Re: Enslaving Minds
 

Hmmm. That was good advice. Hmmmm. Never heard of shatter before. Hmmmm. What to do what to do.

Fair is Fair
 

OK. Check out the attached JPEG. That is his army headed right for my small force. And did I mention that he has my capital? Any suggestions for the oppressed?

Give in, Dragonfire, give in!
 

My advice is that you should immediately surrender to the Majesty of the Pan Truth!

I am gonna charm you soooooooo much that you cry!!!

Protecting leaders of mindless hordes
 

As Ermor, I fought Rlyeh underwater, with a huge numerical advantage. I had immense armies - 500+ undead, with commensurate (20+) commanders and even a precious U4 Bishop to cast magic resistance blessings... and yet I kept being annihilated by mind blasts before my troops could get by the wall of lobotomized atlantians.

Finally I had to double-alchemize astral gems to fire, and fire to gold to recruit lots of Tritons and Triton Lords (maybe 40, but the provinces were all killed off so it took forever...), which have decent MR. The mind blasts all targetted Tritons until my longdead horsies got to his Illithids, and then I destroyed him.

In your case, anti-astral-mage spells might work - mind hunt (kill an astral mage from the strategic map) and duel (if you can get cheaper mages than his). As Pangaea, Swarm might be your best bet, since I know you have Nature mages and gems, mages often target closest when they feel threatened.

Re: Protecting leaders of mindless hordes
 

Dragonflies are mindless...

Re: Protecting leaders of mindless hordes
 

The dragonflies are not there to attract "mind enslave" but to annoy the mages. A dragonfly next to a mage will prevent casting 50% of the time, and might make the mage attack physically out of self defense. Dragonflies NEAR the mages might pull starfires or something equally useless. They can fly and be summoned in hordes very cheaply, and are perfect against mages. When you summon enough of them, they have to do what you want, because there are not enough dumb things for all of them to do.

Re: Protecting leaders of mindless hordes
 

True, that they can do, however how effective they will be in doing that with storm going and enemy kind of enemy troops on the front lines is somewhat doubtful.

Re: Protecting leaders of mindless hordes
 

Ah, I missed that. He needs Spring Hawks. Or berserked, hastened cavalry with superhuman MR... but I don't know where Pan with a W9N9 pretender would find those. Just kidding! I don't know what kind of blessing he has, but it's probably low-level Death / Earth / Water, guessing by the mud men and undead.

Well, the tide is now the other way so I have to help Arco (and I have no good advice).

Hmmm... Undead are weak against priests!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif More importantly, vine weapons have no effect on nonliving units, and charm is very short ranged, so it can only really reach the front line. So your front line should be nonliving and mindless, or have high MR and defense (for the vine ogres)... summon a whole bunch of Iron Dragons, Mechanical Men, Longdead Horsemen, or Devils before next turn =)

Ok, seriously, now: He has WAY TOO FEW commanders for that army! Kill the leaders with seeking arrows, assassins, bad dreams, bad tuna, horrors, or whatever and the mindless / undead units will dissolve.

Re: Protecting leaders of mindless hordes
 

do you have access to any large AoE spells? such as falling frost/fire (with mystics?) or even magma eruption? alternatively something with a large number of effects (read bladewind/nether darts) and as said he has few commanders so assassins to kill them or spys to put laxatives in their food should sort them out

The Clash
 

Thanks for the advice. But I have no assassins and few non-astral wizards.

Now, for all those who are curious, the clash of the armies just happened, and I have posted a blow-by-blow account (see the attached pdf for pictures). While I held the field, I now have no meat shield beyond the golems left. Pan, I'm sure, will produce troops in short order.

It was a fun battle for sure!