Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

[Ironhawk]

Arker said:
Generally I do quite well with battles, it seems. Lots won without a loss. But, so far, every game eventually ends with another nation bringing in an army so much bigger than anything I can field that it becomes hopeless... or else I lose my pretender, loaded with enchanted items and on top of the hall of fame, to a storm-castle command that doesn't work despite outnumbering the enemy by 10 to 1 with heavier troops, in which case I throw up my hands in disgust and quit.

First, keep in mind that the AI focuses on quantity, not quality. So even if they field what appears to be an overpowering force, it probably isnt as powerful as you might think. And if you are really having manpower shortages, its like just because you are playing resource-heavy Ulm. Just build hordes of hoburgs or militia or something to take up space on the battlefield and ease the burden on your powerhouse troops.

Losing your pretender, or a prize SC, that is totally decked out is just the way things go. It happens even to veteran players and you shouldnt beat yourself up over it. Just call him back, rearm, and get out and fight again.

As for losing seiges with 10-1 odds, you really shouldnt be surprised. After all that is the purpose of walls, is it not? To allow few soldiers to defend against many. The trick with walls is that your ground troops must fight thru the Gate. And the Gate allows so few troops thru that even tho you have 10-1 odds, you are fighting the battle with only 1 of your men against 2 enemy while the rest of your army sits around and gets shot to hell. The trick to winning seiges is to negate the value of the Gate as much as possible. Some tips for doing so:

1) Put your absolute best troops in the attack position. If you can breakout here you will be able to employ your numbers. Heavy Cavalry work well cause they have high prot, high morale, and many strong attacks.

2) Use way, WAY more archers. During a seige you should have something like 2/3rds of your army as archers since they can fire over the wall and do not need to go thru the gate. Place them as far forward as possible.

3) Additionally, as above, use mages. A couple of well place fireballs or blade winds will clear a path for your vanguard.

4) Lastly, if you have them available, flying troops are incredibly valuable in a seige. If you are incredibly brave, they can attack on the first turn and possibly stop the enemy from even getting to its own Gate. Otherwise you can use them to flank or attack the enemy rear, regardless of the protection of the wall.

[Agrajag]

shovah said:
I just like the fact that 1 turn from my pretender basically saves 25 astral gems.

2 turns. One turn to move him to the desired province, and another for the search command.

[Arker]

On the castle storming, there are some good tips here. More archers, mages if I have the big spells ready to go (I usually don't get many of the spells mentioned before I get killed, but I'll try to prioritise them now) and put my cavalry up front.

So far I've basically had two ways to lose it, I'd put my SC prophet in front, he'd get whacked, everyone would run. Or I'd put a couple good squads of heavy infantry up front, they'd get bottled up at the gate, fight for many rounds, with everyone behind them getting cut apart by archery and spells, then finally everyone would run.

The only way I've managed to take a castle that had any serious defenses (i.e. a pretender) was just to keep it bottled up, covered with preachers, and build temples in the surrounding provinces. But I'll give this a try.

Thanks for the tips on Ulm. So far I haven't used the scales much, not totally understanding them I've pretty much just left them alone.

As to beating a big army full of crappy troops with a small hardcore one, yes, I've done that, but there's just a point where it no longer works it seems. I mean, with Ulm, I'm fielding maybe 60 men, top quality, maybe another 30 cannon fodder javelinists... and suddenly here's 700 Mictlan slaves, or Emor's undead hordes... and my troops hit 100 fatigue LONG before they can hack all the enemies apart, and then they die. If they aren't properly backed up I can route them I've found, and run off a huge army like that without losing a man, but when they've a bunch of priests behind them buffing their morale, I'm just toast.

I got the snot kicked out of me on my Ulm game last night, while trying to finish off the Mannish pretender I had bottled up in his castle, suddenly on the other side of my domain this enormous army out of Emor appears, I mean just unbelievably huge. Sieged my pretender before I could get any significant army near, my high defense fortress with +fortress defense troops garrisoning it still crumbled in one turn. I think there were about 800 undead... I tried to distract them with an attack by my prophet and a dozen knights in another province, and even there I lost... there was only ONE enemy, but he was a badass necromancer, and he kept raising dead faster than my guys could kill them until they finally all turned tail and ran... anyway I gave up at that point.

Trying again, this time as R'lyeh. So far so good. Think it's the longest game I've played so far at the moment. 52 Turns in. I have all but one underwater province (Ermor has the one I don't have, and I've avoided attacking them so far as I want to be completely built up and ready, I know they're by far the meanest under AI, especially against R'lyeh since the illithid mind blasts don't affect their troops.) Atlantis was destroyed by Emor before I ever got to them, not sure how, as their capital was not occupied, Emor only took one underwater province, and an Island bordering Atlantis. So I cleaned up the independents, got three free fortresses.

One AI declared war on me, not Mictlan, the other 'm' with the spiders. They only attacked once, though, and have left me alone since. I've focused on taking all the underwater provinces from the independents and building up a good base. Also expanded my terrestrial holdings a little, like 7 provinces with two fortified I think, but only at the expense of independents. Grabbed a couple shoreside provinces in random places that fell to independents too. So right now I have a HUGE army in the fortress next to Emor's capital. Forging stuff as fast as I can. Huge problem keeping these buggers fed, for some reason. I have gift of health up, and acashic record on every province I hold, so pretty good gem income. Really really hoping I can take out Emor with a surprise attack, if that works I reckon I might have a chance.

BTW, advice on Equipment? At the moment I've got two traitor princes with the endless buckets of slop and moon blades. The endless buckets are a pain, only my pretender can make them, but the wine just wasn't doing enough. In fact even with the buckets I still keep getting starvation warnings. I only have *maybe* 300 troops there... anyhow. I've been making the anti-fatigue items, the girdle and boots, I can't remember the names. Boots are easy, but a lot of my commanders can't wear them. Girdles I only have one or two mages that can make them. I have some spell focuses (do they help with priest-casters against undead?) and I've been making the spears that shoot solar flares and giving them to my starchildren since their mind blasts will be useless. Umm, the flameshooting helms - fire blasts should be good against undead, right?

[Vicious Love]

Arker said:
I have all but one underwater province (Ermor has the one I don't have, and I've avoided attacking them so far as I want to be completely built up and ready, I know they're by far the meanest under AI, especially against R'lyeh since the illithid mind blasts don't affect their troops.)

Erm... that's exactly what makes Ermor utterly useless against R'lyeh. Troops are mindless, so all of your mind blasts will target commanders (as long as they're in range). It's like having an entire regiment of assassins. Bear in mind that Ermor's troops don't rout, they disintegrate.

[Arker]

Undead commanders are not mindless?

This may be very doable then Can't load it up and play again for a few hours still though.

[Ironhawk]

Arker said:
As to beating a big army full of crappy troops with a small hardcore one, yes, I've done that, but there's just a point where it no longer works it seems. I mean, with Ulm, I'm fielding maybe 60 men, top quality, maybe another 30 cannon fodder javelinists... and suddenly here's 700 Mictlan slaves, or Emor's undead hordes... and my troops hit 100 fatigue LONG before they can hack all the enemies apart, and then they die. If they aren't properly backed up I can route them I've found, and run off a huge army like that without losing a man, but when they've a bunch of priests behind them buffing their morale, I'm just toast.

Just 60 guys? Thats not enough if you are fighting a pure military battle. If you were evening the playing field with battlemagic or summoned creatures, perhaps. You should really invest in a LOT of the cheap shortbow archers. They work really well with Ulm since you can shower your own men with arrows and it really doesnt hurt them much. And why do you only have 30 fodder? You should have at least 2x the number of fodder as you do hardcore troops, so like 120-150.

As for fighting Ermor thats a totally different situation, which is why several people suggest that new players not combat the ermor AI. You need to focus on recruiting priests for Banishments. Get like 10-20 priests together and set them against the army of 800 undead and watch them just evaporate.

[Arker]

ulm troops are spendy, in resources as well as gold, and I haven't been doing very well with production, apparently. And not lasting very late into the game, either. So yeah, ~60+30 and maybe 5-6 leaders (1 or 2 actually functioning as leaders, the rest casters) was my main army last game when I gave up, somewhere around turn 25-30 I think. I think one problem was spending too much on local defense. But I'm not actually sure of that, it seemed a good idea at the time, and I'm not sure I can spot the error really... when I have three fortresses, two at least are pumping out troops as fast as their resources will allow, and I have spare cash, why not buff up the local defenses on border provinces?

The big limitation I ran into with ulm was resources. The troops are great, but even when gold is no problem there just aren't enough resources to pump them out at a rate above agonisingly slow. Playing the Brittania map against 2 opponents, I could grab a chokepoint or two and manage things so that my tiny little army just kept kicking butt, with minimal casualties that could be easily replaced, even get it growing slowly while continuously pruning back the enemies forces until I could finally move in and finish them. But on Orania, I couldn't get any chokepoints, any small defensible frontiers, so my army had to be split into 2 or 3 and then it was just too small to deal with the enemy assault when it came.

Doing better as R'Lyeh now, got to the place the turns are just taking sooo long I can't take anymore tonight though

[Sandman]

Take max productivity, it's as simple as that.

[Graeme Dice]

Arker said:
I think one problem was spending too much on local defense.

Was this the game where you had provinves where you had more than 20 defense? If so, then you spent too much.

when I have three fortresses, two at least are pumping out troops as fast as their resources will allow, and I have spare cash, why not buff up the local defenses on border provinces?

Buy mages instead of province defense. You should be buying a master smith in every single province that has a castle every single turn. If you still have more gold, buy more castles, they double the amount of resources available in a province, so you do not lose anything by putting them close together. (Unless you happen to want as many guardians as possible in your capital.) Buy temples and labs as well if you have extra gold.

The big limitation I ran into with ulm was resources. The troops are great, but even when gold is no problem there just aren't enough resources to pump them out at a rate above agonisingly slow.

This is why you want a high administration castle and productivity 3.

A pretender that can work against the AI with Ulm, but would be hopelessly weak in all but the longest multiplayer games is a great sage with 2 in every magic path, a castle, dominion strength of 6, order 3, productivity 3, misfortune 2, and drain 3. This pretender should start site searching as soon as possible.

An even better pretender to use against the AI is a Ghost King with Water 4, Earth 4, and Death 4. Pick a castle, dominion 6, order 3, productivity 3, misfortune 2, and drain 3. Then, research up to alteration 3 as quickly as possible. Have your pretender cast quickness, ironskin then attack archers. Forge him a cheap one-handed earth weapon. Then research enchantment 2 so you can add breath of winter to your script. Then research up to construction 4 for black steel plate mail (not full plate), a lead shield, and other items. Your early game research targets are thus alteration 3, enchantment 2, construction 4, conjuration 3 (Summon Earthpower), evocation 4 (Blade wind) and thaumaturgy 2 (Gnome Lore). After that, there are a number of spells that you can go for, such as invulnerability at alteration 5, and soul vortex at alteration 6. You'll also want to research magma eruption at some point. There are any number of ways to make this pretender even more powerful, but this is a good start.

[Arralen]

Arker said:
BTW, advice on Equipment? At the moment I've got two traitor princes with the endless buckets of slop and moon blades.

Ah, don't do that. Put 1 cauldron on a scout - a 2nd wouldn't do any good, "producing" items works only 1 per commander. Add a vineskin. Set the scout to sneak and let him move around with the army. While sneaking, he wouldn't get into combat at all (battle, assassines) and will be save from ranged spells, thereby making your gem investment much saver. You can even use him to hold magic gems for your battle-mages ... only have to remember to transfer the appropiate amount to the mages pouch each turn.

Umm, the flameshooting helms - fire blasts should be good against undead, right?

Undead are not paritcularly vulnerable to fire, but they aren't resistant neither.
The helmet is quite tricky to use, though: the range of the fireblast spell isn't that great, therefore you would have to script your commander to "attack, attack, "fireblast","fireblast","fireblast"; "cast spells") - and risk him in th e front line of the battle. Better use the heaviest armored commander with the biggest shield available - encumbrance doesn't matter as spellcasting from items is always "+5 fatigue" no matter how heavy the commanders equipment is.
Try using the "Sceptre of Authority" - while not so powerful, it lets you target the enemy from afar. If you give it to your priest (which you will have to buy to fight the ermorian hordes anyway), he'll gladly use the spells from the item, therefore being not totally useless againts mundane foes.
Later you might want to switch to the staff that lets you shoots fireballs - but you'll have to get a mage to fire-2 to forge them, and they are somewhat pricey.
With Ulm, you could even get the sceptre for 2 gems if you give a dwarven hammmer to a smith.