looking for tactical advice

[trent6]

I am in the middle of a game and have one pretender god down to his final province. He is holed up in a castle creating undead, and I can never get enough troops together to successfully storm the castle. I have some priests available, and my pretender is a Jade Emperor.

I'm looking for some suggestions. How can i take down large numbers of his undead?

Thanks,
Trent

[Taqwus]

Well, if he's down to one province, you can probably annihilate them all by wiping out his dominion. Sit on top of the province, preach, surround with temples. Works with Sphinxes and anything else that's not willing to sortie out and break the siege.

You can also use remote commander-killing spells to shut 'em down.

That said, priests help of course, along with mundane commanders bearing Herald Lances + Boots of Quickness, along with death mages -- Dust to Dust, Wither Bones do unresistable area damage to undead. Very nasty. More extreme, there's Solar Brilliance, at the cost of potentially blinding large parts of your army.

[st.patrik]

Other undead-only spells include:

Cleansing Water [Evocation 6, 2W to cast]
Solar Rays [Evocation 2, 2S to cast]

Neither are incredibly powerful: Solar Rays never affects more than 1 grid square, and Cleansing Water has low base damage (though it is armour-negating).

I personally have found it very hard to dominion-kill in the way Taqwus describes - maybe I'm doing it wrong.

You don't mention what nation or age you're playing in, although from the Jade Emperor I suppose it's T'ien Ch'i. If so you don't have assassins, which otherwise might work (if properly equipped).

[Wish]

i find the best way to off something thats to big to kill, like a sphinx or an eater of the dead, is to hit them with either the inferno sword or that rod that makes them lost in time.

someone with high mr, hp, and attack may be necessary

[Taqwus]

Or Magebane, for that matter. A couple of hit at +100 unresistable fatigue makes it rather likely the victim will never return to haunt you, unless he's immortal in his own dominion.

In this case, 'tho, if somebody's surrounded by a horde of undead, and there are skellispammers (which seems likely to me -- you can't reanimate when under siege, but you can cast rituals to summon more), the likelihood of getting to the main target before time runs out might be pretty low. You'd at least want a damage shield like Charcoal Disk of Death (or better, Aegis... ), flight if storms isn't an issue.

TC does have air mages, if memory serves -- at least for the first two eras, haven't tried late -- so Seeking Arrow might be an option if you can get an A3. Mind Hunt might also be available, but dodgy considering that an undead-happy nation might have spectres, and spectres can have astral magic -- need to be careful about this if the feeblemind is a problem.

[Gandalf Parker]

There are some nice crossbows that can help alot. Make enough sword-fodder troops to get their attention and then have a flanking commander that has waited a couple of turns before firing at rearward

[Kydorias]

st.patrik said:

You don't mention what nation or age you're playing in, although from the Jade Emperor I suppose it's T'ien Ch'i. If so you don't have assassins, which otherwise might work (if properly equipped).

Can an assassin attempt an assassination of enemy commanders holed up inside a castle? I seem to remember trying to do this in a recent MP game and my assassin didn't have the "Assassinate" command available when sitting amongst my besieging troops.

[Ramiro]

Hmm you could be in real problems.. if your oponent have at least 10 priests he can produce at least 50 U horcement per turn at free, he surelly count 3 undeath per unit destroyed by priest... and he only has to gather enouth undeath and some normal units and march over your lands.. if your opponent haven´t enough priest march over him now!, if he has grow at the point to become dangerus...well make the peace with him (if he have few provinces he surelly will acept)and make it the problem for other player !you can´t lose in these way !
You are risking to have a long war in wich while you desangrate your oponents become stronger !

[Shovah32]

I think you can assasinate commanders in a non-besieged castle.

[Taqwus]

Aye. Has to be non-besieged. Ditto for seduction.

However, there ARE remote spells that'll hit those inside -- Fires from Afar, Earth Attack, Mind Hunt, Send Tupilak, probably others will not hit your army.