Marignon strategy

[Smokey]

I am going to play a huge map as Marignon vs. Emor. I suck bad though. I get beat on easy regularly. I would like some advice for this match.

Info on a pretender, stats, scales, and general strategy would be great.

I am all for pushing everything to my favor also so I like 75 for special locations, few random events, and rich environment.

Someone do me a favor and post a book here I have never played Marignon before.

[Gandalf Parker]

First you might want to click on "search" in the upper right of the screen and put in Marignon. It will give you alot of reading which people might not want to type in again. Combinations such as marignon and pretender or marignon and scales will also work. I really miss the strat guides that Illwinter had for each nation but those dont seem to be on their site anymore.

[ February 02, 2004, 14:04: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Smokey]

I find very little info about Marignon in general and Im looking for specifics about Marignon vs. Emor or more details on Marignon from someone who knows them well.

[Targa]

You might try searching for Ermor instead. I'm pretty sure there have been discussions on how to deal with Ermor, regardless of what nation you're playing. As a matter of fact, I distinctly recall a thread only a few days ago. To quote one post from that thread; "Priets, priests, and more priests." Though I believe the thread was asking how to deal with Ermor's living units rather than the undead.

I currently have a game going where I'm playing Marignon, and Ermor is one of the active AI's. Have yet to engage in battle with them though. I sent a scout and an assassin over their way, since I want to keep tabs on them. They keep casting global enchantments that I have to keep dispelling, which annoys me, so I have one mage who regularly casts 'seeking arrow' in their home province, and any province I see with a large army. I've also employed the assassin with good effect. I have recruited a half-dozen priests in anticipation of the coming conflict, as we now own bordering provinces.

This is my first game as Marignon though, so that's all I can offer.

[Smokey]

I read the "how to deal with Ermor" thread also. It had good info.

If someone can post a good way to setup my game, ie scales, castle, magic paths, that would rock.

I could also just a push in the right direction. With a large map and only me and 1 AI, should I try rapid expansion, should I recruit as many priests as possible?

My plan was to do unlucky -3, productive +3, order +3, everything else 0/0. I was thinking about a rainbow mage to find my 75% sites.

I thought I would create small armies with 2 or 3 priests and have the army set to hold or guard and eliminate the undead with the priests.

I suck though and I have only won 1 game so far out of like 10, so I am looking for some sure fire methods to mop up.

[ February 02, 2004, 14:50: Message edited by: Smokey ]

[atul]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
I really miss the strat guides that Illwinter had for each nation but those dont seem to be on their site anymore.

You mean the pages with predesigned gods? They aren't linked anymore, but the pages exist all right. Dunno if removal of the links was intentional (in which case I just blew it). Now if I only could remember the direct url to the file that had all the advice on warring against Ermor...

Anyway, for Marignon, try this.

[ceremony]

This was previously posted by Wauthan in the "Alex Poger's expanding tome of knowledge thread"
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...4;t=000855;p=1

Originally posted by Wauthan
THE HOLY BOLTS OF MARIGNON
A strategy so fiendish that its use has been Banned by Carmong the Cardinal of Marignon himself, under the pain of torturous death. It is still allowed to be used the holy wars against heretic faiths of course.
Take virtue pretender. Take air magic 10. Build three*10 crossbowmen. One on fire archers and two on fire closest. Build a group of Knights of the Chalise and put them in the front on hold and attack closest. Get a Friar to bless them.
The Knights are plenty tough so why waste such a high bless effect on them? Well since they are now nigh impervious to missile fire you can fire at will right into melee with your crossbows without fear of friendly casualities. They are also shock resistant so the Virtue pretender can idly toss chained lightning about.
My opponent had his archers on rearmost, cavalery, archers and closest. Putting a single knight in the far back flank solved two of these problems and attrition on the crossbows was not very severe at all.
I devastated the AI in this way using only five knights in the front, and five*10 crossbowmen. Almost looked like musketeer based wars are not so far off in Dominions 2.
This strategy can of course be used in different variations for the two other strong missile nations Man and T'ien Ch'i. Trouble is that their holy units don't have the staying power of Knights of the Chalice for the same investment in gold.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Pocus]

Ermor AI and Ermor player is not the same. Ermor AI is not that difficult to beat, as they can be mauled bady by priests, and suffer the same lack of expertise that the other AI, that is the unablity to cope with the subtleties of battlefields combo or overland rituals. Read the spells, and try to imagine how you can combine then, its 75% of the success.

[Coffeedragon]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Ermor AI and Ermor player is not the same. Ermor AI is not that difficult to beat, as they can be mauled bady by priests,...

I didn´t find it that easy. Why does no one (except me ) ever mention that Broken Ermor has some of the toughest LIVING Infantries around?

They would be good even if they had no undead at all, imho. WITH lots of free undead, Broken Ermor is TOO good.

I shudder at having to fight a human player with Broken Ermor.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Equip your priests with boots of quickness. Use 2-4 priests lvl 2-3 per army. Script your priests to use banishment over and over. 50 HI plus 4 such priests can kill 400 undead army very quickly. You need standard bearers/priests too, to keep morale up.

Use inexpensive archers--they can't hurt your heavily armored people, but they eat up hordes of undead. Throw a small wall of heavily armored high morale spearmen/pikemen in front of the archers.

Overland spells of fire can decimate undead ranks.

Ermor has powerful living infantry, and great mages. A person behind Ermor is a horrifying thing, an AI on the other hand is not so bad if you take the obvious steps.