Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

These work well to teleport into back undead provinces, since commanders don't use food and most undead provinces don't have much supply.

[ January 13, 2004, 08:38: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Lots of entertaining stuff!

My favourite C'tis unit is Serpent Dancers. With a water9 blessing you can really cause havoc with these guys. Haven't tried fire9 with them yet but it could be interesting.

You can support Serpent Dancers with City Guard as Arrow catchers. City Guard may not be much good vs real troops but they have a strat move of 2, prot 14 and will do fine in the early expansion in a support role on hold and attack. Later they do better than you would think in BIG units to compensate for low morale and they do have good MR's. As they play such a light role in expansion you get alot of veterans with a decent def and they have a spear for repelling - its not their job to win the battle.

One of the things I really like about this approach is how light casulties are during expansion if you get it right. This means you get a really good ramping up of military strenght.

The other key advantage is that the cost work well together. With the Serent Dancers costing 20gps 5 res and the CG costing 10gps and 13 res its easy to build up a mixed army fast.

The Shamans are great fun with 50% quickness. If you can abuse them normally . . . http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Alex will you be putting out a text/word copy of your Tome?

Cheers

Keir

[ January 15, 2004, 06:37: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

This thread is the copy of the tome! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I intend to add a few stratagies to it every week. This game will be dead and forgotten before I run out of material.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

THE HOLY BOLTS OF MARIGNON

A strategy so fiendish that its use has been Banned by Carmong the Cardinal of Marignon himself, under the pain of torturous death. It is still allowed to be used the holy wars against heretic faiths of course.

Take virtue pretender. Take air magic 10. Build three*10 crossbowmen. One on fire archers and two on fire closest. Build a group of Knights of the Chalise and put them in the front on hold and attack closest. Get a Friar to bless them.

The Knights are plenty tough so why waste such a high bless effect on them? Well since they are now nigh impervious to missile fire you can fire at will right into melee with your crossbows without fear of friendly casualities. They are also shock resistant so the Virtue pretender can idly toss chained lightning about.

My opponent had his archers on rearmost, cavalery, archers and closest. Putting a single knight in the far back flank solved two of these problems and attrition on the crossbows was not very severe at all.

I devastated the AI in this way using only five knights in the front, and five*10 crossbowmen. Almost looked like musketeer based wars are not so far off in Dominions 2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

This strategy can of course be used in different variations for the two other strong missile nations Man and T'ien Ch'i. Trouble is that their holy units don't have the staying power of Knights of the Chalice for the same investment in gold.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

re: THE HOLY BOLTS OF MARIGNON

I often use a (weaker) Version with Ulm : find yourself a province with nice and cheap shortbows. Build as many as you can, and fill the sky with arrows, while your nice big super-heavy infantry holds the line. Arrows just bounce off your infantry, but the enemy will take quite nice casualties...

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Regarding Phoenix Pyre abuse, this might be very cheap and nasty with Communicants considering that the Phoenix Pyre, cast by a fire/astral mage, should also affect them too. It might be cheap enough to set up some bizarre chain-reactions just for kicks...

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

IN THE SHADOWS WE WALK:

This is the standard operating procedure for nations which have an easy access to body etheral. The aim is to toughten quite a lot some choice units with BE. You dont need awesome units, good ones are sufficient.

Have a mage on BE thrice.

I) In front of him, put 3 Groups of 2 units on hold& attack (yes in the same square, the front one, see below). During battle, they will be placed by the dom2 tac engine with one unit in the square you requested, and one in the south-west square (below the mage, if you follow me). This give you a total of 6 units in 2 squares.

II) In his square put 2 Groups of 1 unit.

Overall you have 3 squares filled, each with 3 units (8 combatting, 1 mage). The hold&attack will make your combattants move on the third round. The mage will cast BE during the first three rounds, on each of the 3 squares. He will commences on his square, has the value is the highest (thus protecting him ASAP).

This lead to 8 etheralized units attacking on round 3.
This formation can be repeated for several mages,depending on mage availability and toughness of opposition. Against indep, you can generally win a battle at 1 against 3 w/o too much problem.

A further interest is that your small Groups prevent you from a total rout. Groups will rout one by one, when some soldiers are wounded. On high end units, like paladins or knights they will rout if direly wounded, and this is what you want : each wounded retreat, thus preventing the loss of the unit.

By the way, for cavalry, adapt the formation, as they are size 3. You can BE 5 cavalry for each mage, put one horseman in each square.

Yes, it asks for some micromanaging http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

edit : typos.

[ January 17, 2004, 07:35: Message edited by: Pocus ]

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

DEADLY SWARM

create GE Haunted forest first.
most ppl(93%) will not go to dispel it(view here: http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=000999#000001 )

put a nature mage into combat. Nature 1 is enough,more levels more better.
give she some emerald---you can only give one.
have she cast "swarm" in the battle.
yes, a nature 1 mage + 1 emerald..what will happen? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

it's not a scheme of attacking,but a good tactics for defending(only effective in your dominions).

[ January 27, 2004, 02:43: Message edited by: void ]

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Water-9 caster also has a very nice spell that can deal massive damage versus both normal armies and big creatures and cannot be resisted. What is it? Falling Frost!

It has area = 5+ AND damage 18+. When cast by a water-9 mage, it deals damage to an area of 11 and does enough damage to kill all normal troops and severely wound all better ones. And unlike most water/fire spells, it just cannot be resisted with anything but high protection.

I mainly use it with the Jotunheim Son of Niefel, who can easily power himself up a level or two with robe of the sea and sea king's goblet. W-11 falling frost tested against heavies of ulm, nothing survived the first bLast and it has the area of 13.

Instant damage http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

AS YOUR LIFE GOES DOWN THE DRAIN.

THis is a strategy that is only really useful with the nations that have easy access to death 3 and death 4 mages. The nations that can reach death 3 fairly easily include:
C'Tis: Sauromancers(Default/Tombs) and 1/8 Marshmasters(Miasma)
Ermor: 1/8 Grand Thaumaturgs(Broken Empire), Dusk Elders(Ashen Empire/Soul Gate)
Jotunheim: 1/16 Gygia(Iron Woods, Niefelheim), 1/4 Norna(Utgard)
Vanheim: Hangadrott(Helheim)

Any nation that can reach death 3 can also summon a mound fiend for 28 gems, which is a death 3 and unholy 3 mage. This is very expensive in gems however, and you may be better off using them otherwise.

What this strategy involves is the alteration 5 spell "Drain Life". This is a range 25, precision 100, 14+ unresistable damage, armor negating spell requiring a death skill of 4 that both heals and removes fatigue from the caster when cast on a living target. Drain life will damage any creature, but will not provide healing or fatigue reduction against non-living creatures. To reach death 4 costs only ten gems for a skull staff for the above nations, so it is a very good investment.

This synergizes very well with quickness, as the mage will get tired only if they face an army almost exclusively of undead. The mages are also usually smart enough to start raising skeletons (enchantment 3) to protecct themselves and overwhelm the enemy. The AI will then alter its spellcasting to use drain life when its fatigue reaches high levels, and go back to summoning more undead, or casting high level spells such as banefire or cloud of death.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

By the way, where is Alex? Not seen since more than a month...

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Just thought I'd bump this thread as it's been a month and I consider it one of the more useful/imaginative compilations out there for players looking to pick up a few new tricks.

I'd add some of my own, but I'm afraid I have to admit to not having had the time or experience to be anywhere near this creative yet.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

SACRIFICIAL LAMBS

(Actually I haven't tried this - yet. But I think it should work).

(1) deploy a bunch of communicants in the front line.

(2) have a communion master with blood magic cast Blood Vengeance. The more communion slaves, the better. Theoretically a +4 communion (ie, at least 16 slaves) should allow even a blood-1 mage to cast a level 6 Blood Vengeance. Anything but the most resilient troops should annihilate themselves on your communicants.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Curious, if enemy casts Wrathful Sky, or any non-directly damaging spells, Blood Vengenence won't work would it? Similarly, if they have high MR, BV doesn't work too well either I think...

And isn't BV Blood 9 spell? So you also need to bring a bit of blood slaves in addition to communicants.

-Gateway103

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would think that it would, since the wrathful skies depends on the caster still being alive, so it's tied to them.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's the point of using many communicants to boost the blood level of the caster so that it's more difficult to resist the effects of the blood vengeance.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You'd only need 1 blood slave to have it effect all the communion slaves.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Does high level blood magic make blood vengeance harder to resist? I tried casting it with a Blood-5 caster and still got Blood Vengeance +0.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Time to add a humble addition to this august thread.

This isn't a new strategy, but something fun to do with THE PERFECT STORM.

People in the past have complained about the unique item 'sandals of the crane' - saying that they cannot conceive of a use for it. Well it seems to me that the sandals of the crane and the perfect storm go together like hand and glove. The problem with the perfect storm is that sooner or later the opposing troops are going to get to you - especially if you're facing fast-moving units. Equip your death dealing commander with the sandals of the crane and a couple of items to give high protection/defense and then sit back and enjoy the show, as the opposing army runs first one way and then the other, trying to catch up with your teleporting mage; meanwhile the wrathful skies is slowly (or not so slowly) destroying his army. Since the effect of the sandals of the crane is automatic, your handy-dandy mage can cast other things, either to speed the killing process, or to buff him or herself.

I tried this with a Virtue pretender equipped with a robe of invulnerability and said sandals, and the result was quite pleasing, although I'm sure that it would work with a crone as well.

needless to say this would also work with foul vapours, or any other damaging battlefield enchantment. one hint though - load up on reinvigoration items

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

FORWARD, MARCH:

Not a combos per se, but something rather interesting to know:

The common behavior for troops with melee and missile weapons (ex legionaries) are to use them as infantry, and order them to hold&attack or attack closest.
It results often in the troop engaging the enemy, and firing a volley of pilum in a suboptimal manner (sometime they dont, sometime only the Last line fire, etc.)

Now use them as archers. Order your legionaries, or javelin thrower to fire. Just that, fire.
What will happen? If they have ammo and an enemy in range, they fire. Each time. Its a great improvement compared to the standard behavior.
If they dont have enemy in range, or dont have any more javelins, they move to close and engage the enemy. For archers it is somehow problematic, for legionaries, its what you want.

So try this order, you will see that you get far more pilums and javelins thrown, and they still act as infantry after.

As I said, a very small trick...

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

time to bump this classic. I checked who was Online, and it indicates what threads they are currently reading, and two were reading this thread...

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

FLAMING EXPLOITS

Ingredients:


Thaumaturgy 1 OR Blood 1 OR COnstruction 4(Or was it 6?), Alteration 7, Conjuration I forget how much and am too lazy to check

1. One or more mages with (Astral OR Blood OR Communion Matrix) AND Fire

2. A billion communicants. Scouts or thugs with matrices will do, but astral/blood mages will likely be feebleminded ere the battle is through.

Optional ingredients include a relief-casting nature mage, Medallions of Vengeance and Inner Sun rituals, and a communion master capable of casting Breath of Winter, Soul Vortex, Invulnerability, Mistform, Mirror Image, and so on, and so forth. But especially BoW and Soul Vortex.
Sandals of the Crane on the communion master would be a beautiful, if potentially catastrophic, addition.


Instructions:


Script mage/s to Communion/Sabbath Master(Or give 'em matrices, to save precious time and queue depth), Phoenix Pyre, Summon Earthpower(Reinvigoration 4!), Fire Shield(Or Phoenix Power, then Fire Shield), Blink, then either cast spells or attack, depending on lifespan and number of communicants, and on whether a nature mage casting relief/communion master casting Reinvigoration is present*.
Spectate.
Avoid confrontation with 0 encumbrance, cold-, fire-, and Soul Vortex-immune foes.**



* Hold on, would this WORK? Would ALL communion slaves recover 100 fatigue?
Also, are there any spells beside this and Summon Earthpower which reinvigorate the caster?

** This strategy has never been tested, and may well be bollocks.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Could somebody please elaborate to this n00b why it is better to cast Twist Fate (which negates first hit but doesn't do anything else useful if I am correct) and not go directly for "Cast spells"? If I understand it right the first hit going through will teleport the Golem back. If there is somebody able to hit the Golem, wouldn't it be most likely that somebody has either several attacks or friends along, so twist fate doesn't actually give a round more of spell-casting? Or are there some close-range spells one should hope the Golem casts by waiting one round (ie casting Twist Fate first = delays the bLasting for one turn)?

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

The bLasting is being done with Astral tempest, any further spells by the Golem afterwards are just extra, but you want to prolong your battlefield bLasting for as long as possible:

Without Twist fate the golem would teleport to the capitol as soon as it suffers any damage, with Twist fate (assuming Twist fate triggers before Ritual of returning) you might gain some extra rounds of Astral tempest damage to the whole enemy force.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Ok, thank's for the clarification http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

The strat can work (haven't tested the blood reinvig addition at all), but it can have some issues:
1) a great many of the critters most easily used for communion slaves are NOT immune to soul vortex, and so tend to die of fratricide from each other's vortices.
2) Many of the critters most commonly used for communion slaves are cheap (and therefore have little health) and so die of fratricide when their copy of Pheonix Pyre goes off - killing attackers, sure, but also killing any other communion slaves that are nearby. With the ordering of the Pheonix Pyre's Explosion/Random Repop, it's actually possible to lose half your communion slaves from chain fratricide in a single combat round if you are unlucky.
3) The effects of 1 and 2 can stack. If too many of your communion slaves gather too closely together, they ALL DIE.

Mind you, it can be EXTREMELY amusing to watch....

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Regarding reinvig, Summon Earthpower, IIRC, is the only spell which provides constant reinvigoration. There are one-shot spells which reduce fatigue, such as Relief (which affects all friendlies, including communicants, to some degree) and Leeching Touch / Leech / Drain Life. It wouldn't surprise me too much if the draining spells went through a separate code path and didn't affect the communicants, but if it did...


Oh, and yes those chain-exploding Phoenix Pyre'd communicants can be quite a sight to behold. Especially if it was the spell-casting AI that chose Phoenix Pyre instead of it being listed in a script.


On weirdness involving communion, it might be noteworthy that at least one stock nation gets not-terribly-expensive -stealthy- astral mages -- the Star Children of R'lyeh, available at any underwater or coastal fort. They don't get other magic, however, which limits what they can do (although a stealthy Communion + Doom + Vortex of Returning might be irritating).

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Communicants must have magic skills (at least 1 in some magic path)

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

well, other than pythian commies, that is.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

COMMUNICANTS FROM TARTAR.

This communion strategy is devised to eliminate traditional weakness of communion - fragile communicants. Only Tartarians are allowed into this elite communion.

In Tartar communion, slaves are expected to both spellcast and fight while masters will quickly go into melee.

Few Tartarians with interesting paths become communion masters or communion masters and slaves at the same time. Others become communion slaves. 2-3 slaves per master should be enough. Communion slaves are equipped with hydra skin armor and boots of messenger. Other items are intended to maximize battle their melee potential. One of masters should have crystal shield, they should be able to cast quickness, fire and lightning protection, hell power, earth power, mistform, invunerability, personal luck, astral shield, astral weapon, mirror image, soul vortex, breath of winter, fire shield and resist magic. Someone (preferrably slave) should be able to cast other useful spells: doom, darkness, wrathful skies and any other batlefield-wide destructive spells.

Important points:
- every slave is expected to get +3 in every magic path (crystal shield + hell power) and +4 in earth, therefore they should start their script on hold, so that they don't start casting until empowerment.
- masters should be equipped to provide uncovered resistances.
- every masters should be scripted to attack after casting buffs (they're the main danger for the slaves).
- Tartarians should be placed so that the slaves are close together and in the front of masters and other troops (except, maybe, some fodder) This is necessary, because the slaves won't rush into the fight and they will only go to melee if the enemies comes into the range. Apparently, they will not advance to get within the spell range either.

Expected slave stats:
HP - 200 and growing...
regeneration - 40 per turn
Att/Def - in mid twenties
MR - 30-35
protection - 30.
resistance to pretty much everything resistable

Weapons:
breath of winter, fire shield, soul vortex, astral shield + melee weapon.

Edited: Clarified how to get slaves to fight.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Do communion slaves fight? Don't they just stand around doing nothing?

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Communicants can do something useful if they're not exhausted by their masters, Fatigue should be less than &lt; 100. That's why masters must be scripted to buff and attack.

Communicants won't rush into melee, but if the enemy comes within the range they will fight him (that's why I suggest positioning communicants in the front).

Oops, Peter Ebbesen's post I was replying to has disappeared... I guess he's realized how I scripted them. Though his point about hydra skin is probably valid. Regeneration shows on stats and master will cast personal regeneration (usually mages wouldn't cast spell which wouldn't work), but with the soul vortex and life draining weapons it's hard to say if regeneration works. My guess would be that it probably doesn't work, which makes my strategy vulnerably to the army of undead with a lot of wither bones spellcasters. I wonder if any healing spells would work on undead Tartarians. If regeneration doesn't work hydra skin should probably be replaced with rainbow armor.

I've attached replay of the battle. It's not perfectly setup (suboptimal equipment and the spell sequence could probably be better), but it demonstrates the strategy well (password is "fire")

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Yes, sorry about that. I wrote a long post, then realised that I was dead wrong under the right circumstances, i.e. slaves placed right in the line of fire. I still think Hydra Skin Armour is a poor choice due to fatigue issues, but that does not invalidate your strategy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

You might want to add to your original post the point about how the slaves get activated and actually fight. Since many people use communion slaves in the rear row, the most common experience is that they do nothing at all no matter how you script them.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Fatigue management needs to be tailored to the custom situation. If the enemy has a lot of living troops fatigue problem doesn't exist due to soul vortex and life-draining weapons. With masters going into melee the usual fatigue issues of communion disappear, so slaves suffer fatigue only from their own spells. There're several ways to deal with situation: have a slave scripted to relief (uncertain after round 5), minimize encumbrance, wear reinvigortion items (rainbow armor is a primary candidate to replace hydra skin),script slaves to 5 spells and attack. It is also possible to ignore the problem. Without masters casting, slaves only need to deal with their own fatigue, which starts to restore after it gets over 100. With Tartarian staying power and multiple aura effects, falling unconcious for few turns may not be a big deal, especially when different slaves use different strategies. And the only reason for hydra skin was to provide regeneration vs non-resistable damage, so if it doesn't work it should not be used.

Thanks, I've added explanation about that to my original post.

Actually, I think placing communion slaves in the back is impractical in many regular communions as well. Spellcasting slaves can add quite a bit of firepower, so in many situations I'd place them to have enemies within the range of spells I'd like to use.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Regarding "we walk in shadows": I don't understand the point of putting three Groups of two units each in the square directly in front of the mage. Why not instead do the thing that you want done: a squad of two units in the same square as the mage, a squad of three units in the square in front of the mage, and a squad of three units in the square south of the mage?

Or for that matter, why not just make a squad of 8 units and put it right on top of the mage?

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

Both your suggestion &amp; Pocus are valid, yet for different targets.

Body ethereal is area 1 (1 square), thus you can etherealize Groups of 3x size2 infantry as you suggest, or Groups of 2x size3 horse, such as knights.

A different issue is whether to group everybody together or use small Groups. Both options have advantages &amp; disadvantages (higher morale for a big group, but also higher loses &amp; when you fail a check everybody is gone, which might result in an army rout).
One further reason in favour of using small Groups as Pocus suggests is that you have more control over battlefield placement (which is important to get everybody etherealized), when you stick a bunch of leaders in the same place as a unit (say, 3 mages &amp; 24 troopers) they do not always end in the exact center, and if they are not well placed some of the soldiers might be out of range. Using multiple small units increases the micromanagement exponentially however.

Re: Alexander\'s ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge
 

True, the trick is not dumping the leaders on the same square. Try this:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>

+-------------------+
| +---+ |
| | | |
| +---+ |
| +---+ |
| | | |
| +---+ |
| +---+ |
| | | |
| +---+ |
+-------------------+

</pre><hr />

Big square = 24 Inf squad
Small squares = 1 etherealizer each

Always worked for me so far.

[Edit: for this to work, each leader must be at least 1 tile away from the battlefield edges]