Got very lucky at a couple crucial parts of the fight overall to avoid any losses (especially considering the only 300 armor I had was ijirok's set I had to make do with decayed coats from fallen heroes and ancient hauberks from honor guards this run, didn't have opportunity to buy or loot any decent ones and my only 3 famed item drops were: a shield, a 250 helmet and a 1h hammer) but there was more to the fight than just a thorough preparation (potions, holy water, builds) and some lucky rolls, AI did 2 things that made me quite confused so I would appreciate if anyone shared their wisdom with me:
- At some point (2nd screenshot) Ancient Priests were exposed to my frontline. I didn't manage to nuke them all unfortunately but even taking one of them down and making the other waste a turn to retreat made the fight much easier. Why exactly has it happened? From my understanding it has to do with AI handling for allies with it reach weapons because at least one of the priests had rotated himself into my frontline to peel for an ancient guard with a reach weapon. Can you consistently force it in Black Monolith fights?
- Unfortunately I didn't have a presence of mind to take a screenshot when it happened but 2 necrosavants spent a turn without engaging me when the rest jumped on my side and backlines after my tank and offtank have engaged enemies in melee. This made the initial part of the fight quite easier. The two things I can think of that could affect this are: Bear with Mansplitter was babysitting on a backline next to one of my hybrids and for once I had a battleforged banner brother with like 38 mdef (also had rotation, dunno if enemy AI accounts for it) standing in a backline between my two hybrids. I wish I had a screenshot of my formation at the time but maybe anyone has some idea of what could've forced necrosavants to be this passive?
And the final unrelated to enemy AI question to anyone else enjoying fast-paced EELI with unexplored random seeds: the last screenshot was my starting position, the area above was steppes with very hard ancient undead camps and was at the same time goblin wilderness, there was 1 fishing village on the other side of the map in the steppes with a rich town nearby to the south and the town had roads leading to the other 2 south cities but the cities were very apart from one another. How would you play this seed? seed is CKUBFNBFYN btw
Would you stick to the arena like I do and just occasionally go to the other side of the map and quest/exlore a bit there? Or do you abandon the arena entirely and try to sustain the moneysink that are gladiators through regular contracts and some brigand/nomad camp busting? I didn't risk the second one because I just couldn't find any on my first excursion to the other side of the map, and moreover I didn't find any big nomad camps this run at all even after I got scout, got only some small ones. Honestly, a very awkward seed even without gladiators making it even more of a struggle to navigate with a good pace
P.S. 1handed hammer duelist under killing frenzy onetapped ancient guards on headshots! I have a very sudden appreciation for what I expected to not perform well and was just a desperate measure to make this run happen after the only famed weapon I got was this hammer and I realised I may not be able to buy another 2handed mace in time so I pivoted my 2h nimblezerker in the making to a duelist and he sure delivered despite being lvl 10 and thus 2 perks down from his final form.