Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

This leads me to believe you've never actually tried B9 bless. The enemy can kill /droves/ of your sacreds without worrying about horrors. The effect is pathetically weak, to the point where it can be ignored entirely.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

B9 bless is MR-resistable, so... wouldn't it be interesting if the horror mark/curse effect kicked in on a *hit* by the sacred as well as from its death? This might be too strong, but OTOH +4 Str. and horror-marking weapon (MR resists) isn't all that different from +350% afflictions and 2 AN weapon (MR resists) with unresistable disease, which you get from D9. Neither is probably quite as desirable as F9 or W9 but it would make the B9 bless non-laughable.

Naturally, you may choose to take B9 for reasons unrelated to blesses (as the FAQ points out, strong blesses often correspond to weak paths and vice versa), and really I'd rather have KO/JK working on their new project than on Dom3, but as a thought experiment I sort of like this idea.

-Max

P.S. I would also make an A9 bless grant Flight in combat. Hey, if it works for eagle warriors...

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

I was actually thinking death bless to, wasn't it Meglobob that did the f9d9 bless (or some variant thereof)? If I recall eagle warriors have 2 attacks so that's probably an affliction per eagle warrior! Pluck out their eyes and rip off their arms! lol

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Have you tested this? In my quick test game, E10N6 Ahimans (which Ashdod can get and still have positive scales) demolished spider knights. (I assume spider riders per se are not critical to the strategy? Spider knights are harder to mass and have no bows but I thought the increased Prot justified the choice.) 3 Ahimans (450 gold) routed 16 spider riders (800 gold) with zero losses. One of the Ahimans got ahead of the pack and got swarmed, resulting in him taking 4 points of damage per turn from poison, negating all but 2 points of his 6 HP regen. Still I think it's safe to say that the combination of high regen, high defense, and high Prot triumphed over the spider rider poison that time.

Just in case, I tried it again with Black Hunters instead of Spider Riders (10 Black Hunters = 1250 gold) led by an F4E4 Scorpion King. Result: 1 dead Ahiman. 10 routed Black Hunters (actually I think 4 of them died) and 1 dead Scorpion King.

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Not going to work as well as you think. Affliction chance is proportional to *damage* inflicted, relative to HP, and D9 doesn't change that. Eagle Warriors are not going to damage an Ahiman with high frequency, and when they do the Ahiman's high HP is going to mitigate the D9 bless. I'm not saying D9 won't do anything--he'll probably come out of the fight with assorted Limps and Chest Wounds, but it's way less than an affliction per eagle warrior. Call it 1 affliction per 10 eagle warriors expended, at a wild guess. Most of those afflictions will come via the Death Weapons effect, which Ahimans resist only about 90% of the time, and not through the regular old daggers.

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

MaxWilson:

I'd rather see a precision boost for air bless. Making it more a bless for mages than troops.

And I think cleveland was thinking about nets. I remember fighting Machaka with MA Ermor, nets totally owned shadow vestals, but I doubt they'd work well enough against sacreds [but someone can try that - webs to hold sacreds, some other troops to do the harm].

Lighting should be also a good weapon against Ashdod, they cannot get that protection easily [so don't let them grab that merc with A2 :)].

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

I thought Cleveland was kidding. Like he was kidding about the "sorcerer/sorceror" thing. But everyone seems ultra-serious lately.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

to be fair black hunters are sacred aswell you know? try it again but give the black hunters a major bless, earth is a no brainer with high protection, a bit o nature also works well after the rider dies, but experiment a bit.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Well he was simply testing that 'spider riders are a counter to sacred giants' theory, not seeing how effective dual blessed black hunters are.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

The Disease effect of Death 9 only kicks in if the 2AN(MR) damage gets through magic resistance in the first place. So it's actually 2AN+Disease (MR negates).

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

On the subject of Blood-9 bless, it's probably most useful when you have literally throw-away sacred troops to use for it. About the only sacred I can think of that fits that category are the ancestors that TC and Sauromatia can summon.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

I tried it with Ulm Reborn and had huge squads of 50+ chaffy sacreds charging around.

And it did nothing pretty much.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Well for whatever reason, the nets didn't seem to do much. I think it's the high Str on the Anakim, plus the fact that "Death Poison" isn't as strong as it sounds.

I agree that Lightning is a good weapon to use against Ashdod, if you've got it. 3 Ahimans (or whatever his expansion group size is) don't kill armies particularly *quickly* so you will hopefully have time to throw a lot of lightning bolts. I don't know that it's cost-effective but it's one of the more feasible counters.

And yes, Ashdod must be denied Obscuro. He will forge them rings of tamed lightning and winged boots, which is bad news.

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Yes, Black Hunters are sacred, but I was not using them as sacred units, I was just curious if Cleveland meant "Black Hunters" when he said "Spider riders." (He probably didn't.) The problem was that the Black Hunters were basically incapable of damaging the Ahimans quickly enough whereas the Ahimans killed the Hunters quite quickly. Adding an E9N9 bless isn't going to change the equation. You're welcome to test it and prove me wrong, but I was already giving Machaka a 3:1 gold cost advantage (450 gold on Ashdod's side vs. 1250 on Machaka's side) so I didn't think it necessary to explore further. Machakan spider riders are not cost-effective vs. appropriately-blessed Ahimans.

And I don't think people play Machaka as a bless nation anyway, do they? E9N8 Black Hunters look cool on paper, but in practice I've found them a bit lacking (N8 doesn't help the rider much, and E9 doesn't help the spider much once the rider is dead). And they're cap-only. I'd rather spend my points on scales.

-Max

P.S. Hmmm. I should mod Machaka so Black Hunters are recruitable anywhere.

P.P.S. I just tried Machakan Hoplites buffed with Strength of Giants. I had high hopes, because regular Hoplites had almost killed one giant in a previous test, but that must have been luck. Hoplites are not cost-effective either. It looks like Machaka's only hope against Ashdod is pretty much to race for Alteration to get Destruction. I'd love to be proven wrong here but I don't see anything other option.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

I think B9 bless is most useful as psychological warfare against opponents who don't hang out on the forums. ;)

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

you're right, i could have swore he said something bout spiders though and it didn't seem fair testing spiders with f4/e4 bless (those were the paths on his scorpian king IIRC) against ahrimans with E9/N6.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

*laughs maniacally*

:)

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Cleveland's Guide to Machaka, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Achieve Victory Through Psychological Manipulation :p

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

E10, not E9. Ashdod is one of the rare cases where E10 is worth it. Otherwise Ahimans pick up 1 fatigue per turn of battle and eventually die to chaff units. It helps in other places too, like trampling Ophanim.

-Max

P.S. Heh heh heh. I'm going to call them "Ahrimans" from now on too, because they are. Death-bringers, that is.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

I've recently achieved a massively cost effect victory against Ashdod using MA Mictlan. However, it doesn't really count as much as I'm using spells like Will of Fates, Relief, Grip of Winter, and Steller Cascade spam thanks to a Banner of the Norther Star.

What I will say is that you don't need to stack on a lot of damage on the Eagle warriors (or on anything really) if you can combine Conjuration 4/Construction 6 with Evocation 5. Use Steller Cascades to soften up the sacreds and then follow it up with a lot of attacks. the fatigue will lower their defense and increase the critical hit chance to allow you to get through the armor.

FYI: Ashdod army lost 14 out of 19 commanders and 68 units out of 69. I lost 42 Eagle warriors out of about 235 and I lost no commanders. Ashdod's bless is E9N6S6. Mine is E9S9. Notice, no blood, no death, and no fire.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

It was funny AoE, for a couple of days I've been debating about posting exactly the same thing. Against giant classes, the S9 bless becomes even more important - essentially in your case you caused the enemy to miss 235 times. I doubt the E9 was really relevent except possibly for spell casting.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

I think that Ashdod is really better in research than Mictlan. And has much much better battlefield mages.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

true but battlefeild spells are generally more of a boost to the little guys, iron bane for instace is techniquely a bttlefield nerf to both sides however seeing as giants can punch through armour anyway it favours the little guys who would usually find it difficult to damage ashdods sacreds.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

I would think this would be pretty easy to test figure out. Research ability is just cost/RP, with cheap low level mages usually being the most cost effective researchers in a magic dominion.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Not such an easy test, though. Especially since Chris specified "better battle mages" as well. Often, these are not the same unit.

For example, Mictlan Priests are marvelously cost effective researchers, with Magic1, but they are not extremely useful in battle, most of the time. ;)

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Which is why I always encourage players to buy the Nahualli. 5 research (6 with magic 1) for 110 is solid in my opinion. They may not be as cost efficient, but they can provide a variety of battlefield options. They are great for panic spam, communions, curses, and more. Bringing a bunch along while casting banner of the norther star or using a reverse communion allows for solid astral magic. I can easily make dozons of turkey mages into S3N3 mages, which can be quite effective. The other positives are that these researchers are quick responders, as they can fly, and they get a second life due to their secondary form. Just keep them as turkeies in battle. Flying also allows them to leave losing battles quickly and fly back to labs when the threat is over. Lastly, they have the potential to expand your magic diversity by having blood or death on rare occasions. The only negative is that they aren't sacred, but that hasn't stopped me from obtaining countless victories thanks to them.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

To make matters more complicated = there are two kinds of effective: straight cost effective and time effective.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

A point I wanted to bring up. Nahualli may not be as income effective, but they are income light and more time effective. So I just don't buy the Ashdod > Mictlan in research argument. Both of them have what it takes to beat the other if the player behind the wheel wants it bad enough.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Bowfire should not be Mictlan's biggest worry. MA Mictlan has easy access to arrow fend or storm. Even before those spells are researched, archers can be annihilated by setting eagle warriors to fly over and attack them.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Bowfire? That came out of left field I think.

Alright, lets get off the subject of Mictlan and back onto non-nation specific ways to deal with Ashdod.

In my opinion, dealing with Ashdod is simular to the way you would deal with an army of thugs. The less you think of their dudes as national recruitables and more like national summones, the more likely it is that you can devise a strategy against them. However, that's just a mindset, not an actual strategy.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Congratulations on your victory! I'm glad to see that Stellar Cascades was as killer as it usually is. Mages rock.

Out of curiousity, were any of his 19 commanders mages and if so what were they casting? (I.e. what did he have researched?) And how many commanders/mages did you have?

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

It keeps the Eagle Warriors at low fatigue, which may help a lot vs. chaff (e.g. skelly spam). S9 is nice in mage-heavy battles, which this one apparently was.

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Basically the functional difference is between -doing a little damage over a large area-, or -doing a lot of damage to single target-.

There are different routes to accomplish both things, but certainly each nation does have tools to use against individual (or small groups of) thugs. There are of course, additional hurdles, such as Ashdod's strong armor at the start of the game, Nature bless, mages that can't be easily killed with stray arrows, etc.

And of course in the grand, convoluted, chess-like strategy of Dominions, if anyone suggests an "ultimate answer to Ashdod" for any particular nation, then a skillful player can prepare to meet that, once they know who their neighbors are.

So in honor of that, I will once again state the *only* foolproof solution to Ashdod, that (almost) everyone can access, and that there is no protection from - Stellar Cascades.

Use this knowledge wisely, my children.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

He indeed had a lot of mages. 18 out of 19 in fact. 3 Zanummites, 6 Emites, 2 Talmai Elders, and 7 Adons. The Adons where equipped with various magic items, nothing decked out completely and nothing rare or unique. I must admit that the spells seemed low level. Some self buffs, frighten, raise dead, and not much else. He didn't have an H3 so he spent two rounds casting blessing while I spent two rounds beating down his guys.

I should have taken more losses had he prepared his best spells, but I can tell you for sure that all units in range of the astral mages were all pretty much dead in the same round they were targeted with steller cascades. Most other units took half a dozen rounds to kill because they were out of range, that's quite a difference.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

This is a more general strategy, but with Ashod it becomes very important. Don't let them get Forge of the Ancients up. If they do, then they will be making so many SC that they could use them in squads, and still have some to spare.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Hmmm. Interesting. How many mages were you using to spam Stellar Cascades? I think this is still on-topic because it affects how scary Ashdod is and what it takes to counter it cost-effectively. He had 70-odd units (call it 10000 gold investment, and almost as much in resources) plus 19 commanders, but most of the commanders seem to have been pretty useless (who builds Emites? who sends Talmai Elders into battle without any evocations?) so perhaps we should eliminate them from the cost equation. In any case, you completely wiped out 10000 gold of cap-only sacreds plus commanders, using 5000 gold of recruitable-anywhere sacreds plus an unknown quantity of mages, some gems, and Evoc-5.

I agree that it's more like fighting summons or thugs than regular units.

This just might be enough to tempt me into MP. I've never really been interested before (time constraints) but maybe I can get someone to play some duels with me. Caelum vs. Ashdod maybe? Mammoths, lightning, and flying raiders/recruitable thugs seem like a promising set of options.

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Yeah. In fact, Zamzummites make pretty fair thugs even *without* items, in a communion'ed squad. [Communion Master, Summon Earthpower, Invulnerability, Soul Vortex, Personal Luck, attack closest] while the slaves do [Communion Slave, Blessing, Body Ethereal, attack closest]. Toss in a Phoenix Pyre or Fire Shield if you have a Crystal Matrix for a Rephaite Sage (and at least 4 slaves).

I don't know if that's cost-effective on a gold basis but it's cheap in gems.

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

About 17 Nahualli and 7 Lizard Shamans. I wanted to be excessive. I lost to the same army about 80 sacreds and about another 80 slingers 6 turns before. He lost 16 units and some worthless undead spite my thunder strikes and astral spells. That was not a cost effective battle.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Hmmm. Thinking more about this, Stellar Cascades doesn't work well IIRC against an opponent who stay well out of range (back of the battlefield) with his troops on Guard Commander. However, IIRC GftH has Range 100, and it will kill anything but a Tartarian or a Pretender in one shot. Therefore, I propose an augmentation of the previous approach: Stellar Cascades + Gifts from the Heavens. Plus Eagle Eyes.

Yay for Marverni!

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

That's a good point, Gifts from Heaven is 100 range, and isn't very easy to counter. :p Though, if they do get Air, a Storm would render them pretty ineffectual at range, with a base Prec of -3.

I'll let one of my favorites go here - if you know your enemy is going to script to stay away from a range 25 spell, have your casters start more forward, and do Attack a Turn once or twice behind your line, and then start casting. This should generally get them into range of anything that was placed in the far back of the enemy field.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

In a big battle, he's going to anticipate you doing this and will have a portion of his troops also placed forward ready to munch your forward-placed casters. Those troops are a sacrifice gambit because they're well within range of all the nasty spells he's trying to avoid. Anyway, point being that don't forget to guard those forward-placed casters well.

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

The range of Steller Cascades is 30. Those extra 5 squares are quite helpful. You can't use the attack-attack-cast tactic while the Nahualli are in turkey form, as they will fly right up to a big scary giant. For everyone else it shoudl be fine if you keep them well guarded.

MaxWilson, Gifts From Heaven is another great spell. It's real problem isn't in it's effectiveness. It's problem is in it's accessibility. Earth and Astral is a lot harder to find then just astral. In the middle age you would have to avoid playing 16 of the 23 nations. Out of the 7 remaining nations, one is Ashdod. Further more, only 3 of the 6 other nations can cast the spell using non-capitol only mages. Lastly, only the Starspawns of Ry'leh and the Warlocks of Abysia even have a chance of actually having E3S1, though those chances are slim to say the least. Meaning that everyone else has to either boost with earthpower, start a communion, or wear earth boosters.

Yet, if we are going to bring the spell up, then yes it is quite effective against giants, or anything for that matter. Another spell to keep in mind is Bane Fire, 53+ AP damage.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

banefire is a lovely spell, pretty rare magic paths though, machaka shouldn't have too much trouble casting it though.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Even Black Sorcerors (:)) need a skull staff to cast it. And that's the 1 in 4 who get D2. Gems would help, of course.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

*Ahem* Ashdod can cast it without boosters. Ironically. So can LA Agartha.

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Well, I excluded Ashdod from the my example mostly. Ashdod shouldn't have to worry about counters to it's own troops. I also excluded nations from other ages. Ideally you would want to choose Marverni. Your also mostly wrong. Only the Talmai Elder could have E3S1, and his chances are 1 in 120. You however could easily find Zamzummites with E2S1. Cast Summon Earthpower and your set.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Convince people to harvester of sorrow spam them. =)

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Well, it's more a general trick, and I haven't really worked with Mictlan yet, so they are an obvious exception. ;)

As far as everyone else goes, of course you want to arrange so that the mages will still stay behind your lines. This is generally not altogether difficult to accomplish, at least I've never had any significant issues with blocking. Obviously, the worst problem is if the enemy is so close up, that your line doesn't move forward much. Your mages aren't too likely to run past your line, but they will be pressed up against it from behind, and may not move forward as much as you'd like them to. On the bright side, if they can actually block your whole line, they are most likely using more chaff than thugs, so you've already made them shift to a strategy that is less effective overall.

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

I was responding to the post about Banefire, not GfH.

-Max

Re: Beware of Ashdod
 

Rather than forcing a strategy shift, I think you've merely proven that "archer decoys" are good policy against mages too. I.e. if you plan to lurk at the back of the battlefield you need some decoys to prevent mages from closing during the first couple of turns and/or soak up AoE fire.

If everyone here aware that the difference between "Cast Spells" and "Stay Behind Troops" is that "Stay Behind Troops" will advance behind troops in lieu of casting spells that take him over 100 fatigue? Could also be useful in this situation, instead of [attack, attack, cast].

-Max