Nagas and other "lost" pretenders

[Nerfix]

How much Nagas and their magic picks cost in Dominions II?

[PvK]

I've been playing a dragon in Doms I, and have no complaints. I was stuck in a two-way stalemate when my two enemies started coming at me with their pretenders.

Incidently, one enemy pretender was a very deadly naga who, although her army was being repeatedly smashed by mine, would then lay waste to my high-quality troops, who would overrun her and chop at her. The troops caused her several severe afflictions eventually, including the loss of both eyes, but she still laid waste to scores of my elite heavy-armored Ulm infantry, because she cast SOUL VORTEX at the start of the battle, so as they all mobbed her, they died very quickly. That set me back years of game time in progress, and tipped the scales against me...

... until I sent in my own pretender, in dragon form, with "attack commanders" tactics, and gobbled her up. Did it again when she came back. Did the same thing against the other attacking pretender. Dragons are quite potent. My dragon is also #1 or #2 in the hall of heroes, through laying waste to enemies in combat.

Perhaps a human player would have a trick I don't know to take out a dragon?

PvK

[Nerfix]

Well, Dragons do have huge physical stats, but they have only misc slots and they can't use magic in their Dragon form.

[PvK]

Ya, the poor little thing. (burp)

[Pocus]

Originally posted by PvK:
Perhaps a human player would have a trick I don't know to take out a dragon?

PvK

pretenders which are physically strong but have few slots (misc) wont stand against super-combattants, like an equipped golem, arch devil, ice devil, gifted gargoyle, etc. When you encounters beasts which have defence 35 amongst other stats, I can assure you'd better be prepared with specifics counter measures.

[Psitticine]

In a game I finished recently, the final battle was (suitingly) a clash between my pretender and the enemy. I was playing as a Bog Mummy and the enemy was a Blue Dragon.

My Bog Mummy ended up alone on the field. Everybody else on my side had either fled or fallen. He marched up to the Dragon and cast Leeching Touch on him. The Dragon lost something like 96 HP, I believe, and my Bog Mummy was suddenly at full health and 0 fatigue. The Dragon whomped on him pretty good in return, but another casting of Leeching Touch patched up ol' Dry & Crunchy, plus it brought the Dragon down to single digit HP. This was repeated once more, and then there was only one pretender on the field. My Bog Mummy did some little something that took out the remaining enemy troops (can't remember what he cast, but it worked well!) and that was that.

(On a side note, it should be kept in mind that my mummy had a power of 10+ in Blood Magic at that point; Leeching Touch isn't always that powerful, but I'm sure y'all knew that. )

Soooooo . . . I think the moral here is that Dragons will eat combat types for breakfast but powerful mages armed with the right spells can still go toe-to-toe with them. If the Dragons haven't transformed yet, then they are often powerful spell-casters in their own way (along one path only, usually) and that can certainly change things, but that Blue Dragon was not a challenge for my Bog Mummy.

Also, before they clashed directly, he ate down my best troops like they were popcorn and those he couldn't reach routed in droves. This post should not be seen as contradictory to my earlier pro-Dragon one!!

[Pocus]

How often do you script your mages by the way? Occasionally to get a combo going, or more often than that?