Help with Darkness
 

Hi

I'm a rookie playing UTGARD in a game with more skilled friends.
one of them uses Darkness (the spell not the rock band) to scare me :shock:

Does anybody have suggestions to counter such dirty trikzzz?

:)

Ciao

Re: Help with Darkness
 

See the Strategy Guide's "SPELLS & MAGIC ITEMS" section for three separate threads relating to Darkness and its counters.

(the guide is stickied at the top of the forum.)

Re: Help with Darkness
 

It's a nasty spell. If there's anything you'd still like to know after reading the other threads, don't be afraid to ask for more precise information in this thread.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Well, first thx to both for support

than: looks like Solar brillance is the most named solution, still is not very clear if it blind also your army and/or negates darkness.
Than I am going to check what it is needed to cast it.

A first tactic that I thought by myself is to use the crystal mages I have found to mind attack in thehope to strike the Tomb Oracles (my enemy is Agartha).

A second one is to call wind before attacking hoping to force the enemy to use its gems, still I doubt it could work :confused:

Comments? :)

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Utgard has access to death magic, right? Use undead.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

That's also an option, still I have not so many conjuration levels in the pocket, I was going for nether darts :doh:

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Solar Brilliance will keep blinding all units, both your and the enemy, for the whole battle. It will hurt low-unrest units, undead and demons more than others, but since demons all have high magic resistance it doesn't hurt them as much.

Have you tried raiding his provinces? He has death gems in his lab, but his gem INCOME is also important. If you take his provinces, you'll deny him the sites for at least one turn, possibly several.

Do you have any Blood magic researched? Demons don't mind the darkness, and Fiends of Darkness even get boosted.

What kind of troops is he using? Your Vanir might have high enough defense to be useful in the darkness, even with halved base defense. IIRC, bonuses to defense (mounted, mirror image, shield, experience, Water bless if you have it) are NOT halved by darkness.


EDIT: If you're going for Solar Brilliance (in Enchantment), you'll get access to few Death summons. Undead Horsemen are good for the cost, and a behemoth or two might be worth a try. Be sure to buff them any way you can - Body Ethereal would do wonders.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Good points very good points thx

Pale raiders and behemoth are immediate solutions, raiding is something very apealing to my playing style.

I have also a rainbow pretender so I am quite flexible in magic.

Vanir? Did I miss something or Vanir are not part of Utgard? (Sorry if I misunderstood your suggestion).

How I could mount an non-mounted character-troop?

Blood magic: I will think at it, I really like blood magic and I think it is also in the bkground of that nation

cool very very cool, thx again

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Endo is just slightly confused. As Utgard, you might want to try using AOE weapons on Skratti/Jarl thugs. It doesn't matter what your att is if you're whacking the whole sqare. Also try and leverage protection over defense, since it isn't affected.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Take a look at Baalz's Neifelheim guide (and other threads) for ideas on Skratti thugs. Skratti stay the same through all three ages, so the other approaches generally apply.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Done ther's a fantastic guide to Utgard

Skratti (or "Skrattini" as I like to call them) with frostbrands, shield of the accursed, vine shields, lucky and antimagic amulets are already in.

Quikened - breath wintered and so on...

:cool:

:fight:

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Wait, Utgård is the JOTUN of LA? :doh: Sorry, I was thinking Midgård. Well, at least you still had Blood access...

In that case, add Raise Skeletons to the mix. Enough D2 mages casting it will overpower many things not prepared for it, and some (perhaps 50%?) of the undead will be giant-sized. Agartha can do the same thing, though...

Re: Help with Darkness
 

He has undead and many blindfighters, that's his combo. Drake raiders also are there supported by archers, medium-small army, I just wonder what I have to oppose to it

I have illusinists and crysal mages also at my disposal

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Mind hunt/seeking arrows could be pretty useful. You can also Life After Death your mages, which will give them full precision in the dark.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Don't use frostbrands against undead, they are immune. Same goes for breath of winter. You say you have a rainbow pretender so put him to work and forge firebrands and charcoal shields. Two things that work fine in the dark + vs undead.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

OT: Do LADed mages still draw upkeep?

Re: Help with Darkness
 

No, but they get MR5, so you need to be careful when using them in battles.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

I'll remember that. Though if you do it with LA Pythium like I was thinking you will have easily recruitable decoys.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Executor is really *very, very * good with darkness. Sooo take his advice seriously.

Solar brilliance is not a very effective solution, as darkness iirc is 6 and solar brilliance is 7 and it can be a loooooong time to research up that path unless for some reason you've already started up that way.

Some ideas for you:

1. Cavemen (an indy) have 50% darkvision, and good hit points. 50% cold and fire resistance. So against a darkness spamming opponent .. a good choice.

2. Also - thugs. Turn Black servents or other undead (wights, banes) into supercombatants or thugs.

3. Counter punch. Every casting of darkness costs 4? gems.

The game is about destruction of force, not capturing provinces.
Set your troops up to the rear, do a hold, hold, retreat. Make him burn his gems.

Either have a restrcited retreat choice, or station commanders in the adjacent provinces to recollect your troops.

Next turn - hit him again - and retreat. Use things like call of the wild or call of the winds.

Remember that he has to bring up gems - cut off his resupply route. Make him build labs to resupply. Take the labs and destroy them. (station a scout in the territory...)

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Thx all of you guys!
Fantastic support.

Well a couple of replyes from my side:
Skratti frost brand; may be is it worthful to replace them with Elf bane? I did that to fight a huge fire snake force Man was throwing to me. Agartha blinded sacred are also magical beings.
Thx also for the info: breath of winter --> useless vs Undead.

Than thx to Chrispedersen, it's a very logic tactic and a very apreciated feedback to me: I am not mind-oriented to this approach, I am always thinking on how to attack and not a lot on how to defend. Your suggestion is very good to me because works the opposite, a sort of attack just to defend youself, end to prepare "YOUR" attack. :shock:

A clarification please: what's the "Executor" you mentioned?

Re: Help with Darkness
 

"Executor" is a forum member. Don't know why chris mentioned him as he hasn't posted in this thread. He seems to be a pretty good player, so you could try searching his posts.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Executor probably wrote one of the Darkness guides.

Blade Wind, Destruction, Gifts from Heaven and other such spells would be very useful if you could get them off before Darkness is cast. In the dark, they'll devastate your own army. When defending, you can cast them on the first turn, but script the mages for something precise after that. Mind Burn and other Astral spells from Thaumaturgy have prec 100, so they should work even in the dark.
If you already have Evocation 5, consider using Earthquake to damage his undead horde and, some of his human mages if you get lucky.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

BE Spell scripting (like Darkness) is really broken in assassination defense. Even though it would be way better not to cast it, the mage foolishly follows his script.

If you can cast a bunch of Disease Demons, or Earth Attacks, or Manifestations on his army, whatever mage he's using to cast Darkness is going to get killed. I've killed a pretender god before that was scripted to cast Darkness, using a Disease Demon.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

As Utgard I say don't counter darkness, benefit from it. Utgard is well positioned to work under darkness. Depends on what specifically you're fighting in the darkness and what you've got researched, but here's some things to do in the dark:

Drain life, leech, soul slay, etc. Precision 100 spells don't care that it's dark. You've got many great options for dealing with demon/undead SCs.

Skellispam, summon imps. Throw in blood lust/rush of strength, battle fortune/will of the fates, quickening. Summon water elementals, which are hopefully ice elementals. Not too many nations can out battlefield-summon you. Better yet, forge lifelong protections and bottles of living water to stick on the guys doing the skellispam. >:)

Grip of winter/rigormortis/soul drain if your enemy isn't undead. Standard undead counters (Dust to dust/wither bones/undead mastery) cast by undead mages (mound fiends, liches, etc) if he is.

Demon cleansing - great way to make buffed skellispam > demons if that's what you're facing.

....ok, more specifically, looks like you're facing blindfighters and undead. That would be low level undead being skellispammed mostly, right?. Simple imps in sufficient numbers should dominate that, the blindfighters are going to tire out quickly and the undead shouldn't be able to build up critical mass with fliers pouncing turn one. Equip a few lifelong protections, have some B1 hags scripted to summon imps, reinvigoration, summon imps, reinvigoration, summon imps with a Skratti casting bloodlust every couple turns. If they're fielding tougher undead have a Gygja drop light of the northern star and have a bunch of S1 hags spam solar rays. If you're looking at larger numbers of skellispam make sure you're in a cold environment (wolven winter) and drop several ice elementals. Combo this with the imps (so the elementals don't get focussed on) and you'll squish right through almost unlimited longdead. Supplement with quickness and haste as appropriate, and etherealness/luck wouldn't hurt either.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

WOW! Massive :shock:

it will take me days to get deeply in this so detailed answer but I will start NOW :cool:
Thx a lot

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Note that the last paragraph would apply to MA Jotunheim. Utgard can do most of it with Siethkonar and Norna instead of Hags and Gygja.
You lack the cheap B1 casters, but Skratti can summon imps with less fatigue and can (and will) burn extra slaves to reduce fatigue even further.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Ah, my bad, got them mixed up. For LA Utgard all the above should be workable, but also add Norna reverse communions w/ skellispam and a master for reinvigoration. You can check out my guide to communions to see what I'm talking about, basically grab a bunch of norna, have them all effected by power of the spheres through the communion mechanics, then have them all repeatedly cast raise skeletons then have their fatigue wiped out by a Skratti casting reinvigoration. Naaaaasty skelispam potential, you should definitely win the skellispam war if you go that route.

Re: Help with Darkness
 

@ Baalz, your guide(s) are in the list of my favourite readings of this forum (congratulation, for the well job done).

I have read the comunion one, still to be honest the few times I have put the comunionn in practice (with sauromantia) it was a disaster :D
Ok it was a solo game, were I was testing the tactics but I am still not confident on that one.

I will give it a try in any way.

thx again

Re: Help with Darkness
 

a doubt

sabbath and comunions: can I use a Skratti with sabbath to be the master of communion nornas?

Re: Help with Darkness
 

Yes, of course. Communion and Sabbath are totally compatible.