last night i played an ip game with my brother (_Splinter_) and best friend (Captain_Planet_). capt was summie, splinter was minoan, and i was choson. my only chance was to iron jump because choson bronze is pitiful. i think capt and splinter had some bronze skirmishes becuase i iron without my wall being touched. i quickly towered the gold pits for survaillance becuase of excess stone and purchased the long swordsman upgrade in addition to monotheism. why destroy when u can convert? i quickly qued an army and marched to splinter's base. i was repelled so i built some barracks by capt and brought about 10 swordsmen into his town. at this point, he unfortunately drops. unbeknown to me, capt had ruined splinter's fishing which meant no compies hehe. i fortunately, only had a handful of boats so the seas meant little to me. the constant onslaught of swordsmen eventually overran splinter's initial base and i promptly converted it for my use . later in the game i had him conered on was stockpiling resourses (an error, i should have attacked) , only to find he had accumulated a nice army of ballistas with a couple cats. my beautiful swordsmen died quickly and i was left searching for quick answers. a great idea hit me and immediately 4 temples were errected as afterlife and martyrdom was researched. twelve priests (at only 85 gold a pop) split into 3 groups and patiently waited. when the seige army arrived, the priest quickly used martyrdom on the ballistas before they could get into range. yes, some priests died to those cursed cats, but fortunately some cavs arrived just in the nick of time. i converted about 7 ballistas and that was the end of his army and the game i soon collect all the artifacts and we chatted as the time slowly passed.
i think that martyrdom is a true counter to ballistas (i haven't attempted this on helopi yet). cats are defitely the best solution against mass ballistas, but what about just a couple? a few priest and u have a nice new army. yes u lose 125 gold per death (85 for choson) but if u convert a ballista, u gain 80 gold (40 for mace, but don't do this against mace unless necessary because those cheap ballistas are too powerful for this strategy) and your opponent loses 80 gold, which means a gold swing of 160, greater than your loss of 125 gold. u must have afterlife to do this or the ballista will shred your priests. it would also work on cavs. what do u think on this issue?