Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Hello everyone,

I've learned about the game a few weeks ago, did a lot of reading on the two wikis and forum threads to get a good grasp of the fundamentals and I decided to purchase it. The game is mind-blowingly good and it's right up my alley (I wish I knew about it years ago) and I even convinced two friends to also buy the game. I'm currently only playing either solo or with my friends vs the AI but I'd be interested in playing multiplayer in the future: Even though I know I'll get absolutely demolished in the first few games (at least), I'd be more than happy to fight my hardest and learn.

I'm familiar with research, blessings, site searches, magic boosters items and opening new magic paths with spellcaster summons but there's some important things I don't really understand even with all the reading I've done.


---1) First turn expansion. I've seen some mentions about using a fighting-oriented awake god for first turn expansion. How do you do that, exactly? I've tried a few 2-minutes games to test it out, and the results were disastrous.
The wyrm died 2 times out of 4, Ice Dragon 1 times out of 4, and various titans 3 times out of 4, all that at default independant settings (5).
I could understand waiting until turn 2 for intel to see if there's a super weak independant province to send your god to and your army to another province, but I don't understand how you can expand on turn 1 without facing heavy risk of losing the game outright.


---2) Thugs in general. I understand the concept in general but I can't seem to get it effective in practice, or even know where to start really. I know that defenses like Luck + Etheral + Awe + Regeneration all stack but I can't seem to have it be "worth it" or "useful" in either of my games.

For example, as T'ien Chi, my biggest opponent is an absolutely huge Ermor so what I'm facing is mainly hordes of small undeads. My gems are currently being used to buy spell boosters so that my earth mages can use Blade Wind, for summoning cheap tanking units like corpse men to guard my archer cavalries or to summons creatures like the Naiad and Troll King to boost my forging/summoning capabilities.

I'd love to use a few thugs to help my battles and have some variety but I have no idea what I could possibly summon/equip that could actually help in a fight, even though I have access to all magic types except Fire. There's swarms of enemies so I need something (anything) that can kill multiple of them in one round. I can't get Fire Brands, and Frost Brand are useless. Awe is useless. Fear is useless (which scraps the majority of my current thug potential). I don't see anything beside Trample that could help during fights but it feels as if the gem cost/mage turns expended would be much higher than the prospective reward.

Is there any useful thug I can summon/equip to even remotely help my armies against the Elmorian hordes or should I just follow with my current short-term plan to use Dark Vines to tank for all my archers and priests and forget about equipping any battle commanders with anything beside Cauldrons of Endless Broth?


---3) Dominion Strength of 8+. I've read in countless places that a very high Dominion strength is critical. That amounts to the majority of design points of your god, though... Is it viable to protect your dominion territories in multiplayer with 4 to 6 dominion and priests preaching on your borders, or is it simply inviting dominion death even with multiple provinces remaining?


---4) MA Oceania land strategies / multiplayer viabilities. I was amazed at the fact that there were underwater nations and I love water + nature magics so I have a soft spot for them. I've read that Oceania is a weak nation in general and that the best "official" strategy is to just turtle in the water building clams. I can definitively understand the reason for that, but it's definitively not something I would enjoy playing... but I'm still reluctant on forsaking away my first love in anything else but single player.

My first game I focused more on expanding on land faster than underwater: With my SC God (I'll admit that the lady with the six dogs on her body maybe wasn't the best pick for this), amphibious units and the few good independent troops I could take multiple land territories rapidly, while Oceanian Tritons (great units for the cost) supported by a few Mermidon were sufficient to grab undersea territories for extremely few golds. To respond to early land aggression, I used some extremely early summons like Summon Animal (not efficient gem-wise but super efficient time-wise early game) with my SC to establish myself strongly.

Would a strategy or a variant like that be even slightly viable in multiplayer, or would I simply be facing certain game over by turn 10?

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Welcome to the forum. I'll post an opinion on dominion strength. IMHO 5ish is fine in most cases ...olower if you can blood sacrifice. Remember.. High Dom can aid you in some global effects , how many sacreds you can buy per turn, pushing your scales (which can be bad or good).

The game has many stages of fun... Picking a nation, designing a god, designing thugs/SCs, orchestrated battle plans (tactical and strategic), modifying strategies based on sites, diplomacy, yada yada. Enjoy the ride!

ssj

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

I think most folks would wait till turn 2. Just out of curiosity, did your wyrm have a dominion of 10? Gives the pretender AWE which makes him much more effective against indies.


Uh. I'll let somebody else handle this one. That's a tough matchup unless you're prepared. No fire. You're in the middle of a game, so you can't rework your bless. Which Era is it?


I am currently in a mp game with a dominon of 5. It's tough. You can protect a core area with a dominion like that, but it's awfully tough to export dominion.

Come ashore with chaff like that near me and I'll push you back below the waves. Part of the beauty of underwater nations is that it's very difficult for land dwellers to hit you. You can raid above the waves, but holding territory is a task.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

I'm talking with CBM in mind, so some things might vary slightly. I also am no expert.

Even the best expansion pretenders are vulnerable, if they aren't going to die, at least they are going to get nasty afflictions. That's why people usually wait until turn 2 and attack only provinces they know have weak enough troops. I personally disregarded this tip on the multiplayer game I currently play though and it was fine - I had dominion 6 green dragon scripted to fire closest and it was fairly decent. It's very notable to note that some chassises just are better against indies though.

In general avoid hard hitting indies (yellow lizardmen, barbarians, knights) and most special stuff (undead are nasty if there are mages summoning more, the dark vine provinces can be fairly nasty too)

I'm no expert in thugging, but shadow brands should still damage the undead, shouldn't they? Don't underestimate trample though, as long as it's on a big enc 0 unit (poison golems are brilliant). Poison golems with stymphalian wings for flight and boots of quickness for quickness are pretty nice especially since they can get full or nearly full elemental resists fairly trivially too if required. AI especially will rarely use spells that can hurt them and their prot is quite high.

Also for spare air gems and weakly armored masses bows of war (air) are brilliant. In Aftermath II (multiplayer game) most of my commanders got one and thanks to the nature of the game being most players having huge armies of weakly armored summoned chaff half of my commanders have the hall of fame heroic trait. Similiarly in general fire/acid wands are fairly useful.

I personally take the risk and have dom strength 5 or 6 unless I am blood sacrificing a lot or need awe on my pretender. It's a risk, sure, and recruiting huge masses of priests is expensive when that money could be spent on mages, but in general I've usually lost the game when dominion becomes a problem if it ever does.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Thanks for the answers everyone! It's very appreciated.

1) No I didn't have Dominion 10 for Awe... That certainly would account for a lot of what I was seeing! I think I'll stick with with 2 turn expansion when I have an awake combat god, then.

2) I'm playing in Late Age against Ermor. I had expected Shadow Brands to deal some sort of "dark" damage that undeads would be immune to (which in retrospect doesn't exit), but you are correct: From the description it seems that it deals Fire damage. I'll check to see if I can summon anything thug-worthy that's fire immune or if I can craft anything that gives fire immunity (so that the brand doesn't kill my own thug).
Bows of War are an awesome idea! It's super cheap and Air gems are both my highest income and my highest stockpile. It doesn't help with having a strong frontliner, but on the other hand the faster the skeletons die the less time my front line has to hold either way. The poison golem is a bit out of reach for now but Gift of Reason on a Gargoyle and making it trample or something similar is a much closer goal. Thanks for help, it'll be quite handy!

3) That's what I was hoping to hear! Spending so many design points to reach dominion 9 or 10 just breaks my heart so I'm glad to hear that it's not necessary to do so.

4) And that's what I was expecting to hear but was hoping not to... I'll have to be change the plan, then. Back to the drawing board! :)

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Regarding Thugs:

Thugging is tricky; I'm newer, and still have trouble with it; and some thugs will work well against some enemies but not others.

Have some guides though:
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Gearing_Thugs_and_SC%27s
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Super_combatant

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Shadow brands are not fire magic though. And the only way to resist it is high magic resistance and/or high protection. (its Armor piercing, not armor negating)

As for dominion strength I have a personal rule to never take less than dom 5 on an awake god and never take less that dom 6 on a sleeping or imprisoned god. I have only broken this rule once and I got to regret that. If you want a supercombatant but dont want to spend points on high dominion I recommend a dragon of some sort. They can do without it in CBM.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Before even discussing anything else I think it's important to restate what is meant by thugs. When talking about thugs people generally mean somewhat beefy units that can be recruited and equiped relatively cheaply but can still move out on their own* (or sometimes in pairs/with light support) to accomplish a specific goal, the most common being to raid enemy PD.* Examples might include Bane Lords with vine shield and a fire/frost brand, or Vanjarls with [some weapon] and E/N bless casting Mistform at the start of battle. If you're using CBM Shishi's are practically the epitome of thugishness, either naked or with some cheap equipment.

This type of thugs works very well in MP as they can easily and cheaply take out moderate amount of PD or small wandering troop squads without mage support, while not representing a big loss when they inevitably run into something they can't handle. Not so in SP though, where the AI's habit to recruit massive amounts of troops and have them running around in all provinces means such thugs will inevitably get swamped by sheer weight of numbers without accomplishing anything much, meaning that too take (or hold) provinces from the AI you really have to move towards what constitutes a SC. (See below)

* Another type of/purpose for a thug can be to accompany a regular army to cause some extra damage to the enemy in support of the regular troops/mages. While this certainly can work I've never been very fond of this myself, since regular battlemages often do similar or more damage, while not risking themselves on the frontline. If you do go this route you generally want to put a bit more effort into maximizing damage and adding an extra layer of protection, while crowd control is somewhat less important since you're less likely to be surrounded. (If you take the above Bane Lord example you might want to add boots of quickness as a for instance, while the vine shield is less crucial - though still nice.) Also, when accompanying an army you can often have your mages add extra buffs to your thugs, replacing or supplementing their equipment. (luck, etherealness, quickness, regeneration, mistform to name but a few are all available in one form or another, from short range one target buffs, to battlefield wide effects.)

A SC (Super Combatant) on the other hand is a true collossus on the battlefield, who can take out entire armies on his own. (Theoretically at least. In practice this roughly translates to: "Any amount of troops with moderate mage support not specifically tailored to deal with the weaknesses of said SC." Since players obviously don't like to loose big/expensive armies they try to foresee as many eventualities as possible in their mage scripting and/or accompany their armies with Thugs/SC's of their own specifically outfitted to take out enemy SC's. As such attacking large armies with a single SC in MP is most often suicidal unless you totally outgess your opponent and catch him unprepared.)

In SP though SC's, even the less inventive ones are pretty much an 'I win' button, since the AI doesn't know how to counter them. A low research example (specifically avoiding F magic) might be a Bane Lord with Shadow brand or sword of swiftness, vine shield, starshine skullcap, boots of swiftness, lucky charm, and ring of regeneration. While this would be complete suicide against a player (far too expensive while vulnerable to fire and lighting, all undead counters and with lowish MR) the AI won't know how to counter it, and it will be able to clean out entire provinces of chaff on it's own.

[disclaimer: it's been a long time since I played SP, and I might misremember what it takes for a SC to be effectively immune to AI effort.]

First off, many pretenders, especially in vanilla, really aren't very suited to soloing independents without equipment, even if they look impressive. The Titan for example is potentially really nice with some equipment and research for self-buffs, but cannot really be made to work for naked expansion, due to having too low protection. (You can get awe from high dominion, but this really isn't enough to protect you.)

Some things too look out for when choosing a pretender for this role:

* High(ish) hp's. (Say, anything above 40. Less can work, but becomes very risky, and you better know what you're doing.) Really, hp's are only there to counter bad luck, and the occasional hit that will inevitably get through though, and no matter how much hp's you have, it will never be enough on its own.
* Awe/fear. From your opening post I gather you have a good idea of base mechanics so I won't go into detail. Bottom line is awe forces a morale check to hit you in melee, while fear lowers enemy morale. This is the combo that most expansion pretenders are built around. You get awe from having 9 or 10 dominion, while lots of chassis come with built in fear, while getting 5D also grants you fear. (And any extra points of D magic increas your fear score.
* At least medium protection. Even with damage avoidance from (for example) the awe/fear combo, some hits will get through. You really want the average hit to do little or no damage. So, against the average human with a pointy stick/piece of metal this means around 12 protection. More is very nice. Less is workable if you have other defenses, but makes things risky. Remember that taking earth magic also improves your protection. (Note that this in itself is rarely reason enough to take earth magic, but if you're taking it anyway...)
* extra perks: regeneration, recuperation, etherealness, immortality all help.

Classic chassis for early expansion include (off the top of my head) Wyrm, Prince of Death, Cyclops and Great Kraken. (Underwater only) The dragons also work fine in CBM, although I seem to remember they're suboptimal in vanila. Others that require a bit more work and/or are a bit riskier might be the Geat White Bull, Lich, or even Ghost King. (And there are various national ones of course)

And, as others said before me, even the strongest expansion pretender can succumb to the stronger independent provinces (Lizards, knights, barbarians, possbily massed crossbows,...) so attacking on turn 1 will allways be a risk.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Also you shouldn't need to be building boosters in order to cast Bladewind. You have access to E2 guys who can cast summon earthpower - that takes you to E3 right there and gives you additional fatigue regeneration. So that part shouldn't be a problem. You also have access to Cleansing Water with celestial masters, which is one of the premier anti-undead spells, or Wither Bones with communioned Spirit Guides (one out of 4 gets an astral random), but that one may be slightly beyond your comfort level yet.

For a bog dirt cheap thug, try either banes or Ancestor Smiths. If you're spamming anti-undead spells in a battle an ancestor would probably be the better choice here. But anyway. If you're going to use an ancestor smith, try giving him just a shadow brand, a vine shield, and a girdle of might. And script him for summon earthpower, ironskin, holdx3, attack. This will keep his fatigue down and allow him to fight the undead mostly in peace and without having to purchase any extra armor. If he gets an air random you could consider adding mirror image or air shield to the script if it looks useful for the battle. And as a bonus they can self bless, so if you have something nice there they can benefit from it while thugging. If you had access to fire, fire shields are quite nice against undead as well, as they will quickly kill themselves trying to attack you. The trampling gargoyle idea should also work, though.

You may be interested to know that with an ancestor smith, earth boots, 35 earth gems and a laboratory located in a wasteland, you can get access to fire magic by casting Hidden in Sand :)

And yes, corinthian is correct about how shadow brands work.

Amhazair has the right of it as well, thugs are *much* more effective in MP. In sp things need a lot more gear to survive, generally. That's why I suggested something cheap, so when it eventually dies you won't miss it too much :P

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Regarding expansion with combat pretenders:

Don't neglect protection! IMO prot 12 is by far not enough, especially if you haven't got a decent shield.
All your fear, awe and even petrification of the Gorgon (a great SC pretender!) will help you nothing against a good bunch of ranged units.
As MA Man I met a Wyrm as well as a Prince of Death early in the game with a medium sized army of Longbowmen (~30).
The Wyrm barely escaped due to his high HP, the PoD due to flying. They both didn't stand a chance.
So prepare for ranged units. High protection is the easiest. If you don't have it you should have ethearelness, mistform, air shield or something the like.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Heh, Ancestor Smiths are fun, though honestly they don't really work because their hp is too low. But ones with nature randoms have very high stats once they turn young, have magic fear inducing swords, and have potential access to some really powerful buffs.

Purely for fun, take 2 Smiths with nature randoms with slave crystals, and one with a master crystal, crystal shield and cheap weapon. The master casts earthpower, invulnerability, strength of gaia, elemental fortitude, and soul vortex, the slaves cast between them: bless, weapons of sharpness, strength of giants, legions of steel, and iron will, then all 3 attack. They are a lot harder to kill than you might expect thanks to 5 hp regen and soul vortex, mainly vulnerable to a critical early before they suck enough souls to deal with the fatigue from buffing, less so if you have a high earth bless as you really should with all sacred mages. Have a master of the way cast quickness, luck, and body ethereal on them for even more thematic fun. Sure, for 40+ gems, you could probably get and equip a low end SC, but is that as cool as 3 old guys hacking through everything in their path?

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

The Virtue and Moloch are also powerful expansion gods (in CBM), though you need to be careful with the virtue early on as it cannot face heavy cavalry until a level or two of research in alteration (for personal luck and eventual mistform). Twist fate+air shield early on in conjunction with naturally high awe allows the Virtue to take on most indies barring undead (and before other alteration buffs). The Moloch starts out with fear (which can be boosted) and combined with the imp screen it starts with to soak up arrows also clears indies fast.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

This doesn't answer your general questions, but I think the guys here have already addressed those better than I could.

However, since I recently ran across this LA Ermor AAR written by Calahan and you're playing against Ermor I thought this might be of interest to you:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...033#post709033

It isn't a turn by turn DAR/AAR, it's more like a wrap-up of how his game went / how victory was achieved with Ermor. I thought it was a great read. It's interesting not just if you're interested in playing Ermor, but also in terms of what his concerns were - what opponent strategies / tactics might have potentially posed the greatest risk to his nation of undead.

You probably already know about Banishment and Cleansing Water, but just in case you weren't aware of how useful they are against undead, here's a breakdown of what they do at various mage path levels (hopefully I did my math right on these)...

Banishment (AN, resisted by MR, base fat 0)
H1 dmg 5; aoe 4; rg 20; fat 0 + enc
H2 dmg 7; aoe 6; rg 25; fat 0 + enc
H3 dmg 9; aoe 8; rg 30; fat 0 + enc

Cleansing Water (Evo 6, AN, not resistable, base fat 20)
W2 dmg 5; aoe 4; rg 20; fat 20 + enc
W3 dmg 6; aoe 5; rg 25; fat 10 + enc
W4 dmg 7; aoe 6; rg 30; fat 7 + enc

Of course, if you're using Amhazair's Bane Lord example SC/thug, it may not be ideal to have mages in the same army spamming low precision anti-undead spells. Although, with the decent MR of the Bane Lord you could probably get away with the Banishment spamming - Cleansing Water not so much. You could always just have the Bane Lord operate independently from your anti-undead magic spammers.

I feel like there are some great anti-undead spells that death mages have access to, but I can't recall what they are at the moment. In early/mid-game I mean (before undead mastery)..?

--
Edit: rdonj beat me to the punch on Cleansing Water, and also answered my question re: Wither Bones.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Then again, 30 longbowmen is a more serious ranged* threat than you'll find in most any independent province, while the independents will at the same time be more predictable due to (lack of) scripting. It's true medium protection won't come even close to save you in and of itself, but it's enough to lower the damage from the average hit enough to survive the few that come through when coupled with other defences. (Awe and massive fear for PoD, Awe, fear and regeneration for the Wyrm, to take the ones you mentioned. Both of which are classic examples of exapnsion pretenders who make do with medium protection.)


* The ranged part is important here, since ranged attacks ignore awe. Against independents this can be partially worked around by standing far back and scripting a couple of holds before attacking, leading to the archers shooting from maximum range, which, coupled with significantly worse stats than your Manx longbowmen will have most arrows scatter around the target and hit their own melee buddies instead, with the ones that do hit doing an average** of -2 damage due to protection. This is though, why I included massed crosbowmen to the "dangerous" independents, as crossbow shots do have the punch to do damage when they do actually hit.

** Can't remember what's the actual statistical term for what I'm trying to say. Median maybe? In any case, you know what I mean.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

plus, remmember Man's longbowmen are bada**, higher stregnth and precision. and with any buffs(read windaid or fire) they are an awesome anti SC/anti thug weapon if the appropriate counter measures aren't taken.

counters to counters to counters...that's why everytime you click on the message that says "there was a battle it..."it's cool, even if you mostly get smoked, like me

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

one semi negative about LA ermor, tho, is basically, you have to rush them. and it is a non productive rush(for the rusher). other players who are scouting can wait for you to rush, then hit your back door.

so you can be kind of damd if you do, damd if you don't vs LA Ermor. i have no idea how you would nerf them, since they r so different from other nations, and i am very inexperienced.

but it would seem something could be done to make them easier to play against.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

I would suggest trying to field net 0 encumbrance thugs, like a kitted out Ancestor Smith with the right equipment and the selfbuffs it can cast. As LA T'ien C'hi, you have alot of access to anti-undead spells like Solar Rays, Cleansing Water, Blade Wind, and communion'd banishments (less effective against shielded chaff), and Earthquake (would definitely recommend this if you're dealing with large armies of chaff). Ermor's power lies in their army of chaff, and some of their major battle magics (Darkness, etc.) are difficult to deal with combined with their army buffs (Power and Protection of the Sepulchre, the latter is defensive and MR negates easily, so it's not as bad as the former, while the former is a considerable Attack Skill and Movement buff), and grotesquely large numbers. Best way to beat them is with power battle magics of your own, blessed or elite units designed to defeat them (normally with a high enough Earth bless to keep them 0 fatigue), or thugs and SCs designed to counter Ermor.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

That's only if you're playing with suicidal people, because stabbing Ermor's neighbours gives Ermor a better chance at survival, which means it gets more time to nuke more provinces and generate an unstoppable critical mass. Then everybody dies. It's in nobody's interest to help Ermor in any way, shape or form.

Also, if you get do rush them early, it's not a 100% unproductive deal: you get 15 shiny death gems per turn out of it, as well as whatever D sites Ermor had been in a hurry to uncover (and those provinces likely won't be raided either, since they'll starve everyone and don't produce a single coin). Plus, y'know, you're not in danger of getting rolled by Ermor any more, so there's that too :).

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

if a province is totally dead, is there anyway to regenerate it with neutral scales?

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Yea you can wish for population.:) but its not worth it. Even with growth 3 provinces that have very few people left, won't be able to get back to normal before the game is over probably.(the other thing is getting a lucky event of some people migrating to that province, but that is not with neutral scales you need luck and growth I think to unlock that event)

Because of how hard it is to recuperate a dead province, In late game wishing for armageddon(2-3 times) is a good counter against blood hunting nations.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

First, a question: Does having enough temples boost your dominion strength, or does it only increase your amount of holy points? The reason I ask is because I took over a player's place who disapeared in a multiplayer game: I figured it'd be good experience for me no matter what happens and I'd be helping out the other people by enabling them to continue without turning over the country to AI. The country I took over is in a DISASTROUS state: For example, 3 provinces at turn 13 with a tiny army: I assume that the most of the army has been lost to independents, and what's left is sneaking 3 province away for reasons I can't even begin to understand. I realize I've got absolutely no shot at winning the game with a position like that but I'm implementing a desperation plan that just might enable me to grow up substancially with an acceptable army before the forced peace wears off (Thank you very much to the other players in the game). I can't win, but if the current turn extremely risky battle is won, the rest of the plan should work and I should at least be able to bloody the nose of whoever comes for my territory. If I can do that much, I'll be happy with my game, it'll be good experience and at least the closer players won't get gem income for free so everyone wins.

The thing that terrifies me the most though (amongst all the other horrible things I have to cope with of course) is that the pretender I inherited has a dominion strength of 2... Two. So while it's highly unlikely I'd ever get to enough income, province or even time to have it be possible, if the impossible somehow happen, would it be possible to increase my dominion strength through a large amount of temples?


For the whole thug/sc discussion, thank you very much everyone! :) It's extremely enlightening and I'll be trying out those ideas: At the state the current game is in, I can afford to try out many of those suggestions, especially since I now have a province that can produce Enchantress which gives me Fire Access (Hidden in Sand is a good idea but I found the site before I could build a lab in a swamp).

I had a Sleeper already on hand so I geared him up with a cross between rdonj and Amhazair suggestions (plus reinvigoration boots): I unfortunately only had the occassion to fight two small battles with him so far (battles I'd have won with few losses even if he weren't there) but at least he got out of them in top shape so it's looking good. It gives me a good base to work with: Now that I have something that works, I can start tweaking the commanders and items in reasonable fashion as situation warrants. I'll be sure to try out the Ancestor Smiths and the Bane Lord ideas too although I'd be a bit scared of the Bane Lord with all the banishes flying around.

I hadn't tried Cleansing Water since Banish seemed to be equal in damage and area but without a fatigue cost (and 100% of my mages have holy 1 in the first place), but I hadn't noticed the "No resist" clause on Cleansing Water...

Regarding Earthquake, doesn't that spell hit the entire battlefield including my own troops? Although, none of my troops or commander would die from a single earthquake and since I'm the one with all the arrows and banishes, it just might be worth the tradeoff...

I haven't tried communions yet, but it's definitively something I should practice with very soon.

Regarding Ermor, yes I agree that fighting them is extremely annoying... I did hit them as soon as I could, but due to our relative position, they had over 30 provinces by the time we were neighboors. Taking a province from them adds no economic benefit whatsoever (and it often simply increase your front size) unless it has gem production, you need +supply items and whenever I saw them taking a province from another player I had to rush to take it back before it killed off all the population. In a multiplayer game, I admit I'd most likely be inclined to fight them with everything I have early on even though it'd likely mean my own death at the hands of other players...

Oh! Question: How do you make your mages buff your Thug? Like with Quickness for example: The area it affects is simply tiny. How do I 'guarantee' or at least improve my chance that my mage cast Quickness (or other buff) on my thug instead of some random PD or a group of heavy cavalry?

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

I think people suggested Earthquake because half of the skeletons have 4 hp so or up to 8hp. Also the way to use it is with a single caster defending a province that an enemy is about to attack. Use some pd to distract the enemy then all you need is 1 or 2 E4 casters with 5 earth gems each, cast summon earthpower to get them to E5 then set them to: cast earthquake, retreat.(giving them the two extra gem would make them cast earthquake like an E6 mage and reduce the 300 fatigue from the spell enough so that they can retreat(and not be unconcious because of it) ,also you need high defence to avoid being hit by earthquake that is if your mages dont have enough hit points to survive it)

Answer to the second question, they do it randomly in an area around them also they tend to target less armoured targets I think(that is for legions of steel buff, not sure about the others but it has some tricks i think)
What I usually do is set the thug at the bottom and the rear of the map(or top) and place the mage behind the thug so that thier squares form a rectangle. Also I dont place anything near them so that the mage doesnt make a mistake. Another way to ensure that your thug has quickness is have the mage cast it 2-3 times before battle(at least improves the chances of affecting the thug)

About the first question I'm pretty sure it increases your dominion aswell. So if have dominion 8 and 10 temples you can get up to 10 candles in a friendly province.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

To address your Oceania question, I think you would find them much more fun in CBM (Conceptual Balance Mod, latest version 1.92). Clams are effectively removed, so turtling becomes much less attractive. Land-water interactions have become easier, and lots more spells work underwater. I think MA Oceania has also been made somewhat stronger, although I can't remember exact details.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

That sounds promising... I'll give it a look, thanks!

Quick question: How do you assign the 5 bodyguards to your mage to protect them from assassins and horrors? Is it simply by setting 5 troops to "guard commander" and hope for the best, or is there an actual "set bodyguard" command for that purpose?

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

'guard commander' units will fight in an assasination attempt. that is the correct command

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

The only way to guarantee it is to have the mage and thug be the only two units on the field, and for them to share the same AoE (I believe). Another way to guarantee it is to communion slave the thug and have the masters cast self-buffs like personal luck, which will affect the thug that way (be careful of building up too much fatigue on them though). Other than that, I'm not sure how the AI scripts spell cast locations.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Regarding Dominion, more temples increase your max dominion and holy points. However, your dom spread doesn't increase so far as anyone knows. So at dom 2, only 1 in 5 temple checks will produce a candle. Needless to say, that's pretty bad. Anyone that seriously makes an effort to domkill you will do it very easily even without blood sac simply with stone idols and preaching unless you are a nation with strong priests or better yet inquisitor priests. And even with strong priests, and tons of recruitment turns given to recruiting priests, you are unlikely to see your scales in much of your empire. That might not be such a terrible thing if you have absolutely awful scales.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Yeah, there's basically two ways to use Earthquakes. The first is as described above, casting and retreating. (If you do it with human-hp mages don't use two in the same province though. The first caster will rack up massive fatigue from the casting, meaning he's very likely to suffer a critical hit and die from the second Earthquake. The Ideal caster would be a Troll King, they have 4E with boots, and enough hp to shrug of a couple of Earthquakes.)

The second way, if you really want to stick it to a big enemy army is to first cast army-buffs to make sure your own guys can weather the quakes. (Assuming you have the research of course.) The single best protection would be Fog Warriors. (Alt7) Since Earthquake counts as nonmagical damage, it will only do one point of damage to those affected, while being extremely unlikely to dispel the mistform. Another option would be Army of Gold/Lead or Mass Protection if you have medium armour accross the board already, both of which will mean only critical hits or very lucky rolls will do any damage at all.

Of course, if you're at the point where you can reliably cast Fog Warriors or Army of Gold/Lead in battle your problems with the AI should be pretty much over.

You can get a similar effect by bringing along a (probably smaller) army of tougher stuff. (Usually summonded. The trolls you get along with the Troll King in Troll King's court would qualify for example.)

Yeah, there's no way to be completely certain besides making sure the thug is the only unit in range. This is easy for spells with range 1 or touch, but various other spells have greater ranges.

Other than that there's some tricks that can help nudge the spell AI along: Single target spells are more likely to be cast on the single unit with the highest hit points. (Which in many cases will be your thug, but keep away other high hp units like elephants, vine ogres, fall bears, the various golems, etc...) AoE spells on the other hands tend to target big troop squads, so you might want to park your thug in the middle of the biggest group of regular dudes around) Spells without perfect accuracy will also tend to target units that are close to others. And a last important consideration is the stat to be boosted: spells that boost protection tend to go to units that have low protection to begin with. I'm less sure if the same reasoning goes for other stats though. (Does quikness prioritise units with low action points? Iron Will to those with low MR? I wouldn't be surprised based on the "logic" of the spellcasting system, but never actually noticed such a corelation myself.)

Yeah, good call on the boots. :) The biggest diference between the two chassis is that, not being undead, the sleeper doesn't have 0 encumberance. If you want to send him out against big AI hordes solo he has to be fatigue neutral, or he'll die. (He also has significantly less hp, meaning he also regains less from regen. The better att/def/prec/move of the sleeper mean very, very little in a chaff-killing role unfortunately, so for this purpose he's strictly inferior. Which doesn't mean it can't work.)

Sleepers have 15 precision, and that`s really much. Give him Eye of Aiming, Bow of war - and watch the slaughter! It`s like bladewind spam, but without earth mage involved, and much more accurate.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

I'll probably have the chance to try out a Sleeper with bow of war this weekend: Looking foward to it!

For the thug, I had some underwater fighting to do so I geared up a Sea Troll King. It worked. My god did it work. A huge thank you for all the recommendations everyone :)

I didn't have the chance to try out Earthquake yet (2 Earth is the best late age T'ien Ch'i gets so it takes some effort to cast a 4 earth spell in battle) but I'll be sure to do so before the game is over for learning sake.


I have a new question and for once it's super straightfoward:

What happens if your capital is under siege and you have an Immortal unit that die? Do they:

a) Die and never respawn
b) Respawn and immediately attack the enemy that is sieging the castle
C) Respawn inside the castle with the other defenders

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

You have everything you need already, and should be able to get this up quickly, as the research is more than covered.
Step 1) Craft Earth Boots.
Step 2) Troll King's Court.
Step 3) Transfer Earth Boots to Troll King.
Step 4) Load Troll King up with gems.
Step 5) Script Summon Earthpower, Earthquake, Earthquake. With that, the fatigue isn't even that bad, and the reinvig will let the Troll King cast a few more spells.

Regarding immortal units - I'm reasonably sure that it works like this.
1) They die.
2) They respawn, and attack the defenders.
3) They probably die again.
4) They stay dead.

With that said, I'm basing this on what happens after they die in a successful storming attempt, so that might not be quite correct.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Immortal units respawn in their home province, providing they die in a friendly dominion.

They do respawn inside a fortress.

As for the exact order of events, I am unsure. Pretty sure it happens before the start of the following turn, in which case the unit will be available to defend. I always seem to experience losses when using vampires, for example, but most of the time the units simply reappear inside the province garrison.

I have had an immortal pretender continually respawn on an enemy capital that I had captured. Once I eliminated the hostile dominion in the province, it stopped happening as frequently. In that particular instance, it was treated like an attack. I am not sure if this is the case with all immortal units, or just pretenders (it may have been the result of Call God and not Immortality).

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Beside a big enough Earth Gem pool at the moment :) It's not a question of "I don't know how to cast earthquake" but more of a "I didn't get the chance to play enough turns to be able to cast earthquake, but I will eventually so thanks for the suggestion". It's what I meant with "need some effort to cast it", since I can't just shoot a random buyable mage to cast it with no preparation. I had to priorize what I played around with and Earthquake didn't make it to the top of the list yet. At this point in the game, it's really more a case of wanting to try it for science/knowing better for future games rather than out of actual need in the current game... Chalk it up to curiosity! But thanks for the 'earthquake casting' walkthrough anyway :)

I hope it's TigerBlood theory that's correct! It's possible that this will be a relevant question in the multiplayer game I subbed for. If things go according to plan, I won't have to test that theory out. If not, well... I'll do my best to see the exact sequence!

In the vs AI game I've talked about, Gath's god actually keeps respawning most turns like you mentionned at their capital which I control, but I don't think he has immortality... So I'm leaning more toward Call God instead of an immortal respawning in enemy-controlled capitals. I certainly might be wrong though, I'll check next time he appears (if he does).

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Bull****, they respawn in the nations capital province.

This means that water nations cannot use vampires.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Try a CBM Thunder Bow instead. Bows of War don't really benefit a great deal from super high precision since it's supposed to be an area attack weapon, and don't benefit at all from a Sleeper's high strength. With a high strength 15 precision bowman, Thunder Bow turns into a high precision thunderstrike caster without the aoe fatigue. As Tien Chi, another interesting option for an archer thug is the Celestial Soldier. GoRing a Celestial Soldier is about the same price in CBM as summoning a Sleeper, albeit needing more research. They are also 15 precision and have slightly higher strength so they're even more capable with a Thunder Bow. They are also sacred, and so can benefit from your bless if it's water or death.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

He asked about vanilla. And he fights against LA Ermor.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

I didn't catch that he was talking about vanilla.

Bow of War on a Sleeper is still a waste. 2 Bows of War on 2 scouts would do more damage and be cheaper. Thunder Bows are pretty good at picking off tough Ermorian mages while still being able to clear a square per turn, though not so much in vanilla. Simply to butcher masses of undead, a flambeau is a good idea too, to cast high precision Holy Pyre.

For a Sleeper to be worth it as a sniper, he has to either really leverage his precision or both that and his strength.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Say are awakened gargoyles immune to petrifaction???

They already are made of stone...

Just wondering...

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

As far as I understood, he has some troubles bootstrapping into fire. Otherwise I`d say quickened double fire bolas.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Actually you are correct! Gargoyles are some of a very small number of units that are immune to petrification. Most of the others belong to MA Agartha. By comparison a Golem is NOT immune to petrification. Its made of clay you see.....

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Oh really...

This is gonna be fun...

:D

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

I've never tried fire bolas. What do they do? Does it replicate the bonds of fire spell on hit? Seems more of an anti-thug weapon.

Come to think of it, does bonds of fire work like tangle vines where the target loses its turn no matter what, or do fire immunes ignore it?

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Fire immunity doesn't ignore the bonds, only the damage from breaking out of the bonds. So yes, fire bonds will still lock a fire immune soldier forever.

Trust me on this, I've been bonking my head on the wall long enough trying (and failing) to find ways to cheaply thug through Red Woods' PD (they have a unit with fire bonds as their primary melee attack) :)

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Quickened and dual-vielded? :)

AFAIK, if fire-bonded creature passes morale check - it just procceeds with what it was doing, with no turn loss, but gets some fire damage.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

But Kobal2 says otherwise, and thugs tend to have plenty high morale. This needs testing. Or maybe it's a different fire bonds, this game certainly has no shortage of similar things that work completely differently.

If it works as Kobal2 says, then it would be a nasty anti-thug weapon quickened and dual wielded. With that volume of fire, even air shield won't keep a thug from being locked down 25 rounds (I'm assuming air shield works here). Just throw in a few guys with glaives to chop him up.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

As I said, I tested umpteen scenarios against a half-dozen of Red Woods' Flaming Stallions, which have unlimited AoE 1 fire bonds as a melee attack.

Quickened, fire immune, lucky, morale 50 - doesn't matter. My little test babies got locked, broke out, didn't attack, got locked again for 50 turns, until they simply routed away.

Didn't think to try air shield, but then again, AoE 1. They don't need to score a hit to lock you down. I'm relatively sure fire bolas have the same effect, but at least those have an ammo count (and precision issues)

ETA: heh, actually in CBM they have a 50 ammo count. So yup, they're the perfect anti-SC weapon

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

They always had a 50 ammo count. I think thematically, they're not supposed to have an ammo count at all, since the description says they automatically reform in the user's hands.

So are aoe ranged weapons not affected by air shield? The only one I can think of is the banefire crossbow, but that's a useful thing to know.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Yup. Just like the AoE effect from fire/frost brands will affect the square no matter whether you hit a dude or not. The AoEs hit, period. Ain't no Improved Evasion in this here game system :).

ETA: that being said, I'm not positive fire bolas do have an AoE !

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Vine Bow.

Re: Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions
 

Kobal - did you try using quickness? The quickness spell or boots of quickness should allow the ability to strike back, at least every other turn.