Guide: MA Aby CBM Strategy

[Sombre]

Are lightless lanterns at con 6 in cbm?

[Toran]

Yep. Unfortunately, at least from an Abysian perspective; that's why he wrote he's hurrying for Const6 ASAP.

[vfb]

Lanterns are Con 6, and I got there midway in the second year, without hiring indy mages. The sage has 42RP per turn, so 920 / 42 = 21 months.

Add in a couple or three Warlocks, and one of those Warlocks is hired on turn one. Turn two he blood hunts in the capitol and I hire an Apprentice. From turn three the Warlock is pretty much just researching.

[Toran]

Impressive. Of course, probably not involved into an early war where you need mages, or....?

I guess your point is really not to need much money for troops (horrors doing your dirty work, sure), so you can spend it on 'locks every turn. Still, if there was a war going on, you'd have to hire "real" troops (most probably Humanbreds) which then cost money + need several mages as artillery support..

Of course you've got much more experience with that one, and I have been playing differently (without the sage, for example ), but the MA Abysia I have right now is (too) far away from Const6 for my taste. Was looking for a "what could I have done better", and the only idea I had was "more Magic Scales next time".

But you seem pretty inclined on using the Sage to compensate in the beginning, and later on use the lanterns to catch up... hm...

Another question regarding lanterns:

They're supposed to horror mark their bearers, right. And while I occasianally pick up a horror mark (really rarely, with 20 lanterns not a mark every single turn), it's not really something I'd call "frequently".

Can that be tied to Luck scales as well? From others you hear about lanterns as a "death sentence for the bearer"....?

[vfb]

With this strategy, you need to use mages for fighting, even in early wars. You can't just hire Warlocks, they are too expensive, and you won't be able to keep them all alive. You need to hire Warlock Apprentices, and nearly all of them should be out expanding (including hunting if they are in a decent province and have run out of slaves). You need indy commanders to shuttle slaves back and forth, and to hold slaves so your Apprentice is only carrying 3 when he attacks an indy, because if he's holding more you'll lose them when he retreats.

And of course I was involved in an early war.

The first war I had was with Pan, around the end of year 1, which was horrible and not what I would have chosen. The Call Horror strategy really doesn't work well against harpy PD, so I could only attack with Salamander-infantry armies. I think I made a few fireball wands for indy commanders just because I couldn't hire enough mages in my capitol. We hit a stalemate on one front where we both had lots of PD, and then I broke through an elephant indy on the other side using Beast Trainers. Pan had already been weakened on that front by another fight.

[Toran]

I probably just can't imagine sending my mages out to fight without a decent amount of meat between them and the enemy. Might be my (un)creativity I just imagine a horde of Mictlan Jaguars running towards your mages.... will a few inf, salamanders and mages (without real AoE spells) hold that one?

If you say it worked, then I'll just try to adapt this to other nations with similar weaknesses. Got to learn thinking outside the box - Abysia with Drain3 for sure is "outside standard"

Any idea on the lanterns + Luck?

[vfb]

You can send just a Warlock apprentice if there's no fliers. Summon the horrors and retreat.

For uncooperative armies, you need a humanbred screen, with enough salamanders behind that they can burn up the opposition before they run out of gas. Add in a few Demonbreds to cast Fireball and Fire Blast, or wands of wild fire on indies, or lifelong protections.

I micro my lanterns. It has nothing to do with Luck scales. The first time he gets a horror mark, and that's it for the mage, no more lanterns for him. That mage can go preach somewhere or blood sacrifice or forge or site-search H2 or in the worst case give me 3RP a month.

From the F1 screen you can click on each mage and if he has a mark you can drop the lantern in the lab right away, without leaving the F1 screen, and rename your mage "hm f2h2" or whatever you want to call him. Then exit the F1 screen and find some mages you hired last month (tribals are good too) to drop your excess lanterns on. Obviously Warlock Apprentices and anyone else who works with horrors should not be given a lantern (they should be blood hunting anyway, not researching).

You gotta be down with OCD though I think.

[Toran]

Lanterns: Oh, I don't have any problem MM'ing my lanterns, it's more that I've read some ppl claiming "all their mages carrying lanterns were dead" after one or two years. Well, in Methadone I didn't bother switching lanterns at all for at least ~20 turns or so, and got exactly zero horror attacks (with 30+ lanterns, less than 10 horror marks for sure).

So I was wondering about that discrepancy.

Standard fighting: Sure, without fliers you can send in an apprentice and leave. Although Jaguars will probably tear through a lesser horror quickly enough, right?

I had got the impression that I needed LOTS of Humanbreds and LOTS of fire mages to be able to fight efficiently. Must have spent my money differently/wrong maybe... what Humanbreds were you recruiting? I thought the spear wielders would be the most resilient kind, due to shields+spears.

I'm also just wondering what I did wrong playing Aby, ending up with soooo much less research than you Other than "no Sage"..

[Sombre]

I have had a similar experience with lanterns. I never moved any of them and only saw one horror attack over 20+ turns. So I think you benefit from micro, but you don't /have/ to.

[vfb]

In another game I've lost about 5 mages to horrors. And I'm micro'ing there too, it's just a single month of marking that was enough to trigger it. Probably got about 30 lanterns, on around turn 40.

Toran, you're right Humanbreds can't fight very well at all. But they can be useful eating up hits and arrows on their shields. I bought the spear ones too, in hope that the parry would make them last longer. The Salamanders (and some fireballs/blasts) dish out the damage. Body Ethereal helps the Salamanders stay alive.