abysia strategies
 

Many posters say Abysia is a top-5 race. However, I'd never had any success with Abysia. So either I was doing something wrong, or the posters here are cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

I decided to experiment. I ran some test games with a Phoenix pretender with Air-4, Fire-4, whom I named Crispy Chicken. I researched Alteration-1 for Aim, and used Crispy as fire support behind my main army. At the same time, I tried to get my blood economy rolling.

Crispy was a huge success at fire support. The blood economy was incredibly easy to get started. I built soul contracts and the devils poured in. However, I had no way to get dwarven hammers or ice devils. Plus I was reminded once again that castles suck.

I tried a new approach. My pretender was a Great Warlock, whom I named Evil Todd. I took Order-3, Prod-3, Heat-3, Misfortune-2, Watchtower, Dominion 7. Evil Todd had 4 Air (for SoS and easy access to Air Queens), 3 Earth (hammers), 3 Water and 3 Blood (Ice Devils). The plan was to research Construction-2, Blood-5, Alteration-2, Construction-4, Blood 6, Construction-6, etc.

Holy bleeping bleep.

Abysia may be slow to get started, but once they do get going they are awesome. It is almost criminal how fast they can get a blood economy going. Devils are quite potent in large numbers, and their mobility is terrifying. Which is good, because the Abysian HI are dangerously slow.

I built about 6 soul contracts during my current game. I put them on scouts. One scout got attacked 4 times by Lesser Horrors. He was unequipped and had no bodyguards, and yet he won every single time. Fear my l33t Dom2 skillz! (or fear the Bad VCR Header error I got when I tried to view the battles...)

I got my first ice devil on turn 15, but only sent him out on turn 19 once I got him equipped. I've never had ice devils with less than ideal equipment, so I was nervous about losing him to stupidity.

Equipment for the Ice Devils/Arch Devils/Air Queens mostly consisted of the following: Blood Thorn, Lucky Shield, Horror Helm, Red Dragon Scale Mail (later Jade Armor when I got someone with 1W 1E), Winged Shoes or Boots of Quickness, Antimagic Amulet and Ring of Regeneration.

My pretender spent most of his time site searching or summoning Ice Devils (and later Air Queens).

I tried Send Horror for the first time. Again, holy bleeping bleep. Armies just vanish when attacked by a Horror. I cast 2 on Ulm's capital, and my army walked in to an undefended province. For Abysia, 4S 3B is not hard to get at all.

Okay, now to my questions for the Abysian gurus:

1. Soul Contracts: how should I defend my scouts, if at all? Because of the Soul Contract, the scouts can have up to 10 undead under their control, so perhaps 5 Devils as bodyguards would be good. How many Soul Contracts are recommended?

2. Blood Harvesting: how many provinces should be dedicated to blood harvesting early in the game? I tried 3 provinces each with 3 hunters.

3. Research: from early to mid-game, should Abysia research anything but Alt-2, Constr-4, and Blood Magic? In other words, am I missing anything?

4. Blood Summons: other than Ice Devils and Arch Devils, which blood summons are worth casting? I just summoned a Father Illearth in my current game, but haven't yet tried Fallen Angels, Demon Lords or Heliophagus (Heliphagi?).

Any comments or thoughts on my approach would be most appreciated.


Caseus

Re: abysia strategies
 

The biggest error I see when people first try to make Abysia playing (well actually its the first mistake I see when people try to make ANY nation worth playing) is ignoring obvious major central concepts to the nation. I didnt see it specifically mentioned in what you had so you might already be beyond this point but I want to mention it for newbie lurkers.

Abysia LIKES heat. Yes I see you took heat-3 scale but thats not what I mean. I mean keeping an eye on your dominion and making use of it. If you have trouble taking a province and have multiple choices which one to hit next then take note of how your dominion is doing there. Hit the province which is most affected by your monions heat scale and you will gain bonuses while the enemy usually gets minuses. Most of the nations have some sort of scale benefit but people want to play forward of their dominion or not make an effort to push their dominion forward to play under the benefits of their god.

If I remember correctly heat causes fatigue? There are many strategies mentioned which use fatigue to overcome SuperCOmbatants or Pretenders. Keep it in mind.

Also, another obvious one for any new people trying Abysia. One reason that Abysia tends to NOT be a good starting race for new players is that *&$%*&@#$ heat aura. Its easier to do well with Abysia when you have experience in formations, or you are the type of player who is into managing formations heavily. If you arent that type of person then Abysia will quickly go on your C list.

Re: abysia strategies
 

If you can get an Ice Devil by turn 15, and have him equipped by 19, your blood hunting/research strategies are just fine.

Personally, I wouldn't put Soul Contracts on scouts, I'd put them on the Demonbred that will be leading the Devils. Why waste time gathering them up, when you can have them spawn right where they need to be?

Abysia doesn't necessarily need to be played Blood first. They can also, if you like, do some nice things with fire magic and their innate fire immunity. Their infantry is slow, as you noted, but it is quite potent.

Don't overlook Hordes from Hell. Being able to call down 20 Imps and a Devil wherever you need to is a nice ability, and the Devil makes a fine commander for other devils.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Warning : I'm no Abysia guru http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

1. Imo you shouldn't defend your scouts at all just hide them . Afaik they never die cause of the bad vcr header error . Even if they die the horror attacks are rather rare so not worth guarding your scouts .

There is no limit for soul contracts , if the game Lasts long there is nothing wrong in having 50 , 100 or even more soul contracts .

2. I always try to hunt Asap in all 3,5-8 k provinces and only keep the rich farmlands etc. with huge population for tax generation "unhunted" . 3 Blood hunters / province is good .

3. Early to midgame you should research construction 6 instead of construction 4 cause blood thorn + brazen vessel are construction 6 .
Alteration you can research up to 3 or even 5 , depending on your strat + pretender : alt 3 gives nice extra buffs , ironskin + mistform , alt 5 gives incinerate + invulnerability . Enchantment 1 for fire shield + breath of winter i normally research very early too .
Finally thaum 2 is important for sitesearching spells like augury .

4. Basically the lvl 9 troop summon spells are very worthy being casted . I like particulary forces of darkness and infernal tempest .

As you say Ice devils and Arch devils are very potent SCs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
The rest , demon lords etc. are nice but optional . Demon lords lack some slots , mainly body slot and Heliophagii are similiar to Arch devils but lack the fire resistence etc. .
The devil you get from horde to hell is a leader and makes a good thug .

Re: abysia strategies
 

Watchtowers suck. Using them with a nation that has resource heavy troops without a combat pretender (or even with) is asking to get run over by somebody who has a decent castle.

AI armies will be hurt. Anything that a human puts together won't be damaged by normal or lesser horrors.

Re: abysia strategies
 

I wouldn't design Abysia with Air Queens in mind. Your chances to get an Air Queen in competitive MP is about 0, because you don't have any way to generate air income quickly, unless you're lucky with indies. Besides you have easy access to Ice- and Arch- Devils, so you will have enough SCs. SoS isn't something which is a must for Abysia. You will rarely need it yourself and your opponents are likely to bring it anyway. So you may be better off by spending points on something else. For example, on better fort. Having access to death and nature would be nice too.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Thanks for the comments!

I appreciate knowing what works in multiplayer, but I play exclusively single player games.

Years ago I played a lot of VGA Planets. I have found those who play multiplayer games to be ultracompetitive to the point where any semblance of fun in the game is gone. After reading the Norfleet threads, I am convinced Dominions 2 is no differently, sadly.

I prefer Watchtowers over Castles for several reasons:

1. cost to build -- 150 gold is a lot, especially early on
2. time to build -- 1 less turn is huge when you're at war
3. 80 design points are not insignificant

I build watchtowers everywhere. Watchtowers reduce enemy army speed by 50%. In the turn it takes the AI to seige my watchtower, I fly or teleport in reinforcements.

I forgot about Enchantment 1. I tried fire shields in my current game and found them quite fun.

In single player, it's pretty easy to get Air Queens out the door. However, the point about Air is well taken. I might take 2 Air and put the points elsewhere. I checked my design and my Great Warlock does have 3 Death but no Nature.

What is a good combat pretender for Abysia?


Caseus

Re: abysia strategies
 

the thing is, SP is not really the game. almost any strategy can work for SP once you get the basics down, since the AI is unable to deal w/ pretty well anything.

the sole real measure of the value of a strat is for MP.

Re: abysia strategies
 

I talk for MP experience.

Personally I prefer however Watchtower. Even if I pump out less HeavyInf.
First try with a combatant pretender, Caeseus, like the Ghost King that now as it is, it's like a jolly because he could do almost anything.

You could exploit Death til 3, that Abysya won't lost the gold income nor the supplies. But the population will die however.
Pick always magic-3. It's the lone way to have a decent research, considering your bloodhunters and researchers are capitol only (I mean those cost-effective, even a 200 gold costy ant.salamander can research).
For productivity, it's not that useful, soon the heavy infantry get useless AND considering that a rout in any battle == them all dead, AND the time you need to replace an army of them, AND a huge amount of time to bring them in an attack position, AND if in early expansion you get your way closed by another nation, or by a sudden appearing of 4 heavy cavalry province all neighbouring the new aquired province and you've to waste a turn to get back, you'll discover the Abysya Infantry is very poor for their cost. And with their low morale they'll flee very easily. You can consider Productivity only if you want extra gold. Your pretender should be the way you conquer indies, Abysya really lacks of a capable army.

About Air Queens, forget them. To have that research and air income you should find a lot of sages, or indep mages. Even if they're awesome.

I usually go at least blood-3 before any construction, and even blood-5 if my pretender is capable of binding Ice Devils. The lone Abysya benefit is that her blood hunters start with 2 blood, so if there's the devil race with mictlan you can forgo the sanguine douzing rods. But usually expect Abysya get outmatched in blood by Mictlan, default Jotunheim and Black Forest Ulm.
You need however blood 3, if someone go at war with you and you can't hold him at bay with pretender and heavy infantry (thing very very easy), demonbred can summon single devil, and warlocks can summon fiends of darkness.
They're good raiders if led by a Demonbred, they can't hide but they fly.

Fire Magic doesn't count a lot. Abysya has no real battle mages. With low precision, to be useful you've to send an entire battery of Anthemats in battle, and when you go to the fight the enemy could easily make a ring of fire for his most precious leaders.
Communion? Well Warlocks perhaps in communnion could do something, HEY but they're your lone researchers and blood hunters, unless you're desperate do you really send them into the battle?

However Abysya isn't one of the top five nations, IF there's another blood nation in. If in the game perhaps there'rent the 3 above, oh well, it's quite different.
Even in my opinion is one of the weaker nations.

Re: abysia strategies
 

For me, single player IS the game.

In multiplayer you have to contend with cheaters. You have to contend with people exploiting loopholes in the game system to do things the designers never intended. The actual fun parts of the game -- the huge variety of spells, magic items, and units -- are lost in the intense competitiveness of multiplayer. "You can't do X, that doesn't work in multiplayer!"

I suspect it's far worse than that. I suspect that in multiplayer, your race is merely a chassis for getting out the Big Summons. The incredibly diversity of races and units is virtually meaningless compared to the power of Ice Devils, Air Queens, etc.

Having never played multiplayer, I could be wrong. But I doubt it.


Caseus

Re: abysia strategies
 

You've hit the point Caseus, more or less.
Don't forget national mages, however, they can still do damage even with the big guys in, but ONLY for certain nations.

In fact I hope in Dom3 troops will be always useful, from the start to the Last.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Hear the ripping sounds? That's me tearing up my strategies. The thumping sounds is me banging my head against the wall.

Magic 3 because your researchers are capital only? Sigh. Should have been obvious but somehow I missed it completely.

I can't argue with you one bit about the HI. I abandon them once the IDs and Devils are out the door anyway. So skip Production 3.

Okay, back to the drawing board with a Ghost King this time.

Thanks Cohen! Your post was extremely insightful.


Caseus

Re: abysia strategies
 

you really are in no position to say. Frankly, you are quite wrong, overall. It is in SP that there is no diversity, because all tactics are about equally successful against the lay down and die AI.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Caseus, some remarks about beloved Aby http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
Scales : don't bother with Prod, get Magic-3 instead, and pay a better Pretender with Death-3 too ! With Aby I like a SC chassis with let's say 3 non-Abysian paths better than a RM.
The worst challenge with Aby (in MP) is to get a decent research IMHO, so Magic scales (and hopes of getting a Sage site..) are required.
Demons : Ice Devils are fine, but aren't at all Abysia-friendly - they radiate frost when Abysians radiates heat, you've got no way of getting them except through Pretender, Archdevils are much more "getting along" Abysia (ok, they're "worse" when compared all other things equal, but "all other things" are *never* equal http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif !)

About MP: no, MP isn't a unfriendly jungle of cheaters, I play (way too many) MP games with a small friendly (and mostly French) group, and we enjoy the diversity of the game, play all races even if not competitive (Tien Chi, Mictlan..), do some roleplay, mucho diplomacy (and some backstabbing), play sometimes with mods, on unknown maps, with special victory conditions, and enjoy it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif THAT'S the game !! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: abysia strategies
 

It doesn't seem there are cheaters left since Norfleet quitted.

No, X works, but only in right circumstances. The fun of MP is to figure out which X will work in the current situation. Concerning the loopholes, there aren't many, and they are not significant, at Last significant ones got patched. But of course in the game of such complexity, no known loopholes doesn't mean that they don't exist.

Ice Devils, Air Queens etc are not particularly strong in MP. In SP they look strong just because AI doesn't know how to deal with them. Against human players, those ID and AQs will be dying left and right. It's true there's a period in the early game when you can safely raid many nations with ID or AQ, but that period doesn't Last long. After that they become just super-commanders (as opposite to super-combatants) who need a strong army to achieve anything.

The nation still makes a difference until the very end. Mostly due to the mages, national troops still remain useful though. Something has to make numbers in your army. At that stage distinction between most of national troops become minimal, however some nations (R'lyeh, Caelum, C'tis) still have national troops that can play distinctive role on the battlefield.

Re: abysia strategies
 

I'd say any stealth army has usefulness until the end of the game. Though my concept of "End of the Game" might vary from others, but usually until a decisive win or the game becomes to micro to play.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Cohen,

sometimes I wonder if we are playing the same game.

Moral 11 is low? Sorry to inform you it is soild moral. Is it the best in the game? No. Is it soild? Yes.

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. All HI is move 1. They all have the same problem. Oh and for your 8 or so gold more than "normal" HI you get +1-+3 strength, a heat aura, immunity to fire, and +3-5 HP. Sounds like a deal to me. Abysian HI are excellent HI. Right near the top of the HI food chain.

Yes you will lose 1/2 of your population in 115.8 turns. Boohoohoohoohoo. It's a huge advanatge to Abysia.

Yes abysia is poor at research no doubt. However if you run the numbers you will see that those "useless" mages you can recruit away from your home province ( Anathemant Salamanders ) are actually just about as good at research as Warlocks/Demonbreds ( At magic1 best researcher: demonbred 2.67 RP/gold over 30 turns, Anathemant Salamander 2.96 RP/god over 30 turns ... at magic 3 Warlock Apprentice 1.76 gold/rp vs. Anathemant Salamander
1.78 gold/rp ... wow it's really close isn't it?).

But why let *FACTS* stop you from spouting your crap about abyisa? Keep it comming!

Yes poor abysia. Boohoohoo. Let's not mention that they have excellent HI, that they have extra points from heat and death, that their casters are beefy and can stand closer to the front line than mortals, that all of their troops are 100% fire resistant thus fire magic can be used as much as possible without worry.

No, no. Their *only* advanatge is that they have blood2 mages right out of the gate and can win the race to ID's ( assuming that your pretender can cast that spell ) quite easily. Oh, btw, that is a very nice perk.

Good raiders? Demons are top tier magical HI. They stomp noraml armies flat. 25 devils led by a demonbred is a flying army of destruction able to defeat moral armies thrice their size.

Nope it sucks. Worth nothing. Remove those mages from Abysia. They don't matter anyway. What? You would not want them to do that? Why not? I thought it was useless? Guess it's not.

Please define your terms. Outmatched? By what metric? The Warlock Apprentice is clearly more cost effective than the Jotun Skratti at blood hunting. Oh you mean they have a more cost effective blood hunter with the 1 in 4 Vaetti Hag's that have blood. But that's not going to help them get one of the 11 blood SC's is it?

Black Forest has a more cost efficient blood hunter? You don't mean the Member of the 2d Trier do you? I don't imagine that you do mean him, since he's worse than the Warlock Apprentice. Oh wait you mean the Vampire Count well those are nice and all. But they are not going to be blood hunting en mass for quite a while are they? And don't they have better things to do anyway? Oh and they have quite a substantial cost ... it's not gold however.

Mictlain. Yes the best blood hunting nation in the game. No doubt. They pay for it thought don't they? They *have* to blood sacrifice to stop dominion death. They have horrible base troops ( although quite blessable ). Their mages are capital only ( I thought you said this was a crushing problem for Abysia ). They pay through the nose for their power with blood. And well they should blood is *very* powerful. Yet abysia pays almost nothing in comparison. Weird. And amazingly Abysia BoH is comparable with Mictlain.

Well other than just about all of it being wrong. You are right! Oh he is right about the GK. It's really very good currently.

Re: abysia strategies
 

I've always found Abysia relatively easu to play, and have found a couple of good pretenders for them that don't really act as SC but whoi nicely patch their weaknesses. And anybody who complains about not being able to get dwarven hammers with Abysia is just plain incompetent. Get earth warlock, forge bloodstone, equip, forge boots, equip, forge hammer, repeat hammer, start cranking out stuff. Having a pretender with E4 or above is also good, because half of your mages (and all of the artillery ones) are sacred, so they get help from the reinvigo blessing, especially if you can equipe them with reinvigo items. My first MP, Back to the Fray, I'm playing Abysia, and I'm not doing badly at all (relatively speaking), but I've also been lucky.

Edi

Edi

Re: abysia strategies
 

There aren't many of those left with the current Version.

If the various gem-producing items and supercombatants were intended to be completely useless, then the game would have made them that way.

You are.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Magic 3 is a waste of design points usually, since the magic scale has diminishing returns.

That will result in you watching as somebody who didn't skip production 3 rolling over you in the first 20 turns.

Cohen doesn't actually know how to play Abysia well, so I'd take his advice with a grain of salt.

Re: abysia strategies
 

1. When people talk about Aby being in the top 5 races, most people are talking about them in MP. I don't know if they still are in SP but some rankings, like AE Ermor for example, may change based on MP/SP. They might still be top 5 in SP but just realize that when most people talk about strategies in Dom2, unless specified, they are talking about MP and any corrleation to SP is incidental.

2. Afaik, until a single cheater was found not that long ago, don't be afraid of MP because of a fear of cheating. While it is clearly possible to cheat, I think it is probably *far* less common in Dom2 than other MP games. I don't know if the single person discovered cheating was the only one, necessarily, but just the fact that it caused so much shock is a good indiciator that it isn't very common. I entirely quit playing Diablo2 because of the rampant cheaters so it would be a factor for me, too, if I thought there was much of it.

3.
a) Watchtowers good
b) Alt-2/Blood 5-6/Const 6 in that order if there are other blood nations to compete with in MP (to race for unique summons since they have to get to const 4).
c) Helios are definitely worth summoning. As good as an ID/AD ? Maybe not...but still really, really good. Plus, you get a 4D mage with one of them, which I am almost always happy to see.
d) ID's on turn 15 is decent enough, imo. That's usually what I aim for but it may also depend on the settings you are using, which you did not specify. On turn 15, though, they are not going to be equipped very well so they may not get sent out until later (except for Gaap, I just give him a luck ammy and send him out asap). Fortunately, they have other uses as site searchers, researchers and summoners (for Cimejes and Bune).
e) How many provinces I set to blood hunting in the early game usually varies depending on a lot of factors. As a general rule, I try to get the uniques asap. The number of provinces I blood hunt will depend on how early I get them blood hunting and how my research is doing. That sounds vague, I know.
The idea for me, though, is to get the uniques asap. If I find some nice sages early on, I may blood hunt more provinces and let the sages research. If I find no indie researchers, I may have to keep more blood hunters at home to hit the blood 5 research level at the same time I get enough slaves.

4. I would disagree with a lot of what Cohen said. Keep in mind that he is coming from the opinion that Abysia is a weak race, rather than one of the top 5.
a) Aby HI is *amazing*, probably my favorite HI in the entire game, and I rarely find them useless. Yes, I would rather have a devil but there is nothing wrong with having both and, both having heat aura and fire resistance, compliment each other just fine. Also keep in mind that Productivity adds gold as well, something I am always in short supply of.

b) You may lose them all on a rout *if* you set them all in the front and fail to plan for their low movement. Early on, going against a cav/inf province, for example, I usually set them in the rear with wait and attack orders. This separates out the cav and if you rout, you don't lose them all. Low movement is a weakness but it is one you can take into account.

c) Aby HI has a morale of 11. That isn't weak, compared to their peers. It's average, at the very least. You can look at the charts for regular troops and see that 10-11 is common.

d) While I agree with magic-3, if it was based on capitol only mages, it would not be so useful. Magic 3 is more useful when you have lots of cheap researchers, rather than a few expensive ones as it does not add a percentage, it adds a set amount of research per mage. That said, it isn't hard to find cheap researchers. There is almost always an indie around, whether you are lucky enough to find a sage or you have to settle for a shaman or druid.

e) Whether or not Aby has combat mages depends on what your research is and what you are facing (or basically, what stage of the game). I find summoning imps in battle pretty useful early on, for example. They don't compare to the nations that have the best combat mages but they are still useful. Keep in mind that demonbred, for example, are one of the few naturally flying mages and they just happen to be sacred and priest 3 in addition.

- Kel

Re: abysia strategies
 

What about the part where I said:

The actual fun parts of the game -- the huge variety of spells, magic items, and units -- are lost in the intense competitiveness of multiplayer. "You can't do X, that doesn't work in multiplayer!"

Am I wrong about that? Is Dominions 2 multiplayer free of rabidly aggressive, hypercompetitive players who destroy any semblance of fun in the game?

Do you have to use only certain key strategies or you might as well not play? Your own Posts seem to indicate this is the case.

So tell me about me being wrong, please?


Caseus

Re: abysia strategies
 

I suspect everyone plays the way that is, for them, fun.

If you don't like playing with people who are competitive, that is certainly a valid preference but keep in mind, *you* are asking about strategies, or at least that's how I took it. Any answer you get will be based on what is an effective strategy, rather than what your idea of fun is.

Lastly, the ironic thing is that you absolutely can use any spell/item/nation/strategy in MP. You may be more likely to lose but if you aren't a "hypercompetitive player", it shouldn't bother you so much.

- Kel

Re: abysia strategies
 

You might try a couple MP games and see if that's your experience. Or, try reading through this game's thread. (Yes, it's a tremendously long thread, but skip around the pages a bit; page 15 and 16 for example. A lot of the first and Last pages were about setting up the game, and then talking about setting up another one.) Does that sound like a bunch of rabid hypercompetitive players?

Also, unlike games like Quake or Warcraft and the like, Dominions games go long enough, are slow paced enough, that even a couple of hypercompetitive types don't ruin the fun of the game. (Unlike some of the realtime ones, where you're shot/dead/crushed inside of a few minutes of frantic clicking.) I've had a lot of fun in games where I was doing quite poorly, in part because I was trying out wacky ideas and strategies that were based on my limitted options (troops, forgings, spells researched, mages, etc).

I've played a _lot_ of MP games. My only win thus far was an allied win, and with 3 players and a mutant setup (0 magic site settings, VD research, tiny map, and you couldn't add any magic to the pretender chassis) that didn't count for much. Now I think I have ... 3 games out of about 10 in which I may have a decent chance at a win. Even if I don't win, I get a huge kick out of some of the battles, even ones I lose (or "lose", defeated but with a net gain).

SP got tedious - the AI isn't much of a challenge, I didn't have to work very hard (ie, didn't have to learn and expand my tactics / strategies), and it doesn't mean anything - I could quit a game or restart as soon as it lost my attention. Going against human players, you see a much wider range of strategies and forces that you have to contend with, since the AI tends to do pretty much the same sorts of things.

Nope, there aren't certain key strategies you have to use. There are certain strategies you have to learn to counter though - what to do about SCs, what to do about wrathers, how to try and deal with armies of almost invulnerable troops (such as those produced by Enliven Statues). And there are certain things you have to keep in mind - if you don't work on your research, or don't use the results of your research, you will lose. Even that can be modified, by playing on smaller maps, with research more difficult and, more importantly, fewer magic sites.

*shrug* If you're having enough fun with SP, great. But to many of us, the MP games are a lot more interesting and unpredictable, and therefor more entertaining and fun for us.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Well explain me so how to do well with Abysya.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Hey, you pointed to our game! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I am too a rabid hypercompetitive player. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I even froth at the mouth like Pasha.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Fire-9 moloch. Order 3, Prod 3, heat 3, misfortune 3, magic 2, dominion 7, castle. Alchemize your fire gems, recruit an Anathemant Dragon and as many lava warriors as you can afford. Send them out to a weak province on the next turn. Set the dragon and the Moloch to cast flare. Research evocation 1 for fire darts. Continue to purchase lava warriors and use them to conquer territory and hopefully kill a neighbour off in the very early game.

Then either research construction to 6 or blood to 6. Summon the archedvils. Buy warlocks until you get one with water 1. Have him build a water bracelet and trade for a robe of the sea. Put them on the water warlock and summon icedevils if they are still around. Buy warlocks until you get one with air 1 to make flying boots for the icedevils if you have them. Use your gems to equip your summoned commanders. Trade for a dwarven hammer, then build soul contracts. Put decent equipment on your devil commanders from horde from hell.

Try and kill Pangaea's pretender early so that you can force him to be your ally and supply you with fever fetishes in exchange for fire gems and lightless lanterns. Use your fire gem income to both power your economy and kill opposing armies with artillery spells.

Research evocations and use your Moloch as a combination battlefield caster/supercombatant.

There's all kinds of things to do with Abysia, and they are great for brute force power strategies. Plus, they are nearly immune to overland artillery magic. Flames from the sky does them no damage, and murdering winter kills virtually nobody.

Re: abysia strategies
 

If you buy lava warriors you can't buy researchers. You're outgunned in research. And you can't blood hunt well too. How can you only hope to grab the big Devils if you have in the same game any other blood nation?

Lava warriors will get arrowed very easily by any xbow province. They've no shield.

You assume Pangea is in ... and not always is, and often is of a theme that doesn't allow to forge fever fetishes, and it's not easy to kill another pretender.

They lack of mobility even if they're immune from overland artillery, any cloud trapezing mage capable of wrathful skies will kill all your army with ease.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Caseus you should try multi-player!!

I have found that the AI becomes really predictable in SP after quite a few games. In MP your human opponents really stretch your knowlege of the game - Even if you are not doing well, its worth while to stay in the game to try out a few things or learn a few new tricks.

Re: abysia strategies
 

You need to specify what you mean by X. I've written earlier that for particular units/spells/item there's a use in MP, but most of them are useful only in specific circumstances.

If you understand X as: "summon all Ice/Arch Devils, Air and Water Queens etc" it won't work. If you can use some strategy, others can use it too, so only strategies that can be executed concurrently are possible. Or let's say reliable.

That depends how you define fun. If you have fun only if you're winning, then MP is not for you. Most people here lose much more often than win. And in the beginning you'll probably be losing every time. To me it's more fun to play with aggressive and competitive players, the game progresses faster, and they force me to invent new strategies by attacking before I'm ready for my favourite plan. Also, passive games tend to involve much more micromanagement.


There're some key parts of the strategy that repeat itself in most games: conquer indies fast, minimize your losses, try to conquer your neighbour with minimal losses, use the diplomacy to buy magic items you don't have access to otherwise etc.

But the details of implementation widely vary. From nation to nation and from player to player. To some extent, from map to map too.

And diplomacy can change game quite a lot too.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Sure you can. You can buy 1 or two lava warriors a turn, and a researcher every turn.

This has been explained to you many times Cohen. You use your warlock apprentices as researchers until you have the basic research done. You then switch them to blood hunters to build your armies very quickly.

That's why you have the Anathemant Dragon and Moloch along for fire support.

No, I'm simply pointing out the benefits of diplomacy. It makes you much stronger than any single pretender design ever could.

They won't be able to kill your army that easily, because a cloud trapezing mage will go down very quickly to fire-9 lava warriors. False horrors won't do anything against sacred troops with magical weapons, enormous attack values, and suberb morale. You've also almost certainly got rings of tamed lightning on your SCs, so wrathful skies won't bother them at all.

Re: abysia strategies
 

I tried that strategy, I had luck too, I started in a good position with many neighbours, I managed to pump out til 8 Lava Warriors at turn ^^ but they got slaughtered too.
An army of 200 devils caught by trapeze/wrathing ... all dead.

An F9 Moloch has problems as SC, he can't cast many buffs.
However I'd like to see u in action, probably I'm not so good even if I adapt that strategy.

Re: abysia strategies
 

Cohen, I'm starting to get sick and tired of your whining about Abysia being weak. In my VERY FIRST mulstislayer game (and with relatively little SP experience) I'm playing Abysia and I'm one of the top nations so far. Not the most powerful, but maybe in 3rd or 4th place.

I'm using a Scorpion King with E6F4, Order 2, Prod 3, Heat 3, Magic 2, castle, and while I've not managed to max out everything the way Graeme described (and I've used a slightly different priority on research early on), I'm not in a difficult position by a long shot. Ulm is giving me trouble, but that's because Soapy had a Forge of the Ancients up for a good long while before the astral nations came up with the capital to dispel it. I've lost a couple of armies to Wrathful Skies, but it's not deterring me one bit.

I'm not playing to the fullest extent of Abysia's capabilities by any measure because of my inexperience, yet I'm doing well. If I were to give a setup like this to someone who has extensive MP experience (like Graeme), I'd bet even money on him winning the game. I won't, because I just don't have enough experience of MP to manage against some of the people in that game.

If I can do this, in my vbery first MP, Cohen, it just means that you are completely plain incompetent with Abysia.

Edi

Re: abysia strategies
 

I sometimes wonder what game(s) some people are talking about?

Problems with the gameplay degenerating into a race for the first SCs? Killerspells obliterating every army?

Try your next game with the following settings:

indies - 7 or 8
site frequency - 40 or less
research - difficult or very difficult

No of provinces per nation - 10..14
Max number of players - 12

Than come back and tell me that Abysian HI doesn't rock during the first 25 turns at least ...

Re: abysia strategies
 

I find that the map makes a big difference also. If they play always play on a map where each nation only gets about 5 provinces before forcing war then please dont complain to me that the game is broken because the same nations always win/lose. Obviously some settings carry great advantage for some nations over others.

Re: abysia strategies
 

I couldn't agree more.

200 devils ??? Why isn't the game over ???

I have never seen a doom horror. I hear they kick ...

In Dom1 I cast Utterdark once (It was quite fun).


Not that I'm complaining. It just feels strange that people play this game I made and I don't recognize it. It could as well have been some other guy's game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: abysia strategies
 

At a guess? There are at least three strong parties remaining, all hunkering down rather than being the first to launch a major attack which carries the significant risk of losing to the third party. Each player raiding and building up forces to hopefully gain an advantage - or waiting for the opposition to make the first misstep.

Another possibility would be that 200 devils quickly become 50 devils if they face a Staff of Storms + Wrathful Skies without sufficient protection.

Still, fortress mentality and the "let the other guy commit first and overextend" line of thinking probably counts for a lot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: abysia strategies
 

I have had 180 devils (and 2 arch-devils) slaughtered by a single Golem (high prot, wielding 2 blood thorns) and a Harbinger who cast wrathful and fled.

On the other hand, with soul contracts, you can recover from that loss startlingly quickly. In that particular game I was on the counter-offensive 5 turns later.