Oh my gosh, is THAT good news! :D
Shhhh! Caelum’s the Bad Guy, remember?! :roll:
Seriously though, I do have some “decent” armies but if you look at what’s in them it’s not all that impressive. Certainly not as nasty as some of the others I’ve seen with massed Tartarians, Doom Horrors, Lords from Hell, Ice Devils, Pazuzu (well, until I put on the charm), Air Queens, yada yada yada. None of which I’ve ever had until this turn… :P
I also wouldn’t be suprised if I had fewer provinces then 3 or 4 of the final 5(6?) players.
Yeah I’ll agree with that. They always seemed a little weak to me. Decent troops, especially with a good bless, but their mages are so crazy expensive.
jeffr
2664
I’d be up for the new game. No diplomacy can only help me as I’m no good at it.
As far as Pangaea goes, they are the only nation I’ve played in MP so far and I’ve fared poorly. Some initial success followed by being eaten in the mid / late mid game. I’m not going to blame Pangaea for that, though. I haven’t been able to keep pace in terms of magic or item construction. I’ve also not hoarded nor fielded super combatants with the loadouts that have been mentioned here. So, that is just poor play on my part.
But, I like Pangaea and will keep experimenting until I have some success. I like the stealth and the strategic move of 3 their cavalry has.
A lot of people mention the stealth as a positive for Pangaea. I’ve never seen the point of stealth troops at all, so maybe that’s why I don’t like Pangaea.
dfs
2666
Folks I wasn’t trying to suggest that Pangea is strong. I was whining that it keeps knocking me out of the game.
I KNOW I can lose with a strong nation. I’m just tired of getting creamed by Pangea. heh. There’s a difference.
One thing that does make them a terror is the mass protection spell. When used on their masses of fodder it transforms them from a puny irritant to an actual threat.
I also never see the point to stealth. It’s a failing. My lack of understanding in this matter is more than likely associated with my lack of understanding of diplomacy :)
Rollory
2668
As RL has calmed down a lot for me recently, and the only game I’m in that is still going is Feeding Frenzy (in which the only feeding is being done by Mictlan - dunno why the rest of us are even bothering at this point) I’d be up for this no-diplomacy game. I’d like to try Ulm again.
Pangaea is an early game superpower. Centaur warriors can kill an air queen with a luck pendant, wraith sword and jade armour. They are probably the most cost effective troops next to Van. You don’t need to buy many Panii, as they are quite effective at the summoning and forging that they are best at.
Faeruntest (Man) - Score one for the little guy! Managed to kill C’tis’s arch devil this turn. It attacked the province with my researchers in which I’d just moved an army in to defend. Managed to paralyze it early on, but it still killed half my army by exploding each time they killed it, and doing so six times.
faeruntest(marignon) :
this game is no fun. I came for the national armys and low research, and I get fully tricked out scs, mass ghostriders and artillery spells. c´tis air queen(without buffing up and no storm) killed 100 devils/fiends this turn.
My two accompanying arch devils could flee though, but how are you supposed to take one of his forts?
If anyone wants to take over, I´d be happy to let him. my position is not weak, I guess I´m stronger than pythium and atlantis, because they don´t seem to have access to big death and bloodmagic, so that would put me at #2 in the power charts, but compared to c´tis I´m pretty powerless.
jm-rainbow(ermor) : here it´s me who has the air queens, and combined with the darkness spell I had little trouble trashing machakas main army. At least it was a fun big battle.
Yeah, I was under this impression too. What the hell happened?
jm-rainbow(ermor) : here it´s me who has the air queens, and combined with the darkness spell I had little trouble trashing machakas main army. At least it was a fun big battle.[/quote]
Thank god it’s almost over! The Mexican Standoff thing was getting old… I haven’t seen the latest battle but I’m looking forward to it, even if I got destroyed. BTW, I hate Air Queens. No wait, I hate Caelum, Ermor, and Air Queens. So there. :P
Why all the air queen hate? They are nice SC units but I prefer tartarian titans myself. If you factor in the inherent limitation on their numbers I guess I just don’t get that scared by them. Sometimes I summon one or two just to piss off my foes who wanted to summon them but I can’t say I’ve ever seen them be especially devastating.
Well, perfect example, Ermor and I (as Machaka) could have had a huge, fun and interesting battle with his hordes of undead led by his Hall of Fame Wraith Lord studs vs my Machakan priests, witch doctors, and flame shooting archers. It could have been epic as Ermor had at least 1000 troops to my 300 or so. But as soon as you add his 3 air queens to the mix, well, suddenly the battle isn’t very interesting anymore.
Not that I mind when somebody uses whatever they have at thier disposal when it’s available but I still find big, epic battles more fun than the horror show that is 3 air queens when you’re expecting undead hordes. This is supposed to be what FaerunTest is all about but it seems it didn’t quite work out that way…
But Kudos to Turin. He told me he had all 3 of them and was thinking of not using them because he knew I didn’t have a chance but I told him to throw whatever he had at me. He played a good game and he deserves the win. /cheers!
air queens get really high boni in storms and they lack only one equipment slot.
For example in one game I have an airqueen with 34 defence skill, lifedraining, regenerating 13hp per turn, immunity to all elements(well fire 50), 112 hp from heroic ability, 26 mr, quickness and 30 protection.
Combined with mistform,air shield and air 5 mirror image you really can´t hit her in melee combat. The only option would be mass lifedrainers(demiliches) , or petrifyers but those lack mobility. The air queen on the other hand has the best mobility possible with inherent flying and the ability to cloudtrapeze.
Of course tartarians are the best mages possible, but for melee combat nothing beats an airqueen.
Is Machaka utterly smashed in Rainbow? If so, that just leaves me, and I am no match for the air queens.
and they even were pretty badly equipped there, since I am only at construction 4 in that game and the darkness spell was active. But they managed to fly into your ranks and tied up most of the spellcasting of your 30 or so mages.
It was extremely ridicolous that one got blinded, but still managed to gain hp from attacking with her wraithsword.
No, not entirely smashed but I have no way to stop 3 air queens and his regular hordes. I mean, it took everything I had just to keep his undead hordes at bay so now with the AQ’s, well, it’s basically over. :(
I have wonderful research but my gem economy is so poor I won’t be able to field a counter to his AQ’s for a loooong time. I really got the short end of the stick with gem sites in this game. As Machaka, fire gems would be really nice. Well, I’ve searched every province I own with at least a F3 mage but yet I get a mere +2 fire gems per turn. Weeeeeeeee! The same goes for everything else. I think my highest is around +5 per turn and that’s for Nature gems.
Keep in mind that this is a TEST, certainly this game is doing a great job of finding the loopholes. Future versions of the mod will continue to seek the balance we desperately desire.
The problem with the air queen in this case is one of 0-enc + life drain + regen. The Amon Hotep gives the AQ 0-enc base which means it will never fatigue out. Furthermore its high prot and defence make it unlikely to take much if any damage, which in any case is instantly healed by lifedrain + regen.
Of course there are still ways to kill it. But we are pretty much agreed that for the next version:
- life drain weapons will get axed, their abilities replaced with something equally tehmatic but less unbalancing
- All commanders, even undead, will have a small base encumbrence, ensuring that they will fatigue out and die trying to fight large armies
- Certain remote spells will be made more expensive/harder to cast
High on the list of spells that need nerfing (imho, but arguably) are ghost riders and hordes from hell. Ghost riders has counters but they can be difficult for some nations to manage, so probably needs a boost in both cost and difficulty. Hordes from Hell seems ultra-cheap to me, although its suitably difficult to cast (B4).
Anyway hang in there Turin. It would be very difficult for anyone to take over for you at this point… always hard to pick up a nation in the middle of a game AND a major war and actually do WELL.
Awesome battle Mercutio! It was damn fun to watch!
That’s what I get for running an SC around with 18 MR and you took total advantage, well done dude!
It was sad though that he failed his 4th save. I mean JEEZE couldn’t he at least try?
And you cloud trapeze army was awesome as well. I think I swapped out his equipment last turn ( but I’m not sure ) I was lucky to survive.
I have to say I totally underestimated you ( I always do that! I hate myself for it ). Well done!
