Another one bites the dust
 

So, I tried again to play Dominions effectively... once again I failed. I thought the following build would be pretty effective and reasonably inexpensive:

Gargoyle
Gift of Reason
Charcoal Shield
Sword of Swiftness
Robe of Shadows
Amulet of Antimagic
Pendant of Luck

Thanks to being inanimate, it doesn't have encumberance issues, so it can happily wade through AI armies of 500+ troops without getting chewed up. It also has a great defense on top of the protection, ethereal, & luck. So does it work?

Of course not. As soon as mages show up, they die. Tangle vines cast by nature mages held the first one down long enough to get chewed up, and in my next confrontation an S3 mage blew it apart with Opposition.

So... back to the drawing board. Given the gem investment needed to make an effective thug, they're just not efficient. It seems as if it's best just to save your gems until you get to SC power levels.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

I'd say your problem is that you're sending thugs against forces too great for them to handle. Ya, stating the obvious, but perhaps you should be using it to harass and kill smaller armies, or send it into battle with an army and/or mages at its back?

The problem with, say, gargoyles is that they have a few weaknesses: they are magic beings and inanimate. The inanimate is especially bad because they can be blown apart by shatter and there is no save. Gotta watch out for the same thing with undead, although different spells.

One way to deal with obsessive vining is quickness, since it gives your guy a chance to break the vines then still attack, rather than being deadlocked.

Mages are always going to have a counter of some kind to anything you can make (assuming your enemy has the right paths). There's really no getting around it. Find a way to kill the mages, fight when they aren't around, or make sure exploiting your weaknesses requires magic they don't have!

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

That's what keeps discouraging me. If even AI mages can take down my cost efficient thugs, what chance do they have against a competent player? Ugh.

And if a 70 gem unit can't punish a 500 unit army, what can? The AI has a lot more 500 unit armies than I have 70 gem units...

BTW, thanks for the advice on the quickness. I'll keep that in mind, that will help.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Also, defense goes down for each attack made against you.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Yes, that's why I don't even think about sending out a thug without ethereal, it cuts down the # of attacks by 75% and gives their defense a chance.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Like iRFNA said, some combination of magic paths and research can sink any SC. Otherwise, the larger the army the more you need to cut down the number of hits your SC has to deal with per turn. A Shield of Gleaming Gold and a Horror Helmet are good for fighting troops with normal to low morale. A Vine Shield is the best for weak troops, especially in a province with Growth scales.

But, taking down a 500 unit army is too much for just about any SC regardless of how indestructible it is due to the limit to the number of turns for each side in a battle. I believe that's 50 turns for the attacker.

Baalz has an excellent guide for thugging here: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=41970

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Somewhat counter-intuitively a lot of thugs work better against players than against the AI. At least the design philosophy is quite different.

The AI wanders around somewhat aimlessly with large armies. To be any use solo a thug has to almost SC level, capable of handling an arbitrary amount of chaff, with some resistance to whatever the AI's mages specialize in. Thus, even for a raiding thug, you really need a large investment. OTOH, the AI won't send forces designed to kill that thug, so your investment is likely to pay off.

Most MP players use low PD, fewer elite troops and don't tend to have huge armies wandering around their backfield. Therefore a relatively cheap thug can do a lot of damage in the backfield. OTOH, the player will actually target your thugs, so you will lose them. So you make them as cheap as possible and expect them to do some damage and then die.

Very different strategies.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

If I recall correctly ethereal (and luck) don't prevent the defense penalty for being attacked. I think the only main defense attribute that does is awe.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

I figured Luck didn't, it specifies that 50% of hits don't do damage, but I figured Ethereal did... ugh... that just makes it harder to produce an adequate defense.

So what *is* a good way of frying AI superhordes? Assuming I don't have level-9 magic, and I don't want to consume gems faster than he can replace troops.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

AoE attacks.
I like the Sun Slayer and the Unquenched Sword.

Unquenched is extra great because it also casts Heat from Hell, fatiguing enemy troops.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Or route them. Fear works well on AI hordes. (Well, except for Late ERmor and a few others.)
Take the provinces around them, they have no where to retreat and poof! no more horde.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

One thing about AI, is it tends to not feed those big armies very well. Starvation really brings down morale, making those routes especially effective.

You can also kill them with your own armies. But, compensate for your fewer numbers with more mages using area effect spells like Magma Eruption, Iron Blizzard, Shadow Blast, Blade Wind, Falling Fires, etc. Fatigue will likely be your biggest issue here, so look for means to mitigate it, like gems, magic path boosters, or an Earth Bless for sacred mages.

Buff your troops with Legions of Steel, Mass Regen, Arrow Fend etc. to keep them alive but set most of them to guard your mages. You may need of light screen of expendables to take a cavalry charge. But, otherwise count on any who march forward against those odds to be lost. Quagmire is also useful to keep the enemy at bay longer to give your mages more time to do their work.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

I would use large AOE spells rather than relying on melee to clear any army numbering more than 100. Heat from Hell, Foul Vapors require relatively low path and research... There should be some caster you've got access to that can use one of those spells or similar ones.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

If EDM is enabled, there's various AI chaff annihilators there, the most reliable and cheapest seems to be Treant for me, 30 gem summon + 20 gem of gear will see them eat any amount of AI directed chaff with most types of mages.

Another way is an easily accessible (for your nation) linchpin BE spells, eg. darkness for a undead/demon/DV army. There's usually something that goes with your nation/focus well, cold, heat, poison, darkness ...etc, just establish choke points with well supplied armies using said BE linchpin holding them and move out on any direction at your leisure.

small bands of elite Bane wight teams also do great with buff support against most foes, and accessible early on (lvl 3 conj). a bane with a dozen+ or so wights with buff works great (ethereal, luck, quickness ...etc), assuming you have massable D2 access, emphasis on buff.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Edm?

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

endgame diversity mod.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Isn't EDM in the latest CBM?

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

yes

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

My two major problems with using area effect evocs are range and collateral damage. My mages will often fatigue themselves casting useless spells while the enemy is out of range, and then blast my troops to bits once the enemy is in range.

Is setting troops to Guard Commander an effective way to deal with these? My fear is that the enemy archers will target the squad and then plink my mages to death (normally I keep the mages back a bit so arrows hitting the squad don't hit them)

Maybe a little buffing will help the mages survive the plinking, hmmm.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Mages are definitely vulnerable. That's why Arrow Fend is so nice. If you don't have that, you can give your most valued mages 0 encumbrance shields for protection. Or, use some shield equipped chaff up front set to guard commander for a commander set back behind your mages. As long as the back commander is still in range, the AI archers will keep firing at the chaff even after they move back out of the way.

For Earth mages, I always like to cast Summon Earth power for both the reinvigoration as well as the reduced fatigue for Earth spells it gives me. Then I'll throw on Ironskin, Stoneskin, or Invulnerability depending on what I have access to and what is being thrown back at me. These Earth buffs are usually enough to protect from arrows and sling stones.

For the range/fatigue issue, it is good to script buffs at the beginning. And, position your mages so that the enemy is in range when they are done.

In my experience, you generally don't have to worry about scripting the attack spells as the AI will tend to use the spell most likely to kill the most troops anyway. It mostly has trouble getting the buffs and battlefield enchantments right. So, don't fret filling your queue with all buffs or even a couple of holds (which allow the mages to recoup fatigue) to provide time for the enemy to close.

One thing AI is infamous for though is pushing out battlefield summons when no good Evocation targets are in range. Death mages who should be holding back for Shadow Blast or Banefire in particular love to fatigue themselves first with Raise Skeletons for instance. For this reason, I'll sometimes delay researching Enchantment when playing a Death nation just to keep my mages from casting it unless I want to get that spell out early for an opponent particularly vulnerable to such a strategy.

And, yes, having your troops guard commander is also intended to reduce collateral damage. But, that's going to happen unless you are playing a nation like Abyssia and have troops immune to nearly all of your Evoc spells.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Raise Skeletons/Dead is exactly why I gave up on Death magic. The level of micromanagement needed to keep death mages from casting it is just offensive.

I also have a problem with Earth mages flinging Blade Wind at shielded troops when they should be using Magma Eruptions instead. But if I script Magma Eruptions, he will at least cast it.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

I've found truly effective use of AoE evoc to involve either a) suitably immune troops or at the very least appropiate ward/antimagic, b) very high precision (wind guide, eagle eye) with a smaller AoE (pillar, Tstrike), or c) premptive hit in round 1-2 before the army joins together (shadow blast ...etc). For short range evoc I tend to spend 1-2 rounds buffing before getting in 3-4 turns of evoc (luck, eth, quickness, blessings, eagle eye ...etc)

Either way you're limited to 5 turns of controlled spell casting, after which you can count on AI spell casting to be worst then useless 80% of the time.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Yeah, the AI is spectacularly useless. But I'm testing MA Ulm now, and having my smiths cast [Summon Earthpower / Ironskin / Magma Eruptions x3] seems effective. I haven't gotten to any huge AI armies yet, though, so that will be the real test.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Orders given to our troops should be followed better. We should also be allowed to make contingency orders like "if X, then Y."

It's still a great game, but this would make it better.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

Contingency orders would be a nightmare. Scripting, especially of mages, is already the biggest time suck in the game. This would be a huge multiplier. And you'd have to do it in MP, because you'd lose to anyone who did.

Some things wouldn't be bad. Separate battle and assassination scripts. Maybe separate can use gems/can't use gems scripts. Not much else.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

It sounds like you need to - have your mages closer to the front, script more carefully what spells you want cast (buffing for the first two turns will help a lot with useful fatigue use), or use the hold command more often. All of these will help with getting more effective spellcasting out of your mages.

Also mage SCs like we were talking about a while back in a different thread. They take a fair amount of research but are the best way to kill off AI armies. Even gearing some mages just to be harder to kill by random stray arrows can go a long way towards increasing the effectiveness of your AI-killing.

Re: Another one bites the dust
 

That would be really nice.