Faded Magic - no diplo, CBM 1.92, limited magic - KeithZ/Pythium wins!

[Samhain]

Actually, considering my current position in this game I'll likely be ready for the next game at least as soon as everyone else is. Anyway, one of the things I happen to like about Fomoria is that it is decidedly low maintenance.

And, don't worry about the pace on my account. I like to get turns in quickly. But, my first submission is often a rough draft, something to submit in case an unexpected event prevents me from sending in a thoroughly vetted one. And, even once I am finished with a turn, I don't generally lack things to do while waiting for the next one.

On the other hand, I do get a bit irritated when I have to wait 48 hours for nearly every turn and we aren't even at turn 12 yet, but only because the player or players that set such a pace often tend to chronically stale or just plain go AWOL later. As long as that doesn't prove to be the case, I am content.

[KeithZ]

Count me in as Yomi in the next game please.

[Valerius]

I'm not sure if any of you noticed, but Mists of Deception has been removed from the spell list from this game but I didn't mention it in my game summary. I didn't mention because I'd completely forgotten about it as I copied and pasted the spell changes from one mod to another.

This goes back to the Threefort game when several players thought it would be OP considering the game settings (Threefort also had some different settings than this game). So my question is, do you want to keep this spell banned or try letting it in? Though I guess we're a bit of a biased audience since so far we have three air nations and a fourth that has good A access through summons.

If we do ban it then I'll need opinions regarding TNN's Faerie Mists. Faerie Mists is based on the Howl spell only instead of summoning wolves it summons phantasmal sidhe warriors/lords, etc. Summons are generated for between 6-20 turns depending on the type of phantasm. MoD is different in that it keeps summoning phantasms through the entire course of the battle. According to the wiki it summons 1 * the level of the caster summons per turn.

I have to admit I really like Faerie Mists. Just like Howl it can mess up an opponent's scripting but I also just get a kick out of seeing those ghostly national units running around.

But if there's objections to TNN having Faerie Mists while MoD is removed, no problem we'll remove it as well.

[Valerius]

So, I've been quite eager to start this game and have known for a while the pretender build I wanted to try. What I wasn't as eager to do was actually put the mod together.

But I finally forced myself to do so and I'm about to start a new thread to open recruitment (of course everyone who has already signed up has their nations reserved).

Most of the settings are the same as this game.

Quick summary of changes:

* Zmey drops 2 more points to prot 18. Also made it map move 2 which I think will open up long range raiding to thugs with flying boots or the various monsters.

* Wendigo is now W2D2 fixed magic paths, starts at size 2/18 HP, then size 3/50 HP, and next turn finishes at size 4/71 HP. Also autocasts soul vortex.

* Iron Dragon - I decided I would try to make it useful. I could have just lowered the price but instead kept it at 25 E gems and made it a commander and added a claw attack.

Those are the highlights. Also some spell pricing adjustments and various nation changes (most significantly no darkness on PD for Agartha, no healing for Hinnom).

Please download the mod from the new thread and give it a try. And remember to test it with easy research!

[Valerius]

Thanks for fighting it out to the end, shard. Normally I would have been more cautious with that last fort but I obviously got distracted by new developments last turn and figured it was worth the risk to bring our war to a close.

I will remember two things in particular about this war:

Forts. Everywhere. Unending sieges. Caelum is good at sieges, but given limited resources it still took me a couple of turns on average to breach the walls of those high defense forts and then another to storm, all of which added up.

Bakemono Sorcerers. Every single scouting report seemed to be "there's about 20 units in the province, mainly bakemono sorcerers." WTF, those guys are 300 gold/each. How is he affording that on top of all those fort costs? Of course I know the answer: ultrascales. Still, it was really an insane number of mages.

[shard]

GG;

Im still in the middle of travelling and my poor netbook couldnt handle the graphics of that final battle - mind giving me a pm on what happened there i.e how much of a defense I actually managed to put up?

Ultrascales worked up to a point but I was hoping to find some good indy mages, especially air/astral but that just didn't happen. In the end I gambled on conquest to get my magical diversity and lost out
In hindsight a light bless for all those sorcerers might have been viable - if i could find a way to efficiently bless.

Will have more to say once its all done and dusted!

Good luck on the rest of the game!

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by shard

Im still in the middle of travelling and my poor netbook couldnt handle the graphics of that final battle - mind giving me a pm on what happened there i.e how much of a defense I actually managed to put up?

Sure, I'll PM you now.

Originally Posted by shard

Ultrascales worked up to a point but I was hoping to find some good indy mages, especially air/astral but that just didn't happen. In the end I gambled on conquest to get my magical diversity and lost out

I did notice that lack and was quite surprised when a while back you had some air spells scripted in one of our battles - I always forget about Shin's national summons with A magic.

I've always found that Murphy's law applies to magic diversity. Almost without exception when I take a rainbow pretender I end up finding (with my national mages, not my site searching pretender) great indie mages that, in combination with my national mages, could do almost everything I had in mind for the rainbow. When I take a bless or ultrascales pretender I don't find any top notch indies.

[Valerius]

I've been meaning to say that I'm really glad I finally moved on from CBM 1.6 with this low magic series of games. The EDM summons and the "monster" summons make the whole thing much more fun. And I really like monstrums as magic diversity but with limited slots.

Midgame fun all the way through. I'll be interested for everyone's feedback afterwards but I think the balance is pretty good.

[Valerius]

And so Ulm finally falls. Nice job, Samhain. You held out for a long time.

[KeithZ]

I was back from work very late today and just too tired for playing game... Valerius, could you please postpone the hosting by 24hr for this turn? Thanks!