Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

I've seen a lot of good information on strategies and overall planning, but little on winning a battle. Here are some general principles, tips, tricks, and pitfalls. Feel free to comment or add your own to the thread.

1. Huge groups. Spread huge groups into smaller groups, and spread them out a bit in starting location. Having a larger frontal area means more of them can attack at once.
2. Small groups. If a group is too small, it's morale can easily shatter. Make your groups large enough to matter, but not so large that they interfere with eachother when positioning. This varies according to the power and morale of the unit, but anywhere from 8--30 should be about right.
2. Place your strongest defense/armor/resistance units in the middle. This is where the majority of arrows and spells hit.
3. Radiators. Niefl Jarls radiate cold, other units radiate heat or poison. Place all units like this away from units without resistances!! E.g. if you have 5 poison units that fly, put them way off on the flank and tell them to attack rear enemy.
4. Missileers. You can put these forward on the flanks and tell them to fire 3 times then retreat. Or you can have them in the rear and tell them to keep fireing, while you tell your core units to hold position. Regardless, use them wisely.
5. Commanders. Place commanders near troops that will benefit from them. E.g. Put lightly armored troops near a mage that can cast Barkskin or Iron Warriors; put sacred troops near a Priest who can bless them.
6. Mages. In general put these in the middle of packs instead of to the rear. They can augment nearby troops, send out lightning bolts and fire darts, and not get as targetted. You might also consider giving them small bodyguards of 3-4 warriors each in case they are targetted somehow (they will end up in the rear so they might get hit that way, plus bodyguards help in assassination attempts....)
7. Cheap extra Commander. A cheap extra commander with no troops is a good idea. If one of your true commanders bites it in the battle, you can still field the leftover troops insetad of leaving them in that province to rot--or in the case of magical beings, to disappear for good!
8. Mages. Giving field mages personal gems can make them far more powerful. I do this selectively with already powerful battlemages, or to all battlemages if a big battle is shaping up. Some battle spells are extremely powerful, and you are unable to use them unless you have gems.
9. Mages. Script their spells appropos to the situation. If you have an enemy that uses longbowmen, have all your mages invoke air shields first thing. If you have an enemy that is resistant to fire, make sure your first spells are not fire based. If one of your heroes has the sword that brings a torrential downpour (tempest?) to the battlefield making archers and fire spell useless, make sure your mages don't bother with air shields or fire spells.
10. Cavalry. Any unit that is fast and relatively powerful, put on the flanks and have them attack rear. If your core is heavy cavalry, put them in the center and have them charge nearest enemy. If you have fast light units, be careful that they don't attract archers. Have them on the flanks and wait twice then charge rearmost enemy.
11. Fliers. It is easy to misuse fliers. Most fliers are lightly armored and easily killed. I use fliers for one thing: attack rearmost enemy. This shields them from archers, and baffles the enemy's commanders.
12. Flak. Cheap crud units can be of use to draw out archers while your big guys flank, or if they are fast enough you can use them to flank while the heavily defended guys attract the arrows.
13. Elephants. Elephants and other big units that are powerful, but lightly armored should be protected appropriately. Medium sized groups for max effectiveness and minimum morale drain from losses. Shield them from archers. Keep them charging. I like to put them on the flanks and attacking rearmost enemy, as they will just trample anything that gets in their way so they effectively attack everything heading for the enemy commanders.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Very nice, thanks for this. One thing i would like to say is use the fire and flee command lightly, if you have multiple provinces bordering where-ever the fight is taking place gathering the troops can take a few turns.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Something I always tought but never do. follow your army with scouts sneaking carrying lots of gems. After every battle transfer some gems from your scouts to your mages. That way you control how many gems you spend each battle.
if you give them boots of flying you can use them to come and go for resupply.

Obvious: if you have too few priests and/or too many sacred units make those units hold and attack to give time to your priests to bless them all. (you can overcome this with divine blessing if you have a powerful priest).

I thought you were cainehill. you are not.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

*grin* The icon is pretty emblematic of Cainehill. Will have to get used to someone else using it.

Hi there, btw, neighbor. Always cool to see another Georgian playing Dom3.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

14. Material. Use what you have. If you have fire mages, give them fire magic heighteners (fire helm, fire gems). If you have air mages give them air magic amps (air helm, air gems, spirit helm....) If you have sacred troops you MUST have a priest or you are wasting material. If you have archers, have an air mage and/or astral mage cast precision spells. If you have heavy cavalry, do NOT place them in the rear.
15. Environment. If the dominion/province is hot, use your fire mages. If cold, use your air/water mages. If it is low magic, use your heavy infantry/archers/cavalry. If it is high magic, use your mages. If it is your dominion, use your prophet/pretender juggernaut. If it is forest, use your werewolves and nature mages.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Break enemy cavalry charges with militia in the front line (or something like that), so that they can't use their lances against your real soldiers.

When moving around big army late in the game, don't keep them all in one province, since that makes them an easy target for Flames From the Sky, etc. Of course, this can be risky, if the army is split up when a battle happens.

Always give commanders bodyguards, always have spare commanders with your army if some die.

Keep extra gems, Wine Bags, Cauldrons of Broth, etc. on scouts or other stealhy troops and move them with your armies.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Howdy. I mostly lurk. Been on the Dominions forums since 1/19/04 with this same icon. I've seen Cainehill around....

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Lots of good tips. I'm going to start a logistics thread and a strategy thread after we start slowing down on tactics.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

14. Put Gem-carrying scouts travelling with armies so that mages have what they need for the next battle, and not more, because the tac AI waste gems more than movie stars waste money http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. When the scout nearly runs out of gems head him back to the nearest castle and send another.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

When using tramplers, I put the trample squad in the center and everything else on the wings. Reason: That way when the trample squad routs, your other force isn't in the way to get trampled itself. It really sucks to watch your elephants retreat through the middle of your own formation.
Thanks to Blitz for that idea.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

16. The Center. Put either cheap crud units or heavily armored units in the center, and put your power units on the flanks. The center usually attracts the arrows and the spells.
17. Flanking. I like to put cavalry, tramplers, or fast units on the flank. They have a clear line of retreat if routed. They have a clear line to the rear echelons of the enemy to engage the mages and commanders if you so choose. The can fall upon the enemy's gooie sides for positional scissor attacks if you so wish....

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Re Tramplers
I agree with Etaoin, don't put them on the flanks but rather in the center, because they often move towards the center when attacking, and then rout in your center squads.
Unless they're undead (Behemoth) or you Berserk them, obviously http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

duh... i never did this. good idea.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Know thy enemy -- be familiar with a nation's likely abilities, read their Pretender's titles, check the mercenary listings, perhaps use stealth to observe their battles.

Storms, darkness, fliers, unexpected mercenary heavy cavalry, tramplers, mages with area-effect spells, and so forth can really ruin your day if you're not prepared. Storms in particular shuts down most fliers and hampers missiles and fire magic, while darkness hampers most of the living in both melee and ranged combat. Of course, if you're casting the storms and you have fliers that will be grounded, you can have the fliers strike first while your storms caster waits.

Use misdirection. Some effects tend to target units with high HP, and there's also a 'target large monsters' option, so if your Pretender is on the scene, you may want to present other high-HP targets (elephants, some constructs, et al) to attract curses and horror marks. There's a 'target archers' command, as well as 'target fliers', so one can place sacrificial groups...

...and never, ever lead a horde of mindless units (ex. low-end undead) with just a handful of commanders with minds, against an illithid army, because the mindblasts will all target the commanders -- and if all commanders are dead, the mindless units will vaporize.

Be aware of how friendly mages might hurt you -- casting 'Touch of Madness' on your missile troops, casting 'Protection' on your Abysians, and so forth. Position and script accordingly. In some cases, it may be safest not to bring along a mage with an particularly dangerous path.

Be wary of relying too much on awe, fear, tramplers, and etherealness. While these can be powerful... awe and fear are morale effects, and there are many mindless units that will ignore them; tramplers have a hard time trampling ethereal units; and ethereals should recall that there are even national troops with magical weapons.

With Communion, self-effects also affect the communion slaves; this includes such things as Summon Earthpower's reinvigoration, Invulnerability, and Body Ethereal. The first makes your communion even more efficient in dealing with fatigue (reinvig 4 x number of communicants, rather than just reinvig 4), while others make them harder to kill. Even Phoenix Pyre carries over, but this is... dangerous, unless your army is fire-immune.

Ritual magic, including remote summons and any resulting battles, take place before all non-magical movements and attack; this allows one to catch enemy forces and disrupt them, while riddling their commanders with Seeking Arrows. There's a reason why Ghost Riders is Conj-9.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

xx. Flying Armies:
Take the provinces that directly connect to your castle for the added resources. Then use scouts to find weak provinces within flight range. Also drop-in armies (Call of the Wild, Call of the Winds, etc) can help. By "polka-dotting" a large map you can move fast and extend your reach. But anyone coming at you must plow thru 2 indept provinces for each one of yours that they get.

yy. Stealth Armies:
Teach the other guy that local defense is a good idea. Sneak past his army, take the provinces behind him. Crank them to maximum gold and sneak out. Possibly buy local defense and local militia units to hold it longer. If you have time then blood search or pillage. If you get it over 100 unrest then even if they take it back they get little from it.

zz. Stealth Armies:
Keep a sizeable army standing at the conflict border between two other players. Wait until they weaken each other then kill who is left and grab as much as possible very quickly.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Bursting Dam:
in a game with many people who tend to play barbarian horde armies sweeping across the map..
Take only the provinces that connect to your castle. Build up and build up and build up. Everyone will stretch thin coming your direction. When they finally reach you then burst forth like a dam breaking.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Peek-a-boo:
Have your scouts attack large incoming armies to see their exact troop compositions, formations, and attack orders. The sacrifice of 30 gold can easily be worth the knowledge.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

I imagine you must like playing Helheim. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

I disagree with a lot of what you have to say. Some of your general advice is ok but a lot of it is also naive and will lead noobs down the wrong path.

Like this for example. Why would you put your heaviest units in the place where they are likely to take the most fire? This is where your chaff goes.
Don't ever do this. The fire and flee command effectively causes the units given that order to rout, making them next to impossible to collect when the battle is over as they will be scattered all over the adjacent provinces. This will be particularly disasterous if you are on the offensive.
Not true. Troop blocks actually draw MORE fire, not less. If you really want to protect your mages you put them with 2 bodyguards in a large empty area which is bordered by blocks of troops. In this way you trick the AI targetting routine into not firing at them because they are too loose of a target.
Path buff spells are the more commonly used and less expensive route to increase magical power on the battlefield.
Reasonable advice here actually but the key thing with Elephants (and any trample) is morale, rather than position. You need to make sure that the squad containing tramplers has a morale which is next to unbreakable by adding in really high morale units. Helps if they are really slow to so the tramplers outdistance them and the "morale base" of your squad cannot be attacked.

Generally speaking tho, if you want tactical advice you should just go back to the dom2 forum and do a search. There are reams of data there from old veterans on all the tried and true tactics. 95% of them still apply to dom3, trust me. Additionally, going to the IRC channel will be exceptionally useful for new players to get gameplay advice

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Pretty much echoing what Ironhawk says, Elephants work remarkably well with vine ogres by the way. Also learning HOW to raid and how to bait an army is much more important advice. Troop placement is actually very simple. Archers behind heavies, chaff out on front followed by heavies. To use fliers without them getting murdered right away, just keep a commander on hold hold attack closest while the fliers on guard commander. Mages should ALWAYS be spread out otherwise you risk a lucky spell smacking them all. Best strategy tip, come to mirc and chat witht he vets.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Against most archers this isn't a bad idea depending on what nation you're using and who you're fighting against. Crossbows are a problem, but most of the time against other types of bows they'll march through with little to no damage.

For instance, if you set your light infantry to attack rear and put them on the flanks of your heavy infantry, often what they'll do is surround the units engaging your heavy infantry. This isn't a bad idea in some cases. Why kill chaff if you don't have to? They'll need to be replaced which can slow you down.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

I don't believe that mindless (morale 50) or normally unbreakable (morale 30) troops are counted when determining squad average morale. Otherwise lobo guards would be the ultimate morale booster.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Hahaha ... maybe indie archers but you obviously have never played against any humans. Flaming arrows, xbows, longbows will make you wish you had a few chaff in front to be arrow catchers.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

And that, my friend, is why it's not a bad idea in some cases, not all the time.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

IMHO this is a bit dangerious tactic Gandalf. It may work, or it may fail big time, costing you the game. It higly depends on when excactly some other nation would bust your "bubble" around your capital. If it'll be early in the game, and the incoming army is on its last breath, than you can steamroll through it and took bunch of enemy provinces before they are able to orginize effecticce resistance.

But if it happens a bit later in the game, by that time nations that expand quickly may have much more resources than you, which they can use to raise armies quickly. You will still likely to defeat the arpochanig army, and may even take few provinces if you are lucky. But once your oppoent would use the whole might of its large empire against you, you are likely to be squeshed, since you only have frw provincces and one castle to build reinforcements.


Basicaly this tactic, while certainly interesting, depends a bit too much on your opponents and has too high random factor for my tastes.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

I'll try to collate these into a coherent document, including some additional notes I've since made. I'll include some of the proposed alternatives (disagreements? exceptions?)as well. I will not attrib, as that gets too complicated after a short time. Besides, anybody who cares can do a search to see who said what first....

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

If you would like to put it in the Wiki when you're finished, feel free.

Strategy Wiki

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

I like to put Agarthan Troglos on the flanks.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Corwin, in most maps (unless your stuffed in a corner or against the sea) you have plenty of provinces connected to your castle (even if you dont you could always expand a little more, just keeping it compact) and, by capturing all the provinces round his castle he will have alot of resources coming to where they are needed to produce useful troops. Unless the enemy takes a very long amount of time to reach you there shouldnt be a problem with expanding too far away from your castle and, if you do expand far out you can 'bust the dam' on some indies, finding the enemy with the nice units you produced at your castle.

Another nice little trick (that can fail very easily) is trapping enemy armies, when the enemy attacks you (and gets into your empire) use stealthy, flying and summoned armies to cut off their retreat, use some sort of assasination/spell (dreams of rlyeh, seeking arrow, recruited assasins, summon tupilak, stealth units with black hearts ect) to take out all the commanders (you need to REALLY do this en mass to make sure ever commander is dead) then you can march in with a single unit and rout the entire enemy army (hopefully a very large, expensive one) and have then destroyed because they are cut off.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Dam Burst is a tactic I would use on small maps against above average players. It has been a good surprise against players who are so deeply tactical that I had no chance. But they also tended to figure their resources so closely that a big surprise threw them into a fit. It worked much better than me trying to meet them on their ground.

Gandalf Parker
--
If you cant beat 'em, join 'em.
If you cant beat em or join em,
then at least try to surprise them.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Haha shovah ... that's actually a very cute trick. Requires A LOT of setup but still, it can have the chance to catch someone offguard and really cripple them =).

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

I used to love using that tornado spell to snatch commanders out of a moving army and bring them to a lab full of charmers.

A) he is down one commander

B) the units that he lead might get left behind when his army moves

C) his units rout easier

D) I get a new commander

E) I get any equipment he had on him

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Thanks KB, its also not very risky aslong as you dont send in a big ammount of troops and he cant reach any valuable mages/troops. Basically if he has any commanders left at all alot of the troops will be left behind if he moves allowing you to kill them while they are split up, if he dosnt have any then he wont move and you will rout and kill them all and if he has the majority of his troop leading commanders left then either you have killed a hell of alot of mages/back-up commanders(leaving him vunerable to a repeat) or you didnt attack enough. The biggest risk is the fact that it used alot of gems.

Thats a nice idea gandalf, i'll actually consider trying that with some-one (probably man, it has the right paths) and see how it works for me.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

The problem is, the payoff for that tactic (assassinate + cutoff retrest) is very low. Against weak armies it works, but if the target is juicy at all, it is probably led by some beefy commanders, who would laugh in the face of assassination attempts (Especially with bodygaurds).

It has low risk though, as he would have attacked you to get in that position anyways, so you know his commanders and you can probably see if he has troops with "gaurd commander" as well.

Just watch out for any of HIS flying commanders to swoop in and a big boost of PD. The plan could backfire into forcing the enemies hand to create a big fortified province in the center of your lands http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Yes basic assasinations are poor (though en-mass they can be ok) but other things arent. Extremely massed seeking arrows, that tornado spell, mind hunts, Strong(void spectres, heliophagi ect) stealthy commanders with black hearts, summon tupilak (kick *** long range assasination), dreams of rlyeh (very kickass long range assasination of doom) and of course, pimped out assasins (a demonbred slayer with boots of strength, robe of shadows, girdle of might and ring of the warrior is nasty, huge strength (above 20 atleast), great attack, 2 strongly poisoned attacks, ethereal AND flying (so he can strike the first blow).

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

An alternate on cutting off a retreat is to take the province or provinces directly behind the enemy with fliers and/or stealth units. That way when the big army routs the survivors will retreat into your or independant territory and die without a fight.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

That was the idea I thought

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Then I misread it, sorry.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

asasinating is good but PD raised at lvl 1 will prevent army from routing (you get a commander immune to assasination) even with no real commanders.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

I'd like to add my own meager strategic insight: namely to not let yourself focus on any one tactic or logistic or strategy to the exclusion of all others. This is a trap I tend to fall into-if you want to build a strong artillery, then make sure you have the foot and calvalry you're going to need to capitalize on it. Don't try to outfit your commanders with so much bling that you can't cast mass-effect spells back at the other nation who's hitting you with evocation 9. Don't raise the defense in a single province to 240 expecting that the other guy won't be able to break though it, because the other guy will, one way or another. If you can bless one Jotun jarl or a hundred flagellants, bless the flagellants unless you have a very good reason not to. And as a side note-when defending provinces, raising province defense is fine, but consider what that point of defense specifically is buying you: if it's giving you Jotun militia and spear, raise it up to 20 and then add some human sized archers if you're able to, or heavy infantry/calvalry, or even some slingers. Try to look at what you've got as a whole, instead of as individual parts, because all those parts fit together into a machine, and how well that whole machine works dictates how well you do in the game.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

I have three little ones.

1: Javelineers rule. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

2: Against most standard commanders, a Succubus with enough Blood magic to cast Hellbind Heart really comes in handy if you try an assassination in mid-attack. I usually try the spell twice, then just use an enchanted weapon. (Usually Heartfinder Sword. Who am I kidding, always heartfinder sword.) Charm would also be a good one for any assassin, theoretically.

3: Tying in with the last one, be sure to bring a decent supply of commanders along when attacking. Especially if your foe has attack spells he doesn't need to aim. (Or the aforementioned mind-control magic)

And I'm definitely going to remember the Tornado Charm. Thanks much!

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

"Tornado & Charm" has been my favorite since I came up with it. Its much more efficient than assassins that move, assassinate, move, assassinate. The Tornado/Charm is much easier to actually target his armies with. And you get some great commanders from it while hurting him at the same time. Ive even gotten multiple prophets, and one pretender (Dom2, not sure if Dom3 prevents that)

Setup a lab someplace as a capture factory. A Garnet Amazon province works well. One or two air mages to cast tornado, then a bunch of blood mages to cast hellbind heart. As soon as you get a commander, put all his equipment into the lab and start him moving to the capital to pick up troops.

But dont put any PD into it. That messes things up. Especially if you get archer PD. You want units that you can tell to stay out of the fight for a couple of rounds, then attack whatever is too powerful to charm.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Commander snatching:
The new dom3 spell "Winged Monkeys" works like the "Tornado" spell "Wind Ride" (Transport enemy commanders to your lab). If you use Nature mages to charm enemy commanders, remember that "Charm" has a very short range. Place your mages at the front (!) of the battlefield and sript to attack one turn and 4 x charm. Give big groups of bodyguards to your commanders. Forge spell focus or rune smashers for your mages.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

Here is a tactic I like to use with ME - Bandar Log, but it can work with other astral nations as well.

Earth 9 blessing for reinvigoration bless and also helps turn White Ones into a powerful force for early indy expansion and later meat shield duties.

Recruit a Rishi or Guru every turn and research to Thaum 2 for mind burn, add 2 or 3 to your expansion force to help with knights and tougher indies.

Now play however, but eventually you will want to hit.
Conj 3 - Summon Earth Power
Cons 4 - Eye of the Void and Spell Focus
Thaum 6 - Enslave Mind

1 out of 4 Rishi will have astral 4.

Forge a hammer and make 4 void eyes (and 4 spell focuses if you want).

Equip each Rishi with an Eye of the Void and optional spell focus. Include one Rishi with a random Earth pick.

Make an army of 4 Guru and 4 Rishi.
Guru scripted to slave, Rishi scripted to Master, Enslave Mind x4. With the earth Rishi Master, Summon Earth, Enslave mind x3.

Add a decent conventional army made up of White Ones and some Tiger riders and watch the fun!

Each enslave mind is with +4 penetration (2 from eye, 1 from spell focus and 1 from S6 casting S4 spell). Enslave Mind is range 100, precision 100.

Your slaves are getting +8 reinvigoration (+4 earth bless, +4 earth power. This goes up to +13 once they are over 100 fatigue.

Enslaved enemies immediately join your side in the battle… and anyone alive at the end joins you permanently.
It is awesome watching your army grow after each battle.

Cost
12 Astral for 4 Void Eyes
12 Astral for 4 spell penetrations
1120 Gold for 4 Rishi
640 Gold for 4 Guru


It also scales nicely.
Say 16 Yogi (S1 80 gold mage) scripted to slave.
8 Rishi setup as above, but with starshine caps
1 person with Banner of the northern star
Now rishi is at (S10) casting enslave mind at +6 penetration. This puts even MR18 units in easy grasp. Compare this to “Master Enslave” which is at -4 I think?

Add a staff of storms to protect from flyers, invulnerability and other buffs to protect slaves, air mage to protect from lighting, etc...

This works great against the AI, not sure how well vs. a human. Probably the smaller less costly groups would be more useful combined with other tactics.

Re: Tactics: Principles, Tips, Tricks, and Traps
 

If you like a nice army game.

Very difficult research and magic +3. Though with a strong army race you can have the game over before magic becomes a issue and don't need magic +3.