[1.12][Stormworld]playing centaurs brag

Now the game was on large map, with multiple resources (I had several games with virtually no resoruces, so I wanted to guarantee that there will be some) and normal monsters. all other standard, world difficulty Sentinemodo (which basically means monsters +25% HP and aggressive toward player). I usually play with dense  monsters, but I wanted to have a game with large number of trained units, not solo sovereigns, and as the monsters give you most experience, this should reduce their power and in comparison put your troops on par. That with economic bonus for the AI should give a challenge I was seeking.

And it worked. at the climax of the game the map was having virtually dozens of trained troops armies with over 1 thousands HP and 500 and up attack/defence.

Centaurs in Stormworld have move of 3 which gives them excellent settling power. Really I was spreading like fire over dried grass. whenever a settleable area appeared and I had a pioneer ready, he was there almost instantly.

The amazing ability to settle, kept me on the third place behind Ceto of the Living stones, and the Lady Irane, the Tarthian princess. I was close to both of them and I tried to keep good relationships with all.

The story as you can see started with quick demise of Magnar. First Tarth and The Living stones declared war on him and crushed him quickly (first Tarth grabbed few cities, then Ceto grabbed rest) elevating them in power. I was too late to get him and his capital. Tarth was faster by one season. I had an army in position, but I was too late and he fell to , which was a pity because I could use a prestige boost for all those cities I've planted. 

At this point I was significantly stronger than two remaining Empire players Lochean of the Golems, and Omiss of the Lizardmen. So I had a peaceful period, spent on development, clearing monsters. I've lost a city to Wildland monsters, and made it point of my future expansion to clear the large head of a crystal snake from the abyss (forgot his name).

Having that completed I've woken up to see I am no longer on par with Ceto. While I grow (fast in my opinion) his power rating simply exploded. Fortunatelly I kept in check the Tarths (they were waging war with Lizardmen to the north-east), and were choked by the wildland directly to the north (the one with lotsa caves and cave bears on it). I could have allied the two empires, but that would make my victory only more difficult, as there is no option to break an alliance.

I didn't knew it then by the research graph tells you the story.

I decide to make a little diplomatic efforts then. Asked both empires to declare war on Ceto, than Ceto to declare war on Tarth.

Myself I've attacked the golems - the weakes empire. and let me tell you at this point of the game, they already had boreal blades on militias. Ouch. Did I told you about inherent resistance of golems to magic, and that my centaurs are weaker against pointed ends of the arrows? I had to fight nail and tooth for their two fortresses and two cities. I was able to win only because I claimed three of the Asok Knights resources. But only barely Asoks are good, but they come in threes while golems have already been fielding fives or sevens.

Having the prestige boost was nice but I was already having some 20 cities, growing at the snail pace. and the distance between me and Ceto grew every turn. While I conquered Golems, he managed to fend off all other invasions, claimed half of the lizardmen, and everything that Tarth managed to grab from Magnar. If golemns had boreal blades and sevens imagine what had guy that bested him 6 times in power?

Then I saw his armies marching on tarth - 1k HP stacks with 200 HP per unit and some ridiculous attack values. There was no time to wait. If I was to win I had to attack immediatelly before he could swallow other AI's and consolidate on me. I spread to hit in as many places as I could to chunk his powerbase.

This was the tipping point. I was still on the level of one handed boar pikes, with shields, and nowehere enough of metal and crystal, against colossus.

I hit hard. taking four cities, but his power level only grew. At the same speed as a was claiming his cities, he claimed remains of lizardmen and tarth, and turned on me.

Two turns after the initial war declaration he retook two of those cities, and claimed four of mine.

That's when I discovered two things. First was Gnomeking Helm. It allowed me to summon some ridiculoulsy powerfull scrap golems (you know they grow in both attack power and HP with level, and I was summoning them with high level sovereign) for free. (note HF, this thing is overpowered, really - something that can hit for 50 damage against 20 defense and have 300 HP out of the bat is overpowered).

Secondary I doscovered tornado. Now when you have as I did some 8 air shards you do 3 damage per sahrd that is 24 damage, now add path of the mage and Evoker III for some really ridiculous values, and then understand that against what you would expect from the description (still very nice for 45 mana) it is PER FIGURE which means that unless you hit champions/monsters they simply die. just like that. 1200 army consist of seven units of seven units on average 24 hitpoints, extremally high level armies, veterans of lizardmen and tarthian campaigns were reduced to single digit hitpoints left.

unfortunatelly only one army per turn, (I got only one air archmage (AIR V) - sovereign) and Ceto was having DOZENS of them attacking from all directions. this was also not a solution for all those "small" 400 HP armies of two spearmans that easily dispatched anythign I was able to throw at them including my kinghts of the Asok.

You see - Living Stones have one nasty feature - they increase in attack (fire) as they level up. and the fortresses Ceto had were pumping them high level right of the bat. This gave some ridiculous values to their spearmen, archers you name it, defenders and once in a while barons 32 attack times seven per unit with 200 HP when he could afford them metal/crystal wise. And ceto has a good 1/3 of the world by that time -> lots of metal/crystal (though strangely nothing on sale).

I've decided to go into opposite direction - IceTaurs - hardhitting, armor bypassing, ranged cold attackers, that I hoped will be fast enough, that nobody would notice they carry no armor.

That and of course some hard hitting lancers, leveraging on one handed piercing weapon that is Centaur's specialty.

Those however need to be lasting. and that required armor. and that required metal. I've tuned all my cities to build/upgrade shards (for tornados/blizzards) and crystal (i needed 70 crystal for each unit of icetaurs) and metal (some 30 crystal and a whooping 150 metal for every unit of heavy destriers).

I've filled the ranks with much cheaper chargers (mere 50 metal per unit, almost no armor) that I used for first round punch.

All in all I put my bet on high initiative and attack as opposed to ceto's hitpoints and slow moving hard hitting and high defense units.

After surviving few more rounds I thought I had turned the tide and despite me being 400 in power and Ceto 1200 I will win.

and then I saw storm dragon, 160 hitpoint champion with 50 attack and 120 fire resistance, two 100 hitpoint champions and some fodder this followed by 230 hitpoint of Ceto himself backed up by 1200 hitpoints army all in all 600 attack.

My sovereign was elsewhere along with brokenspirited Lochean of the golems ...

My main champion was an elven warrior focused on fire, doing a hefty 100 damage per flame dart at that point.

Supported by halfdrake champion with ignys crossbow (nicely rounding to 25 or so attack at that time). They had level 14 stalker and level 14 cave bears. So far the managed to wipe anything on their path. and rest of the ranks filled by high level knights of asok. I've promptly tornadoed Ceto's army leaving him without it. and braced myself within city defenses waiting for the other enemies.

That's when they earned their first injuries. It was a massacre. Before I was able to respond storm dragon stormed the Elf. She retaliated with flame dart but only sratched the dragon and was not able to hurt at all the champion. 70 attack archers wiped out my stalker and bears. and the champions grew, stoneskinned and promptly dispatched what escaped the dragon's wrath.

I've lost two more cities next turn, luckily not the ones I've had my retreated heroes.

Meanwhile my sovereign Vini conquered level 5 town deep in Licing stones territory and a Ceto's capital. Fully manned (armored militia mod didn't worked as far as I can tell). Blizzard brought down half of them with 6 or so water shards, I was dealing some 150-300 damage per unit and I was able to catch four or five of them. The rest were finished by the scrap golems. My main problem was mana. I pumped some 30 mana per turn, which is less than needed to cast tornado and barely enough for a single blizzard.

And Ceto counterattacked. From his cities flow a steady stream of armies, in all directions - trying to recapture his capital, claim more of my cities and fighting all other wars, yes he had enough resources to fight me and at the same time take a city or two per turn from Lizardmen and Tarth.

By then however the tide was begun to turn.... the iron mines/crystal caves/shrines of all sort boosted by production bonuses from the two level 5 cities I took over were completed. my mana stream ramped up to 50 adn about the same for iron. Crystal at 20 per turn was sufficient for a two endgame units per turn.

No matter what Ceto managed to throw at me I held fast. Larger armies were tornadoed, smaller dispatched by normal means. The problem of storm dragon was taken care by more preparation before the attack. tornado to single him and the champions out, tremor, freeze, 4 stacks of chargers against the nwo 100 hitpoint champions and a two flame darts from a +12 initiative hasted elf against the dragon.

I captured the storm dragon camp and had one on my own now very soon. The game was won at this point, but it still took a lot of beating to kill him off. And the AI managed to pull out one spectacular feat of raising a mountain range to block my advance on strategic level.

Apart from that however and some combat enchantments I did not  see any sign of strategic spell use. AI finaly managed to mount his sovereigns and champions but I did not see a single cavalry unit in his ranks, despite them having lots of horse/warg sources. They were also able to give them some decent gear but nowehere about their capabilities. lots of slots left unused and dozens of leather vembraces and inititive amulets on them wasting their resources. They also dismount for some reason. I've seen lizardmen leader on mount, but when I came to fight him, he dismounted and as far as I can tell wasn't using any other equipment slot. He had three types of mounts in his inventory.

ginsu knives need to be used more comprehensively - they need to be added to some unit designs of the AI and to create greater variety of bandits.

bridges work as should, swamp tiles weren't - I was able to built them on arctic tiles (I built the story to that about the oil sources in the frozen fields) 

tentstyle looks amazing apart from missing pedestrians, but this is a Stormworld issue not the mod one. There are several missing tiles in cloth map for the buildings and upgrades in progress.

I was able to build summonners, and I think I even seen some used by the AI, but I simply had no time to build one. I think they come a bit too late to be useful, unless those elementals are sufficiently high level to make a dent in the trained units.

Heroes seemed to be worked - I've seen them used by the AI, but wasn't lucky enough to hit their quest huts.

You can see the largeUI mod result in the screens above. I cannot fanthom now playing without them, which will be a problem if there ever will be multiplayer mode enabled.

I think there is a bug (in function or in description) about Vertar's Howl - just like Tornado and Tidal Wave it deal damage to figures in army not units in army but it also destroyed the city.

There is an AI bug that allow you to trick heavily defended city to split it's defenders (just sacrifice single unit close to the city, and they will move out to destroy it). Human player would destroy the unit and return to the city.

All in all I spend 44 hours on this game and loved eveyr moment of it. be it scary (when the wasteland let loose it's deadly stack on me), scarrier (when the stack of gibbai moved about, evil giggling (when I tricked everyone to war with Ceto), dreadful (when he just defeated them all and exploded in power ranking) and outright terryfing (when he retaliated and took four cities in a single turn, with thousand+ armies of unit's I was some 300 turns to research) to the ultimate triumphatant moment (take that you bloody, fiery piece of a dumb rock).

Sounds like you had a blast!

It is not a Stormworld issue that pedestrians are missing from the tent mod.

I will put a huge nerf on the scrap golems next release, I didn't really plan for the player to reach such high levels. Right now they have Tough (+3 hit points per level) and they continue to gain stuff per level up to level 20. I will remove the tough and stop them from gaining anything after level 15 (except normal level bonuses).

Oh yes I did.

The pedestrains issue I mentioned is the tiny centaurs , and this is a SW issue if I recall your answer correctly.

I think that beside scrap golems themselve the hel needs a nerf and summon them at a fixed level (like 9th since this is a 9th level item) plus eventual summonner bonus.

Well no, there just aren't any centaur pedestrians to place in the tiles.

which exactly is the issue , there are no tiny centaurs only some littl' humans

Looks cool. I agree with you on the no ctrl-n thing. Work with what you get. Set the difficulty high enough that you really feel the achievement when you finally win!

I didn't make the tent mod, the tent mod doesn't display centaurs. It is practically unrelated to Stormworld.

Besides, in the Elemental world, cities have population that does not belong to any specific race. The characters we train and play represent the ruling military class of those factions, but every city has a large quantity of humans and other species in them.

I agree with Heavenfall... I made the tent mod and it is not a stormworld issue, nor do I think that Heavenfall should fix the problem of no little centaur people. If I knew how to create 3d models of these people I would include it for heavenfalls mod, but at the moment I don't know how to do this. Also, I don't think heavenfall will be making pedestrians, because he doesn't play with them.

would you be kind enough to point these out when you see them next. I wrote all the xml by hand and didn't use copy and paste so there are a few typo's that may have caused these problems. I will look through my files and see if there are anymore typos in there.

Bad-ass level +1

Only found 1 problem the lumberyard, since that pic doesn't use the same convention as the others. I fixed a few others where I used the wrong icon instead of the construction icon. I didn't find anything else and I've got version 1.8 up with those fixes.

Thanks, that was to ensure that I didn't miss any of my building designs. Now, I've got a template to do an efficient copy and paste.

This difficulty setting you are talking about, I am not able to choose it, there just the good old ones, and the expert one cheats so badly I cant beat it, and hard is just to easy..

I am affraid that Sentinemodo difficulty is more difficult than expert. I can beat expert every game, and it took me few tries to beat Sentinemodo.

for comparison Expert has more money (10 times instead Sentinemodo's 5), but hitpoints of monsters and trained units are only 10% higher not 25%, sovereign has 25% more not 50% and (whatever it means) AI has intelligence factor of 2 as compared to 10 (challenging has 1.3 and insane has 10)

Anyway to use it - download the file from the link in the first post, copy it into the mods directory. make sure you have use mods in options enabled. I am not sure it works with master affliction mod, as Sean is also setting his own difficulties, but they should be compatible.

I dunno if expert is different in Stormworld or not, but in vanilla I can't beat expert because the enemy comes at me with units that has 6 perks in around 50 turns, I am power 30 if luck and they are power 100+

If you can, can you pm your strategy on building up quick enough to beat expert?

Edit* 51 turns, I was at a miserable 15 power, the enemy was already at 95, I am doing something horrible wrong =P

1. don't worry too much about your power level. There is a distinct difference between 'computer thinks it is more powerful' and 'computer can truly hurt me

2. check out tuijidy's posts on let's play and beginner guide. they should take you beyond expert easily

Can't find it with google or search, tuijidy's lets play, do you have a link for me ?

And the power being 'wrong' ish, doesnt change the comp having a army of 6 perks units withing 50 turns, and because my power is so low they go to war quick. Perhaps with the lets play guide I can get it.

here you go: there is a link within to the playthrough

https://forums.elementalgame.com/435680

So you played through the game without any crash? Or did you had crash, but the autosave saved your day? Have you checked the log when you crashed? 

I had crashes. Three or four during that time. At least two were actually hangs/freezes on tactical combat (I've learnt, that swipe move from a dragon, take around 20 seconds to complete) that I needlessly interrupted with auto resolve that killed my army.

Other crashes are resulting from autolocking of the laptop. I usually was able to get back to play but once in while, I get failed directX call followed by the crash.

Yes failed directX call, when threads step on each other might happen, but they are not reproduced when you launch the game again, so that's ok.

Thanks for your AAR, he gave me hope that I can finish a large game.

Did you play with dense monsters (I don't mean they are dumber than usual )

Sentinemode, how did you manage to keep up with the comp without the wealthy perk? I find that the trade relations that you buy with wealthy, the  less then two turns remaining on buildings and buying two unitis that normally cost 16 turns to complete, in 2 turns, made a gigantic difference in my games, I bested expert and ridicules but I can't without that perk because they all go to war with me because of being 'weak'.

I had monsters on normal. Dense monsters lead to extremaly high level sovereigns, as monsters give lots of experience. AI can't properly level up his champions, so I set the world toward large numbers of well equipped trained troops that is dense resources.

I used the centaurs perk - move of three. and spammed cities like mad.

Also II've been planting them as dense as possible. on the comparable area I had approxiamtelly twice as many cities as living stone and quite a few of them were fortressess, that produced a trained unit (as good as I was able to afford with metal) and a building. large number of units push your power rating. Quantity boost it more than quality.