I just completed an 11-person game that ran for a few months. I kept good notes and will post an update, year by year, over the next few days. I didn’t want to post while the game was running because my enemies are constantly watching me! ;-)
The set-up was 11 nations, randomly drawn from nations that we did not often play. Middle Ages, average map settings, cataclysm on turn 75. 11 L1 thrones + 11 L2 thrones = 33 throne points on the map. Ascension was set to 33% so 11 throne points would win the game. We kept to in-game diplomacy only, so messages to other nations could only be sent via the game itself.
The nations we selected were:
The Good Nations, Modern and Just:
Caelum: “A Mageocracy of Winged Humanoids who Inhabit the Highest Mountain Peaks” with a love of Air.
Eriu: “A Nation of Humans and Fir Bolg Lead by the Awakened Sidhe” with a love of Air.
Man: “A Feudal Kingdom of Knightly Humans, Cousins to Eriu” with a love of Nature.
The Neutral Nations, Ancient and Wise:
Bandar Log: “Apes of Uncanny Brightness from the Forests” with a love of Astral
Uruk: “A Warm plain inhabited by large hairy wild men with horns and unkempt hair” with a love of Astral
The Dusk Nations, Deep and Grey:
Agartha: “Strange One-Eyed Humanoids from Dark Caverns” with a love of Earth.
Machaka: “Priests Rule a Jungle Kingdom with Spiders and Witch Doctors” with a love of Earth and Nature
Xibalba: “A vast realm of Dark, Watered-Filled Caverns Under a Jungle” with a love of Water.
The Evil Nations, Black and Twisted:
Nazca: “A Mountain Necrocracy of Winged Mummified Humanoids” with a love of all paths
Sceleria: “A Splinter Nation of the Undead Empire, where the Dead serve the Living” with a love of Death
Shinuyama: “Strange Dark Beasts and Armored Swordsmen who form a Tribal Society in Caves” with a love of Death
I received Sceleria randomly. Its a pretty good nation, and it would be my first time playing as undead. No matter what nation I received, I wanted to try a super-combatant (SC) pretender because I had never tried one and because one was used so effectively in the last big game I played (I still have nightmares about “Two Shieldz” the Ettin). Sceleria gets reduced cost on Prince of Death, which is a reasonable SC chassis with flying, fear, undead package and leadership.
I discovered the Scalerian Vestals were awesome, with ethereal and good base speed. I increased Death slightly to get the Invulnerability bless (damage reduction of 10 versus normal weapons) which helped both the pretender’s durability and also the Vestals. I debated the second path quite a bit and decided on Earth for the decreased afflictions blessing. In practice sessions the more Vestals I kept from fight to fight the more powerful the nation became, and afflictions are an issue with undead leaders because of no healing.
I added some negative scales like cold and sloth because gold and production are needed less by undead. I increased Dominion to 8 (from 3) to increase the number of capital-only Vestals I could recruit per turn. 8 dominion * 24 months = 192 Vestals vs 6 dominion * 24 month = 144 vestals, a difference of almost 50 after two years. 50 Vestals hit very hard!
The pre-game strategy was to keep the SC Prince of Death and the initial Vestals together to take provinces one by one, and add a powerful Prophet with H4 for the super undead blessing and the remaining Vestals after a few rounds. This would mean low research, no site searching and little other recruitment in the beginning. Mid-game strategy was to kit the SC Prince with defensive and combat items, and to maybe head to Conjuring 6 for Bane Lords. Overall, keeping with strong SC and Thug commanders leading blessed, ethereal, resistant troops.
Here is what my pretender looked like.
Next post … the first year.