Faeruntest (Atlantis)
I suppose the game is pretty much over now. It will shortly move to the wrapup phase. With everybody but Man and I now on the side of C’tis, and he having both the Nexus and Strands, there is no way to stop him anymore.
Of course, it is a well deserved victory indeed. My hat is off to both Hozurdaddi and Soapyfrog on the superb handling of the lizards in such a huge map.
This has been a very fun game, other than the sheer length of time it takes to make just one move!
As for the balance changes, nerfing clams is the single best thing that was done. C’tis is winning through expansion, not hoarding. Just as it should be. The way it was meant to be. I have around 110-120 provinces now but I am in a distant second place to the lizards.
There was an earlier discussion about the excessive mod on the growth. While it definitely seems high at 0.5% per level (I am now over 15K gold income per turn), what it did was make troops worthwhile, even on turn 100! The downside was it allowed mad castling with ease. Every province I took, I put in a castle, lab, and temple without a moments consideration. Even if I temporarily lost the province and had to start the castle over again, it was inconsequential as to the cost. I am building 100-200 shamblers per turn, just to spend my gold!!! Who would have thunk it?
The downside of the growth scale was that it severly punished anybody who took a death scale (like Ermor), as they did not get the advantage of the near infinite gold income in the late game.
I also liked the life drain weapon nerfing. SCs were built all over the place, and lost all over the place. Even when you spent the huge gems to get life drain on the AQ, she still died and died and died again. C’tis has lost at least 10 fully outfitted tartarian commanders. That was a refreshing development. I have all the water queens, 1 air queen (unless I lost her and missed it), maybe 5 of the ice devils and perhaps 3 of the arch devils. But they are by no means so powerful that they will decide the game. Quite the contrary…
One thing we probably should have done was put in something like 10-20% magic sites. My gem income has now passed 400 per turn and C’tis is surely higher. On a map this large, there is FAR too much gem income. It is similar to clam hoarding on a smaller map, with magic and artillery spells dominating pretty much every encounter.
One thing is certain - Ghost Riders needs to be nerfed in the worst way! With my 30% conjuration site, I can cast 10 GRs at any time I want for a measly 30 death gems. That is much too cheap.
All in all, this has been a very interesting, if lengthy game. But Faerun is simply too large a map to play more than once. For me anyway…
