The Imperfect Valley Campaign

[DoomCarrot]

Sunrise and I have started a game for fun. Thought people might like to watch.

Settings:

Teams 1: Undeads (me), Human Mercenaries (AI)
Team 2: (Elves (Sunrise Samurai), Orc Mercenaries (AI)

Reveal, Many starting units, normal towns, no spell upgrades, pop 50, all other settings are typical.

Backstory:

A mysterious Valley is populated by magical orcs and elves. Humans from afar have repeatedly attacked the valley in search of the many treasures and beautiful lands within. Although the orcs and elves do not have the greatest relations, they have banded together many times to drive out the human invaders and their machines of war.

A dark force rises in the South. A powerful being known only as "the Doom" has used strong blood magicks to build an army of vile undead monsters. The Doom's eyes are set on the imperfect valley, and slowly the forces of darkness creep upon it. The Doom has possessed a powerful human lord and is using him to lead the humans in another invasion of the land to spill blood, so that more bodies may be raised for the army of the dead.

Orcs and Elves of the valley have aligned themselves to fight for their homes against the powerful threat. A Legendary leader known as the "Samurai of the Sunrise" has inspired the devotion of elf kind, who will follow him to death or victory. The orcs have no true allegiance to any leader, but will fight to the death to defend their homes. Unfortunately, the valley is fertile, but not perfect, and due to many invaders, the food supply is limited greatly. Each army can only support a small force.

Start:

[Sunrise Samurai]

Lol could this be moved here
http://www.ageofstrategy.net/viewforum.php?f=71

And I do ask you please observe the population limit somewhat. Undead have a bad habit of breaking population limits, since raise dead doesn't factor it in. I won't care about a few units over if it happens accidentally though.

You're better at narrating, so I'll let you post most of the updates.

[DoomCarrot]

I think undead is still fairly balanced though. It is very difficult to raise troops over pop limit, and even if you manage to get a few, that shuts off the production of many of your factoris and such anyways

[Sunrise Samurai]

True. And I could probably use that fact to limited you to weaker troops anyway.

[DoomCarrot]

And besides, I don't think anyone will hit the limit unless they own at least half the map. Which gives us reason to keep our AI allies alive and not just reconquer their land for ourselves

[General Brave]

What am I looking at?

[DoomCarrot]

Light blue are orcs, Dark Blue is Sunrise, Red is human, and orange is me

[General Brave]

Okay, so what are your guys's strategy?

[DoomCarrot]

Well Sunrise and I are pitted against each other pretty immediately. We must each grab as many tcs as we can between us. Our allies are both far away, but it may become imperative to send them reinforcements, as it would be a really big deal if one of the ais destroyed the other

[Sunrise Samurai]

You might want to update the screenshot. The human Lord under possession was evidently not of sound mind, as he almost immediately began construction of a castle. Great long term idea, but it will probably require undead assistance in the near future to avoid being overrun by orcs. If the Doom spares troops to do so, however, it may prove costly.

[DoomCarrot]

Yeah eccentric castle building is unfortunately one of the side effects of dark magic possession...

[Sunrise Samurai]

If you were playing orcs or humans, I'd suggest sending workers to speed it up. Undead have a little harder a time getting workers long distances though.

[General Brave]

Who doesn't love a Mad man, at least he isn't lazy.

[DoomCarrot]

The forces of the Doom lurk just beyond the range of the Samurai's soldiers. Orcs spread forcefully, and there are rumors that the humans have begun the construction of a massive, impenetrable fortress, a project driven by their mad and possessed leader.

[DoomCarrot]

Both AI allies behave in a stupid fashion, while Sunrise and I skirmish on the frontline. The town in the far north has declared allegiance to no side yet, and they currently live in peace.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Skirmish meaning I poison his knight while he doesn't get to hit back. And yeah, the ai players are being especially stupid. A fire archer has begun marching towards the undead, ready to burn the menace in it's tracks as wolves gnaw a few bones to help keep track of undead positions. (Measuring counterattack damage against known troops)

[General Brave]

The undead may have the upper hand, that is if you take those Town Hall away from him before he starts massing troops.

[Sunrise Samurai]

A temporary advantage. It won't matter much if I can keep his troop count down.

[General Brave]

Just make sure the pullback any near death troops, don't let him waste more of your attacks unless you have more that him.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Why not let burning skeletons escape? It's not like he can heal them or stop their death that way. I'm more concerned with the ones advancing on me.

[DoomCarrot]

The Doom invades. Humans send out many many healers, and speedily construct their castle. Orcs battle the weak human army. Elves fight valiantly, but the undead horde presses hard, and they are forced to either abandon the tc or fight the horror in terrifying melee combat.

[General Brave]

I did tell them not to allow the undead take hold, hopefully they have a dragon or a Elve wizard to try hold them off.

[General Brave]

The humans another hand has a bad idea building Healer. Hopefully they will finish the castle.

[DoomCarrot]

I expect the orcs to push humans all the way to the castle, but when it gets completed the AI will have a very hard time bringing it down without proper siege tactics.

But yes, sunrise is in a bit of a pickle. He could pull back and skirmish me and probably kill a fair amount of my troops in doing so, but he would lose a tc to me, which is unacceptable for him right now. Or he could stay and fight in melee, but he would be doing so with ranged units and a druid, against an army that really goes straight for the jugular in such a fight.

Also, retreat is unwise against the undead, as it leaves bodies for the undead to pick up along the way and keep pressing the attack.

[General Brave]

The only retreat when you know the battle is done, he must try to hold you off by using range. Then he has a press forward with his melee units.

[DoomCarrot]

Sunrise chooses to retreat. His tc falls to the undead. I take advantage of this to build 6 factories now, in case he takes it back.

My ai ally almost finishes the castle. Then tries to attack a town with healers. Then starts building a transport in a puddle.... No, they don't finish their church, they don't finish their castle... They build a transport in a puddle. Because they can. This is why I find a 5v1 ai game only mildly challenging.

The orcs continue to press forwards far more effectively, and drive the humans out of a tc. No doubt I will need to send the humans some aid, which is fortunate for sunrise. That may be the break he needs.

[Sunrise Samurai]

Well, I took the tc back, but the orcs have chosen to build a useless dock. Not an orc dock. A human one, which cannot build anything for them.

Elf losses have been minimal so far, only losing a number of wolves and one spearman, who was placed in a bad position to cover faulty order recognition. (Read: stupid phone smudged where I wanted to move my troops)

[General Brave]

Crazy building? Fantastic. But seems like the undead is building their greatest weapon.

[Sunrise Samurai]

What, a lich to ship over and raise human/orc bodies? Looks like it's already in progress

[General Brave]

Can't wait for the next updated image.
We want to see what happens nextsss