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)

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!

yea typo Azunai.  My mistake.  Post updated

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.

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.

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...

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

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).

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.

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

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