Re: How to Play the Abysian Race?
 

Problem with using a Staff of Storms as Abyssia is that a storm makes fire magic more fatiguing in combat, which sucks. Still, if you're facing someone like Man with heavy duty, accurate archers, it might be worthwhile.

Re: How to Play the Abysian Race?
 

Most of the comments seem to revolve around magic; here's one it took me some time to understand...

Abysian troops (Abysian Infantry) require tons of resources. (the mages cost a lot of gold, while the troops, not counting the lava warriors, cost relatively little gold, but a lot of resources)

Consider using a cheaply built fortress, so you can recruit them from more than one place. I try to go with the Wizard's Tower, though the 120 design points hurt a lot.

Re: How to Play the Abysian Race?
 

Most of the comments tend to be based around magic because Abysian troops are fairly straightforward. They're burly, mean, and heavily armored. You build them in packs and then go beat stuff up. In many ways, they're not all that different from Ulm, except that they tend to work poorly with other infantries because of their heat auras.

Re: How to Play the Abysian Race?
 

And a total lack of missile troops.

Re: How to Play the Abysian Race?
 

Staff of Storms does not hurt you in any way if you only use it with Warlocks. They will not cast Fire spells, and Storm doesn't hurt your other troops at all. But using SoS with your Salamanders and Dragons would be a bad idea... Maybe not if you would have one casting Fanaticism all the time, as that is not a fire spell, but he would propably cast few attack spells and go unconcious.

Re: How to Play the Abysian Race?
 

In addition to Zen's post read this:

I was playing a medium sized map and after like 10 turns got in contact with Caelum. I was conquering their provines and at about turn 15 was attacking their main province.
My army was leaded by a demonbred, which are usually NOT demons. Anyway i earlier decided to make this demonbred by prophet, and you know prophets just have to lead sieges (at least for me). Its nice to increase dominion and have a good priest in a siege.

Anyway, a Demonbred which is made a prophet automaticly gets the "demon" status, as well as a slightly changed picture. I usually have nothing against demons, because its rarely a disadvantage. Too bad the defending caelum army was leaded by a prohpet, too. To make it short, the Capitol had negtive dominion (-5 or -6) and so my prophet was rather weaked. In the end the enemy prophet was able to banish my demon AT THE FIRST TRY and i was really pissed.
i will NEVER do something stupid that again. That was one of the things you never forgot..


Edit: major grammar..

[ March 14, 2004, 08:55: Message edited by: Ragnarok-X ]

Re: How to Play the Abysian Race?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'd like to underscore what Endoperez said. I thought it was clear from my post that I dont rely on fire, so if you do, SoS is not so hot for you. However, I go warlocks with astral and blood. Let the Fire masters work their priestly powers. Also something not to be forgotton: Demonbreds with sabbath master on 2 slaves are level 5 priests.... who needs fire? (Last remark = joke, of course if you like fire, go for it!)

Re: How to Play the Abysian Race?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A lack of national missile troops is a feature of several nations, and probably one of the more easily overcome: Indy archer provinces are a dime a dozen, and setting your archers away from your Abysians so they don't explode into flames isn't so hard: Your Abysians will be up front, rushing the enemy, while the archers are somewhere in the back, not moving.

Re: How to Play the Abysian Race?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A lack of national missile troops is a feature of several nations, and probably one of the more easily overcome: Indy archer provinces are a dime a dozen, and setting your archers away from your Abysians so they don't explode into flames isn't so hard: Your Abysians will be up front, rushing the enemy, while the archers are somewhere in the back, not moving. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, and if you do it wrong, you'll place the Abysians in the back, rushing up front, and the archers up front, not moving. If you time it right, the Abysians will reach the archers just in time to set them ablaze before the enemy routs them, and then they'll rout through the remnants of the fire aura... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: How to Play the Abysian Race?
 

I have a lot of fun with the bless effects and lava warriors. Pick 3 paths that have interesting looking level 4 bless effects and after some normal expansion for the first 5 turns or so start cranking out the lava warriors and put them under an anath. Have it cast Divine Blessing and Fanaticism and watch the lava warriors go. Great fun and they buy you the time to get the rest of your program rolling.