How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

Im currently sieging a Pythum castle where my opponent has around 15 Pythium mages and its God (a rainbow mage) but no meaningfull army, just a significant number of conjured troops (grand lions, wyverns, eagles, some of them magical etc). Some of his mages are level 4 in astral, and one of them is a 5.

It is around turn 33, and it is a MA small map no mods map so research is in the 2300's or thereabouts (i.e. magic levels 4 or 5 tops or possibly 6 if specialised).

I am fighting with Ermor and have around 5 or 6 arch theurgs and around 10 theurgs plus a bunch of undead, principes, shadow vestals, a few behemoths and banes etc etc (shall I put the behemoths and / or banes in front?). I am a noob, my opponent is a veteran so a bit scared here of possible surprises appart from the obvious ethereal casts on the conjured/magical troops, soul slay's, magic duels etc. Do I need magical weapons to hit magical creatures? what is the quickest way to get good numbers of them?

Given this is still early game in terms of magic, what would you think is the best way to assault such a castle?

Any advice appreciated,

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

Middle Era, yes? Hmm.

The bad news from him would be a communion. I suggest you read baalz guide to communions from the Strategy Index.

Going first is the benefit of the defender. So I wouldn't be in a hurry storm the castle. Let him try to break your siege. Set up your own communion, if possible.

Consider burden of time. Set the tax rate to 200; keep a small screening force, and pillage with the remaining.

Bane venom charms if you have no living troops.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

Thanks.

Yes, I have set up my mages in a huge reverse communion but he can do the same I presume.

I do not dispose of much time either, maybe 4 or 5 tuens tops as my opponent allies are ganging up on my own ally and I need to free up my army to help him.

But the more I wait the more creatures he can summon. I could also keep cramcking banes and behemeoths but I need to bring them from a lab.

Supply wise I think he can wait as he does not have much in the castle, so he does not have an incentive to break the siege. In the mean time he can research and summon away while I wait.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

You could try to crack his defense with ethereal behemots, but I wonder how much it is a good idea to send undeads to storm Pythium, as all their mages are priests too.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

If he is using a communion cast rigor mortis. It will fatigue out his mages quicker, meaning you face fewer spells, hopefully send all his mages over 200 fatigue so they will die.

Attack rear (straight away with flyers) to get at his mages. Ermor has A1 on some of its mages? Cast flight on your banes and have them attack rear. Put your behemoths up centre front with attack closet, try to luck them to help them survive longer.

Cast darkness if you can as well. Have your mages spam steller cascades/ghost grip to fatigue the enemy quicker.

All that should bring you victory.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

He probably won't have access to those spells, though.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

AFG now but I ll check. Do not want to give too much away in case my opponent is reading this! Although I might already have...

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

I tailored all my suggestions to what Ma Ermor can fairly easily script and cast. May need to research 1 or 2 things thou.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

I think he meant research-wise, as they are in mid game and it sounds like they are both a bit light on overall research.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

Yup, I have around 4-5 turns more before I attack. From the spells mentioned I will only have acces to Flight but we have one of those global spells on that prevents flying anyways, Eternal Storms or something. Does that one prevent flying across map only or also in battle mode?

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

He's summoned crap units and he has a pile of mages.

Basically, the answer is "send in some chaff to catch spells, and when the morale breaks on his summoned crap you get an auto-win".

Don't fear this guy. The only mistake you can make is to let him get some research for spells that actually matter. On turn 33 his best tactic is probably Mind Burn spam; the problem is that he'll only get three turns of that before your archers cause his whole army to route.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

If his God is in there, just Maintain Siege and start capturing all the provinces around it.

I guarantee either:
a) He'll Break Siege & Retreat with everyone that's currently defending before you can take all his retreat routes, or,
b) He's an idiot.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

Cleveland you know thats not true. If the guy's nation is dead and he has no other fort to retreat to, then sitting in the castle and using the walls to bolster his defense when the eventual attack comes is his ONLY valid strategy.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

If the guy is dead, and has no other fort to retreat to, then his only valid strategy is to attack. ;)

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

Clearly he needs to blood sacrifice to victory!!1!!!!!!111!!1 @.@

Jazzepi

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

A dominion kill, eh?

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

Thakns for all the input, ill post the results of the battle once it is resolved!

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

I read an AAR where a Mictlan player, who was by no means "in the lead" dominion killed four other players by uber-sacrificing over 300 virgins. Apparently after the first turn of the sacrifices, most of them didn't have any white candles left except for near capitals and temples.

Jazzepi

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

300? Ouch, that's gotta hurt.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

For mictlan? Midgame mictlan can easily have 900 slaves...

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

Sounds like a super-small map, since even with 10 dominion 300 slaves only works out to about 20-30 provinces worth of conversion, which isn't much on most maps.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

300 slaves could be as high as 300 successful temple checks = 300 candles. At the very least it should be 210 or so. Call it 250. The average of 5 or 6 candles per dominion would say 40-50 provinces.

There is very little likelihood such a thing is possible on a small map. The most you could have gotten is 5 or 6 checks per temple - so you would need probably 75 temples to do this. Ie., not a small map.

The odds are also good that the mictlan player did not do this in one round - as he would have to get *his* dominion up as well.

But.. still sounds like fun.

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

I meant the sheer amount of temple checks.:)

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

It was most definitely not a small map.

I'm probably exaggerating how fast it happened, but the guy won in 4 turns or so of sacrificing.

This is with the H3 priests using jade daggers.

Jazzepi

Re: How to beat 15 Pythium mages plus lions and wyverns
 

Yeah its what I figured.. you probably are detailing around a 300-400 size map. Mictlan probably had at least a central wedge.

Probably, faded from view as he was building his temples and knives.

And he probably started his Dom kill strategy right after taking out one of his opponents - whilh left a huge swath of land dominion less.

I've played a couple of games as mictlan - and when that opponent dies sometimes its amazing to see how much area his dominion covers.