.com.unity Forums - fire storm

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- - fire storm (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=44109)

Is there any way to counter fire storm?

or is it just the "WIN" button?

Um, fire resistance? =)

The two that come to mind are fire resistance and assassination spells.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Micah (Post 713822)

Um, fire resistance? =)

i can give the commanders fire rings or resistance spells. But how the hell do I protect my entire army from being burnt away to nothing by one spell?

domes only work on ritual spells, right?

twiceborn will only save commanders which is easy anyway.

By the time you're playing with Firestorm, armies are becoming less important. SCs, thugs and mages win the day.
Fire Fend or Fire ward will give some protection, especially if you're using high protection high hp troops. Army of Gold or Warriors of Muspelheim do the same to everyone.
Use fire resistant troops or summons. 50% combines well with the fire resistance spells.
Firestorm ends when the mage dies, so find a way to kill him quickly. Rain of Stones and Earthquake work well against most human mages.

Seconded with Jeff's less lazy answer. Army of gold in particular makes fire storm almost completely ineffective between the FR and the extra protection. SCs and thugs can also enter into it, and mass regen + heavy armor + fire fend or the like should keep the damage down to a reasonable level since it won't stack up over multiple turns if you're regenerating. Add in a will of the fates and it should really cut down on how much damage it does.

Doesn't killing the caster end it? So flyers set to attack rear.

it's a useful spell but not that deadly, all the above will work fine, as will killing your opponent quickly - unless you have a lot of lightly armoured, low HP, no fire res units it takes quite a while to do much damage

Quote:

Originally Posted by SciencePro (Post 713821)

Is there any way to counter fire storm?

or is it just the "WIN" button?

You have entered the late game in MP for the first. I remember when that happened to me the first time in Dom2; the opponent cast Wratful skies (IIRC), and my amazing army was gone just like that, in one battle.

As has been pointed out, "traditional" armies become less and less useful in the end game. They are needed for sieges, but other than that, don't rely on armies after a certain point anymore. SC's and thugs rule the day. When you get hit by the first Armageddons, you will get the ultimate lesson in the value of traditional armies in the end game (which is pretty close to zero).

SC's with lots of health and a ring of regeneration are an easy way to counter battlefield wide spells. Such spells do little damage to an individual but to lots of troops, but if you have there SC's with 100+ HP who regenerate 10 HP per turn, who cares?

Fire spells especially are easy to counter (which is why nations like Machaka are IMO so weak late in the game; they have amazing fire potential, but late in the game fire is of limited use). There are several battlefield in wide spells which give 50% Fire resistance. Check the spell lists and choose what you should cast.

It's also good to notice that there are not that many mages who can cast Firestorm. Usually they are old and fragile. Bring the pain to them before they hurt you. Earthquake, Wrathful skies, fliers with "Attack Rear" orders, summon imps (the imps have often saved the day against fire mages; the imps are fire resistant, and if they get in contact with the mage scripted to cast some fire spells, the AI seems to quite often override the script (I guess the logic goes something like "Hey wtf! I am ordered to cast fire-spells, and I am attacked by totally fire-resitant demons... No way, Jose!") are all examples of things to mess up your opponent before they mess up you.

Also, if you get attacked by a mage ordered to cast Firestorm, it is time for you to send in the assasins. Especially "Vengeance of the Dead" works nice vs Firestorm casters, because VotD targets the greatest butcher in the province, and Firestorm casters tend to be great butchers. Spamming Seeking Arrows to the province is also nice if the Firestorm caster isn't a SC.

Then there is the strategic and psychological aspect. If you stuff your border province with the best of the best, and lots of them, and then get stampeded, it can be very dishartening. You thought you have an invincible army there, and it just got evaporated by whatever nasty tactics the opponent used. Personally I like to garrison border provinces with cheap chaff (you got those events giving you a ton of militia? Well, send them to patrol some border provincs; they'll catch lots of spies, and they will be the speed bump your opponent has to first destroy showing you what tactics they are using) or with heavy PD (20+ strength). You don't stop any real push with those, but you'll get an excellent view at what tactics the opponent uses.

In my opinion, in defense the idea is not to stop the opponent at the border (necessarily, if you are planning to attack them anyway, it is a good idea make them attack your defensive position and crush them there), the idea is to see what your opponent is using. Defense in depth is the key in "conventional" war; fall back, slow down the enemy if you can, while building up the counters. This also makes your opponent feel you are basically beaten. You know what they are using, they are spreading their efforts (victory disease is so easy to catch when things go smoothly) and retaliate with the perfect counter when the time is right for you.

thank you everyone for the helpful suggestions!

I am somewhat annoyed that there isn't a spell that offers 100% fire resistance like there is for cold. Also Evo 7 and 5 gems seems a bit cheap for such a devastating spell.

But that may just be the noob in me talking; one of the nice things about this game is that having 24 hours between turns gives me lots of time to come up with (or ask for) with new ideas to try.

And of course maybe i'll just have to try Abyssia in the next game i join.

If Abysia is your problem, cast Rain, and watch them kill themselves from exhaustion. Not only does Rain destroy the heat of Abysian troops, but during Rain all fire spells have double fatigue, which you should be very interested in (what with the fatigue cost of 500 for Fire Storm, and if you can double that with a low-research W2 spell... ;) )

yeah, rain is a killer against abysia, as are shock spells. Slow them down as much as you can, takes forever to close into battle

The leaders and mages are expensive, so remote spells like mind hunt etc can be very effective

Rain doesn't matter at all for casting fire storm for most purposes. Also, the book is mistaken about Warriors of Niefelheim, it is only 50% resist as well, same as the rest of them. Only self-cast spells confer 100% resist.

okay good information. thanks again (especially Dragar for helping de-noobify me in more ways than one).

I disagree a bit about the SCs part.
Imo you shouldn't give up armies for SCs. Just like there are army killing tools there are SC killing ones.
Don't build big armies and expect to win though, build forces that are working and expendable (with mage backup of course) and be ready to bring something with completely different attacks to bear when the enemy beats you.
In Late game you can have a gold income of 4000 after upkeep, so you can make 5 800 gp armies, say 2 200 gp mages and 40 10gp troops, combine them at will. They will walk over PD and can pose a threat to SCs even (weapons of sharpness, strength of giants, earth meld for example - though after my experience with low level spells I really wish you could script mages better than merely making 5 suggestions) and as your enemy fills his slots to beat the things he sees he will have to leave some other vulnerabilities open (for example fire resistance or reinvig).
In theory at least, but it depends much on your and your enemies resources, mobility and flexibility (the main problem of armies being that they are not mobile enough).

The manual lists fire ward (ench4 2w2e I think) as being 100 FR, is this not accurate you are saying?

It is not. It's 50% just like the others.
This surprised me recently, though I was using mostly troops who were 50% resistant already so it wasn't so bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dragar (Post 713871)

Don't try and mind hunt aby - they have astral mages and a decent player will send them along with his armies after your first hunt. Other assassination spells should be fine. But similarly, a good player will bring along chaff commanders when they see you trying this strategy.

On the topic of firestorm: with respect, it simply sounds like you were not prepared to be fighting Aby. When going to war with a nation that relies so heavily on fire magic you should expect from the start to be facing fire magic and heat auras on the battle field. While it is not always possible to protect mundane troops from these effects, that is what summons and item forging is for.

After all, while Firestorm is a good spell it is certainly not game winning by any means. If you prepare your army appropriately - say with your FR equipped mages, your own deadly battlefield enchant, and some FR summons (mech men have 100 fr, i think?) - your opponent will very rapidly feel as vulnerable as you do now...

Spells like Earthquake are actually better cast AFTER the enemy mage casts Firestorm (or whatever), since there's a Def check, and if the enemy mage has 200 fatigue from casting a big spell with barely-sufficient gems he's not going to be passing his Def check, and any Prot he has will get bypassed via critical hit.

-Max