All Siege, All the Time!

[Winge]

The old verison of the game, where you tried desperately to balance out the sides and never lose a building?  It seems to have caused a pent-up desire in me to use siege units.  In this game, I will do so...excessively   >D

Ganan Fields, all difficulties Normal, 40 turn game.  My only self-imposed restriction is that I will not build Barracks or Archery Ranges, not even as buffers.  Needless to say, building lifespan is expected to be short in this game.  So short, that I will actually try out some diplomacy on the side, to ensure that I have a few 'resource areas.'  Right at the start, I build one additional city on each side and set up the Embassies/Diplomats.  It takes a few savescums for me to figure out what I am doing, but eventually, I have two relatively well stocked towns.  I set up the Norse to build Catapults and the Greeks to build Oxybeles...which, unfortunately, also enables Trojan Horses.

From there, it's simply a dervish of building and watching buildings get completely demolished.  And finding out that Trojan Horses don't care if structures are invincible.  I never did like Trojan Horses, and that bug won't help my opinion of them anytime soon.  A Midgar's Serpent after around 20 turns clears up a bunch of ruins (and half the map), allowing me to rebuild structures to get killed again for more points.  I also dropped a Light Elf to get rid of some bandits who escaped the Keep's destruction...[rant]because of Trojan Horses.  Have I mentioned I don't like Trojan Horses?  I think they need an additional finished goods requirement so that I'm not pigeonholed into building them with all the other siege units.  Swords makes the most sense to me (have to arm the guys inside, right?).[/rant]  That Light Elf might have been a mistake...it's making the battle too one-sided, which means I'm not getting as many points as I want (though well more than what I need).

The Age of Monsters brings Skadi and Hera to the field.  I use Chair of Forgetfulness (first time for everything this game...) and Hera's ring to protect my lone blue Diplomat, and try to give the Blue Siege units a chance to avoid the Light Elf.  Also gives some nice point bonus.  I start using Skadi's abilities as well for points (minus Wolf...I don't want mountains).  I get a second red and blue embassy up to try and get a red town clear of the Trojan Horses.  I've only lost two structures at the enlightened Norse town, but I would very much like to place a lot of tokens later on.  Which means I need more Diamond Mines 

I finish off the evening at turn 45, 1 turn left on Human Vanity (real score killer there).  I almost have as many points as I need for the entire game, and I am in no immediate danger of losing.  However, my next Woe is Ultima...isn't that supposed to be a Cataclysmic Woe?  In any case, I'll need to make sure that all of the partially dead towns can survive a siege barrage or (preferably) finish them off before Ultima hits.  Once I'm clear of that, I'll resume my town and siege spamming, while playing with a few God Tokens for extra points.

[Cinth]

Yeah, Ultima is going to turn all but one town on each side (and the entire game board) into obsidian.  I'd guess that you are going to want to stockpile resources for that.

[Mick]

In the game I posted I had ultima hit, and it destroyed the military units as well as the towns. So it was not really as dangerous as it sounded.

[Winge]

Yeah, Ultima is going to turn all but one town on each side (and the entire game board) into obsidian.  I'd guess that you are going to want to stockpile resources for that.

Resource stockpiles will not be a concern  .  However, losing every town but one surrounded by ruins?  Yeah, that would be a problem...hence why I will try to either kill them off the weak towns or get them where I can at least place a Stone Mason.  From there, dropping a few other towns should prevent imminent doom.

[Winge]

I used Midgar's Serpent to trash as many world tiles as possible before Ultima.  I've used it twice and the world is somehow still standing.  Must be duct tape holding it together.

I survived Ultima.  That should be a bumper sticker 

The two towns spared were the second, unenlightened Norse town (bummer) and the enlightened Greek town (huzzah!).  Easy enough to recover from.  Hera's Diadem refuses to switch in Heimdell.  Oh well, more points for me.  God Token spam alone is going to put me in the expert point difficulty zone (on Normal difficulty; I get the feeling I'd need to work harder on a tougher game or woe difficulty).  The war is rather quiet at the moment, between the delay of siege units and another Chair of Forgetfulness (Hera almost died during Wrath of the Gods), but I'm trying to bring more Siege Workshops online and Town Centers for them to demolish.

[Winge]

Success!  Number of Barracks and Archery Ranges produced:  0.

Actually, even without diplomacy, I think I could have pulled off this victory.  With a few turns to build up economy, I become able to build towns faster than a faction can destroy them.  I was so secure, that I was able to absolutely spam the God Tokens for a respectable final score (note:  some of that score was from a mostly unintentional exploit).  I would have had even more points, had it not been for an unfortunate Greek Miner Revolt.  I suspect that Harder difficulties might have prevented my...enjoyment...of this strategy, due to increased bandit spawn rates and higher unit costs.  However, it was definitely a blast to play!