
Gnolls can be fun, they get the second best bark woof doggos. Klackons are weirdly my least favorite low tech race despite their snip snap doggos. Low growth and lots of unrest, bleh.
Oh dear, I am really rusty in this. And/or need to build more troops.
Raven/Gnolls did not last long. I started close to a neutral Orc village, which was pretty easy to take:
However, I also started close to Tlaloc and Tauron. And those guys are a bunch of assholes, let me tell you:
When war broke out I had built an outpost close to two gold veins and a mithril deposit and was on my way to capture a second neutral Orc village with some some Orc mercenaries and Gunther, the Barbarian. I razed a village Tlaloc had built close to me (Klackons, bleh!), but then I was on the receiving end of a series of hellhound and ghouls and was banished.
Got Jafar/Halflings. I don’t feel up to dealing with Impossible, so this’ll be on Hard, but then again I had the #2 score in the challenge so my ego will survive, heh.
Not an amazing combo necessarily, Sorcery and Halflings, but Jafar is an Alchemist so the books pretty much don’t matter and halflings are probably the second-strongest race behind barbarians, so I should be fine.
As I feared, my first try on impossible with Tlaloc/Gnolls was a dismal failure. Had two AIs on my continent and both had nature, so their capitals were full of sprites and slingers, and the neutral faction was high men. Would have been great if I was playing to enslave the neutrals to feed my war machine, but I’m a xenophobe. Did raze a number of neutrals and starter cities for both of the AIs, but in the end, couldn’t field an army that could take down their capitals in a timely fashion and died horribly.
Second try on hard difficulty is going better. Went for ghouls instead of war bears for this one and am rushing for wolf riders to take down nodes and neutral sites. Will either have to be a fast game or I’ll have to get very lucky with my end game spells to have a chance at winning.
If this one doesn’t go well, will go for halberdier rush with exponential expansion and back off of the summons.
As noted I’m playing on wussy Hard mode, but my halflings amuse me.
We all three Great Wizards started on a single, massive continent here on Arcanus. The land is offensively fertile, river valleys climbing to beautiful forested highlands.
Naturally, it is all part of the Shire.
Our nearest neighbor Tauron, fancy cloak notwithstanding, left us (foolishly) alone until sending a crush of Fire Giants to assault the terrible volcano that has lain at the heart of our ancestral homelands lo these many centuries.
This aggression could not stand.
Ignoring their pleas about Fire Giants and their natural fucking ass-stompitude in their native Chaos Nodes, my forces (eventually, reluctantly) removed the unwelcome intrusion. The pissant allies Tauron once counted as friends shrugged with powerful give-no-fuckitude at our righteous declaration of eminent Halfling domain.
Anyway, point is, slingers are ridiculous and the Numpties all let me build way too much infrastructure. At some point I’ll get/summon an actual hero (RIP, Valanna the Useless Bard and Brax the Utterly Pointless Dwarf) and shit will get done.