Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

So, I was tinkering around in SP yet again, and I've discovered that Falling Frost is a reasonably effective spell against the hordes of garbage troops the AI likes to throw at me. The area effect seems to be the critical factor. Hitting five squares at once is *very* nice, for a low-fatigue spell.

What I'm wondering is, what are some other low-cost options for wiping out the piles of troops more difficult AIs attack with? I'm not looking to merely scare them off -- a 200 troop army that you scare off just adds to the 300 troop army behind it creating a 500 troop steamroller. I've been underwhelmed by thunderstrike and blade wind (the latter is nice against shieldless troops, but otherwise worthless). Falling fires is mediocre. Astral Gyser is great against low-MR troops but ineffective against decent troops.

What else should I be looking at, without needing to research Evoc-9, if I want to incinerate AI troops with my mages?

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

I've had some luck with Magma Eruption, which is Evocation 6, Earth 3 + Fire 1.

Orb Lightning works fairly well also, especially when massed. I've found Orb Lightning to be preferable to Thunder Strike in many situations.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

Oh, right, I forgot to mention Magma Eruption, which is also very effective at clobbering AI hordes. But requiring both F and E makes it a bit harder to get a hold of.

Isn't Orb Lightning short-range? And it doesn't seem to hit too many troops. How many mages do you need to clear a significant fraction of a 300-troop AI army?

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

The cloud spells can be effective situationally. If you can get the timing right so that either troops stay in them and die or more keep charging through.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

Mmm... falling fires, mediocre? I'm playing a game right now where one fire mage has killed over 70 enemy soldiers over just two battles just casting those, fireballs and incinerates. The visual results on the battlefield weren't stunning, but the numbers were actually pretty good. If you say about 30 enemy casualties per mage, 3 mages is nearly 100 dead enemy soldiers. Not bad, I'd say.

Cloud of death can be a very powerful spell, if you can hold enemy soldiers over one without yours taking too much collateral damage. Other cloud spells aren't quite as strong, but are still good against the right opponent.

Also things like that spell that sets large numbers of people on fire, and flame eruption if you can work it out, can cause large numbers of casualties. Most other spells work more indirectly and will result in your troops killing the enemies easier, which isn't bad at all but is a lot harder to quantify.

After that I can mainly think of spells that require gems, and if I recall correctly you are not very much into those.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

Cheap and easy to get chaff-killers which I use during early game:

- Fire Blast, Fire Cloud, Falling Fires

- Shockwave (perhaps the best spell for early mass-genocide)

- Acid Spray, Acid Rain

- Cold Blast, Falling Frost

- Bladewind, Gifts from Heaven

- Shadow Blast, Raise Skeletons (aka skellispam :) )

- Sleep Cloud, Poison Cloud (these two are of very limited use, but when you are defending a fort they can be quite devastating if your gate-holders can take the beating for a while)


Then there are some national spells, like the Iron Darts (not to mention Iron Blizzard, but it is sadly not an early game spell :p), which are very nice too to take out lots of opponents. Then there are some special cases, like Fire Darts, which as such is not a great spell, but if you have high level Fire-mages (like, lets say, Anointed Rhuax, or a F9 pretender) they can deal lots amount of damage against lightly armoured opponents from far away (and once the enemy gets closer, they can switch to the close range AoE fire spells).

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

Another option, while not evocation, is master enslave followed by, fog warriors and or army of ..., will of fates Depending on penetration and mr this can, with just a dozen mages take out a 5000+ army. Be sure to use the crystal matrix on the masters for round one ignition and have an appropriate arrow catcher in front.
ssj

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

An often overlooked spell is curse of stones. Available quite early and one of the easiest battlefield wide spells to cast, cast it a couple times at the beginning of a fight and it'll decimate chaff/indie hoards with 10 MR with the added bonus of keeping them from fleeing when they break.

Curse of the desert is another very undervalued spell. Spammable by W2 mages (w1 if you pass out gems or boosters), with a huge AOE, have 10 or so cheap mages cast it at the beginning of fight and prepare to be amazed.

Also, don't overlook the effectiveness of a few mages spamming precision 100, AOE-1 spells. Numbness in particular has become one of my goto early spells. Because each casting is guaranteed to affect 3 of the best enemy units (assuming size 2 troops), half a dozen cheap mages can pretty effectively cripple nearly 60 enemy troops in the time it usually takes for melee to really be joined. This may not sound that impressive against hoards of hundreds of guys, but remember that they will unerringly target the higher hitpoint guys...you know, the ones that tend to have higher MR and are otherwise harder to take out? Combine this spell with the above suggestions for more resistant enemies.

Another angle to consider in the non-direct damage category are things like prison of fire and confusion. Basically any spell with a large AOE is probably worth considering when you're looking at facing a lot of troops with lowish MR and morale...

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

I'm going to guess that the "one mage" isn't a 150 gold Witch Hunter that first cast Phoenix Power, then cast falling fires three times before exhausting out? Because that's my typical result, which is more like 15 enemy fatalities per battle. Nice, admittedly, but not great.

Now if you're using a 320 gold MA Anathemant Dragon, or better yet, a 440 gold Anointed of Rhuax, yeah, I can see you laying down some serious damage... but note you're paying a lot more for it.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

I do like the Shadow Blast followed by Raise Dead combo -- the shadow blast guarantees some corpses for your death mage to raise. Skeletons, on the other hand, hardly seem worth the fatigue.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

That's an f3 mage with phoenix power. F2's aren't quite as good, no. But if you can get up to f4, they tend to cause a LOT of casualties. And at 30 casualties per battle, they only need to survive two battles to pay themselves back. You also can't underestimate the power of momentum.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

Well, you mentioned Witch Hunters, so you've got a bunch of F2S1 guys running around. How about you set up a reverse communion with a nice big group of them (say 10), in round one all the ones higher in the unit list cast communion slave, the final two cast communion master. Round two, you script your c slaves to something low fatigue, one master casts Phoenix Power and the other one (holding a pearl or two) casts Power of the Spheres. Round three you have a shedload of guys casting effective F4 level Falling Fires. If you have the capability to forge crystal matrixes you could get the party started round two instead of round three.

In the meantime you've set your blocking troops to hold and attack, and of course the AI isn't going to be clever enough to hold their own troops back or script some sort of fire resistance or, heaven forbid, create fire immune thugs.

If you're facing a truly massive horde of troops you might want to give your masters some sort of bow and script them to start firing after they've cast their buffs, but since they're going to be something like lvl 6 or 7 in fire by then (due to bonus from 8 communion slaves) you can probably just get them to join in the general barbecuing slaughter.

I learned how to do this sort of thing from Baalz's must-read guide on communions, which you can find in his signature from his post on the first page of this thread.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

Well below Evocation 9: Grip of Winter, Heat from Hell, Rigor Mortis, Foul Vapors. Only the last is reliably deadly on its own, but all can incapacitate or kill large armies pretty cheaply, if you can hold off the enemy while they do their work... and if you can prevent your own side from being significantly harmed.

Summoning a bunch of elementals can be a good way to hold off the enemy for a while (or even for the rest of the battle, if you spend enough gems on it).

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

I'm surprised none have mentioned rain of stones. The path combination needed is really rare but it can really decimate armies.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

Rare, that is, until you reach Tartarians.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

With witch hunters you can also go for an astral fires communion, which can be pretty devastating.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

I've tried using the battlefield enchantments. The trouble I have is deploying them effectively. If I could get my ubermages in the right location at the right time I can see them doing a lot of damage. But more often than not my mages go *here* while his army goes *there* and I'm playing catch-up.

I've read that Teleport and Cloud Trapeze can work to land my mages on him before he gets a chance to scurry, but that's worked even worse for me -- my mage lands without adequate defense, and gets eaten before the battlefield spell can do any real damage.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

That's why teleporting some kitted out thugs/SC's is easier. If possible have one or two of your teleporters cast one of the level 7 mass elemental summon spells, for a round or two, preferably ones immune to whatever you're laying down. In my experience I've found at least Fire Storm works better when you have a normal immune army behind it, it needs a fair bit of time to work. Grip of Winter at least fatigues and therefore weakens the other guys troops, never tried it with just (I suppose ice with Wolven Winters) elementals though.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

That might work. It's not too hard to teleport a second mage in, and if he throws elementals out there, that will slow down the armies I'm trying to obliterate before the mage gets eaten. I'll have to give that a try, thanks for the tip!

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

Whoa, a _second_ mage? Yeah, teleporting a lone mage in to cast Rigor Mortis or whatever without any backup is definitely not going to work, though I guess you've worked that out on your own, which is cool. The battlefield wide damage/fatigue enchantments are simply not that powerful afaik. The level 9 evoc spells might work like that though.

I'd be sending in at least two extra mages to spam the elementals, make sure you give em enough gems to cast for two or three rounds, including a few extra to suck up some fatigue. Boosters to get you above the minimum level you need for the spells will allow you to cast longer before fatiguing out if possible.

You could also send some mages to cast other battlefield summons, Rigor Mortis combined with a couple of Undead Hordes followed by skellispam could work.

If you don't need to teleport/trapeze, consider handing out some flying boots to these guys instead. Also give a scout some flying boots and replacement gems, and your mage hit squad can terrorize your opponent for several turns, not as easily/cheaply as a flying thug/SC would but still usable.

You can also just bring regular bodyguards if you use Flying Carpets. And Bottles of Living Water are always an option for self-replenishing mage protection, in and out of battle.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

Does flying occur before regular map movement? I need to hit him before his 300-troop army wanders off to another province. I know that spells (teleport/trapeze) will do this; I don't know about flying.

Re: Falling frost vs. AI hordes
 

Nope, flying in the same phase as regular movement.

Instead of just trying to head him off, and playing a purely defensive guessing game, and gradually lose provinces (which I've done against the AI, and I don't know if it's your case), consider letting one of his armies wander into your territory, and move your intercepting force(s), the ones you hope to catch him with, in such a way that they either get him or force him into a dead end. And always try to take the province behind him each time he moves (i.e. the one he's standing in each turn). As long as you keep doing that, you'll catch him eventually, and when you do he won't have anywhere to rout to, so 100 percent kill rate.

Or, send your armies off into the enemies territory (or again, always attack the province he's moving from each turn), and instead try to place some artillery mages in each province he can move to, and buff the PD a bit, but not too much (Marignon has decent PD, right?). The idea there is to whittle him down, and have your mages flee when you PD gets chewed up.

Of course, this sort of stuff is effective against a human player with comparable resources, but maybe not an artificially boosted AI. I think the real way to beat that is just to make some SC it can't counter, or research the uber spells it can't use effectively.