Insane/Insane Challenge [Huge Map - Completed on Turn 79]

Interesting. Please keep this up ! It is almost like a Let's Play 

Turn 9    Trailblazer trained, started 4th trailblazer
    Kieri kills 2 Mites groups.
    Kieri is level 4: Prodigy II learned (Spell mastery: 101).
    Kieri attacks Ogre: Hergon Sow Tamed.
    Nocht completes Noblewoman Quest: 100 guildar, 6XP received.
    Picked up Leather Cuirass, Rations

Turn 10    Picked up Recall scroll
    Attacked Black Widow Spiders, Tamed Both.
    Kieri is level 5: Summon I learned (Spell mastery: 105)

Turn 11    Trailblazer trained, started 5th trailblazer.
    Down to 68 mana, so cast AM and consumed a Water Shard to bring it up to 218.

    Nacht: Picked up Healing Nectar.
    Lost Library +15 Research.  Knowledge Complete, Started Training Tech.
    
    Kieri: Reorganized army into 2 black windows, hergon sow, timberwolf (spearmen, golems went to Nacht)
    Cast Summon Familiar, and sent familiar to Nacht (it'll summon skeletons to be sacrificed for mana)
    Picked up Leather Greaves
    Attacked the other Black Widow Spider - tamed both.

    Army Reorganization Yet Again:
    Kieri:    4 black widows
    Nacht:    Timberwolf, Spearman, Golem, Hergon Sow
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=149487213

Turn 12    Kieri:    Picked up Caster Staff
    Attacked Brood Hunter that was selected in the screenshot above.  Tamed Albino Rock Spider!!!! (kept near Kieri for
combat situations, otherwise his 2 move will slow down grabbing lairs and such).
    Kieri is level 6: Necromancy learned.
    Familiar Summoned, will be placed into Nacht's army, and the golem will be culled for mana.

    Nacht:    Killed a group of 3 wolves, and a small wildling army
    Nacht is level 2: Mage class
    
Turn 13    Trailblazer trained, started clay pit (time to get higher production to train pioneers / build

studies and such)
    FINALLY a settling location with essence in the south!  It offers a 2/4/1 or a 4/3/2
    
    Kieri: Found Soldier's boots (initiative 27), and Darkling Cloak.
    Attacked a Solo Ignys

    Nacht: Found Assassin's Knife
    Attacked Bandits
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=149487277

I've been putting in a turn here and there things are quiet, but it's time to stop for today!

Some comments on the game thus far:
- In hindsight, the golem culling was premature. It's 8 armour would of been very useful as a meatshield against the enemies Nacht is facing.  Nonetheless, Nacht is managing to win so far so it's working out.

- Equipment wise, it's been subpar thus far.  No shields yet to give 1 of my heroes a lot more defense with the daggers, or a 2-handed axe to cleave things with.  And assassin's daggers are significantly worse than shadow daggers (66% armor reduction) and burning daggers (6 attack, 3 fire damage).  That said, the one really good piece of equipment was that amulet of warding on turn 6, but unless I pick up more armour (or a high defense shield) my hero still doesn't have enough armor to stop attacks properly.

- The Albino Rock spider is freakish with 19 attack, 23 defense, and 50hp.  It also has that acid spit ability.  That 2 movement would be tough to deal with though (with any non-mancer faction).

- I have 2 cave bears spotted, just need to get my hero over to them to tame them sometime.

- For this faction, this is a slow start: namely, it took me 13 turns before I managed to spot another essence settling location.  Generally, I train a pioneer a bit earlier than this.  At turn 13, I'll probably just wait 7 more turns (let my capital hit level 2) before making a pioneer.

- Right now, the plan is for Kieri to handle all the big bad enemies, while Nacht will take care of the lesser threats until he reaches a good level of summoning spells.  Since Nacht has the familiar in his army, it's also capable of taming enemy beasts (no guarantee of success though, so again, limit it to attacking targets that can be handled even if a taming fails).

Balance:
- Flesh Bound Tome is just too good.  consume for instant early mana, and then you start casting cull the weak on skeletons for free mana after that.  Once I gain another level on my hero for Raise Skeleton Horde, it'll be unlimited mana.
- Consume needs a mana reduction (I suggested 40-50 mana, although some people disagree.  Either way, I firmly feel that 200 is too much.  Most games of Elemental don't even last 200 turns!  It really should be 40-100.)
- Cull the weak should not be castable on undead or elementals.  Should be castable on beasts and the 'human' factions.
- I also feel that the the beast taming ability should be castable once per battle, as opposed to having a cooldown.  It's also creating a ridiculous synergy with Flesh Bound Tome's + Decalon's unlimited mana access.  Multiple spiders casting web also make it easy to lock down multiple beasts for taming.
- Mancer road trait is too good.  Consider how far I've already been able to scout, and attack, because of the road network.  And this is only turn 13!
- I think higher level mobs need a LOT more magic resistance.  It's really easy to get 100+ spell mastery to ensure taming/spells will always succeed.
- Mobs will move off lairs in a player's zone of control, allowing the lair to be easily looted?  But they won't attack the arcane monolith to destroy it (the way it did in previous versions of the game) and just wander back and forth randomly.  Very odd...

Bugs discovered (will create thread in the LH Support section for them):
- Ranged attackers who are webbed will not attack.  Similarly, melee units will not use any spells they have  (e.g. fire / lightning shrills casting their ranged attack)

I can agree with making some or most higher level monsters more resistant to magic. I wouldn't make all higher level monsters significantly more resistant to magic, though. It makes sense for at least a few of them to have moderate resistances to everything and a weakness to nothing, and for others to be highly resistant (or immune) to some things but vulnerable (whether to a normal extent or a high extent) to other things. The really powerful end of things should generally speaking be at worst moderately well protected against the stuff it is most vulnerable to, unless it has really great resistances or immunities to lots of other things, or heals when attacked by something common.

Most games? Whose 'most games' are we going with? Most of my games last well over 300 turns. Most of your games are apparently over long before that. Maybe it's because I don't play empire builders with the intent of rapidly wiping out the opposition while you do, maybe you usually play smaller maps than I do, but you can't take your experience of "game over before turn 200" and say that "most games" end before then. Unless you've got survey data you can point out, you can't just unilaterally claim that the game doesn't last long enough for the trade-off between 200 mana now and 1/2/3 mana per turn for the rest of the game (which equates to 200/100/67 turns to create 200 mana) plus one shard power to not be a real trade-off. For your games, it might not be. For my games, though? Trading a shard for 200 mana right now is usually no better than questionable.

Fine with me, though I'd sooner say 'not castable on summoned units' than 'not castable on undead or elementals', since I don't see why you shouldn't be able to cast it on a quest reward but could on one of the special champion summons. It isn't a spell I generally make use of until mid or late game, when something like Flame Dart is available and able to deal decent amounts of damage and training a unit or two of slaves or other cheap units for no purpose other than to feed a spellcaster doesn't delay anything I'd rather be building.

I am almost certain that this one's been reported several times before, although I think that they only addressed AI-controlled spiders webbing ranged units. If they can't fix the AI to use abilities or ranged attacks while webbed, then they probably should change the webbed effect so that the player can't use those, either, though I'd rather they made the AI work with the current effect.

I think there's a suggestion floating around from in the beta for changing this so that the guardian monster stays put but the lair starts spewing out wandering monsters faster. Might try digging that up and adding support to it.

Sounds about normal for a huge map to me.

Turn 14 Kieri:    Picked up a Band of Insight (10% XP boost).  Actually, I originally got a Dragonhide Cloak from the Fire Wildlands (2 defense, 50% fire resist - utterly ridiculous when I'm facing fire attribute enemies).  So I actually reloaded my save.
    Nochd:    Picked up champion's club (joy - another useless weapon lol)
        Defeated a bandit army.

Turn 15    Kieri:    Picked up Amulet of the Eagle (+1 Sight - useless).
        Attacked Bone Ogres!    1 Hergon Converted (could of taken the 2 hergon sow, but decided not to waste mana).
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799404558579/522FE2C5C43F1FC4B79F0C822130A71CFADBA685/
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799404563374/20FA1FDFFC51AF357B979D2AB868F1C5F2F82186/
        Battle tactics were: web enemy units, cast slow on them to reduce their initiative to nothing so I can strike and run away from ogres (before they get to even move), and kill them as they're isolated from each other.  Also culling skeletons of course.
    Kieri is level 7: Greater Necromancy learned.

    Nochd:    Picked up gold (boo), padded vest (1 armour is better than 0!)
    Kieri's battle tactics are quite easy now:  You web enemies, summon skeleton (and skeleton horde), and cull them as they attack the enemy targets, and finish off the enemy with your spiders.  Mana is growing exponentially.
    Nochd summons skeletons via the familiar, and both Nochd and the familiar cull them (while they're absorbing hits from the enemy), and the rest of the units help kill the enemy army.

Turn 16    Clay Pit Complete, Scrying Pool Started
    Kieri:    Destroyed 2 bandit armies (and culled like 300 mana), picked up a weathered shield (Finally!  Kieri has 11 armour now).
    Nochd:    Found Leather Greaves (he has a measly 2 armour)

Turn 17    Kieri:    Attacks and captures a cave bear.
    Kieri is level 8: Geomancy learned.
    Nochd:    Picked up a leather greaves (2nd set), killed a bear cub
    Nochd is level 4: Ice Elemental learned.
    Another lost library is found close to Nochd!  Oh happy day!

Turn 18    Kieri:    Finds a scroll of fortune, and uses it.  Finds a Sand Golem Quest, and kills some fire shrills
    Nochd:    Grabs lost library, research continues into Mounted Warfare.

Turn 19    Kieri:    Finishes off the Sand Golem Quest, gets a Ophidian.  Attacked 3 Butchermen.
        The fight was actually quite tough: Butchermen crit hits do high damage, and I summoned skeletons early (which the butcherman killed and increased in numbers).
        Got a sacrifical dagger for the battle.
    Nochd:    Moving to grab more lairs.

Turn 20    Scrying Pool Complete.  Cast AM to put a clay pit and crystal crag under my control, Clay Pit started.  Cast Oppression on Amiluumo.
    Kieri:    Moving northwards to capture the other bear.
    Nochd:    Killed a bear cub, picked up Trog's blood

Turn 21    Mounted Warfare tech complete.  Started Charms.
    Amiluumo, the capital, hits level 2.  Chose Fortress.  Pioneers queued up to train after the clay pit is done.
    Kieri:    Picked up Curse scroll, and captures another Cave Bear.
    Nochd:    Picked up Prismatic Potion and Burning Axe.  He walked into the ZoC of an AM, so sold a lot of furs, champion's club, burning axe, trog's blood and bought a horse.

    Yet another army reorganization:
    Kieri:    4 black widows, albino rock spider, and cave bear (rotating in to match enemy, or when black widows lose hp)
    Nochd:    Familiar, Spearman, Hergon, Cave bear, Ophian
    Scouts: Hergon Sow, Timberwolf.

Turn 22    Clay Pit Complete.  Pioneers started.
    Nochd:    Attacked wolves.  Finds Silver flute.
    Kieri:    Picked up Doom Club, and then attacked some Syndicate mobs.    Cast AM on the Fire Shard / Crystal Crag in the north, and bought Kieri a horse.  He sold all his furs, trog's blood, and the champion and doom clubs.

Map Comments:
The map is getting bigger and bigger, so I'm not sure if 'overview' screenshots will be of any use later on... Any suggestions?  Should I continue with these overview screenshots, or maybe just take multiple screens of key areas (where the heroes are).
Here it is (Turn 22 - Summer 170AC):
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799411443292/A4D11416A397B801CBE56E471521BC985896693D/

1 corner / 25% of the map has been scouted more or less.
The early zone I was marching around in has been completely cleared of lairs but 7-unit Haunter / plaguestalker army.

North of Amiluumo is the burning lands wildland.  NE of that is a Curgen's Tomb Wildland.

There's 3 trailblazer scouts that are actively scouring the map for enemies, while the other 2 setup roads for the heroes to let them move farther.  With this huge map, I may need more scouts.
I'm slowly phasing out the weaker beasts from my army, and using them as additional scouts to explore the map.

Army/Hero Comments:
Kieri is level 8 @ 157/191XP, with 11 defense and 44hp.  Kieri is continuing to slowly build a 'slow but powerful' army in preparation of taking down Delin.  I spotted another Albino Rock Spider in the Burning Land, and will capture that soon.  2 albino spiders, 3 web spiders should be able to take down Delin with Kieri spamming Sunder (5x level damage vs elementals), assuming Delin is web-able (will check next time I continue)

Nochd is level 4 @ 46/60XP, with 2 defense and 27hp.  He's quite capable of clearing the map, admittedly primarily because of Kieri's familiar.

In terms of research, my primary focus is to get the following technologies:  tech for fire staves, civics (-10% unrest, and rushing production), leather armour, shard harvesting.

I just realized that AM is even more useful than I thought.  Namely, I can cast it on any resources I want: clay pits, crystals & horses (as well as wargs and shards when I manage to learn their techs), and then build them.  It'll provide me the resources I need to keep a top-of-the-line army.

In terms of production, I'm actually kind of confused on what I should make haha.  My plan right now is:

First, clay pits (production is gooddddd)
Second, tower of domination (let's get more growth for more settlers out faster!)
Third, crystals and horses (resources for future armies)

I'll fit in the study (research) and bell towers (-unrest) somewhere.

Balance:

- The more I play through this game, the more I realize how utterly crazy flesh bound tomes is, especially with beastmaster and The Decalon.  None of this rapid start would of been possible without the early mana from the 2 consumed shards.  The consume provided the mana to tame, which then provided the army to destroy every more lairs.
And now that the consuming / taming has got my hero Greater Necromancy, I earn around 60-120 mana per battle now, depending on how many of the summoned skeletons get culled by me and not killed by the enemy monsters.

This is hindsight, but I should of developed Nocht as a combat mage instead of a summoning mage, focusing on death magic (2 levels of prodigy, then death magic to level 5).  He could of used the 'kill' spell against things like dragons and and wildland bosses, with this access to unlimited mana.

I have 1300 mana now, and while I don't really have any major use for it (yet), it's available for when it is necessary.  One thing I definitely won't use (even if I get it) is that spell which does damage equal to 10% of your mana pool or whatever.

- I still think road-building troops has to be one of the most OP racial attributes ever.  The armies are just zipping across the map to whatever targets they want as a result.  I'm just reminded of the Roman Legions in that sense, armies that build roads which give them amazing strategic mobility

- Enchanters that provides Scrying pool for +1 essence.  Oh my god this building is amazing beyond words, and it has a really low production cost too!

scrying pool is a diffferent trait (enchanters). decalon is monolith and spellbooks (and i think a lightning damage ranged staff at the end of the magic tech tree, in addition to the 12 attack frost/fire staves)

yea typo Azunai.  My mistake.  Post updated

You haven't met any AI yet from what I can see, correct?

It will be interesting so see how well you do vs. AI armies of 9 units (which you should see about the time your armies are 6 units, judging by my insane/insane games -- then again, you're expanding faster than I do so you may catch the AI with smaller armies) with (Kraxis) units like:

I've had 8 full stacks of the above units hit one city in one turn.

I'm wondering if/when you'll have to transition to 'normal' units from your current tamed units.  It'll be interesting to see how the mid/end game goes for ya.

Thanks for doing this!

Nick-Danger, how in the world does the AI get an army with 1000+ defense? I don't remember the damage formula exactly, but it doesn't seem like they could be damaged by any weapons.

Nick-Danger:

Haven't met any AIs yet.  It really looks like they're in the other corners of the map.  That said, it is a huge map with only 3 AIs after all.

Burress:

You would use fire, ice, or lightning attacks.
Or curse the enemy (Death level 1 spell that reduces defense to 0 for 3 turns), and then swarm him down.

Turn 23    So many priorities, so little production.  I could use desperately use more trailblazers, and there's the 2 horses nearby, which could provide me some mounted trailblazers.
    But overall, I think trailblazers will have to wait for the pioneers in 2 turns.
    Research changed from Charms to Civics (need the rush production and bell tower!)

    Nochd:    Since he has 4 movement on his horse now, he will be separating from his army to grab all sorts of resources, and then join up with the army when it reaches a location for battles (I need another trailblazer to support this to make the most use out of it though!).  Finds a soldier's cloak.
    Kieri:    Finds +1 attack book, kills some wandering mites and wandering syndicates
    Alexan recruited!  Sold his banishing staff, and gave him various equipment from Kieri, and a horse.  He took the cave bear, and will attack weak mobs and grab lairs.
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799418925240/DCDFB638D9E8DD231C7C87F6A39F0775452DDC58/
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799418931566/79BA7C545EFF038A7FD18BFCBCF6BF7500C69B83/

Turn 24    Nochd:    Found a leather helm.
    Kieri:    Began the invasion into the burning lands!  He grabbed a 2nd darkling cloak.
    Alexan:    Has a cave bear in his army, killed a mite, and found a sharp dagger and tilda herbs

Turn 25    Pioneers complete.  Cast AM twice to bring 2 clay pits, and 2 stables under my control.  Queued up both stables.
    Nochd:    Found a fireball scroll
    Alexan:    Attacked solo ice elemental.  Slow him, and then used hit and run and he never managed to strike me.  Found leather greaves, recall scroll, and then beat a 2 water, 1 lightning shrill mob.
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799418908005/E7CFD3072DF4A4208EFDEEBD0445EB777BB6124C/
    Alexan is level 4: Summon I learned.
    Kieri:    Attacked a shrill group, and then captured the other Albino rock spider.
    Kieri is level 9: Evoker I learned

Turn 26    Settled a 4/3/2 with the pioneer: Kitlu.  Cast inspiration and oppression on the city (Inspired oppression? lol).  Connected city to capital with a trail of AMs.  Also cast AM, and began construction of a Clay Pit.
    Nochd:    Joined with army to attack a cave bear.  Successfully tamed him (used ice elementals and skeletons to absorb hits and reduced his initiative, until the familiar had 2 moves in a row in case taming failed, but it didn't).
    Nochd is level 5: Necromancy learned.
    Kieri:    Killed a Shrill, picked up an escape scroll
    Alexan:    Alexan is attacking Curgen's tomb Wildland (mainly to grab the lairs and kill the weaker mobs there). Killed a group of 3 ranged shrills (used tilda herbs to heal).  Picked up a bottled fire.

Turn 27    First stable finished, 2nd stable building.
    Delin has a freakish 780hp.  It's... going to be interesting when I attack him.
    Kieri:    Attacked ogre party, and captured a Hergon (will move to Alexan's army)
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422645204/D7A3802A30F71CB84DC522DBFBD5D20B45EAC4A1/
    Kieri is level 10: Evoker II learned
    Nochd:    finds a duel burning axe.
    Alexan: picked up a Spectral leather cuirass (5 defense!).  First time I've ever seen it.
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422640266/2977B2BDD5B732F60232B4617A48AC5B359FAC89/

Turn 28    Kieri:    Attacked an Ignys party.  70 damage sunder makes quick work of them.
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422649749/E4181FC5AEE91D58DF8D953531F20B5462391D7A/
    Alexan:    Finds adept's robe.  Fights a party of 3 shrills (1 earth 2 fire) which really hammered the cave bear.  Also killed a lightning shrill
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422653557/F4341C497FFBB58EA2E1741F0DCAB677DF20BC65/
    Alexan is level 5: Necromancy learned.
    Nochd:    Finds bottled fire, leather boots (armour is at 4)

Turn 29 2nd stable finished, training pioneer.
    Kieri:    Attacked another Ignys party.
    Alexan:    Finds a turtle charm (3 defense!).

Turn 30    Nochd:    Finds a blessed hammer.
    Alexan:    Finds an amulet of flame
    Kieri:    Finds a shadow dagger.  Attacks a shrill group.

Turn 31    Kieri:    Attacked and defeated a flame lord army.  Since that was winnable, I'll take on Delin next!
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422656951/F2B3D164AEFD83F2E44DF3C39CBB28B3E61A6582/
    Kieri is level 11: Evoker III learned
    Nochd:    Attacked 3 crag spawns and 3 earth shrills.  Proper use of curse and skeleton summons made it an easy win.
    Nochd is level 6: Greater Necromancy learned.
    Alexan:    Found Naga skin gauntlets (2 defense, 2 accuracy).

Turn 32    Kieri:    Attacked Delin, the man of Fire.  Kieri cast skeleton horde to hold off the enemy units, while the spiders webbed Delin.  Then Kieri just kept spamming Sunder (88 damage/cast) until everything was dead.
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422669676/FF8EDFE8192CC297DBCE2EC3C766DF9F2E7C38D2/
    Kieri is level 13: Evoker IV, Prodigy III learned.
    Kieri then attacked the Ashwake Dragon - this battle was RIDICULOUSLY close, as my skeletons were dying left and right.  For the matter, all my spiders nearly died too!  The Ashwake dragon's high initiative, 500hp, and high spell resist nearly caused me to lose.  The biggest problem was Kieri didn't have a single damage spell (I should of used by 2 levels to learn that lightning bolt spell from Aeromancy).  I had to use massed melee attacks to win this, and had the dragon webbed and surrounded with skeletons.  Well either way, next level, Kieri will have the AoE fire spell, and the level after that, she'll get -1 casting time so she can spam that spell like mad.
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422673151/5404A1694C890D845ACDFFC16485F3BEC66A4758/
    Nochd:    Attacked a crag spawn, ice elemental army, and solo ice elemental.
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422661297/1FDD234A550EE3A6B129F436689E476863E96ADD/
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422665928/505E5EF3AE7B7143393578C3BA6984C369D8A0A7/
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422681492/436C39748B129465C9600D5CB669FD990726E237/
    Nochd is level 7: Prodigy I learned.
    Nochd also finds an amazing tower shield in the lair that the crag spawn were guarding!
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422677105/75A420BBBDC47A7DF75CD7A52917B69C4E9BDBE9/
    Alexan:    Found 2 items: longstrider boots and a 2nd sharp dagger.

The Empire of Kitai, on Turn 32:

The capital of Kitai, Amiluumo: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799423452495/76F16AE36B2AC086D0ADB83EA16D455CBC5C8C33/
There's something to be said for 71 base production (58.2 due to 18% unrest).  Once I get 2 more clay pits, cleric / tower of domination / bell tower, it will have a permanent production value of 89 (I won't be settling anything towards the southwest as a result, as that will divert the clay pits to other settles).  With 9 material, workshops/mining and all that stuff will just keep boosting that value up!   It's going to make training an army really easy.

The Cleared Burning Lands: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799423415078/03C50E9FE50A2C88E1AD357EFDD7121F5C40EC68/
I can settle 2 4/2/3s here!  They'll suck for production, but the essence will generate nice amounts of mana / research / gold (once I get a hero with air).

Curgen's Tomb and Alexan in the North: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799423439770/F3D9B70C2C1EBF1D1C7F7E8FDC30270591B9749C/
He's been grabbing lairs, and attacking the weaker shrills for leveling (and there's more shrills to fight!)

Nochd in the South: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799423444217/2EDD4E998F9D1B27C7026778C8515E33B7B27702/
The south is basically cleared.  He's now moving in the southeast direction, hopefully into an AI.

Map overview: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799423448870/29AFDB2B72BD7A507C42A2700324D979132D37EC/

Comments:
- Ok, at this point, I don't think I'll be saying every single thing the heroes do now.  If something big happens that turn (e.g. a great item found, or a good battle), I'll throw some screenshots and mention it.  But I think most battles are going to be a joke at this point.

- Now that I'm taking on the more deadly monsters, the lair rewards are starting to scale up appropriately   Great shields and items are starting to show up.

- Looks like the shards I'm focusing on are: water (to reduce enemy initiative), fire & death (for Kieri's damage spell, where each of those shards adds 2 more AoE damage).

Combat styles of the different heroes:

Nochd and Kieri's armies have (unintentionally) developed distinct (but ultra-effective) styles:
Kieri: utilizes necro horde and spider webs to delay the enemy, while Kieri blasts everything to bits with damage spells like Sunder.  Spider webbing the last enemy allows me to cull the last remaining skeletons for mana (generally 3-6).
Nochd: Has 2 cave bears, a familiar, and a Ophian (fill-in until I get another cave bear).  First turn, 18 skeletons are summoned onto the field.  Then Nochd (who has death magic) casts curse on 1 target, and the bears maul it to death (and the skeletons provide a huge swarming bonus to increase accuracy - I've been consistently getting 4-6 hits per maul).  In the meantime, Nochd and the familiar are culling the extra skeletons to replenish mana (generally cull 8-12).

Realistically speaking, if Kieri can kill a 780hp Delin in a 8-unit army, and a 500hp ashford dragon without a single spell, I'm not going to have to change away from my beast armies at all.

As for Alexan, he came as a mage with fire and water magic, and has just got greater necromancy.  No death magic means he can't annihilate enemies like Nochd with bears.  So my plan for his army is:

- Alexan + 4 ice stave mages trained or rushed from my capital (with scar stone) mounted on horses so that I get 5 movement (since Alexan just picked up a longstrider boots).  3x3x4 = 36 crystals required, and 12 horses.  (6+1)*3 = 21 elemental attack units, and 4 of them should be able to demolish things quite nicely.  The question I'm pondering is whether to go for summons to delay the enemy while the mage units kill them off, or to go for damage spells and blast them away with fireballs and flame darts and such.

So I need to start building crystal crags soon to get resources for the units once I researched the wands technology.  In the meantime, Alexan is just going to keep operating with his current army of a hergon and cave bear (and whatever other 4 movement units Kieri will capture soon), and fight enemies that he would be able to take on (like shrills).


Balance:
- Summon skeletal horde is utterly OP.  9 extra units on the battlefield?!?!  You summon, say the enemy kills 3 on the first turn, you still get to attack with 6 more (in addition to your army), letting you completely outnumber the mobs.  Even worse, the AI focuses on these skeletons as a priority target, leaving your actual army untouched.  And then there's the swarm bonus letting you hit more accurately and harder.  I mean, even Delin died without doing anything to my 4 web spiders, hero, and summon skeletal horde!

- Web is insane since it locks enemies down on the spot, making it easier to swarm solo units.   The worst part is probably the AI bug where webbed melee units won't use any abilities they have, and ranged units won't attack.  So, in its current state, web removes the ranged units from the game, and stopped Delin from casting his fire spells.

Doesn't Greater Necromancy grant Horrific Wail? That ought to be a decent damage spell for a level 13 champion with Evoker IV, though the casting time might be a problem.

Arcane Forge or the Alchemy Lab is the answer to any production issues when you've got three essence (plus one from Scrying Pools). Sure, you lose one other enchantment or have to take a Conclave, but if you need the production, there isn't much that's better than 1 bonus material per essence.

How does taking advantage of an exploit for mana generation translate to Consume Shard + Arcane Monolith = Overpowered? Consuming the two shards early on only got you 400 mana; since it's only turn 32 and you don't have any shards up so far, you could only have generated up to about 150 mana from your cities, which leaves about 700 mana in the bank and however much you've spent on spells (and since you've got about 12 Arcane Monoliths up, that's at least another 600 mana) which was generated by sacrificing trained troops, tamed critters (a net loss of about 10-20 mana), or skeletons from Summon Skeletal Horde.

The existence of exploits doesn't bother me, since I'm not likely to play competitive multiplayer even if the option becomes available and I'm more than happy not to take advantage of them even if I know about them, though I wouldn't mind some being corrected. However, your argument in the other thread was that Consume Shard and Arcane Monolith together provided so much mana that it was overpowering. You've generated at most 20% of the mana you've gained this game from it. Consuming a couple shards early may have enabled you to get the ball rolling a little earlier, but it hasn't enabled this.

Yea, Kieri had horrific wail.  But it's not exactly a great DPS spell, more meant as an AoE attack to weaken enemies.

Against a single 500hp target, with a 3 turn spellcast, it's terrible.

Alchemy Lab is purely cloister, which isn't all that great for training units (need that accuracy buff from a fort!).  Great, for production and building things in general admittedly   I'll definitely keep it in mind.

Arcane Forge... ah from magical forging technology.  Ah, a 150+ turn spell

 And actually, the thread was...

'fleshbound tome + the decalon', and cull the weak is a spell from fleshbound tome.

You consume shards to get the ball rolling so you can start casting spells, and then start culling to maintain or add mana.  Which was what I said was crazily overpowered.  I listed the culling under optional because I found I had so much mana from shard destruction alone that I didn't really need to cull. 

Mind you, as you said, I haven't built a single shard on the map yet, and I have around 7-9 of them scouted (rough number, I think there's actually more more).  Even assuming it was just 7 that's still another 1050 mana or so.

Which actually does this exact result anyways, although it might leave me like 100-200 mana in the bank rather than the 1200 I have right now.  Mind you, if the consume shard thing generated 40-80 mana, none of this would of been possible at all.

 But to be honest, with the way the game is going, I doubt I'll ever get the chance to build those mana shards before the game is over.

In the end though, the combo, with unlimited mana access, as I said in that thread, the game becomes ridiculously easy, even on insane/insane as this playthrough thread is showing.

And heck, even if I didn't cull for mana, this current setup would of been completely viable simply by:

- remove all those clay pit AMs I made for fun.  I mean, most of those clay pits haven't even been built yet.  Same with all of those crystal crags.

- assume I consumed all currently scouted shards.

- Don't be as wasteful casting summon skeleton horde, and use the regular summon skeleton' spell against weaker enemies instead.

I'd have loved to have seen this as a Let's Play on Youtube....please consider doing one for us....

joeball123:

By nature, when I tend to play games like this, I enjoy spending time maximizing my efficiency.  Which makes those 'exploits' you mention hard to resist, especially when it's so easy to use it and most of the time, my sovereign is just standing there in battle twiddling her thumbs after casting slow and summon necro horde (it's like screaming at me to cull down the unnecessary skeletons).  Especially when she has like 27 initiative so he's getting more actions than the other units.

I might re-do this challenge sometime later, without being allowed to cast 'cull the weak' but I predict the exact same result occurring.  The only difference would be that I have to reduce my mana usage, and having meditation cast on every city I settle (as opposed to ignoring meditation the way I do right now).  More likely though, I'll try insane/insane with a regular faction, and non-beastmaster hero, to give myself a real challenge instead of a walk in the part, limited only by how slow your army moves.

All that would mean is just a slightly more drawn out game, and probably only Kieri fighting the 'major' enemies (as opposed to right now, where Alexan and Nochd are both very effective due to summon necro horde).  I wouldn't be speed-clearing the map as fast, but Kieri would of been just as effective.  For example, since 1 AM/consume generates 150 mana.  I could cast sunder 10 times.  That's enough mana to kill Delin anyways, and maybe another shard to clear the rest of the burning land.

Just an interesting point, I actually have around 3 other 3-essence settling locations scouted (in addition to the 2 on the burning lands).  If I settle them, and cast meditation on all of those, it would be giving me a very solid mana income to keep casting spells (3*5 = 15 mana income).  Again, the mana will be flowing very steadily.

And another point.  If I were not allowed to use cull the weak, I might resist using AM as much, and just focus on getting pioneers through the following method:

- go kingdom / life magic

- cast growth (+2 growth in the city it is cast)

- be able to train 1 pioneer every 10 turns from any growth city (and cities with 4 grain since they tend to have like 3 base growth or something).

- rather than use arcane monoliths for consume, use these speed-settlers.  Again, same kind of result.

- Rather than summon necro, utilize lightbringer with his high (I think 22?) armour as the meatshield and healing spells / wisp healing.

Either way, consume generating 200 mana is silly.  200 mana just lets you cast so many spells...

EDIT:

Just as an add-on.  I just tried this kingdom/life thing in a small map, insane/insane world 3 AIs.  No culling of skeletons there.

Turn 32, I'm at around 60 kingdom power.  the AIs were at:

resoln: 10 (I took their capital, so only their sovereign is running around now)

Magnar: 25 (only has their capital)

Capitar: 36 (2 settlements).

I currently have 3 armies, each with 1 lightbringer, 1 wisp, 1 hero.  There are around 6 trailblazers running around, as well was a familiar, clay golem, wolf, and the original starting units.  The lightbringers with their 16 defense, and wisp healing behind them, makes them capable of beating most enemies on the map (not that many units have over 20 attack.  So things like black widow spiders, crag spawn armies, and cave bears are all falling fast).

I destroyed 4 shards, and have around 6 in my territory that game.  Sitting on 250 mana (not spellcasting much since the lightbringer / wisp combo is wiping things out nicely).  By turn 50, I'm confident that game is over, sadly, and it was an insane/insane game using that consume / AM combo.

Malorey:

The biggest problem for me doing a LP is that I tend to leave the game running (steam says I've played this game for 145 hours - when I actually played it for ~30-40 at most), and do maybe 1 turn every hour or so (I am often doing the turns @ work when things are quiet in the office - I work in IT so there are times when nobody is needing my assistance as things are running smoothly).  I don't exactly sit down for a play session where I can wear a headset and comment on what's going on as a result. :/

I could probably set up something like fraps or Camtasia Studio to record a short clips (would probably be generally of battles).  But there would be no commentary...

Ok, I tried making a let's play.  And well... 4 hours of gameplay equated to a 250GB movie or so.  There is no way I can upload something like that with the internet I have, so I'm giving up.

namely, even uploading this (500MB) file at really low quality took me 4 hours or so.

It's the battle against Delin, the Pyre of Man, on Insane/Insane difficulty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zys0UJ8OOho

So unfortunately, I'm going to stick to this wall of text.

just mp4 compression should be 1 GB / hour for a slow-paced game like FE

Well... the game is pure mopping up at this point.  I'll slowly play it out, but with these first 32 turns getting Kieri to level 13 and basically unlimited mana, the game is becoming a joke.  Summon a skeleton horde, and then annihilate.  Rinse and repeat.

Turn 35
- Kieri hits level 14, learns Pyromancy (for fireburning)

Turn 38
- Kieri hits level 15, learns savant (-1 casting time).

Turn 39
- Road spotted!  The AIs should be found soon!!!!

Turn 41
- Altar found... at 33 'power' (vs my 121).

Turn 42-52
- Armies are slowly marching towards Altair (while clearing lairs), tamed more beasts to use as scout (hergons and mire skaths and such).

Turn 53-55

- War declared on Altar

- Relias easily beaten by Nocht's 3 cave bears (with swarm bonus from skeletons).
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/1117171628296049820/C80ADC10D1D5C4BE95D5E93CA1AFAD4118287AE0/

- Pariden and Gilden also found.  They're at 97 power (mine has jumped to 236 at this point)

Altar Location:
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1117171628296073343/E2D40180D2A4F994A8A7B5570B6D66CA27CA8144/

Pariden location (Gilden is due south, not scouted yet, but there is an obvious road towards them)
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1117171628296091503/34FE353DD1A92A335045296D2E82EC9CD8AC2BF2/

Summary:

- The last 23 turns have basically just been scouting to find the enemy, building roads to reach them, and marching towards them while clearing out lairs on the way.  Now that they've been scouted though, I am honestly kind of disappointed.  I blitzed the map so fast that the AI really hasn't researched very far: I saw 9x3 spears, and 14x3 maces.
Overall, the AI armies are definitely not good enough to beat level 10 cave bears with 70+hp (which also heal 10hp/turn due to its level).

Current estimates:

- Altar will fall (with only 1 city) to Nochd before turn 60.

- Kieri and Alexan are heading towards Pariden and Gilden.  At this point, Kieri's army is 4 corpse spiders, while Alexan has 2 cave bears and 2 corpse spiders.  I'll probably level up Alexan 5-6 times by casting that sovereign spell with Kieri (+1 level for a champion, -5hp for your sovereign), so that he can cast grave elemental for death wards.

At this point, I believe this game will be over by turn 80 or so.

Incidentally joeball123, I never even researched shard harvesting.  In other words, if I had simply consumed all the nearby shards, I would of been set on mana even without ever using cull the weak.  There are just so many shards scouted on the map right now.

One thing's for sure, my next insane/insane game will be using one of the standard factions with the default sovereign (non Capitar or Altair).  Hopefully the game will be slightly harder...  I may even have to set myself a rule of 'no mage heroes allowed' since mage summon spells are insanely OP, as is sundering for killing elementals.

And completed as expected.

Killed Altar on turn 58, then Pariden on turn 78, and Gilden on turn 79.

Kieri's 68 damage 1 turn cast of Horrific Wail absolutely crushed Gilden, even iron golems and such.

Pariden didn't really have much, and fell to my other 2 heroes pretty easily.

I do have a save from turn 55, if anyone wants it.  But unfortunately, didn't make a save of the last 25 turns or so (not that you really need it).

Reading this, I got the feeling something isn't right. So I looked at the details...

Doesn't a huge map benefit the Monolith + Consume strategy? Why only 3 opponents on a huge map?

Can you do this exact same challenge on a SMALL map?

I notice there is no save posted.

OH WAIT - this picture you posted shows an Albino rock spider at level 6.

?http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=149487213

Level 6 is the standard monster spawning rating - on NORMAL. This lying troll is not playing on insane/insane. Notice how there are no other pictures of the enemies, their level, HP, etc?

Post your save, Chaosti. Except, of course, you can't - you've never beaten the game on insane/insane, have you?

FYI I saved that image, so Chasoti cannot un-host it. 

I tried this same built on insane, it is a great build and easily beats insane if played at all right.

I swapped water magic for air magic, as I see little use for water.

I also took clumsy instead of weak. I played on a medium map because it makes the game faster.

I say this because I think it is pretty obvious he is not lying, the game is not that hard to beat.

Before this I beat insane with a lot of other strats, often including enchanters and or decalon but I hadn't figured out the flesh bound tome plus summon skeletons strategy. It makes the game even easier. Also I wasn't building enough roads until I read this great post.

I am pretty sure you can beat the game with almost any starting build, just play well until you can start cranking out a big stack of strong units from a town that gives them damage/health/init bonuses and then wipe out the opponents or do a quest victory.

Post your save game please. 

Is there an easy way to attach files to a post?

I use dropbox. 

Here is the end of a game

https://www.dropbox.com/s/272nzybrnpjdhbe/Winning%20insane%20insane.EleSav

This is Insane/Insane medium map.

I saved it right beside the final battle for a quest victory.

I wiped out 2 of the 4 enemies already, 2 more are around but my group could probably smash them.

My main caster hero is level 19, but he gave out all of his health last turn to levelup my secondary hero to 29. I think I gave him 14 levels which costs 1200 mana or so but mana is free with this build.

You can take one step east and kill a dragon to win the game. It is fairly easy, just summon a horde of skeletons to distract the dragon and attack him. My warrior hero can hit for 300 with his special attack on the dragon. (which is more than I have ever seen from a hero basically)

If the dragon tries to cast a spell be sure to counterspell it. I gave up 30 health to get an extra 30 spell penetration just for this fight.

You can summon a huge fire boss for 3 turns too, but you are probably better off just hasting your guys (+12 initiative)

My caster hero only has 4 hps left so don't walk up to the dragon with him

davrovana:

I played 3 opponents because that was the challenge he suggested.  It made the game more challenging, because I couldn't easily find 1 of them, get a road built to them instantly with a trade route, and then wipe it out, and continue from there (since the AI loves to build roads between capitals).

With this basic build, normal maps really can be cleared in 50-60 turns or so, as opposed to the 80 it took here.  Small maps have been cleared in 40 turns or so...

I don't have autosave on, but here's the turn 55 save that I made.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2b1xwe3xw8c2p4d

It's not really hard to continue the game from that.  It'll probably need 1-2 hours to work to victory from here?  Especially with the screenshots showing the location of where Pariden and Gilden are, as soon as you crush Altar's 2 settlements.  Simply send Kieri at Gilden (her 68 damage AoE spell will smash them) and use the other heroes against Pariden.

I don't feel like wasting my time just to generate a save for you.  I know I beat the game on insane/insane.  It's as simple as that.

Also... you think an 800hp Delin appears on normal difficulty? lol.  Or 100hp rock spiders?

Or monster units on the map would have this kind of HP if it was normal difficulty?

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799422656951/F2B3D164AEFD83F2E44DF3C39CBB28B3E61A6582/

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1118296799418908005/E7CFD3072DF4A4208EFDEEBD0445EB777BB6124C/

 lol... the ridiculousness some people say.

mdonis:

I took water magic for inspiration (so all essenced settlements generate 2 research rather than just 1), and for slow (-initiative to make battles easy to control - when you basically get to move twice for every single move the enemy makes... well hit and run becomes very possible :D).  It was a critical advantage in early-game, when I didn't have that much mana or spells yet, and all the enemies had that much HP.

Air's initiative +3 boost isn't as good, comparatively speaking.

The water magic also let me get access to horses earlier, which is probably -the- key technology of early-game.  But ultimately, you're right, any additional points into water magic would of been a complete waste.  That said, it's not like I had points to spare anyways since I was focusing on the mage branch.