Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions

[Shardphoenix]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

Seems more of an anti-thug weapon.

Quickened and dual-vielded?

Come to think of it, does bonds of fire work like tangle vines where the target loses its turn no matter what, or do fire immunes ignore it?

AFAIK, if fire-bonded creature passes morale check - it just procceeds with what it was doing, with no turn loss, but gets some fire damage.

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix

AFAIK, if fire-bonded creature passes morale check - it just procceeds with what it was doing, with no turn loss, but gets some fire damage.

But Kobal2 says otherwise, and thugs tend to have plenty high morale. This needs testing. Or maybe it's a different fire bonds, this game certainly has no shortage of similar things that work completely differently.

Quickened and dual-vielded?

If it works as Kobal2 says, then it would be a nasty anti-thug weapon quickened and dual wielded. With that volume of fire, even air shield won't keep a thug from being locked down 25 rounds (I'm assuming air shield works here). Just throw in a few guys with glaives to chop him up.

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix

AFAIK, if fire-bonded creature passes morale check - it just procceeds with what it was doing, with no turn loss, but gets some fire damage.

As I said, I tested umpteen scenarios against a half-dozen of Red Woods' Flaming Stallions, which have unlimited AoE 1 fire bonds as a melee attack.

Quickened, fire immune, lucky, morale 50 - doesn't matter. My little test babies got locked, broke out, didn't attack, got locked again for 50 turns, until they simply routed away.

Didn't think to try air shield, but then again, AoE 1. They don't need to score a hit to lock you down. I'm relatively sure fire bolas have the same effect, but at least those have an ammo count (and precision issues)

ETA: heh, actually in CBM they have a 50 ammo count. So yup, they're the perfect anti-SC weapon

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by Kobal2

ETA: heh, actually in CBM they have a 50 ammo count. So yup, they're the perfect anti-SC weapon

They always had a 50 ammo count. I think thematically, they're not supposed to have an ammo count at all, since the description says they automatically reform in the user's hands.

So are aoe ranged weapons not affected by air shield? The only one I can think of is the banefire crossbow, but that's a useful thing to know.

[Kobal2]

Yup. Just like the AoE effect from fire/frost brands will affect the square no matter whether you hit a dude or not. The AoEs hit, period. Ain't no Improved Evasion in this here game system .

ETA: that being said, I'm not positive fire bolas do have an AoE !

[Zywack]

I've played a few quick turns with multiple nations in order to get a better general idea of them: It's been pretty enlightening but I encountered a few things I'm confused about. Everything's with the most recent CBM version.

1) LA C'Tis has unique priest spells like Royal Protection. The spell description states that it affects an entire undead army. I had a small army consisting of C'Tis longdeads, undead chariots and undead wyrms and casted the spell with a Lizard King. The thing is, only about a third of my undeads got the Magic Resist boost with no rhyme or reason that I could figure out (For example, some chariots got it, some didn't and location didn't seem to be a factor). I tried again with both a Lizard King and a Tomb King casting Royal Protection and the result was the same. How come?

2) Patala early expansion. They look like a very interesting nation with a ton of unique summons, nagas (I like Nagas in general), a seducer with multiple magic picks and absolutely amazing mages for late age (Are they the ones with the most magic picks?). I considered using them in the next multiplayer game I join until I tried a few a few test runs for early expansion and failed horribly on every single try.
Is it actually possible to take a province on turn 2 without having an awake god? I tried:
-Bandar Archers (Can't afford enough to make a difference)
-Two elephants (They rout before making contact with the enemy no matter if I put them in their own separate squad or with the starting melee monkeys, even against enemy armies of 40 militias + archers). Only won once against a tiny province and lost the majority of the starting army.
-Nagas (They do okay against small melee units but die horribly to any archer/javelin and the armored version cost a ton of ressources). Bandar melees would suffer from the same problem.
So is there a "trick" to early Patala expansion, or are you forced to expand slower than anyone else or require an awake SC pretender?


3) Not a gameplay question at all, but... Does anyone else find it a tad depressing to read the progress of races through the ages? Things seemingly go from bad to worse for pretty much everyone... Ignoring all the people who already got blown up in the past like Tir na N'og, let's see what's happening with the late age nations, alongside with a "turned to death magic" count:

Abyssia: Their race virtually disapeared alongside with most of their power.
Agartha: Race stops existing, seal weakening, turned to death magic and necromancy (1).
Arcoscephale: Surprisingly doing okay, I'd say even a step up from MA.
Atlantis: Kicked out of their homes, turned to death magic and necromancy (2), and Oceania is completely destroyed.
Bogarus: Just read some of the unit descriptions, that's just horrible!
Caelum: Realm took over by user of death magic (3), replaced by weaker beings.
C'Tis: Their home swamps are turning to desert, turning to necromancy (4)
Ermor: ... no need to explain this one (5)
Gath: Dying race living in a land destroyed that's still enslaving another race.
Jomon: Doing great, improving every age (at least by peasant viewpoint).
Man: Losing their tradition and magic, but doing okay otherwise. Not that bad.
Marignon: Doing awesome, beside the questionable addition of limited blood sacrifice.
Mictlan: Evil blood sacrifice returning to the foremost of their culture.
Midgar: Vanir's race vanishing and magic fading, but doing okay-ish.
Pangaea: Their home is being destroyed, their traditions are lost, turned to death magic and necromancy (6)
Patala: Nagas don't seem to be cruel masters, so I'd say equal to what they were.
Pythium: Heretics everywhere, about to blow up
R'lyeh: Everything went to hell. No death magic and necromancy, though.
T'ien Ch'i: They got invaded by Mongols... That's never fun for anyone.
Ulm: Darkness and vampires now roam the land.
Utgard: Jotun population dwindling, but they are getting along with humans so it's not that bad.

So to recap we have:
2 nations where everything went completely to hell
2 nation which is close to that state
6 nations that turned to death and necromancy
4 nations where their races are about to become extinct
3 nations overtaken by darkness and blood
2 nations doing fine
3 nations doing great

That's a pretty depressing tally!

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Zywack

1) LA C'Tis has unique priest spells like Royal Protection. The spell description states that it affects an entire undead army. I had a small army consisting of C'Tis longdeads, undead chariots and undead wyrms and casted the spell with a Lizard King. The thing is, only about a third of my undeads got the Magic Resist boost with no rhyme or reason that I could figure out.

Learn to read and understand what "magic resistance negates" means. It is in the spell description.

Originally Posted by Zywack

2) Patala early expansion.

Not every nation is strong in the early game. Some nations need 3 turns to gather their starting army. Also, overpartrol, pick a scales build.

Patala is a hard nation to play just because you have so many choices but you need to pick the right ones for the situation.

Originally Posted by Maerlande

Patala Expansion

Your sacreds are terrible. Ignore them. Buy elephants. Simple enough. Some bandar warriors for morale boost helps. And some markata screens. Get your research running solid and you have the body ethereal trick to use.

Originally Posted by Zywack

That's a pretty depressing tally!

Yeah, rocks fall everybody dies is kind of a theme. Compare it to how the increase of science exploration and rationality has decreased our stories about fairies, elves, etc. Magic fades as the ages go on.

[Zywack]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Learn to read and understand what "magic resistance negates" means. It is in the spell description.

Meh, that'll teach me to check things on the wiki instead of the game itself. I didn't think about the spell being resistable when I was playing yesterday but I did think about that possibility this morning before making my post... Since the wiki doesn't state that it's affected by MR I simply assumed it wasn't. I should have rechecked in the game itself before making the post, sorry.

Regarding the Naga Warriors being useless, does that still apply to CBM? If I'm not mistaken, they have Awe +0 added compared to the vanila version. Does that pull them out of the completely useless category? I know it'd be foolish to go with a specific strategy for them (Capitol only, size 3 with low hp for infantry, high encumbrance but not necessarily out of whack compared to other heavy infantry) but they don't look like such horrible buys thanks to the high protection, awe and not-insane gold cost. I'll admit that Awe in late age is probably less effective though considering just how many skeletons and mindless units there are, though...

Good point about the magic fading.

Thanks for the elephant walkthrough, Shardphoenix! Regarding Dreamlands... Yeah, I suppose that based on the point of view of a few of the ruling elite it's nice but I doubt all their population, citizens and the rest of the world at large would agree

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Zywack

Meh, that'll teach me to check things on the wiki instead of the game itself.

The spell database is better for looking up spells. And, only the battlefield wide one is mr resist. (To be honest, I also missed that when I first used it).

[curtadams]

Originally Posted by Zywack

3) Not a gameplay question at all, but... Does anyone else find it a tad depressing to read the progress of races through the ages? Things seemingly go from bad to worse for pretty much everyone...

It is a bit depressing, but it's kind of par for the course for worlds with magic. Critical tropes of magic stories, particularly lost artifacts/spells/lineages of surpassing power, don't make much sense in an improving world. If we found a working Hittite chariot it would be cool and historically interesting, but it would hardly win a battle against a tank!