Newbie questions

[Skolem]

Boron said:
As Gandalf has said you can mix in your low morale troops a few vinemen or undead or similiar to increase the squad morale a lot .

AFAIK mindles and undaed, don' "mix" there morale with normal troop, IIRC beserking troops doesn't help to once they are berserking, what Gandalf means, if i interpret him correctly was normal troop of high moral, like wingless for caelum, most elite troop of any nations, etc.

[Taqwus]

There are also certain spells whose area of effect is defined in terms of squads, IIRC.

Incidentally, dispossessed spirits might make decent chaff against heavy cavalry; they're cheap and mass-summonable, and since they're ethereal, 75% of non-magical lance attacks that would otherwise hit should miss.

[CJN]

Thank you for all the answers! They were helpful in figuring out what went wrong.
BTW, does anyone use firedrake a lot? I tried to add a pair to my army but they didn't seem to create a difference. Summer lions on the other hand was a great summon. (Abysia, default)

[Boron]

CJN said:
BTW, does anyone use firedrake a lot? I tried to add a pair to my army but they didn't seem to create a difference. Summer lions on the other hand was a great summon. (Abysia, default)

The fire summons are not so good .
As Abysia rather use devils .

The summer lion is etheral , thats good but he doesn't fly while a demonbred / devil / storm demon / FoD / SC flies .
0 protection hurts the summer lion .
So overall he has probably a lower performance then a devil but he costs 6 fire gems vs. a maximum of 7 blood , much cheaper when using soul contracts .

I would rather use my fireincome for fetishes , cash + flames from the sky / fires from afar .


Abysia is imo a good beginner race because it is powerful but more straightforward then e.g. caelum .
Probably the best way to learn the game is just participate a few MP games and see what the other ppl use on you . If you are lucky some will even explain to you why they played the way the played and give you hints .

Using tactics learned in SP in MP is dangerous because most of the stuff that works in SP doesn't work in MP

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Boron said:
The fire summons are not so good .
As Abysia rather use devils .

Of course you can do both, since they require different resources resources to summon, and you can't convert one (fire gems) to the other (blood slaves). X fire summons + Y devils will always beat Y devils.

Summon Lions may be great or not depending on the circumstances - they're easily dispatched with spells like Blade Wind for instance. The fire summons that work best for me (cost-wise) are the Fire Snakes (not Drakes).

Abysia is imo a good beginner race because it is powerful but more straightforward then e.g. caelum .

Caelum looks at least as straightforward as Abysia to me.

Probably the best way to learn the game is just participate a few MP games and see what the other ppl use on you . If you are lucky some will even explain to you why they played the way the played and give you hints .

Using tactics learned in SP in MP is dangerous because most of the stuff that works in SP doesn't work in MP

That's excellent advice.

[Tuna]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

Of course you can do both, since they require different resources resources to summon, and you can't convert one (fire gems) to the other (blood slaves). X fire summons + Y devils will always beat Y devils.

Well, fire gems can be converted to fetishes/gold and that gold can be used to boost blood production. But anyway, I rather use fire for some items, flames from the sky and fetishes.

Caelum looks at least as straightforward as Abysia to me.

Well, it's easy to counter caelum's main hitting power in the late game, forcing the caelum player to seek another options, but devils and unigue blood summons stay tough all the way to the end.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Tuna said:

Well, fire gems can be converted to fetishes/gold and that gold can be used to boost blood production.

That's OK when you have time for these investments to pay off - but when you have to deal with an immediate threat, forging Fetishes or performing alchemy to be able to recruit an extra bloodhunter probably won't help you as much as using these fire gems to summon critters you can use immediately. The point is, blood being a more practical route than fire summons to develop medium or long-term muscle doesn't mean you should disregard the latter entirely: this weakness is compensated by the fact they are immediately available in numbers, while it take 1 mage/turn or 1 contract/turn to get a single Devil.

Say, one of your fortresses is on the point of being stormed and Baal Chozron is here to defend it. Will you have him summon a Devil or 5 Summer Lions - assuming keeping this fortress is of utmost importance to you?

[Ironhawk]

Coming in late on this thread...

If I recall correctly pikes are the only normal weapon long enough to gain a repel attempt on a lance. But since the repel attempt is against the morale of the attacker and HC usually have good morale, you are probably going to fail.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Ironhawk said:
If I recall correctly pikes are the only normal weapon long enough to gain a repel attempt on a lance.

Long spears (Man has some) are length 5, longer than mounted lances.

And there are also forgeable items (whips, Dancing Trident, Stone Bird). And the female Titan's owl pet. Maybe others, including special attacks on summonable critters - eg, Wailing Ladies if I remember well. True, all of these aren't very common on your regular troops.