Marignon strategy
 

I am going to play a huge map as Marignon vs. Emor. I suck bad though. I get beat on easy regularly. I would like some advice for this match.

Info on a pretender, stats, scales, and general strategy would be great.

I am all for pushing everything to my favor also so I like 75 for special locations, few random events, and rich environment.

Someone do me a favor and post a book here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I have never played Marignon before.

Re: Marignon strategy
 

First you might want to click on "search" in the upper right of the screen and put in Marignon. It will give you alot of reading which people might not want to type in again. Combinations such as marignon and pretender or marignon and scales will also work. I really miss the strat guides that Illwinter had for each nation but those dont seem to be on their site anymore.

[ February 02, 2004, 14:04: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Marignon strategy
 

I find very little info about Marignon in general and Im looking for specifics about Marignon vs. Emor or more details on Marignon from someone who knows them well.

Re: Marignon strategy
 

You might try searching for Ermor instead. I'm pretty sure there have been discussions on how to deal with Ermor, regardless of what nation you're playing. As a matter of fact, I distinctly recall a thread only a few days ago. To quote one post from that thread; "Priets, priests, and more priests." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Though I believe the thread was asking how to deal with Ermor's living units rather than the undead.

I currently have a game going where I'm playing Marignon, and Ermor is one of the active AI's. Have yet to engage in battle with them though. I sent a scout and an assassin over their way, since I want to keep tabs on them. They keep casting global enchantments that I have to keep dispelling, which annoys me, so I have one mage who regularly casts 'seeking arrow' in their home province, and any province I see with a large army. I've also employed the assassin with good effect. I have recruited a half-dozen priests in anticipation of the coming conflict, as we now own bordering provinces.

This is my first game as Marignon though, so that's all I can offer.

Re: Marignon strategy
 

I read the "how to deal with Ermor" thread also. It had good info.

If someone can post a good way to setup my game, ie scales, castle, magic paths, that would rock.

I could also just a push in the right direction. With a large map and only me and 1 AI, should I try rapid expansion, should I recruit as many priests as possible?

My plan was to do unlucky -3, productive +3, order +3, everything else 0/0. I was thinking about a rainbow mage to find my 75% sites.

I thought I would create small armies with 2 or 3 priests and have the army set to hold or guard and eliminate the undead with the priests.

I suck though and I have only won 1 game so far out of like 10, so I am looking for some sure fire methods to mop up.

[ February 02, 2004, 14:50: Message edited by: Smokey ]

Re: Marignon strategy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You mean the pages with predesigned gods? They aren't linked anymore, but the pages exist all right. Dunno if removal of the links was intentional (in which case I just blew it). Now if I only could remember the direct url to the file that had all the advice on warring against Ermor...

Anyway, for Marignon, try this.

Re: Marignon strategy
 

This was previously posted by Wauthan in the "Alex Poger's expanding tome of knowledge thread"
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...4;t=000855;p=1
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Re: Marignon strategy
 

Ermor AI and Ermor player is not the same. Ermor AI is not that difficult to beat, as they can be mauled bady by priests, and suffer the same lack of expertise that the other AI, that is the unablity to cope with the subtleties of battlefields combo or overland rituals. Read the spells, and try to imagine how you can combine then, its 75% of the success.

Re: Marignon strategy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I didn´t find it that easy. Why does no one (except me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif ) ever mention that Broken Ermor has some of the toughest LIVING Infantries around?

They would be good even if they had no undead at all, imho. WITH lots of free undead, Broken Ermor is TOO good.

I shudder at having to fight a human player with Broken Ermor. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Marignon strategy
 

Equip your priests with boots of quickness. Use 2-4 priests lvl 2-3 per army. Script your priests to use banishment over and over. 50 HI plus 4 such priests can kill 400 undead army very quickly. You need standard bearers/priests too, to keep morale up.

Use inexpensive archers--they can't hurt your heavily armored people, but they eat up hordes of undead. Throw a small wall of heavily armored high morale spearmen/pikemen in front of the archers.

Overland spells of fire can decimate undead ranks.

Ermor has powerful living infantry, and great mages. A person behind Ermor is a horrifying thing, an AI on the other hand is not so bad if you take the obvious steps.

Re: Marignon strategy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Erm. Pythium has the same units, with the exception of the Praetorian Guard (where they get the Emerald Guard).

While good they are far from the best. They work very well together, have javalins, and are hard to kill with arrowfire.

Broken Ermor needs undead to survive and probably a bit more. Especially since their mages are so linear.

Re: Marignon strategy
 

Marginon with misfortune 3 is a bad idea in my mind. The heros for Marg are pretty nice to run into. Personally I'd go for as much luck and production as you can afford based on your magic. I think you'll find you don't need the extra income from order as much as you'll like the production and the luck boni. That's for SP anyway, for MP... I dunno, I'd still lean against misfortune3, even with order its not as good as it was.

I'd rush research to get flaming arrows, xbows with those babies are real nice. Consider using a 9th level blessing effect for your knights, either water or earth (earth is nice since most (all?) of your mages are holy and the reinvigoration is a good bonus). Otherwise build a knight (or more as production allows) a turn, fill in the rest with xbows and the occasional higher protection infantry (indies are fine for them too). Set your group of knights on one or both flanks with hold and attack rear, set your infants infront of your xbows with gaurd commander, and stick their commander (someone expendable) in their midst with holdx5 then stay behind. Set your xbows to fire at archers, or fire at closest, or have multiple Groups of xbows with multiple targets, whatever you need depending on whom you are up against. Fire gets alot of good spells out of evocation, so get that up to lvl 4 or 5 eventually, and as you can work in construction you can start making your mages pretty nice, though expensive to lose.

Using strats like that I can whomp up on the AIs pretty well, even Ermor, though with them I tend to get a few higher level priests and even friars (at other fortresses). Marg isn't that to play really, at least vs. the AI.

Re: Marignon strategy
 

What is an overland ritual? Like seeking arrow?

Re: Marignon strategy
 

Seeking Arrow, Fires from Afar, Murdering Winter, Wind Ride, etc.

Rituals that are cast that have an effect that isn't combat oriented, summons a unit, or creates a 'Global Enchantment'.

Re: Marignon strategy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes. Spells cast when not in combat.