Re: Couple of questions
 

Thanks for the info, everyone has been really helpful and I am starting to shake the rust off. A couple more questions have surfaced in my new game that I wonder if any of you could help with.

1) Summoned Commanders - Typically what do you use the bigger, buffer generals that have the stats for a melee monster, but also have 3-4 in a path? Like say the Troll King, or any of the Unique Elemental kings? Do you use them as static mages? Or use them as melee machines and just self buff?

2) Weapons - I prefer not to deck out every commander with a Life stealing weapon. I typically save Wrath Swords for Bane Lords. There are so many weapons however, but I am curious what Artifact class weapons do typically like to forge?

3) How do you guys move troops to the front when you have a large empire? I have troops that are capitol only, so I still use my capitol as a recruiting zone. I am fighting a war on two fronts, and it is about half way inbetween both fronts. But...it still takes forever to get them to either front. Also, I had to pull resources from one front to the other, and that took forever....I had to basically hold out till relief from the western front arrived. I am wondering if there is a more efficent way than hoofing it.

4) I am able to pretty much summon anything at this point in the game, except blood stuff. What do you guys tend to rely upon in the various schools?

5) I am having a huge problem with friendly fire. I normally end up causing most of the casualties in the two of my most relied upon summons....Clockwork horrors, and Pale Riders. Both give me very cheap flanking units. But....once the 3rd round hits, the friendly fire starts mounting. I set both units up to race down the flanks and engage archers and/or rear units. They get mauled when the come back to help out the infantry, and when they are chasing fleeing units. Is there any orders or placement that can help minimize friendly fire?

6) As Ulm, could you give some suggestions for scripts for the smiths...all my combat smiths have fire 2 Earth 3.

Re: Couple of questions
 

These two tie together : on a large map, having troops walk is impractical, but there's two magic paths that can move armies : astral and nature. (In theory, 3 paths, but the death spell is bugridden and essentially kills the army.)

So : if your national mages can't get high enough in nature or astral, get yourself an Ether Lord or Couatl for Gateway-ing troops, or a couatl, ivy king, lamia queen, or tree lord to move troops via Faery Trod. Gateway is limitted to travel to friendly controlled labs, Faery Trod is limitted to forest-to-forest travel, but if the game goes on long enough, Thaumaturgy-9 has Astral Travel, with no restrictions. Also : The GateStone gives free Astral Travel at const-8, if you get it.

Re: Couple of questions
 

smiths with magma eruption=good, as for kings/queens they are best as scs but guys like trolls good support casters. as for no using life draining weapons if using cb then i agree as they have been toned down, almost all artefacts are useful and to get troops to the front try to get flying ship. good summons are: massed vine ogres (cast by vine-kings or units with the vine hat thing), abominations, ghost riders, tartarians and a few others

ps:try to give all your thugs/sc's luck, regen and reinvig

Re: Couple of questions
 

Does any spell allow you to move multiple commanders? Due to the limited Army setup screen, I tend to gather stacks independant of eachother, and then move them to a central staging area. For example, right now at one of my rear forts, I have 2 smiths summoning what i intend them to lead, a Black knight Commander with his calvary, and am in the process of filling out a Ulm commander with infantry. I have additional mages moving to a midway rally point at which they will sit till the Ulm infantry is done.

If they are all personal spells however, I will have to change the way I recruit recruiting only infantry in rear areas, limiting rear recruiting to indie mages. I would also have to setup a series of labs behind the front lines where stacks could form up.

It is hell trying to issue orders when commanders are presant that aren't ment to be in that particular stack.

Re: Couple of questions
 

No.

Re: Couple of questions
 

Well, first of all you should move all your summoners to the securest lab closest to the front. What is the sense in summoning some units only to make them walk all the way there? With summoning, your mage is like a factory and if your factory can walk then it should http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

You should definitely move the bulk of your slow troops with magic. Moving additional commanders to the front can be done with Flying Boots. Just forge some up and hand them out to new commanders as they leave for the front. Then drop them off at the closest lab to the front for the next commander.

Re: Couple of questions
 

In my current game I am using your suggestion, the flying boots one...its working quite well. Normally though, I don't have one front. So I keep summoners at the half way point so they can get to either end relativley fast.

As far as the troops are concnered, do most people use 25 LD commanders? I notice some people saying they rarely use mortal commanders opting for mages instead. Most mages have a natural LD of 10, 10 isn't big enough for one squad in my armies. Unless you deck out your transporters in magical LD enhancing gear, I'd assume you'd need a lot of em to ferry troops around.

Re: Couple of questions
 

well, if you assume that you are generally trying to recruit a mage every turn, you generally will end up with a lot of them lying around, ready to transport your troops around, not to mention being the real damage-do'ers in battle later in the game.

this might not be the case in a poor world, but otherwise, lots of mages shoudl be the norm (at least when i play).

Re: Couple of questions
 

feel free to make non-mages in indies, thats what i do (or use a summoned general)

Re: Couple of questions
 

That's something I'd like to see improved, somehow. Fortresses are important because they allow one to recruit mages, and every turn a mage is not recruited is "wasted". Mages are useful all the time, in battle, for research, rituals, summons, leading summoned units... Non-magical commanders are just used to lead troops. There is no comparison between them in the terms of usefullness. So if one has the gold, and a choice between a commander and a mage, or even a priest, the commander shouldn't be recruited.
I would like to use national commanders, but it isn't worth it as often as I would like. So I have to recruit indy commanders, usually able to lead 25 units. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
This was even worse in Dom:PPP though, as normal 40-gp HOly-2 Priests could lead 25 soldiers.