Frost immune Devils?
 

Can someone please explain to me why a horde of frost fiends shoots their innate ranged attacks at a vast horde of Devils without any effect?

The Frost Fiend's Frost Blast is Damage 10 (no strength bonus) and Area of Effect 1.

The Devils have 50% Frost suceptibility, Protection 8, MR 17, Defence 16.

I thought that neither protection nor defence helps against a ranged area-effecting attack, but from 40 frost fiends firing, none of the 340 devils go a scratch! And the shots hit! (There wasnt much place to miss anyway!)

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif Meh, the frost fiends were blasted away like nothing! Only my equipped Ice Devil and the lone Iron Dragon managed to kill 3 (three) of those 340 devils! Nice count, isnt it?

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Did the Devils have any enchantment like army of gold/lead ?

According to the numbers your battle sounds pretty lategame so maybe you have overlooked the enemy mages casting such buffs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

No, there were no buffs. Actually by looking closer and closer again, a few of them were indeed hurt. I seemed to have simply clicked on the wrong ones... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif but there were only pretty few of them hurt...

But am I right about Area Damage going through regardless of armor and defence, or is this wrong?

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

10 damage no strength + 2d6 oe vs. 8 protection x 0,5 because of -50% CR ??? + 2d6 oe should give you then average damage of roughly estimated 6-7 per hit .

Devils are size 3 iirc so with area 1 attack you should hit 2 devils at once .


So it could be a bit bad luck with random rolls as well .
How many rounds did you shoot at them ? Did you ground the devils via storm ?

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

I believe protection should help (the ice blast isn't even AP damage - pretty puny with 10 dam and no str), and the susceptility to cold applies only to the amount of damage left over after protection is subtracted (I may err there). Area 1 attacks should hit everyone in the square, so defence won't help.

So, devil casualities due to artillery fire in the battle you describe would probably be very small.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Thanks for those clarifications!

The game hosted meanwhile, and I tried NiefelFlames three times (two lvl5 casters + lots of gems). The clever casters distributed the NiefelFlames all over, so no devil got killed by the NiefelFlames either, but they lost HP down to around 20. Not very impressive...

I am running out of ideas how to fight those devils! I (caelum) owns half the map, but I cannot stop those 2x300 devils from abysis, and I fear there are even more...

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

umm you cannot stop devils with caelum? Why don´t you build some wrather squads?

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Staff of storms + Wrathful skies , Falling frost , thunderstrike .

Storm demons do also wonders .

Best counter would be Storm + Wrathful sky caster with mech men teleported in . The mech men hold the line and protect your Caster(s) and the wrathful skies + thunderstrikes do kill the devils rather quick .

An AQ alone could maybe also kill the devils if you teleport in a 2nd mage wearing staff of storms , then casting only wrathful skies and then retreating .
If the devils get buffed seriously , mainly the 50% SR spell , Regeneration + Weapons of Sharpness 300 devils can rather easily kill your AQ no matter how you equip her .

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Hah, they have killed already an AirQueen accompained by 5 high seraphs, 20 storm demons and 10 air elementals so far...
(The Air Queen was equipped like follows:
ElfBane,LuckyShield,FireHelmet,BoneArmor,Antimagic ,BurningPearl
I know ElfBane is useless against Devils, but I forgot to change equipment. One of those draining dagger would do better)
But 350 at once just drown everything!

Anyway, that was just the first battle and I did not know what to expect, so I underestimated the numbers. But what worried me, is that only 16 devils were killed!

The other battle were the frost fiends accompained by two ice devils with herald lances, hydra armour, girdle of strength, buring pearl. Only 3 devils died! I wouldnt mind loosing being outnumbered that far, but 3 devils is not really a lot! And the SC's next to those devils were just buffing them up...

---

I have good experience with wrathful skies in that game, but I did not try it against the devils so far for various reasons (trying something else). I'll try WrathfulSkies again, but the first time the caster retreated without casting, since he was to close to the soul armour of the air queen, which damaged him in the first round!

One reason also is, that we are fighting in castled terrain, so cloudtrapezing onto the devils does not work...

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Yeah, most area attack skills don't ignore armor, but it depends on the type:

Frost Attacks & Earth Attacks usually face full protection
Fire Attacks and Acid/Steam attacks usually face half protection (as do Solar Rays)
Lightning Attacks usually face no protection
Astral Attacks often face no protection but get an MR check to ignore

Neifel Flames seems like your best bet (huge Area of Effect, Armor Negating, AND Frost damage). If you could help your casters to last a few turns longer, you could probably kill MANY of them, but if those spells are distributed too evenly, it hurts. If you let them attack you, you get an extra turns' initiative, but all this stuff may already be obvious to you.

As for Air Magic, Thunder Strike is nice, but 1 Area Effect against Size 3 Opponents means that you'll probably get more mileage out of Orb Lightning.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

[quote]
Chazar said:
ElfBane,LuckyShield,FireHelmet,BoneArmor,Antimagic ,BurningPearl

Why the fire helmet? I'm fairly sure it causes fatigue even to 0 encumbrance units. The bone armour is okay, but soul vortex acts at the beginning of the turn only, so you have to start the turn surrounded to see the most benefit. Jade armour and a blood thorn or wraith sword would probably have been a better choice.

Wrathful skies works better the more troops your enemy has, and devils cannot be protected against it. Seraphs casting resist lightning, quickness, false horror X 3 will hold off the devils for a very long time as long as you have a storm on the battlefield.

Those Ice Devils were equipped as anti-SC's, not anti-army SCs, so they won't be able to stand up to many devils.

They still have to breach the walls of your castles, where you can always be waiting for them.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

@ Graeme : If the Devils are buffed with Storm Warriors or Gaias Blessing and Mass Regeneration they survive some time even during Wrathful Skies .
If they also get Weapons of Sharpness they are very good .

Against 350 Devils as Chazar describes a few false horrors won't be enough to hold them off .

100 Mech men and a few mages will probably win , 100 Storm demons maybe also .

How would you protect a SC to say he will survive vs. 50 devils surrounding him and buffed by weapons of sharpness ?
With their 18 + exp attack skill they have good chances to score a few hits even on AQs , probably 2-3 a turn . Even 30 protection get halfed because of the ap so it would be 15 prot + 2d6 vs. 21 devil trident damage + 2d6 damage roll .

I have seen a charcoil shield , jade armor , blood thorn , pendant of luck and amulet of antimagic resistence AQ get killed by such devils easily in one of my recent games .

Without unique items how would you equip your mass produced AQ vs. devils ?

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

True, but even then they can't hit ethereal or mistformed troops very well.

Who said anything about a few false horrors? Send in 20 seraphs, and you'll have 40 a turn.

Both of those are huge gem investments. 20 Seraphs is 2000 gold and lost research at what sounds like the stage of the game where research is just about over.

For an air queen.
Blood Thorn, Lucky Coin, Starshine Skullcap, Jade Armour, Antimagic Amulet, Ring of Regen. Cast mistform, mirror image, attack rear or closest.

Each hit until a very large one occurs however, would only do 1 damage. He also hasn't said anything about weapons of sharpness or high-level earth magic, so It's probably not a factor.

Mass produced Air Queens? I'm trying to limit this to the situation described by the original poster, not imaginary situations. Basically, you need luck, lifedrain, quickness, and regeneration. You also want a storm. If it was ice devils vs. normal devils, then the equipment loadout is quite different.

There it would be: Blood Thorn, Lucky Coin, Robe of Shadows, Flying Boots, Antimagic Amulet, Ring of Regen.

Of course, this assumes that no battlefield magic is being used, in which case, you'll have to use different tactics.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Against devils the standard tactic is a prot 26+ SC for tanking and a wraithful skies capable caster far behind. Further a Prot 26+ tank with some serious weapons ( ember? ) can kill almost any number of devils even without the wrathful.

*If* the devils have weapons of sharpness prot will not work as well. Actually devils with weapons of sharpness are particularly hard to take on but they are rarely seen. However I just tested an SC with 30 prot and a life drain weapon against 100 devils and the SC still wins ( weird I would not have expected that ).

With Caelum your options open up from the standard tactics. But all anti-devil tactics ( except for massive prot SC's ) start with the Staff of Storms and wrathful skies. The false horror spam is a standard with Caelum.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Bait them into a province and then spam Murdering Winter. Unless they're moving magically, you'll hit them before they move.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Depending on who/what is leading them, you might try to kill those commanders and then force the whole army to retreat to nothingness in you territory. However, I don't think simple Seeking Arrows will be enough...

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

With 20 Seraphs there is the problem of rain of stones and earthquake though . The tartarian cyclops has always 2A 3E as magic . He could easily do rain of stones , weapons of sharpness with earthboots , earthquake , petrify , legions of steel , strength of giants .

The game seems to be in the stage where Tartarians are commonly available . 700 devils alone cost 4900 blood when summoned or 1500-2000 when generated by 25 soul contracts forged with or without hammers .

My guess would be that the game is at turn 50-70 .

I fully agree with etheral + mistform + luck . There something like devil thugs with moon blades would probably be needed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[quote]
Graeme Dice said:
Yeah etheralness is one of the most important skills for an anti-troop SC imo . Without stuff like Elephants or other good tramplers can kill your SC luckily also .

I am tensed at which turn Chazars game is if it is >60 then mass produced AQs could be soon a reality http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Iron dragons are also very good at killing devils, if you have the earth magic for it.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

What is actually good at killing devils ( and I can not for the life of me figure out why ) is ghost riders.

I have no idea why they work but 8 castings will kill about 120 devils. Quite a bargin.

Again: I have no idea why. From the stats you would think that the longdead would not even be able to hit.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

it´s the charge bonus of the lance, those riders are really insane.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

It could also be the hoof attack. Damage 10 ain't bad against devils and it reduces defence to boot (haha).

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Wow, lots of useful stuff here! More on the background: We're on Karan, the game is quasi-over with me owning pretty much, but I refused to end the game without ever battling Abysia, since I never played a high-magic endgame before, so I insisted to get a beating! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif (There is Carrion Woods still there as well having quite some armies and most Artifacts as I can tell, but Cainehill seems to forget about this game despite occasional reminders... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif well, if the devils continue to remain unbeaten and Carrion Woods reawakes, I fear that I could still loose the game though... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif ) So I want to learn endgame-fighting. Inviting the devils for battle is not a concern, neither is wishing or clamming on my side, since that yields no insights for me...

At least for me, Research was finished a couple of turns ago. We are around 80+. There are healthy Tartarians on both sides (though I cannot heal them - maybe I should try some global spells other than a mere GaleGate...). EarthMagic is not a problem for both sides, too. My first mistake, I guess, was to split up my forces: ~40 StormDemons with AirQueens, ~40 Frost Fiends with 2 IceDevils, ~40 Vine Ogres with Tarrasque. Each pack backed up by 4-8 path-booster equipped seraphs, staff of storms, some seraphs and seraphines, few archers for chaff, etc. The IceDevils brought along an IronDragon, the Tarrasque an awakened Tartarian Sprit (Ember,Blood Thorn, Horrorhelm,Ded Dragon Scale,Rings of Warrior and Regen) and an afflicted spirit.

The enemy fields Devils, Heliophagus, ArchDevils, AbysianMages and a few storm demons. Boosters: Rush of Strength, Heat from Hell, Legions of Steel.

Some numbers:
IceFiends: 8 commanders, 55troops versus 6/340: 3 devils killed.
Storm: 6/50 vs. 10/475: 16 devils killed.
Tarrasque: 16/145 vs. 9/400: 105 devils killed.

So far, so nice. I was not impressed with the IronDragon, but it charged alone into the enemy ranks and died after dealing damage twice. I think it might not be well suited against size3 Devils because of its trampling attack despite having low AP.

Only the pack with the tarrasque did some damage, but that was probably due to three castings of NiefelFlames: A shot left most of the devils inside around 20hp (so 15hp damage), some few as low as 6hp, but never killing. However, I think it might be more cost effective to cast falling frost instead (considering fatigue and gems):

NiefelFlames: Range 35+, Area 25+, Fatigue 2/200, Dmg: 10(a.n.)
FallingFrost: Range 40+, Area 5+, Fatigue 20-, Dmg: 17+

Another thing I should have worried about is the heat: The last battlefield was around heat1-2, while the others where at cold1. I guess NiefelFlames are probably effected by the heat scale, so I shall retry (there are enough devils left http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) with casting WolvenWinter before! And I will give Grip of Winter a try.

MurderingWinter was a disappointment though: I tried that a few turns ago, but the report showed only 10 hurt units, none killed for an army of more than 400! I did cast WolvenWinter twice that round to ensure that one of the castings was before, and indeed in the reports, one casting was beofre the MurderingWinter.

Wrathful Skies is nice, but I am deperately wondering what that Cold-Sensitivity of the Devils is good for...

----------
I meant DragonHelmets: 0 Enc, but 50% Fire Protection to complement the 50% from the burning pearl, sorry! But I guess I should not worry about that anymore: I will try Army of Gold instead, so 50% from the buring pearl might be enough if the boni stack. But Army of Gold does not protect from fires from the sky, so my seraphs should still wear more protective gear...

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Oh, to make AirQueens frost immune, I started out with giving them Rime Hauberks, which comes with a breath of winter effect built in, but maybe the 12 protection is a bit low. Better something else instead?

(BloodThorn+CharcoalShield or Hellsword, RimeHauberk,BurningPearl, Pendant of Luck)

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Chazar,

I may not know much about the game but I do know about killing devils http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

So I should have told you about murdering winter. It just will not get the job done in a cost effective way since you need quite a few castings to kill devils. I have gone so far as to cast Wolven Winter 3 times followed by 2 murdering winter without effect. I figure 3 castings of muredering winter should get the job done but that is a *lot* of gems.

Re: Air Queens.

I honestly do not think that they are "all that" against devils. In test after test I have found that prot is the big killer against devils and air queens just don't get high prot due to their low base defence. Ice Devils OTOH have 15 base prot and can get up to 30 quite easily.

Something like
Shiled of Charcoal Shield, blood thorn, Some prot-15 armor, Flame Helmet, and a pendant of luck on something with a high base prot ( eg: any devil commander, an earth troll king, maybe a wraith lord, the wraith lord does not have that much but the etherial does help ) with smack them around like no tomorrow.

The heat aura is a real killer, be sure to be fire resistant.

An AQ wearing the Amon Hotep will obliterate devils. But you can only have one of those.

A golem wearing artifact armor ( monolith, Asefik's ) can survive a long time against devils but he's only useful as a tank for wrathful since he's a clutz. You could also put armor like that on an AQ with a flame helmet that should give you sufficient prot to tank and crush.

As I said above ghost riders are shocking effective against devils. Heck they are effective against everything except specially made armies or really, really good SC's.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Under the domes (where GR wouldn't work) I prefer undead (like the one that comes from Army of Dead, but it doesn't really matter where it comes from) in the conditions of polar night. Bring enough undead and cast darkness+grip of winter+rain (probably it should be snow http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) That makes one longdead roughly equal to one devil (less HP, but better att/def, and longdead are not getting tired), and it's not difficult to bring a mass of undead.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Just a side note, but I believe all the Wolven Winters, while cast on normal time, affect the target province on the 'event' phase. Anyone who wants can experiment: cast a WW on province where you teleport an army. The battle in magic battle phase will be resolved in a normal temperature, if you win you get announcement about a cold winter in the province and scale shifts to cold after that.

So, casting WW in tandem with Murdering one won't work - for it to do any good the WW should be cast one turn early. At least from what I've seen.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Yes for 5 death gems this spell is seriously overpowering. For the group I play with we've banned this spell... especially after discovering the computer opponents don't use it since most games have at least 3 computer players. In the game we discovered the computer opponents don't use it was Ermor which maxed out his research and owned at least 40 provinces including his capital of 10 death gems per turn... and after 30 plus turns never casted the spell once. Also another side note... Ermor didn't research any blood magic as his research bar flat-lined sooner then it should my guess is others also don't research blood magic.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Most mention Staff of Storms as necessary to ground Devils. What do you do if you play a nation that doesn't have access to Air or Water magic (i.e. no clam hoarding)?

So, no Staff of Storms and no Air queens.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Hopefully by the time they have massed devils, you'll have some sort of air access.. randoms on national mages/summons, or independants, or harbringers, fairy queens, etc.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

Thanks. In case I don't find independents or get a random air pick, fairy queens would do the trick.

Re: Frost immune Devils?
 

If you have no staff of storms vs. devils you have imo very very bad success chances .

It should be similiar vs. FoDs also and other strong fliers .

Devils are just the most economic troop atm in Dominions and they have that good abilities that they can also win vs. Thugs or bad equipped SCs when fielded in bigger quantities .

Because they fly if you use fragile mages , and in this special context a fragile mage is everything expect a tartarian or a SC or a pretender , the devils kill them probably already while buffing .

If you ground the devils with Staff of Storms though national mages which can do either water or airmagic have enough time to deal lots of casualities to the devils and then your Mech Men or other Tanktroops can hold off the devils long enough .
Otherwise the devils would probably kill your mages while your mech men are still unharmed .

Why didnt my army rout?
 

Ok, I found out what helps against >400 Devils supported by ArchDevils, Heliophagous and friends:

Fighting in Cold3, casting Army of Gold, Fog Warriors, Wrathful Skies, Murdering Winter, Warriors of Niefelheim, Storm Warriors, Doom and Weapons of Sharpness a couple of times, as well as bringing along 2 squads of mechanical men and two iron dragons, 3 raw tartarians, 1 healthy and proper equipped tartarian and 2 proper equipped AirQueens and cool WraithLord... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

But one thing still puzzles me: Why didnt my army rout as they've done before? In previous battles, the AirQueens did almost nothing, for after their 5 turns of buffing & casting, my whole army routed before they waded into meele. This time every side fought to the very end. Why? Did it matter that I had a single berserked unit in my ranks? Again, scores of blizzard warriors (caelian archers) routed and left the high seraph communion (via crystal slave matrices 8 slaves, 3 serpah crystal masters in Earth, Air & Water, 2 relief druids) without any protection...the devils got dangerously close!), but this time, the whole army remained. In those previous battle non-routing mindless like Siege Golems were present, but no berserked units...

Seems like having a single berseker is vital if this is true. Or am I just obersving some odd chances?

Re: Why didnt my army rout?
 

I think odd chances .

If you have only 1 squad of mech men and as many commanders as you wish your commanders will fight until all mech men are killed.
Commanders can fail their own morale checks though so if you use e.g. stuff like a knight commander thug he may fail his morale checks vs. false horrors and similiar and rout .

Caelian troops have pretty low morale so they rout easily .
Same for most caelian commanders .

Important to know is that only mindless morale 50 units like AE undeads , mech men and iron dragons never rout .
There is no mindless commander though afaik .
Even AQs , Tartarians and similiar have "only" 30 morale so in very rare cases they can rout by failing the commander morale throw though it is really extremely rare .

If enemy works with a lot of fear spells and fear units like false horror spamming , undeads etc. it can occasionally happen though .

Re: Why didnt my army rout?
 

Maybe you had most of your units scripted to Guard Commander? Units in Guard Commander are not counted as "in the field" when the game checks if there are any non-routing friendly units left (=if the commanders should retreat).

Re: Why didnt my army rout?
 

Yeah, that's probably it. I knew this before, but if I think about the battle replay, all non-bodyguards with 50 morale (Iron Dragon) were dead when army routing occured. However, a beserking commander (via Hellsword) cannot hurt) seem to be a safer bet...

Re: Why didnt my army rout?
 

Yeah berserk gives you 99 morale . At least a tip of the turn says this iirc .

Re: Why didnt my army rout?
 

I think you can see it in the unit description after they've gone beserk.

I thought that the different 'special' morale numberss like 30, 50, 99 weren't actually used in a morale check, but essentially meant they would never retreat. As in, it didn't even make an actual check. Or is it just that if they are that high, you will almost never, never fail?

Re: Why didnt my army rout?
 

30 morale can rarely fail a moralecheck i think while 50 and 99 either can't fail a moralecheck or hasn't even to do one .

I am not 100% sure though it would be cool if Kristoffer or Johan could confirm or correct this statement http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Why didnt my army rout?
 

I've seen a 30 moral unit fail moral checks solo repeatly, it was a lighly equipped angel casting phionix pyre, attack, goign up against undead horads. the angel averaged two deaths in combat before retreating.

odd_enuf

Re: Why didnt my army rout?
 

50 means 'mindless', 99 means 'berserk'. I don't think either can run away.

Re: Why didnt my army rout?
 

Units with 30 morale seem unaffected by penalties such as starving and bonuses such as blessed. No matter what the environment the stats in battle always show 30. I don't know if that's a bug... but it seems like it.

Re: Why didnt my army rout?
 

According to the modding manual "Undead units with mentality but nothing to lose are usually given a morale of 30. They will not break but do not recieve Mindless status."