What to do about Ermor ....

[magnate]

Arryn said:

This was an 'AAR' thread? Looked more like a "I'm getting my *** kicked, HELP!" thread.

Can't it be both?

It's ... um .... er ... well, it's ok ... just about. Thanks for asking. Ermor seems to have stopped expanding but has developed this habit of sending one commander and 50 undead to attack one of my provinces every turn (the same province, in fact) - they get wiped out by my priest phalanx for no loss, but he's still too strong for me to make any further inroads. So I've got a whole bunch of priests with really useful stats like heroic toughness, heroic strength, etc. etc.

The battle with Tien Chi is really humming. I didn't have the right mage levels for any of the spells you suggested vs the living statues, but as someone else said the giants are pretty strong so I just overwhelmed them with numbers. There's one massive army of about 180 units wandering around - if I can beat that I think I can take him (I've found his capital). My pretender is leading about 40 giants, which is not quite enough to take 180 yet.

I've also found the Caelum capital, which is massively defended (~300 units), but he seems exceptionally unaggressive and I just can't spare the armies to take it yet. Same with Abysia - I've been sitting outside his for years but haven't the resources to take it.

What is it with Pythium?? They still have no provinces, they're still under siege from what I assume must be R'lyeh (process of elimination - I can't actually find their capital), but they're still casting Imprint Souls at MY provinces!! Bastards. The latest one overcame the defences at Pangaea so I've a siege to break there (shouldn't be difficult - Jotun regulars can dice madmen quite easily, it's just a shame my PD are not up to much).

A few things have developed. Last time I tried to take an Ermor province, his commander was casting Disintegrate, which is a bad sign. Means he's only one level from Utterdark. Caelum has cast Dark Skies, but that's not much of a problem 'cos it only works inside his Dominion (right?).

My main problem now is money - upkeep is up over 800, which is way more than this stage in previous games (I now appreciate how cheap Ulm and Pythium infantry units are!) - my income is just under 2k so I have only about 1100 per turn to spend. I've had to pause building temples and cut right back on PD, just to keep the Jotun recruitment up. I do now have several more Bane Lords and a Lamia Queen, but I haven't been able to keep up with outfitting them, so several of them are butt naked.

My current plan is to finish off Vanheim before they call their God back, then take out Abysia and then Caelum, all the while whittling away at Tien Chi. By then I'll have several Lamia Queens with Skull Staffs ready to cast Whither Bones at Ermor, a Couatl or two to cast some astral spells at Last, and who knows, I may even have found Pythium .....

Like I said, thanks for asking.

CC

[Arryn]

A "butt-naked" Bane Lord is still an effective combatant. It's just not quite good enough to go out alone. Group a few of them together, especially with some support, and they can still rip up stuff while you take the time to make the equipment they'll need to be "true" SCs.

[Boron]

magnate whats your god ?
perhaps you should leave him at home rather then furthermore leading gigants and summon/forge

furthermore : you could well decrease upkeep by sacrificing all your gigant units and using summons instead .
at the point of the game in which you are now the gigants are not much more than fodder too .
unfortunately 40 gigants are really normally not enough to take out 180 other units because they swarm them to death .

you could use some of the "goblins" i think they are called vaettis with your gigants as another solution :
they swarm , the gigants hit easier + kill .
iirc gigants are size 4 and the vaettis size 1 .
so 1 gigant + 2 vaettis can occupy one battlesquare .

the only troops always worth being produced which are still very strong lategame are imho :
devils , vampires , storm devils , torrasque , abominations , ghosts .

of these ghosts + vampires are the best imho because you get them as freespawns (summon allies) from good sc leaders :
ghosts from wraith lords
vampires from vampire lords

200-400 ghosts / vampires can take out almost every AI force without support even lategame .
10-20 abominations most likely too .


one of my favourite sp lategame force :
storm demons with pazuzus and the air queens

[magnate]

Boron said:
magnate whats your god ?
perhaps you should leave him at home rather then furthermore leading gigants and summon/forge

furthermore : you could well decrease upkeep by sacrificing all your gigant units and using summons instead .
at the point of the game in which you are now the gigants are not much more than fodder too .
unfortunately 40 gigants are really normally not enough to take out 180 other units because they swarm them to death .

you could use some of the "goblins" i think they are called vaettis with your gigants as another solution :
they swarm , the gigants hit easier + kill .
iirc gigants are size 4 and the vaettis size 1 .
so 1 gigant + 2 vaettis can occupy one battlesquare .

the only troops always worth being produced which are still very strong lategame are imho :
devils , vampires , storm devils , torrasque , abominations , ghosts .

Well, first off my pretender is a wyrm with no magic paths at all. I spent my points on dom 10 and good scales (order 3, prod 3, cold 3, magic 1). So the wyrm leads armies and fights - almost 500hp in dom 10.

Second, thank you for the suggestion of using vaettis - I'll experiment. I based this strategy on Arryn's Utgard AAR - although it's not the same theme and I took slightly different scales, I noticed that he recruited primarily jotuns and that they were great in battle. Even now, my losses are few (the living statues are hard to kill but don't do much damage). The 180 stack is described as Footmen, Archers and other infantry stuff - no cavalry or living statues in significant numbers. I agree that 40 is probably not enough, but I'm cranking out some archer legions nearby which should help. I'll try sprinkling in some vaettis too.

Finally, I don't have the magic paths anywhere to summon all the great troops you mention. I have one N3 jade sorceress, for whom I forged a moonvine bracelet and a thistle mace to cast GoH (yay for giants!), who can summon my lamia queens and firbolgs. I have several D2 mages with skull staves who can summon BLs, behemoths, pale riders and so on. But that's about it. When I get conj 7 I'll get some couatls (seem too good for O1N1) who might be able to get some decent astral summons for me.

I do take the point that summons have no upkeep though, and that seems to be becoming important. I don't like using undead against Ermor because they get bLasted by my own priests, but I will use them against the others.

Unfortunately I've not been able to play much (mother-in-law visiting this weekend!), and I have a hellish week coming, but watch this space ....

CC

[Boron]

a probably more useful tip for this game :
you have the b2 skratties right ?
so you could bloodhunt a bit and empower one to b3 then and let him forge some bloodthorns .
they are great weapons for your gigant leaders as scs or vor banelords too .

forging a water bracelet for 1 doesn't hurt too and is easy

then you have a b3w3 skratti which can summon the ice devils they are great scs .

if you are extremely lucky one gets e.g. heroic hitpoints as heroic ability or heroic quickness
this is then a true monster against everything expect ermorian undead hordes were lifeleech doesn't work

[magnate]

Boron said:
a probably more useful tip for this game :
you have the b2 skratties right ?
so you could bloodhunt a bit and empower one to b3 then and let him forge some bloodthorns .
they are great weapons for your gigant leaders as scs or vor banelords too .

forging a water bracelet for 1 doesn't hurt too and is easy

then you have a b3w3 skratti which can summon the ice devils they are great scs .

if you are extremely lucky one gets e.g. heroic hitpoints as heroic ability or heroic quickness
this is then a true monster against everything expect ermorian undead hordes were lifeleech doesn't work

Hey that's another good idea - thanks. As soon as I can spare 250gp I'll get one. I already have a water bracelet or two. Little chance of them getting hero status though, with my priests having >100 kills each.

Why is Life Drain so good? Surely it doesn't kill things as fast as high damage (esp. if AP like the fire brand)? If my SCs have high prot and luck, surely they don't get hit often enough to make LD worth while? Or does LD add to hp above max??

CC

[Boron]

[quote]
magnate said:

Hey that's another good idea - thanks. As soon as I can spare 250gp I'll get one. I already have a water bracelet or two. Little chance of them getting hero status though, with my priests having >100 kills each.

Why is Life Drain so good? Surely it doesn't kill things as fast as high damage (esp. if AP like the fire brand)? If my SCs have high prot and luck, surely they don't get hit often enough to make LD worth while? Or does LD add to hp above max??
CC

yep lifedrain adds to above max hp .
after the battle for the new turn it is restored to the basic hp ( "negative" heal ) .
against weak units so it is very likely that your ice devil starts with about 80 hp and ends the battle with e.g. 130 hp .

high protection and luck are good too but lifedrain has another EXTREME good advantage :
it restores FATIGUE too when lifedraining from living beings .


so example :
a not 0 encumberance SC = nonundead will fatigue out slowly . you can take reinvigoration items but this is expensive and if you have a good armor you need a lot .

so a niefel jarl e.g. without high reinvigoration / lifedrain when fighting against 100 units will lose because he fatigues out after he kills a percentage of the 100 units .

when the niefel jarl/ice devil had lifedrain or high reinvigoration / regeneration he would have won against the 100 units .

reinvigoration / regeneration has the advantage it does this every turn always while lifedrain needs living beeings ( no undeads , lifeless ) to restore hp .
so reinvigoration / regeneration works always but is much more expensive you need more items for this , 1-2 reinvigoration and 1 regeneration item while you need only 1 slot for a blood thorn as lifedrain weapon .

small guidelines for SC usage :

use lifedrain weapons or a wraith lord with d3 can cast soul vortex so he doesn't need that .
this is cheap.
you can use these SCS against all kinds of living beings .
against 50 troops + a few leaders you will win 99% of the battles .
against 100+ troops + some mages use SCS + some troops .

against undeads / lifeless use troops + battlemages instead .

Against the ai these guidelines should be enough
a human player when you advance to mp requires a bit more detailed tactics and lots of painful learning expierience .

i found this out myself since the 1-2 months i am playing mp

[Pickles]

SC do get hit often enough to make the recovery of HP an issue plus it relieves fatigue plus it can take them above maximum.
The extras HP do not seem to all disappear at once either when you stop but I am not sure quite how this works.

[magnate]

Arryn said:
A "butt-naked" Bane Lord is still an effective combatant. It's just not quite good enough to go out alone. Group a few of them together, especially with some support, and they can still rip up stuff while you take the time to make the equipment they'll need to be "true" SCs.

That reminds me, when I talked about my Bane Lord getting surrounded and killed earlier, he wasn't alone! I sent him in at the head of a force of ~20 giants and ~60 archers and ~12 priests. Just in case people were wondering.

But yes, thanks - I will make us of the BLs while I catch up on the forging (which has only paused to site search new provs and will soon be back on track).

CC