Game #568 Tournament game#34 | Round 3 : 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament #34

Yes, at this point I agree with you, Hili.
I've already noticed myself that many players (including me) often mull to a snowball hero like theo and, when they get it (one who doesn't can be considered as unlucky I guess XD), they concentrate on leveling up it instead of leader or some units. Here Gab managed to level up both heroes to lvl10 (and I consider this a genius result, we are not doubting Gabriel's skills here), but the problem is that...there was very little of sorcerer class here =) It was in fact the very theo hero who gave him 2 tier 3 units (and this is another random factor cause you might miss with convert or at least be forced to retreat and make another attack). 
I think we should make Aow more starting class oriented. It's a shame, for example, when a dreadnought or warlord wins by snowball cause his second hero was a theo or necromancer

The key point here was not the 3 turns differential: Hellbrick had Crows when he met gab. The key points were that his Crows were killed by Wisps and that gab came with 2 T3 and 2 level 10 heroes, and that Hellbrick was not in a position to strike back.
I would say that dividing by 2 rewards from Legendary and Mystical sites would probably do more here than modifying scout tech availability. And as I said, you can propose changes like this but the community is not on your side:


Balance starting (pre-researched) spells to make all starts more equal is ranked #9. So the first thing to do would be to convince other people that it is an important topic and that it needs to be addressed.

As of time to provide feedback: that's why we haven't even reached priority #3. Because everyone (not just you) has limited time to provide feedback. And that is also why it makes more sense to focus on changes with broad support and not on ones that only 6 persons registered on the BF considered important: because we are not going to get the "net +5 votes" for them to get approved.
(though it's a shame because the "Decrease rewards or increase risks for high-level sites" is even worse with only 4 persons supporting it, despite its much bigger importance than starting conditions)

With or without scouts, when you face an army too strong for you before turn 20, there isn't much you can do. So for me the focus should be on preventing rushes that are too strong to counter. (a rush with T1-T2 is acceptable and should be possible to bring victory)

Well, here we have a perfect example how important "3 turns differential on when you get your scout" is. If one player comes to another on turn 13 then, probably, these 3 turns are important for scouting and making the route, don't you think so? 
So, if I understand it correctly, I myself being part of the comminuty too can propose a change  I guess it will be like this: make all tier-1 scouting summons preresearched in the spellbook
As for your proposals, I'm trying to give feedback as soon as possible but it takes a lot of time for me to examine the changes cause I myself am more interested in strategic features of aow than tactical. So I basically don't know some structures or spells at all. And just don't have time to both play turns every day and give feedback. 

Except that:
- this is not MY mod and I'm not the one who makes decision, the community and the core group of which you are part do. Same for who proposes changes.
- there was a poll and people did not agree to remove rapids.

So don't talk to me about this, talk to the core group and to the community and convince them. And the sooner you give feedback on proposed changes, the sooner we move to the topic of starting conditions (which ranked very low in the poll).
As of Public Baths, it's part of the Necro nerf and believe me that Necro nerf it's much more important than a 3 turns differential on when you get your scout.

Congrats to Gab and thanks to Hellbrick for a very nice report.
Actually, this is another example, Hili, why you should concentrate more on these simple balance moments:
1. Every player should have a tier-1 scout researched in spellbook from turn 1 or every player should research it.
When one gets it casted on turn 2 and the other one - on turn 5 - it's imbalanced because it affects the result of such rush games. And it's much more important in my opinion than the cost of Public Baths. 
2. I've already talked with you about rapids. It's a very strong random factor and "no rapids mod" should be implemented in the main branch of balanced mod. That's what I strongly believe in. 

That was quick guys!! When I wished you good luck in the game blog, I hesitated to add: "please try not to die too quickly", I should have!

Not clearing the sites near the throne makes perfect sense to me if you go for a rush strategy: you optimize your path toward the enemy and do not clear sites that are not in that path. Sorcerer is one of the best class for such a strategy as you summon as you go and Wisps and Phantasm Warriors are pretty good to tank/split against many sites. Bringing the Ice Queen to Champion requires 5 good fights basically.
Welcome to the world of optimized play of AoW3! Hellbrick, I told Lightform he should play against you to show you that kind of play before, but it seems you two didn't do the match in the end. But if you play again gab, DarkRider or to a lesser extent me or Lightform, you'll see why there are still many gaps in AoW3, that would need to be balanced.

Ok, i give you that as soon as YouTube want laod that don't work for the moment...

Alright, if you're ready to show just a couple of turns, can it be the turns 6 and and 10? =) The last days aren't that interesting.

Hmmm i don't want teach at every body how to beat me, this is why like i appreciate you i proposed to give you one or two turn <3. And load 17 files for 3.1go is very annoying.I just have do the last video where you can see all the map and i show my way with the mouse .

If you have the videos of all turns, could you just upload all of them to YouTube or something for the people to see? I'm pretty sure a lot of us would be thrilled to take a look at them =) Unfortunately, just one or two turns don't really show the full picture, I'm mostly interested in how it all fit together (although looking at the details of some of your battles could be quite interesting as well).

Confirmé par gabthegab

First congratulation this is a very very nice and good repport!!!

Yes i have wisp at start, no my first hero wasn't the theocrate .

I don't Attack structure near my first city because i don't want lose time and rush you.

For exemple the forge just arround my cap is under forest and with 3 strong ingener vs Frostling, i don't want lose units and time for 50 gold and few experience, like you can see the forge isn't in my domain at the end. More i have one forge in my domain don't need one more.

I have do many fight in my way for rush, with many error at start i lose 4 units a very stupid error with a pickman of frostling , i am Lucky with the map. for convert a little of luck i have 3 sucess(the flyer the ice qeen and one matyr) on 8 try.

I have all turn in video i can give you HellBrick one or two if you want.
Thank you for this great repport!

I didn't want to drag out the agony and surrendered on the day 15 =) Congrats to my opponent.

It was a very fast, very unlucky (for me) and somewhat weird game. Here are the highlights:

1. No Crow spell pre-researched on start (btw, gabthegab, did you have your Wisp already researched or did you research it manually)?
2. No additional nodes or research structures nearby.
3. Brigand hideout and necromantic circle in two completely opposite directions from the starting point.
4. At the day 7 our scouts met the first time. While at the day 6 Omen of the dove occurred, leading to my Crows being ripped to shreds by Wisps no matter the quality or quantity (at one point I tried attacking a Wisp by two Crows, having one of them under Lucky and Devastating charge, but still lost), causing me to basically go blind.
5. Simultaneously with me researching Bard, gabthegab's army showed up at my doorstep and took my throne the next turn:



6. At the time my army was clearing towards the center of the map on the other bank of an unpassable rapid river that cut the map vertically in half, with the only normal bridge to the left of my throne (exactly where gabthegab came through). But it couldn't attack my opponent's throne, because the rapid river made a turn and cut me off from it. The only way around was through the east, slowed down by getting through the mountains, and it would have taken too long to make a counter attack viable, so I surrendered: there really wasn't much for me to do here.

That covers the "fast" and the "unlucky" parts that I mentioned earlier, now to the "weird" part. I showed you a screenshot of gabthegab's army. What you don't see on it is 10/10 heroes and the fact that Flyer and Ice queen are converted (I assume by the starting hero, who was a Theocrat). The timing looks quite impressive: leveling up the hero to lvl 9, then converting an Ice queen somewhere, then leveling her up to elite, and all this while leveling up other units as well in just 14 days is pretty damn good. Here's the military score for the reference:



(The noticeble jumps are at days 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11)

But what baffles me the most, all this leveling up was done without even clearing most of the structures near the throne:



Frankly, I don't know what to make of it. Unfortunately, since my scouting sucked, I have no idea what structures have or haven't been cleared in the western part of the map, so I can't even begin to estimate how close this timing was to what's theoretically possible. @gabthegab, could you please tell a bit about your reasons for leaving the starting structures untouched and the timing of your leveling up / mind controlling? I'm genuinely curious.

Match has been reported, please confirm!

Match has been reported, please confirm!

Please click here to read the rules. In order to avoid advantaging one team or the other, for each match, the team who will host the match was randomly selected.The first team in the "turn order" above (who is also the team on top in the tree here) must host the game. Tournament Game #34 Round $roundza ! When players do not show up for their match, the Tournament Judges have the right to change the match!

I am in, good luck have fun , Hilidian you don't wish me good luck 

Ok, we have both your class/race (@gab: please send it to me by PM too, not just by chat), you can start. Good luck to Hellbrick and have fun to both!

Alright, I've hosted the game without it.

Game: PBEM '2017 #34
Password: 201734

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Hello hell ,
like i don't have time to test it i prefer not for this time may be next time, that is a interresting mod

@gabthegab, would you like to play with the mod that removes rapids from the random maps (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=537938378) enabled?