Age of Wonders 3 SG

[MJW (ya that one)]

Sorry from taking awhile but I had no idea that having a job would being this tiring...

[MJW (ya that one)]

Done

Save

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qky0ze4riimbpv...3rd%20.ASG

Report

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g87rz7dl5z9cpm...rt%202.pdf

[MJW (ya that one)]

Oh, I forgot that our leader does not have float yet. He should not learn it as it puts off learning the broken "invisible". So you should just used the tier 4 unit, 3 watchers and the wisp. If you stumble on an uber-dungeon just squat with the wisp and wait for backup (probably a tier 4 summon from the nearest city). Ahr Bee should then go do something with the remaining units in the area. Probably play defense. If AoW you don't take real damage if a city gets taken and you take it back as buildings don't get razed so its okay to have a garrison for every couple of cities.

[Bobchillingworth]

Got it. Will start my set tonight, should have a report sometime tomorrow.

[Bobchillingworth]

Going to need one more day, sorry.



I think the results will be worth the wait

[Bobchillingworth]

T70:

Holy crap, our empire is huge! Very well-off as well.


Some thoughts:

We’re powerful and gigantic, but our armies aren’t supporting each other at all, and our road network needs work. We also really need garrisons in cities near surface portals.

I wish we did not have go-to orders set for so many units. I understand what MJW is trying to do here, I think, but I disagree with attacking the surface right now, before we have fully consolidated the Underground, and having to track down all of our armies and redirect them is a pain. We also have lots of tiny armies of like 2-4 random units running around whose purpose I cannot discern. I’m going to try to consolidate these to the best of my ability. We are sadly lacking in heavy hitters.

Thankfully AoW 3 has city & army sorting menus similar to Civ IV:





I am also unclear why this city built a harbor:





Ships which can sail only up and down a few river hexes (which we already control!) are useless. Harbors don’t provide economic bonuses like in Civ IV :P

Anyway, the situation is hardly dire or anything, just doing a little clean-up.


T71:

Hrmm, an AI takes a Fey city we were gunning for on the surface. I'll have one of the armies MJW was sending that way continue on its path- the rest are still headed to take out one of the underground AI to our north.

Our first Golden Dragon completes.





These are arguably the strongest units in the game- I immediately whip another, paying +100 extra gold and incurring a temporary happiness penalty in order to speed its completion date from 7 turns to 1. Kudos to MJW for securing them.


T72:

Man, gold goes quickly in this game :P

We’re operating at poverty levels this turn. Lots of stuff I’d like to build that I don’t have the cash for. Positioning troops for possibly attacking two AI next turn. I wish we had more casting points so that I could summon Eldritch Horrors more frequently than once every three turns.

Oh and we met another tiny underground independent city. They declared on us, of course. An AI is likely to take that city from them next turn.


T73:

Cheeky AI is trying to cram a city between two of ours:





This cannot stand! It’s not the AI I had intended to attack next turn, but she’ll do- war declared!

I screwed up here- lost a bunch of weak units attacking the remnants of an Mythic lair the AI had attacked- I was really close to winning, but never got a stun on the Golden Dragon This also sets back summoning the next Horror because I blew a bunch of points on Magic Fist, ugh.






T74:

We easily lift this crappy new city off Laryssa, in the first turn of our war:





It’s awful, but if we raze it the AI will just attempt to settle there again. Oh well, at least it can provide a little cash. It’s also a Human city, giving us access to another race (not that it'll grow quickly enough to ever be useful).

We fight a slightly more difficult battle to capture this city:





Didn’t lose any units, but it was very close. Stupid goddamned support units only managed to stun a single unit, and only at the very end of the battle

I promote one of the heroes involved to Convert- this will allow us to potentially add some strong units to our military for free.

Now this was interesting:





She sent that offer as soon as we declared last turn, meaning we received it this turn before I even had a chance to attack any of her units. Because AoW diplo can be “postponed” unlike Civ, I decided to ignore the peace offer until I had taken her two cities, at which point I accepted- guaranteeing we wouldn’t face a counter-attack before the AI accepted my own peace proposal!

Now for the other AI I declared war on, the Human Theocrat (whose name I cannot be bothered to remember).

Easily took this city:





Very, very nice place- and more importantly, the AI leader was defending! Now he can’t cast spells for three turns!

Not only that, but look at this:





His capital is barely defended, and the portal near it is really close to the bulk of our military forces! Holy crap, we could potentially take him out! I have to take this chance!


T75:

This is going to be close! I’ve got a Builder producing combat roads into enemy territory, while AI reinforcements stream in:





I can attack next turn- the question is, how many units can the AI bring to bear for the defense?

In domestic news, I settled some more cities, basically claiming any resources that wasn’t already within our borders. Built some roads too, and got to work setting up infrastructure for new military production centers, since right now almost all of our best units are still coming from two cities.


T76:

Oh man, this might actually work! The Theocrat AI didn’t move any additional units to his defense:





We’re going in!





One of our heroes has Hornet Swarm, which is a great opening salvo-





Haha! I sent a couple boars toward the AI’s city gates, while I had my ranged units occupy his. He took the bait and charged his best melee units at me:





Once the AI did that he was, to use the technical term, totally fucked. Support units paralyzed the knights, and a Horror blasted them with a ranged AoE attack.

Victory:





Only lost the boars

Which means…





One down, five to go!

All cities formerly owned by the Human Theocrat have become Independent cities at war with us:





We should be able to sweep most of them up easily, giving us a considerable presence on the surface, and access to lots of well-developed human settlements. We can also sell off all of the unusable Theocrat structures in them for cash, should we be sufficiently pressed.

Like I said before, MJW did well in securing the Dragon Lair city- I use a very strong stack (which will later get a Horror added to it for completion) to capture a newly-independent city:







T77:

Took a city from the Independents with a Builder, of all things:





This might have been a mistake, though- the city is going to take forever to be absorbed into the empire. I guess I could speed it up by adding a garrison (maybe?), but troops are needed to seize more land before the AI do.

Another city captured:





One nice thing about taking these cities, besides the obvious, is that it gives us control over some surface portals at both ends, lessening the risk of an AI ‘porting down to our vulnerable core.

We’ve had a lot of war, but after thinking about it for a while I decide to declare on Zerti the Draconian Roquefort Cheese this turn- she has been keeping some surface cities criminally underdefended, and I want to poach one or two. We might lose one of our recently captured cities, but only for half a turn.


T78:

Easily took this city off Zerti:





It’s a Fey city, which is nice- means we can produce some really nasty surface support units (eventually).

Easily captured this surface city:





Oh-ho, check it out- Zerti’s capital:





Zerti herself isn’t far away, I might well be able to eliminate her next turn.

With this capture I believe I’ve acquired the last of the independent cities near our budding surface empire:





Humorously, it came with a free Civic Guard, thanks to our Horror Dominating one.


T79:

Zerti is systematically annihilated in a succession of devastating slaughters so one-sided that I hesitate to call them battles.

Her last stand:





It went about how you’d expect. Actually, better- we Dominated an Assassin, a nasty T2 unit we can’t normally produce.

Our spoils:





Two down


T80 IBT:

Not much happens. Henna moves around a bunch of troops through our surface holdings, I think she’s hunting a handful of random Independent units.


This is getting really long, so I’ll leave of with some final notes.

Here are maps of our territory- red dots are major armies, yellow dots cities set for military production, and blue dots are rallying points. Enemy empires are outlined:








In terms of the state of the game, we should comfortably achieve victory by the end of this next turn cycle, if not earlier. We have a large surface presence and are completely dominant underground- we’re very fortunate that none of the AI spawned down here. Don’t be afraid to whip the dragon city regularly- Golden Dragons are the best unit we can produce, and the city has a fairly good happiness buffer. I settled about 6 cities during my set; there’s still space for a few more in the underground, which we might as well claim before the AI. The AI are completely terrified of us. They didn’t declare a single war against me, and begged for peace as soon as I initiated hostilities. This behavior can be easily exploited to eat away at them in mini-blitzes.


Have fun crushing the competition!



The Save

[MJW (ya that one)]

Yeah I kind of space out after getting that Golden Dragon unit. We are powerful enough to spam them and they can carry us to victory without help at all.

I built that harbor because I wanted to build every building in that city.

[NobleHelium]

So it looks like an attack on a city can be a 4 army vs 3 army battle? Anything else special about city battles besides different terrain?

That chaining hornet spell, can it chain through immune units or does it not target them at all?

[Bobchillingworth]

4 vs 3, yeah. It's probably a good thing battles can't get any larger, moving 24 units individually (potentially more if you're a druid) takes a long time. That's a big part of why these sets are starting to take hours to complete- moving units on the overmap and managing cities doesn't take any longer than in FFH, but battles are much slower affairs. I could automate combat, but the AI tends to lose units much more frequently than when I'm in control (although I've seen it rarely pull off bizarre miracles as well, with T1 scouts defeating armies several times their strength).


City sieges tend to be difficult, the AI always builds walls in its core cities and defenders standing on them get a 60% resistance against ranged attacks. Melee units that can't fly, teleport or have the "passwall" ability have it even tougher- you either have to bust down the walls or gates (which takes a couple turns and leaves you vulnerable) or possibly climb the walls (which takes only one turn, but causes units to take full damage from attacks). The downside for the defender is that the attacker has the initiative to surround the defending armies, possibly culminating in a 4 v. 3 in their favor.


I'm not entirely sure how the hornet spell works, actually. I've only ever used it a couple times (this game is the first time I've even seen it), and only in battles involving organic targets.

[Bobchillingworth]

Hah, I just realized I misnumbered all of the turns. I'm not changing a thing though!