Phobius the Liar, Day 88

I think I will win this map.

Turn sent.

Elves, Day 89

Turn sent.

Sexy Orcs, Day 89

We assault tomorrow. The backups will assault the next day if tomorrow is not successful.

TS

Phobius the Gardener, Day 89

Oh, look at those trees. Aren't they beatiful?

Turn sent.

Elves, Day 90

Turn sent.

Sexy Orcs, Day 90

Sexiness is now spread across the land. North to South, East to West, everyone is beautiful.

Didn't think I'd win that final battle. I'm curious how it went. I had 80 mana to spend, plus whatever points the former Ugly Orc heroes had. My main heroes were still two turns away from joining the assault on the capital.

TS

OOC: Final screenshots are attached.

Edit: Structures and Population are much better measures of winning than the winning screenshot which gives the AI too much credit for their hordes of useless gold and mana.

Well, good game all! Can't say I am happy about it, but the pace was fine (our turn sequence I mean) but the next time, please never ever do a map with no starting city. It is not nice. And no AI, as the extinction of AI leads to supremacy over non-AI, I think.

Phobius the Dead, Last Day of Era of Free People

You can guess what unit won it for you... Apart from bats only one warlord survived and only because everyone was trying to kill those annoying flying bastards.

Turn sent for the last time. Do with it whatever you want. Maybe catermune can try to kill mimo. :-)

This game started month after Epic!!!
We played 90 turns here and Epic is at turn 41 right now.

I don't understand. The big advantage goes to whomever can kill any other player first. That doubles your resources. It doesn't matter if that is an AI or a human player. That is why I was very worried when you and Vitek both killed an AI player and were knocking on the door of a third AI player. Five starting areas would have been too many resources against Catermune and I with only three starting areas under our control.

What I mean is that the distribution of AI starting positions - when set to Emperor - can really tilt the balance of the game. You swamped the Undead early on, I managed to kill the Draconians and Vitek the Demons. I do not agree with you that it does not matter if it is AI or Human, but it is (i) easier to fool around AI (ii) more beneficial to use tactical combat. Also, because of the difficulty setting, the AI will have more cities and resources than the Human player.

Doubles? I had one town, 2 nodes (one of them far and another heavily guarded) and watermill at my starting location. When I conquered Devourer, I gained 5 towns, 3 nodes and several mines. It was much more than doubling. ;-)

Yes, the random map generator is a poor substitute for a human designed map. We've learned our lesson. We'll have to play another game with the quick turn takers and/or others interested in moving the game quickly. The AoW1 Banned map is on light speed, but I much prefer AoW:SM. At least until AoW:3 comes out!

I started with three towns (one + two that were close). The undead with two (one + one). There was another town directly between us that I found before him. He was devastated by a marauding independent. With him weakened, I was able to absorb his two towns easily and build infrastructure for a long time undisturbed.



Yes, the AI is much easier to trick and convince to split his numerically superior forces as you showed against Tempest. They also definitely get a big gold and mana boost, but I don't think the random map generator gives them a superior starting position. The cluster of towns in the North West just happened to be like that. Tempest had a terrible starting spot.