Fomoria
 

I'd like to discuss Fomoria. They're an interesting race with some interesting handicaps- and I'm not certain how to use them. The strategy wiki is painfully slow... so I'll start with the basics here. And then see later about adding it to the wiki.

You've got two national sites, The Isle of Balor and Rath Chimbalt. This provides you with a gem income of A3W1D2. You don't have any mages with a reliable water pick, though it will come up. These two sites also allow the recruitment of Troops: Unmarked, Fomorian Giant, Nemedian Warrior
Commander: Fomorian King, Nemedian Champion, Nemedian Sorceress

Your troops are roughly divided into FOUR races.

Fir Bolg: Superior in all ways to human infantry - mr, precision, strength, hitpoints, skill - you pay for it with a small premium of gold and the lack of any helmet. At least you get shields. It is in a size two package if that concerns you. Unlike Neifelheim, you've a good option for smaller troops. Recruitable everywhere. Basic protection 0.

Fomorian: The cursed descendants of the giants, they are often marked by afflictions, and a goats head (two eyes), 30+ hit points. They are size four, so can only be placed one to a square- though can share space with the Fir Bolg. Recruiting the milita, you can expect at least 7 out of every 20 to be afflicted. You need to be especially cautious of battle fright. Basic protection of 5 is quite handy to have. Acceptably expensive. 20 strength, about, but 3 damage spears. Below average precision.

Fomorian Giant: The original giants who are only partially cursed. They are size six, suffer no inherent afflictions, and have only one eye. They're sacred, have good morale, mr, (decent) protection (equip+basic of six), 60 so hit points, high strength. Slightly above average attack and and defense, an extremely high cost. They are both sacred and amphibious, and partially cold resistant. Rare, very expensive, capital only. Below average precision.

Nemedians: Unfortunately capital only, very nice troops that fill a need for affordable elites and mages. Glamour, stealth and darkvision(50) open up some nice new options. They're pretty similar to the Sidhe of Tir na N'og, though the national death mages make it easier to take advantage of darkness. Very nice, no real flaw other than scarcity.

National Summons
Black Dog- Dark power(2), Darkvision(100), stealthy, animal, mundane leadership required. Best of all, you get 20 for a mere 10 gems.
Size 2, HP 14, Prot 4, Morale 13, MR 13, Enc 2, Strength 13, Attack 12, Def 9, Mov 3/24.
Cheap enough to be useful replacing your missing cavalry for harrying routed troops, they become a force to be reckoned with when darkness comes into play. They're not the most powerful unit- but great for their cost. Who needs skeletons? They only have a bite for an attack. Conjuration 2

Barghest- A sizable upgrade to the black dog. Size 3, 28 HP, Prot 6, Mor 14, MR15, Str 16, At. 13, Def 10. Sacred, Dark Power(3), Stealthy, Darkvision(100). This time the bite is replaced with a venomous bite (weak poison). Costs 13 gems for nine. Conjuration 4.

Morrigan- It's worth noting that they are NOT leaders.
Special abilities: Sacred, Fear(0), CR(100), PR(100), Undead, NNE, Flying, Steatlhy, Glamour.
Size 2, Hitpoints 17, Base Prot 7, body 15, morale 30, mr 16, enc 0, str13, base att 15(current 18), base def 15 (current 20), precision 15, move 3/12. Conjuration 6, four death gems.
Spear of the Morrigans: Damage 6, partial life drain, attack 3, defense 2, length 4, considered magic, decay.
Lightweight Scale Mail: Prot 10, Def 0, Enc 1.
Shield: Prot 15, def -1, parry 4, enc 1.

Dance of the Morrigans: level 8 battlefield conjuration. Untried yet.

Mages:
Fomorian Druid- A1H1?1 (AWED) your only mage recuitable everywhere, this is reason enough not to invest in a magic scale. A rather disappointing unit. There are only two reasons (that I can think of) you'd want to use these instead of any available independent mages with better magic picks. (Shamans don't count since they've only got one, plus a 10%).
1). 30 hitpoints means spells like Bone Grinding or earthquake are of little concern, along with assassins and many typical threats to mages.
2). You can reliably cast storm and forge the staff of storm with your Fomorian Kings. Summon Storm Power is nearly a requirement- unless you have something else to do with their random pick. It's often difficult to find independent air mages- this way, you have a bunch of A2/A3 mages- and that's not counting any gems you throw their way.

It's disappointing, but that's your only mage available everywhere, requiring a temple, lab, fortress, and 150 gold. For two picks.

Your capital only mages, on the other hand, are better units.

Fomorian King (A3,D2,H2, ?1 -> AWD 110%)

Nemedian Champion (A1,D1,H1)
Nemedian Sorceress (A2,D2,?1 -> AWDN 100%)

Castles (Partial):
Capital - Fortified City
Forest - Forest Ramparts
Mountain - Hillfort
Farmland - Fortified City
Wasteland - Ramparts
Deep Sea - None

Province Defense:
#? Fir Bolg Slingers
#? Fir Bolg Warriors
#? Fomorian Militia
1 Fomorian Champion
1 Fir Bolg Champion

Fomorian Goat Herders
 

I'm playing against them in SP (Kaliasa vs. Formoria w/Marverni squashed in the middle).

I noted they have an Unmarked Formorian - apparently, a Formorian Commander w/out the typical Affliction.

I've also seen a Giant Commander running around, but I don't see it too often, possibly an upgunned Giant?

Finally, i've noticed Formor armies using large numbers of mixed Fir Bolg and Formorians, and have observed that the smaller size of the Formorians do allow the Fir Bolgs to move through their formations to attack. This is pretty useful.

Being Kaliasa, we both suffer from low Prot units, and archers are pluperfect hell on both of us http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I usually use Ambush of Tigers as suicide cavalry to take out the archers, but the Formorian units also use javelins, ugh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

The druids are puny.
The Giant Commander you see rarely is likely the Fomorian King. Its the only size six commander available.
It's rare because it's capital only and 500 gold, 37 resources.

Heh. thanks for bringing up the Javelins. They're one of the few ranged weapons that are range strength, damage strength added. While a human might see 13+DRN damage before protection, a Fomorian Javelinist will see 23+DRN, and twice the range. And while slings suck, Fir Bolg at least have an additional 2 precision to counter that weapons accuracy penalty.

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

The Unmarked are elite/sacred units and commanders, and the druids also come from the same unmarked clans. They are sacred and free from afflictions.

The goat-headed Fomorians come in many varieties, and also with armor.

Militia: Fomorian Bronze Spear
Javelinist: Fomorian Bronze Spear, Javelin, Bronze Scale Cuirass
Spearman: Fomorian Bronze Spear, Bronze Scale Cuirass, Spear

Warrior and Unmarked: Fomorian Bronze Spear, Bronze Scale Hauberk, Bronze Cap, Shield

15/17 prot for mapmove 2 units isn't bad at all, and NOT weak against archers! They're a bit expensive at 30 gp/warrior, but all Fomoria's units have at least mapmove 2 so you can always give them some Fir Bolg companions.

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

A bit of advice for you, Autochthon, keep some reserve forces. It doesn't sound like you've met their Nemedians yet. Being capital only, they're not as bad as Tir na n'Og. But they do have stealthy troops and leaders, as well as stealthy summons. Enough to suckerpunch you if your capital is left uncovered.

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

Thanks for the heads up LP, but we've already met http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

For the most part, the Formorian AI likes to maneuver with large masses of Formorians.

This is a problem for me, as I usually depend on my forts to fix the enemy long enough to mass a response. Forts besieged by >90 Str 20 units don't last too long :cry:

I dunno if the AI is smart enough to use dedicated raiding forces for the "Popup & Pillage/Smash n' Grab" tactic I use when playing with factions w/lots of stealthy units.

Being able to mass giant units quickly is a new twist, but I can definitely see Supply being an issue as well.

Overall, the faction appears to be pretty well-balanced.
/tips hat to Kris O. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon44.gif[/img]

Edit: One more thing. I've noticed that the Nemedian Sorceress doesn't flee when the rest of the Formorian army routs. Likely it's cause her Fatigue is too high, but I need to check...

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

I tried them out in SP, I saw quite a few similarities between them and the Sons of Winter. As such, the common SoW strategy cam probably apply to this nation as well. Get a decent Bless (with Earth and Nature probably being the most important components) and use your sacreds to expand early. As soon as you can, start buying Fomorian Kings every turn, to serve as powerful thugs, subercombatants, or plain mages.

There are key differences. No chill aura makes Fomorians much less scarry, but they also have Fir Blog (small sized) infantry to accompany them, which gives them a bit for flexibility. Try playing with this template and see what you come up with.

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

Got my first Fomorian hero (Nemedian to be accurate).
Macha the Nemedian Queen

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

Got my second Fomorian hero,
Bres the Uncursed

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

You haven't seen anything yet until you've seen Balor. Evil Eye indeed...

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

You're saying that without a screenshot? Meanie. Well, I guess I'll have to find out for myself, then.

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

Balor has an evil eye ranged area attack that is armour negating. From memory I think the area is 5 squares. I was lucky to get him early in a SP game against 12 random AI's and had a relatively easy time. I was beginning to think that Formorians are overpowered, but then the situation might have been very different without Balor.

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

Hm, sounds like Gaze of Death ala Abominations -- 5 AoE, 10 AN. Nasty against hordes of puny man-animals.

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

Gaze of Death isn't unique to Balor, but it's quite rare. One of the Foul Spawn has it (Basilisk, Cockatrice or something along those lines), as well as the Catoblepas. Getting Balor early in the game is something quite different...

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

Just so everyone knows, Dance of the Morrigans is bugged and is currently useless.

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

Are you sure? AFAIK, it works like Shark Attack.

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

I tested it about 20 times after modding it to be research level 0, 1D path requirement. I killed plenty of stuff so plenty of blood was spilt. The very first time I tried it one Morrigan turned up. Thereafter I didn't get any Morrigans turning up.

It's possible this is what's supposed to happen and you need to kill several hundred units just to get them to turn up. It's possible it's a bug and more are supposed to turn up.

Either way it sucks *** as a spell.


Here's the code for the mod:


#modname "Morrigan testmod"
#description "Description"
#version 1

#selectspell "Dance of the Morrigans"
#pathlevel 0 1
#pathlevel 1 0
#researchlevel 1
#fatiguecost 10
#end

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

I've tried Fomoria in 2 SP test games .. here's what I found:

• Sacreds :Most of them have a little bit low ATT, therefore a low F bless could be helpful.(Fx on the pretender would also help with the absence of fire magic ...) F9 doesn't work that well, though, because A)they have only 1 attack and B)the high strength gives a high kill %tage anyway, the 2nd damage roll is wasted. N9 rocks, as with all sacred giants.
  
• Standard Units :The random afflictions are a major PITA. Recruited 24 Javelineers, 14 of them where afflicted, 2 of those where acutally useless and had to be separated out ("lost an eye" and "limp"). That's turning into a real MM nightmare if you really want to recruit a bunch of them. On the other hand, most of them are useless anyway: the shield & armorless Milita does not work even as cheap meat shield, the Javelineers better do not get into melee (mixing them with Firbolgs does help somewhat, as it lessens swarming effects).
  
• Item forging : .. somewhat of a problem .. no earth/fire means no hammers and no Charcoal Shields. In fact, there are no useful shields Fomoria can forge without the use of a specially tailored pretender. Annoying, if most of your fighting strength comes from thugs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
  
• Magic : Lots of possibilites, or even necessities: conjuration, evocation, construction, enchantment, alteration .. it's hard to get the priorities right, as they might be changing fast during the early game.

PS: Macha isn't fomorian ...

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

I love the Fomorians!!! They are awesome. I am kicking *** right now with them in SP. I am facing Mictlan, Yomi, Lanka, Tir na O'og, and Rohan. The first hero i got was Balor then the nemedian queen. The strategy i am using is massing nemedian warriors and Fomorian giants. Course i have also thugged the crap out of some wraith lords. They alone took out most of yomi and the massed fomorian giants and nemedian warriors are killing off lanka and Tir na O'og. That is my experience so far.

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

One of the less-obvious strengths of those Nemedians is their magic weapons. Being able to recruit those is a good counter to people who push their research towards early-game Ethereal troops. (I think the only ethereal sacreds are MA Ermor, though?)

Re: Fomorian Goat Herders
 

The only INHERENTLY ethereal sacreds (that don't have to be summoned), probably. However, for the cheap, cheap Alteration 3 you get Body Ethereal... For some nations, that's even worse. Thankfully, the nations with cheap astral mages rarely have access to the worst sacred offenders. Can you imagine Niefel Giants with LA Jotunheim's Seithkona and overall research ability?

Experiments in Bless
 

First, Unmarked Champions can bless themselves, but unless you have the bless self mod, that can pile up. Druids are the better blessing choice for Unmarked (troops), especially since a good bless makes them fairly effective in small amounts.

The info here has been a result of discussions, limited tests, not multiplayer experience.

I haven't played thug-bless nations before, so I'm a bit noobish. Feel free to correct me.

First, the extremes of each path
Divine Serpent (50 Points), Nature 10 (224 points)
A 20% Regen is nice, but the Berserk has its drawbacks.
You could go with nature 8 for a mere 120 points, giving you 15% regen, and a lot of free points, but I didn't try it this time.

You'll want scales that will allow you to recruit 5 Unmarked a turn, as a Druid conveniently leads ten of. 300 gold, 135 resources, plus occasional 150/3. You get 7 regen, lessened afflictions, protection/attack/strength bonus, but some defense penalty. Teams of ten cleared out quite a few provinces. No real drawback to nature yet. You won't get many afflictions, but you will get them sometimes thanks to uneven bless coverage.

The Fomorian Giants/Kings benefit from this as well, but berserk runs counter to mistform, mirror image. You get 13 hp/turn regen. The regen makes them rather effective at clearing underwater provinces, since they can shrug off a full green bar of poison. I thought I saw some funny fatigue numbers, but it seems its a positioning issue, where some of the Giants didn't make it to the fight, pathfinding combined with kills, I suppose. A Fomorian King leading 5 Fomorian giants is quite effective at clearing underwater provinces, which is good, because this is a very expensive combination. Depending on the independent level, they can clear maybe half of the underwater provinces on their own. The rest will slaughter them, though not at a cost. If you do want to expand underwater, I suggest taking a team into the weakest shore province you can find and then use them only as support for whatever tritons/whatever you can find. They'll add the punch that will let you take out kraken and sea trolls, but are too expensive. With the poor amphibian penalty as well, they are still powerful, but very unreliable dodgers/attackers. And you rocket to 8 encumberance.

While Fomorian Giants aren't superior to Niefel jarls, they also avoid the two weaknesses, fire and hot provinces. Be sure to use the Javelins, as well, _only_ if they are on the frontline. You'll be very unlikely to hit anything between your low precision and greater strength=range, but if you don't have to worry about friendly fire, it'll do enough damage to kill that one lone cavalry you did manage to hit out of two salvoes. Whoopee. While I think you'll often, especially earlier on, be better off recruiting Unmarked, the whole move-three thing is worth noting. Sometimes, you can attack from two provinces away. You needn't be on the border to attack your enemy. If you find yourself outnumbered while _raiding_ lightly defended provinces, Dark Hounds or Barghests can keep up, while saving on the gold costs. A pity your giants don't have darkvision, but then you can't have everything.

Need to restart, test bless with summons, Barghest should benefit nicely, Morrigans, less so, but that's theory. Probably won't do it though, quite willing to have someone else do so.

Fomorian Kings don't really see much benefit from a high nature bless. You've got the inexpensive mirror image and mistform keeping your damage down for as long as they last. In fact, the bless doesn't help until mirror image fails, which is less than ideal.

Earth Mother (75 points)
That same n10 bless costs you an additional 360 points.
N9, 288. N8, 224. Twin level nine blesses are possible, but definetly not recommended. You've got sacreds who will not benefit completely from the protection, but Fomoria is a nation who benefits greatly from net positive scales. No point blessing what you can't build. I'll go with N6, E6 for my pretender. For the moment, easy AI opponent, easy research, 5 dominion, 2 order, 2 producivity, 1 growth, and 1 magic. You probably can find better scales, but this should be sufficent for testing the bless. Worth noting is four national heros- no misfortune 3 if you want to see them.

Four hps/turn and three reinvig on the Unmarked isn't that awesome, but more then enough to deal with even Cataphracts. 10 and a druid still make excellent indie clearing teams. Sign, perhaps, that the N10 bless earlier may be overkill.

The bless opens up an interesting option on the Fomorian Kings with a water random. Rainbow armor, while not the best, gives MR and reinvig. Combined with a weightless shield and the bless, you get six reinvig a round with three encumberance. You can cast quickness for double the attacks, with a very nice +3 att/def bonus. Throw on the boots of the Messenger, and your fatigue will go down at a good clip.

Re: Experiments in Bless
 

As an aside, at least against the AI:
A N6, E6 Fomorian King (prophet) with
Lightning Spear
Weightless Tower Shield
Rainbow Armor
Boots of the Messenger

Divine Blessing, Holy Avenger, Mirror Image, Mistform, Quickness-> attack

can solo armies quite well. EVEN when I was careless and raided deep into enemy dominion, I survived even starting the battle with 17 hp. Not something I want to repeat, however.

My prophet SC had a whopping 17 hitpoints (whoops), 20 attack, 20 defense, 10 reinvigoration. Hehe... I'll update the stats somewhere a little more friendly. And a prophet doesn't require blessing...

That's more like it. In friendly dominion, I've got a nice 170 hitpoints. Combine those six mirror images with a very nice defense, and I'm set.

Now it's time to try some other blesses.

Re: Experiments in Bless
 

Fire Dragon 8.

Fire isn't a natural bless for Fomoria, but it makes 10 unmarked killers of indies as well. I suppose it may have something to do with repel, in addition to a higher kill count.

Water comes a bit more natural to Fomoria, with both the Fomorian God King and Lady of Springs.

Lady of the Springs, Water 9, Nature 6.
I would have rather had another scale than that last point of water. This bless works nicely, as well. Counting Shield parry, you have 18 points of defense on your Unmarked, and 4 points of regen. I consider this bless superior to the earth-nature combo. At least in my limited tests, but especially because it benefits all of your sacreds, not merely the fully armored.

My last experiment isn't designed for MP. I'll see what I can learn from it, though. It's an imprisoned Fomorian Sorceror with 5 dominion, 4 FAWEDN blessing. I really don't need the air, what with my mages, but...

whoops, posted a little early. Will edit the rest in shortly.

Hmmm... it appears even unblessed Unmarked can clear quite a few provinces in mere 10 unit squads. This most of my conclusions off the mark.

Re: Experiments in Bless
 

It turns out I need a new frikkin baseline or an entire game to judge the results of my bless.

Any suggestion for a good non-random lab/baseline?

And I thought I was so clever with water/nature. Anyways... it seems like its a pretty good plan to send out a team of unmarked every other turn, Champion, Unmarked Champion, OR Druid. It'll allow you some research time as well. I was having trouble figuring out where to fit in the research/nemedian sorceresses with this nation.

Anybody have any triple nine bless experiments to share?

Re: Experiments in Bless
 

Well technically Niefel Giants don't need a bless to crush indies either. I tried a 9 nature 9 earth bless with Fomoria and totally destroyed the AI. I'm not really sure what would be the most appropriate bless though. The lack of a chill aura really makes Fomorian giants prone to getting swarmed, so maybe several light blesses rather than two big ones. Fire, Nature, Water for starters. But I don't know about MP of course.