[EitB LVIII Spoilers] coldrain prolongs the Age of Fire

[coldrain]

Yet another quick update while I'm compiling proper turn reports: I managed to capture all cities of xist on this turn (T142), elininating him from the game. GG xist! Your vampires were strong, but I had excellent counters available to take them down. I hope you enjoyed the game!

EDIT: And wow, Aurorarcher completed Blood of Phoenix ritual, granting all of his units the immortal-promotion. He also bought 20+ mercenaries to benefit from the ritual. And immortal Dragon, Mardero + eidolons? How am I going to break through at this rate?

[coldrain]

Turn 134
 
Aurorarcher keeps his army in Minas Tirith. I don’t think I can do enough damage to the garrison for now, so I continue pillaging the enclaves instead:


Chariots and the main army inches back on that plains hill, ready to intervene towards south next turn. Fireball golems and the fresh life 2 mages almost completely eliminate the spectre + skeleton screening force of xist:


He had razed the coastl city of Emmet Kelly, which I defended with expendable summons. Alerted by Brian’s movement of axes + PoWs, I start to reinforce Halfway Ruins:


Newly built adept has received earth 1 spell for free, so it casts wall of stone for additional defence. Speaking of earth mana, I pop a new source of gold and copper within the lands, making founding of Profane Capital somewhat redundant. I’m not complaining, free resources are quite nice to get (earth mana boosts discovery chance from mines, bonus adds up with more mana sources). New cities build a market and then military or military related buildings-> I’m adding new mage guilds to get adepts faster, now I’m starting to regret a bit that I only pumped out adepts from capital until now. I need more mage candidates since pillage gold enables a lot more upgrades! Necromancy is set to complete end of turn, enabling death/chaos/entropy/shadow nodes as needed (I hadn’t realized yet that lichdom was a lot more complicated to achieve than I initially thought).
 
Turn 135
 
I finally find hell terrain with a hunter, so I know where Hyborem spawned in:


Bing is building roads here, probably paving the way for more settlers. He has been expanding peacefully for a while now, rivalling me in crop yield, but not in production (I have Guild of Hammers). His economy is perhaps stalling, even with city states civic, no mages or assassins or chariots for him still. He does have adepts, as does Brian.
To my surprise, Brian turns back after marching closer in the previous turn:


I will reinforce the garrisons here anyway. Reserve maelstrom mage is returning back from the big battle against the vampires, and more golems will be stationed at Halfway Ruins and Anor Londo (westernmost city, facing Bing borders). I pillage more improvements north of Edoras, and move the main force ever so slightly towards south, so I can react to any threats against Edoras, or I can make strike against xist if he leaves the remaining vampires too close to my borders. Clarabell cultural influence expands, revealing that the southern barbarian city has a water mana source (Maurits Basin):


That node should be dispellable, I want it to have stronger elementals or to have more flexibility with active mana resources. A vampire and hunter of xist are patrolling this area, I want to clear them out too.
 
Turn 136
 
Event log tells that Stephanos has met his demise:


Clicking on the news centers the camera where I took the screenshot, so presumably xist got the kill and the prize (crown of command). I send in mages + fireball golems near Maurits Basin, and fireballs + SoKs clear out the hunter and vampire there:




Meanwhile at the Kuriotate front, the stalemate continues:


My next plan is to convert two nodes into entropy mana and upgrade an archmage (the last available slot) to entropy 3 for wither, in hopes that it will help me churn through the massive stack in Minas Tirith. I will also promote several adepts or mages with the rust spell for additional hampering of enemy stacks. A dispel mage + helper adepts changed one node to entropy and are moving to the next:


I also switch research target to medicine for Athendain, who will have medic 3 promotion to make healing from Mardero’s wither spell a lot easier. I set research rate to complete the tech in two turns after taking the screenshot.
 
Turn 137
 
Vampire army of xist is just within view of floating eye (I have been watching this area every turn):


On this turn I make the decision to try and hold Aurorarcher in his capital by leaving enough archmages, fireball/blinding light/charm mages and mundane units near Edoras to be a credible threat, while most of the chariots and SoKs + elemental mages sweep south to try and eliminate the main army of xist. On the way to position the forces, a hunter spots a hidden giant spider, which I take out:


Before moving here, I summoned earth elemental to defend Edoras, and I had left a couple of extra defenders there, to prevent the Dragon or Rosier from taking a shot at it. I plan to split my main mage stack next turn if I can get a jump on the vampires. Graphs of the previous 50 turns in spoiler:

[RefSteel]

These reports are really great - and very helpful for understanding what's going on! And since you showed it and brought it up (and I don't think I posted this one in your thread last game)...

Rumor whispers of a titanic struggle between legendary beings wielding now-forgotten magics beneath a frigid sky, amid vast sheets of snow. The glaciers where the battle took place, and even the frozen bedrock below, were torn asunder, hurled outward, by the force of devastating spells, and the very fabric of the world around them was strained and twisted by the power unleashed there. Now, long after the battle, some say snow and sleet still fall ceaselessly around the basin thus torn open by magic power; some say volcanic vents rise from the earth beneath, burning hot enough to melt even hail in mid-air as it falls. It may be that both are true - that the residue of the two great powers and their meeting still do battle across the basin and its walls, leaving power of another kind behind - for there are tales of a river that flows around the basin without beginning and without end, forever rushing downhill in an eternal circle, impossible in any other part of the world. The river is said moreover to overflow its banks in time with the sun's yearly cycle, annually reclaiming rich volcanic soil from the snow, and thereby to turn the icy basin where the battle raged into one of the most-fertile lands of the south. The tales of this place might never have spread nor ever been believed were it not for the astonishing drawings of the river made by the famed and ingenius explorer Maurits Cornelis, for whom and for whose work the basin now is named.

...and yes, you are correct that the node can be dispelled (and thereby turned into an ordinary raw mana node, which can be changed into another kind ... on an floodplain snow tile, still surrounded by a river and with its visible-to-all sign).

[coldrain]

Thanks Q and RefSteel for the feedback!

Turn 138
 
Forgot to mention in the previous report that I managed to capture the barbarian city near Maurits Basin (and I dispelled the water mana, to allow the mage to return to next mana source):
 


More useful mana source will be built when the revolt ends and borders expand (although the lore snippet was nice, thanks Ref!). Speaking if useful mana, the dispel group swapped the westernmost source to entropy as well:


Medicine was researched, next is smelting to boost the numerous workshops and reveal iron (I already have iron weapons thanks to Mines of Galdur). I also started to build Arthendain at capital, which will take two turns. At the war front, Aurorarcher still stays in his capital and I send in summons to bolster defence of Edoras in addition to the small regular garrison. I wasn’t in reach to hit the large vampire stack this turn, so my main mage force moves slightly towards southeast, ready to finally rush in next turn:


I can double back to north if the Kuriotates decide to make a move too. I make several mage upgrades and the fourth and final archmage upgrade with the two entropy nodes available (he gets to entropy 3 for wither spell). I turn research slider to 0% to gather more money for upgrades or later deficit research. Not much pillage gold coming in this turn for a change. By this time the Balseraph lands are in full military builds, mostly producing chariots in cities with captured siege workshops and SoKs where I spread Kilmorph. I also finished new mage guilds here and there, to ramp up the amount of rust adepts and to have more mage candidates faster.
 
Turn 139
 
The turn opens up to a great blessing for good civilizations:


I of course spend the gold for the prophet. I have a great sage and engineer on standby, which I had planned to use for golden age or to rush Tower of Alteration or Necromancy. Now with the prophet, I can save the engineer and start a golden age with the sage. First however, I use a better part of an hour calculating the moves necessary to destroy the vampires that are now within reach of my mages:


The highlighted Calabim stack is on the grassland hill, marked with the “vampire” sign. There is a small garrison at the closest city of Nininsal, and also a bigger stack of skeletons/spectres on that plains hill 1N of the city. After a bit of planning, I estimated that I can make very deep strike if I can capture both of the Calabim cities and utilize the road network once the culture disappears. So the first step is to use slower golems, who move in range to send their blasting workshop fireballs:


After enough fireball kills, a fresh mobility chariot (hasted) charges in to capture:


If I didn’t remember to mention, back when priesthood was researched, I immediately built a couple of Priests of Kilmorph, to boost healing rate and to give shield of faith promotion to most units (+10% combat strength), seen here too with the fresh chariot. After the city capture, mud golem builds a missing road on the now neutral territory:


Then two maelstrom mages move in to damage all of the hostile stacks in range, also hitting a couple of friendly units with friendly fire:


And the two destroy undead mages go in:




Destroy spell absolutely decimates the skeletons, especially when maelstrom did the initial damage to bring their health down. Not many area effect spells can fully kill units, but destroy undead is one of them (IIRC snowfall can do this too). More golems march in to send their fireballs to clear out the remaining units:


All of the golems have done their job, time to use the proper fire mages:




I clear the garrison of Santa’ron with additional fireball, then summon an einherjar to capture it (spell extension on fireballs and the summon helps a lot here):


After all of the fireballs have been used to whittle down the main vampire stack, a rust mage and adept remove the metal weaponry and apply the rust debuff:


Some units resist the spell, but two casts applies rust quite effectively. And the final step is to roll down everything with chariots:


I use the best chariots first, mostly with +95% combat odds. Other units go in too, the final combat log looks like this:


All of the main force gathers on that hill tile, while high mobility chariots pillage some improvements. I also clear out the couple skeletons left around. Earth elemental is summoned to defend Santa’ron from counter attacks. Here’s a screenshot before backing the chariots to the safety of the main stack:


This turn was a very heavy blow to xist, I think he lost the vast majority of heavily promoted vampires and adepts, leaving only pocketful of units deeper in his core. At least floating eyes see only a handful of units remaining. I don’t think xist could have done anything to save his vampires, other than to keep them further back, but sitting around waiting for me to snipe the border cities would not have been a good strategy either. I just have too many and too well promoted mages now. And some scary good chariots too.
After all of the combat was concluded, I turned the attention back to home front:


I start third golden age of the game with the sage and prophet. Immediately hop into overcouncil (unlocked with medicine):


That maintenance reduction helps quite a bit combined with city-states. I turn the research back on to 1-turn smelting. Demos:


And I happened to take a screenshot of statistics, listing units and buildings by amount:


 
Turn 140
 
All quiet at the Kuriotate front:


I keep casting floating eye and summoning earth elementals for additional defence, in case Auriorarcher somehow manages to repair the road network and obtains engineering for additional movement. He does have two dwarven slaves (slow workers that he got during my failed assault against Minas Tirith earlier), which could make roads on hills faster than normal workers? I’m keeping the highlighted units here to secure Edoras and to be ready to use blinding light if Aurorarcher leaves the safety of Minas Tirith with his best units. For now, we are just staring at each other menacingly. This is fine for me, since at the other front I’m making progress. View of Calabim front before unit movements:




I count max 5-6 vampires remaining, plus a few morois. Then just a single adept and a bunch of bloodpets. And finally I locate the refugee city of Dave, tucked in south of Adonias and Nubia! Priority changes to capture it, to alleviate the growing war weariness at home. A SoK kills a blocking skeleton and a mobility hunter captures the undefended Nubia:


The all too familiar script of haste, maelstrom and charge of chariots plays out:




And Dave is officially knocked out of the game. Again, thanks for playing and you did a great job of making use of all tools available to slow me down when it became apparent that my invasion couldn’t be stopped.
I saved spell extension fireballs to hit a smaller Calabim gathering near the capital of Prespur:




Fireballs destroy the morois and vampires. Only afterwards I noticed that one of those units was carrying the crown of command, which I capture with my first commando chariot:


Crown of command is the reward for slaying Stephanos, and it gives a 30% chance of capturing defeated units (I believe certain restrictions apply to heroes and alignment/religion restricted units). From now on, I want to attack hostile living unit every turn with a crown chariot to try and convert special units if possible. Very good item to obtain for sure. After all of the combat, the invasion force stays here, covered by an earth elemental:


I also summon einherjars to defend some exposed units that run out of movement. Next turn I should be able to capture a lot of cities if floating eye doesn’t reveal new threats.

[Qgqqqqq]

Do you have any reflections on the balance of the mod? One of the things I've mentioned previously is that I wonder whether EitB combat allows too much access to extra movement - which allows very quick snowballs/collapses and makes war turns challenging. You've also had quite a full experience of the magic system and how it interacts with that, which I'd be interested in any reflections on.

I'll note a unexpected and slightly different takeaway for me is the relevance of Dwarven and Elven movement bonuses late into the game. I've been quite impressed at how relevant that has had.

[Qgqqqqq]

Also good to see Destroy Undead out - doesn't get much usage but very powerful! Snowfall cannot outright kill units - Auric Ascended's Greater Snowfall may be able to. Not sure how the Crown of Command works, but I would expect it only can't capture units with restrictions on possession (i.e. units that will abandon you), but units that have creation requirements, such as Eidolons/Paladins and Priests can be captured.

[coldrain]

Do you have any reflections on the balance of the mod? One of the things I've mentioned previously is that I wonder whether EitB combat allows too much access to extra movement - which allows very quick snowballs/collapses and makes war turns challenging. You've also had quite a full experience of the magic system and how it interacts with that, which I'd be interested in any reflections on.

I'll note a unexpected and slightly different takeaway for me is the relevance of Dwarven and Elven movement bonuses late into the game. I've been quite impressed at how relevant that has had.

Interesting topic to discuss! While I think FFH2 will always have brokenly good mechanics in some aspect, I do see that minor changes could be made to round the rough edges. Extensive mobility (haste, mobility promos, engineering road movement, maybe commando too) is very strong indeed, especially when combined with Dwarven hill movement bonus. I imagine the elves would also be as strong, although opponents can chop their forests away, while hills will always be there for the dwarves. What brings it to truly superb category is when combined with spell extension summons and/or mobile collateral (maelstrom, ring of flames) -> a single stack of my unts can reach 9 tiles or more within friendly/neutral territory and then add +2 or +3 movement of summons with spell extension, possibly using road bonus too. And add in floating eye for guaranteeing that you can position the mage stack on a safe spot after it has chosen the targets to attack.

Then another potential balancing act is chariots. They are almost always the one and only needed solution to all problems that need offensive power with good reach. Many of the daring attacks I have been able to make in this game were pushed from "just" doing heavy damage into achieving a total stack wipe because of hasted mobility promoted chariots that can safely hit and retreat to the protection of better defenders. Especially strong when combined with mobile collateral of mages + summons. So even a small change to chariots could make a difference?

Potential balance changes could include (some were mentioned by Miguelito earlier?):

• Move spell extension 1 to sorcery or arcane lore
  
• Move spell extension 2 to strength of will or lock behind hero promotion (latter option is a stealth buff to Grigori?)
  
• Add city attack malus to chariots, so they still remain excellent offensive units in the field, but you can't clear out cities from far away so easily.  This also makes opening of roads from hostile cultural control less easy to achieve (for example I captured two cities from Dave in the first turn of the war by first capturing closer city with spell extension fireballs and chariots, opening the road to send the stack further in and successfully capture another city)
  
• Add terrain attack penalty to chariots (forest? hill?), so they have more strategies to counter with melee units etc. Maybe too severe of a change?
  
• move mobility 2 promotion to later tech (war horses?) -> this has the risk of making mage armies even more necessary, since mobility assassins or horse units are the presumed counter to mages if you don't have arvcane units of your own.
  
• Remove the free mobility promotion from arcane and/or spiritual traits to their respective unit categories
  
• Make haste require body 2? Again, makes mages even more necessary since adepts would no longer do the job (civs that like religious/horse/melee/recon path are even further away from the all important haste spell)
  
• No idea if commando needs changes, I only have one unit with it in this game so far.
  
• Indirect effect to mobility: Make hawks easier to get (back to hunting?), so non-metamagic empires can see the potential attack coming in advance, and can position their own counter attack units in a better position?
  

Just thowing ideas out here, but I really like the possibility of adding city attack penalty to chariots as a small change. Maybe 20% penalty?

[Qgqqqqq]

Thanks Coldrain, much to chew over. These are quite similar to some of the ideas I published a year ago. I'm interested you see this as a modest move - I think downgrading mobility would be quite a dramatic change, but may well be justified in the FFH2 context - although my ideas were possibly a bit further than yours.

I think Commando is a symptom from the rest and can't be changed. It's a pretty big trade off as a entire trait.

Re Hawks, I'd actually wondered about reducing the range of flying units vision.

https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...?tid=11136

[coldrain]

Hah, I was initially writing a smaller reply to the potential balance changes, but I ended up adding more and more of the ideas I had. So in the end, I started the post as "minor changes" to mobility (move spell extension further back, maybe add city attack malus to chariots), but the post ballooned to have more radical ideas which can't be considered small changes anymore (changing haste spell requirements, locking mobility 2 behind expensive tech etc.). So I agree with you that any bigger changes to mobility rules can alter the balance a lot.

[DaveV]

Not to detract at all from your performance in this game, but I think the Arcane trait extra XP on magic users is a big part of the problem. Having just attempted to play a magic-focused game without that trait, I can say it takes *forever* to accumulate 10XP on adepts. You have to have a very long time horizon or be willing to risk your valuable units in battle. Lots of relatively fast mages has been the winning formula in the last several games.