uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Hey everyone, i was wondering how do you play C'tis, the Lizard nation ?! I tried it a few times, and to be honest they just play suck. Im talking about both the standart theme and the miasma theme, i dont think this nation is balanced, is it ?! There is NOTHING good about them. Maybe i missed the point here. I usually play more "core" nations like Marignon, Abysia, where i know what i have to do. But i just cant see any strength with c'tis

help me ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

ty

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You probably just don't "get" them. I have this feeling about many of the nations, but mostly, I just chalk it up to the fact that I don't get them. With 17 widely varying nations, some of them just aren't for you.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

HAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


HIAEHAAEHEAA!!! EHGEKOAIU!!!!!


WHAT THE HECK!?!??!

C'TIS??? NOT GOOD??? ARE YOU CRAZY?!?!?!?!

Pick any nation and I'll kick your behind with C'tis so hard you will think I am cheating!!!

[ March 11, 2004, 18:54: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

The power of C'Tis lies with its many different priests, its powerful and versatile sauromancers and its assassins, who might well be the most deadly in the game.

The units are fairly straightforward. Only the Runners need to be micromanaged really. The Poison Slingers work very well with poison immune summons or the Serpent Dancers. Put them on Fire Archers or Rearmost and the commanders will soon rout. The Falchioneers and the Elite Warrior are both good flanking units, the first against "light" enemies and the latter against "heavy".

The cheap Shamans can do wonders using the Astral Communion spells, as well as being sacred units themselves (Water9 Blessing works very well with C'Tis because of this).

C'Tis doesn't really lack anything except archers, since the light infantery can only do as much in the way of support. But Crossbowyers are usually easy to find in independant provinces.

[ March 11, 2004, 19:06: Message edited by: Wauthan ]

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Argi, how exactly would you bet Ulm ? or Abysia ? or WHATEVER ?
instead of screaming like a mad sheep why dont you post some hints or tipps for me, so i can finally enjoy c'tis ? I dont get you...

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Heh, I guess we're going to find out about that soon. If anyone else wishes to take on the Great Argitoth and his beloved C'tis, we've got a game due to kickoff tomorrow.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Hmmm... Against Ulm I would go with a Water9 Pretender with atleast 6 dominion. If I made contact with Ulm quickly I would rely on my high defence and very fast Serpent Dancers together with Poison Slingers. Ulm troopers got good protection but lack in Attack so my forces would be able to poison them very nicely. Empoisoners would wreak havoc on the slow and low magic resistance commanders of Ulm and Sauromancer would outresearch them in a hurry, giving me very early access to Shadows and other Etheral undead against whom Ulm struggles quite a lot. Elite Warriors would flank my main force of crossbowbolt catching Heavy Infantery and Swampguards.

Abyssia would not be very different. They too rely on Heavy Infantery but they lack any missile units whatsoever. Blessed Water9 Serpent dancers would tie them up really nicely and Runners would be able to run past his main force to engage his rather whimsical casters. I would go for other summons than hordes of lower tier undead. Abyssian priests can't hit the sky lying down so a few powerful undead can engage the enemy pretty much unmolested.

That's just general strategy. If you have some more specific situation feel free to post it here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Water9 Nature3or4 Pretender is a really good combo. There are some really nasty poison strategies that go hand in hand with water magic... .

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

I wouldn't want a nature4 blessing since both the priests and the Shamans will go charging into berserked melee if hit by a stray arrow. That said I too recommend going "toxic" with C'Tis since it's got resistant units as well as so easy access to higher tier undead.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Don't take my words for it. You'll need to test it with Sabber's simulator. But I think Elite warriors can overwhelm Ulm Infantries because of their high damage trident and their ease to be emassed in huge number. You need a good economy to support them but that's the case for winning in most situation.

The only weak points of C'tis regular units, namely elite warriors, are their vulnerablility to good missle troops such as Longbows. But neither Ulm or Abysia has it.

The other regular units of C'tis are at least average. Their Heavy Infantry has protection of 16, better than a lot of other nations. But of course, you can't beat Ulm or Abysia in their game, i.e, tank warfare.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

C'tis has several good counters to slow heavies like Ulm and Abysia.

Death Cloud does armor negating damage on a wide area and the Sauromancers are good at it. The Shamen can gather for a communion and use spells that disregard armor like Poison Cloud or Stellar Cascades (among others). Ulm with its low MR troops and lack of morale support is particularly vulnerable to spells like Terror.

And don't forget rituals (Leprosy, etc.)

For summons, try Ghosts. They eat HI like donuts.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mmmm. Donuts.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Quite right.

What I really wanted to say is that your pretender should EVENTUALLY have nature4 (items, empowerment etc.).

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

triple post , really sorry

[ March 11, 2004, 20:27: Message edited by: Tricon ]

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

My connection is really messed up, and I was appearently a bit impatient.

Sorry.
(any way to delete entire Posts?)

[ March 11, 2004, 20:28: Message edited by: Tricon ]

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">WEHAAAHAHEAHA!!! YOEEOALEEAAA!!!!

I is not good at tipssss

[ March 11, 2004, 20:41: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Abysia would be pretty easy. I'd rush to lvl 8 alteration and cast disintegration and raise skeletons. I would also use other extra spells such as relief, reanimate archers.

If Abysia happenes to be focesing on daemon summons, I'll rush to lvl 9 conjuration, cast well of misery, and then cast ghost riders everywhere. Of corse, I could rush to lvl 9 conjuration if I started doing so on turn 1.

[ March 11, 2004, 20:50: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Hmm, C'tis troops are quite unbalanced. Some of them rock and some of them suck. Falchioneers, Elite warriors and those staff guys are powerful, and poison slingers sometimes. But their infantry is basically quite weak, but Sauromancers solve the problem. Just recruit 5-6 sauromancers and order them to raise dead 3 turns and then cast terror, this doesn't work against undead, but terror is very powerful against living beings.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I can never go a whole game without using light infantry. It really depends on what your strategy is. I couldn't love C'tis so much if they didn't have every unit they have now.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">...except for Serpents and Serpent Dancers, right? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

oh god do I love serpent dancers. I always want to like Poison slingers, but in practice they never seem to work out for me. Either they're too slow behind the advancing front, and then walk into their own clouds, or they rush into melee, or they break w/ no reason and scatter to four surrounding provinces.

Besides that they are so pricey and I'd rather save the money for some Sauromancers.

If anyone has any tips on how to make them more dependable, I would appreciate it.

As well, I've never used the runners (and don't like the slave warriors). They're obviously rear flankers, but they just seem too wimpy to accomplish much. Does anybody use them?

I'd also appreciate any tips/ideas on how best to use Sauromancers. They're great units, but I'm pretty inexperienced w/ properly using magic to its best effect. Do c'tis experts tend to use them as battlfield undead summoners, heavy artillery (love that shadow bLast), or something else?

I suppose undead summons w/ poison slingers and a non-serpent dancer strategy might be very effective.

[ March 12, 2004, 16:00: Message edited by: archaeolept ]

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Put Poison Slingers a flank on fire archers. This have worked very well for me so far. Poisoned archers rout pretty fast, often taking the commanders with them and as an added bonus the infantery will be very likely to rout trought the poison clouds.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

I'll try that, but what stops them from being massacred/routed? do you mix them w/ any other sort of troop?

Also, I know the empoisoner is considered a great assassin, I'm just wondering why? what do people use his magic for? barkskin? summon a single skeleton?

I'm sure the unit has great potential, I'm just not sure how best to use him.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As I said, I haven't played much C'tis, but I've had success with Empoisoners when they cast Decay and the other offensive Death 1 spells rather than summons.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Empoisoners. There are three levels of power for them.

Level 1: Weak Commander, Weak Mage
-Requires to continuously cast Summon Skeleton

Level 2: Strong Commander, Strong Mage
-Requires a single nature gem per assassination and scripted to cast Summon Swarm

Level 3: Weak Commander + Weak Guards, Weak Mage + Weak Guards
-Requires a Skull Staff to cast Raise Skeletons

The only way to kill something stronger than these situations is to get fully-equipped assassins (Construction 6) with a heroic ability (HP or Protection are best)

[ March 12, 2004, 18:06: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Yeah, but assassinations are kinda random. What do you do if a province contains a mixture of these types, and you have no idea what victim you're going to draw in advance?

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Equip your assassin with a skull staff and hope for the best.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Anybody have any advice for playing with the miasma domain? I do OK playing with the base domain, but I seem to have trouble with miasma -- it's hard when all those nice sages die of horrible diseases. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

I prefer Miasma to Base C'tis for the most part. Especially the mages. What exactly are you looking for advise? How to effectively play against who?

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, Miasma is a little limiting, since any unit that is not undead, lifeless, or cold-blooded will die horribly of nasty diseases. Maybe you can cast Twiceborn on your indy mages, so when they bite it they'll come back as Wight Mages or Lichcraft(how DOES that spell work?) and be immune. Not to mention no longer require upkeep.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Lichcraft summons an undead, death 4 mage.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Undead, /immortal/ death-4 demilich mage. It lacks the ghost-summoning ability and innate equipment of the Wraith Lord, however; different summons for different purposes.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Two things: how best to expand the dominion, and how to deal with its effects on indie specialists.

To make good use of Miasma, it needs to spread, which means a high dominion score. There are two ways of getting that: spend points when designing a pretender, or build temples. I've done fairly well by starting with dominion 9, but I'm not sure the reduced scales and magic are worth the cost.

OTOH, since the dominion does give a (slight) income bonus, it seems that building lots of temples might not be so bad. But I haven't done well starting with, say, dominion 7 and building from there. So that's the first question: how much dominion to start with?

The second question is what to do with indie troops and specialists? Miasma slowly grinds them down, so they become much less cost effective than normal. Think sages are still useful, but I'm less sure about archers (for example), which I usually recruit for C'tis.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

If you want to use indies as Miasma C'tis, make a beeline for Gift of Health. That'll keep the disease from killing 99% of your units.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Because of this thread I just started playing C'tis. Thanks for the tips, made crushing the AI easy as pie.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Equip your assassin with a skull staff and hope for the best. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That answer confuses me. I thought you were the Head Honcho Tuchus-Kickin C'tis Specialist -- and a Skull staff + hope is your answer to Norfleet's (justified) question?

The beauty of a nation with an assassin and natural necromancers when up against lots of commanders so you dont know what you are going to get is... in my humble opinion...
A wraith crown. Hands down. For such circumstances, I either keep his HANDS FREE for dual-shields (lucky coin and shield of your choice if you are going caster-liz) or at least one shield and order to buff then summon then fire rearmost (combat-liz).
Well just my two cents.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

A Wraith crown is too big of an investment for an assasin that might as well get discovered and end up facing the full enemy army on his own. That wraith crown will then become a nice gift to your enemy when recovered from the body of your assasin.

Generally speaking, if you have to spend more in your assasin that the value of his likely victim then you should consider investing your coin & gems elsewhere.

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Agreed.
But it depends entirely on what you mean by "value". I have taken out (non-SC) pretenders with Slayers equipped with nothing but a Lifelong Protection. Hard to judge the "value" of a Wraith crown, but 40 gems isnt all that much if I have plenty, and I really want to screw up his logistics. But of course I wouldnt go with this investment all the time...

Re: uhm,,playing C\'tis ?!?
 

Of course a pretender is a valuable target, but what's your chance of randomly targetting him on your 1st attack among the 30 or so commanders in his army? And once you have shown your cards your opponent will be ready for further attempts: expect scout chaff, heavy patrolling & assorted traps for your assasin.

Personally, I find a barrage of assasinating spells much more cost-effective & flexible than knife-in-the-back assasination, at least in MP.