Countering Pangaea
 

As the title states, I'm fighting Pangaea in a current game and I'm in a tricky situation (as Helheim). He's got Carrion Woods up (still relatively early in the game, so I don't have the better death anti-undead spells), and I don't have the research yet to dispel it. I'm not too concerned about the manikins and maenads, but he's got a bunch of carrion beasts and centaurs that is going to make it a pain for my glamor. Any advice?

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Would dust to dust work? It should(?) target the largest enemies and you've great access to spam it.

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Dust to dust is your best bet - it's a very very useful spell. I kept out a 500+ undead army from my castle with 20 death mages and 20-ish normal troops with just that spell.

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Depends what mages and spells you've got, and how many mages more importantly.

Bunch of slingers would tear apart those manikin also.

Rain of stones would be ideal, but I guess that's a little higher up the ladder.

If you're short on death mages for dust to dust than,
you have recrutable Vanjarls everywhere who are priest 2 and have blood, you can communion them for banishment and give some penetration items, but that also depends what undead you're fighting, some of them have MR 8 and some have MR 14. I think carrion beast have only 8.

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Maggots is also good against SC.

You may wish to consider, that his best beasts are going to come from very specific territories: woods with temples.

And since he doesn't spawn undead leaders (that I recall) you may well find it worthwhile to hit it with remote summons.

Leaderless Undead don't route - they pop. After the first time however you will probably have to hit each territory with 3-4 remote summons.

If you take the territory: gravy. Even if you don't each round about 25% of the beasties will die.

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Another option, if you have time, is to cripple his gold income. As Helheim, IIRC Blight is castable right out of the box.

Also, the production of the carrion beasts is based on the growth scale. If you have a way of 'messing with that', it would proactively cut down on the number of beasts you must defeat in combat.

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Another trick against carrion things: go for chaff instead of SCs/thugs. Those sleep vines are hugely effective against high HP/protection/defense targets, since they essentially ignore the first two, and have many attacks to overwhelm the last.

Think of your opponents as if they're an army of chaff with built-in SC counters. Go for evocations, archers/slingers, and your own chaff. Banishment will work well on his most numerous units, but the best vine critters have much higher MR.

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Well I'd say one Pangaea playing the Carrion Woods' and maenads' route will likely not rely that much on gold (order etc) as it is doomed to end it for popkill, and more on Luck usually. Also carrion creatures and maenads don't cost upkeep so gold loss wouldn't cause much loss of troops to Pangaea.

The Carrion Woods' route depends on high dominion too (more dominion more beasts afaik), and all the best carrions'-recruiting places will have a temple, so trying to lower Pangaea's Growth dominion in such an environment could be difficult, expecially without inquisitors. Stone idols and blood sacrifices might help - maybe.

-

@ chris,
true afaik, Carrion Woods don't spawn undead commanders, but if Pangaea's gone for maenads it means they'll have a bunch of Pans with Blood which can provide leadership.

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

...and Pans with Death access, and carrion summons for more extreme leadership.

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Certainly, Pans can provide undead leadership.

He additionally has great summons which will provide undead leadership.

But the point is, he will spawn these undead beasts all over his dominion. My point is to remote spam where he doesn't have pans/leadership to pop undead.

If he puts pans in the field - its a huge plus - those pans will either not be doing anything except sentry duty - or he will be stretching his already tight gold building labs.

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Dunno, I used to have Carrion Centaurs on duty of gathering manikins/mandragoras from all provinces to avoid losing many of those that way. Yeah raiding the provinces without commanders might work for reducing the numbers of those - still the OP says he hasn't problems with mandragoras/manikins in battle as much as with the carrion beasts, and those come in forest provinces which a smart Pangaea player would guard heavily. But reducing the high numbers of the base units might indeed be helpful :)

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Well I've gotten through a few turns with Pangaea and I think it looks grim (for him). His temples are getting raided with impunity with Huskarls (I'll save the air gems from Call of the Winds for more seeking arrows), and I've gotten enough Helhirdings and Hirdmen together to laugh at his chaff. It appears I've overestimated the effectiveness of sleep vines on a regular army. When I first looked at it, I was like "whoa, 33 fatigue??? And 2 of those on a Mandragora!?!?! WTFBBQHAX!". SO MUCH FATIGUE! :eek:

The one thing I found out is how useful Dust to Dust is: I've never looked at the spell much before. Now it seems criminally good. for the low research cost.

I blame my lack of experience playing against Pangaea. I've never once randomed a Pangaea AI, by some freak of nature.

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Ah, overconfidence :)

One battle and you declare victory... this is what my army graph looks like:

......../\.
......./...
....../....
...../.....
..../......
.../.......
__/........

Killing one of my raiding parties is hardly a crippling blow. The war is just getting started :cool:

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Maybe. :p

We'll see how it goes. Though now that I've gotten Dust to Dust, I can finally script them to cast it. And Once I get either dispel/control the dead and wither undead, you're manikins will be...irrelevant? :) I'll get there eventually! And you're going to have to guard all your temples ceaselessly.;)

I'm also just starting up my herald lance production. Indy commanders will do nicely for cheap, mass solar rays. :p

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

Do not be so confident grasshopper.

One of pangaea's strengths is that it has enormous focus: The enchantment school gives it *lots* of tools.

Some of the things it could throw at you: An Ettin Mandragora SC. Which can be TRULY cool. So much so I wish for them.

Another favorite trick.... Swarm + Haunted forest.

Have you seen a heard of undead tramplers.. each with over 100 hp?

Re: Countering Pangaea
 

It's crossed my mind. We'll see how it goes, like I said.