Dealing with high protection

[Minrhael]

In SP games, playing as Tuatha, I always run into problems vs Vanheim and Ulm, and sometimes Marignon. The high protection units laugh off longbows; Daoine Sidhe can generally survive but don't kill very quickly and can't really be built in large quantities till midgame anyway; and my knights which can get the job done are so resource intensive I can't get many with my scales usually being production 0 or sloth 1.

I was wondering what suggestions people might have for Tuatha dealing with high prot units around turn 30 or so, and a little later into the game as well. With almost exclusively air and nature magic to play with the only thing I can think of off the top of my head is wrathful skies which I don't usually have researched this early, and none of the summons overwhelm me with their power, though I usually crank out some vines.

Also, is picking a death scale a possibility and if so should you only take 1 negative scale in it? I've been considering death 1 production 1 so that my fortresses should be able to crank out 2 or 3 knights/ turn instead of 1 or 2 (in the best locations), but I'm afraid that a slowly dying population will eat away my income. Obviously the lower supplies isn't a major problem for a nation with so much nature magic.

[licker]

Air magic you say? (well yeah duh... its MAN!! or something like it), how about ORB LIGHTNING? I mean you're gonna research it anyway so why not use it?

Or alternatively you could plan on trying to use flamming arrows, though that's probably a bit more difficult unless you want to use a special pretender to generate the effect.

Pack enough longbows (and ignore the knights, just get some fodder to slow the enemy down...) and wind guide and you'll slowly devistate even the best normal infantry, its just a matter of patience, oh and sticking the longbows all the way in the back

Hell I've done that with Caelum and their cruddy short bows

[Cainehill]

As he said - air magic. I've only played Man (and Tuatha) enough to see similarities to Vanheim. I suspect my technique is ... lacking, as it doesn't get me a quick enough start compared to other players.

But - I hammer research on evocation to level 2, and recruit (regardless of expense) a Vanadrott - in your case, a Tuatha - with Air 3. Given my Pretender has research of ~19, on turn 3 I have 2 casters with lightning bolt, and pretty good accuracy (precision).

At this point, I can attack even heavy infantry or heavy cavalry, adjusting positions on the battlefield according to which it is : cavalry I move everyone to the back edge, infantry, the middle. Setting my own ground troops to hold and attack, the mages open up with lightning bolts.

Lightning ignores armor, and does good damage - usually 1 kill per hit, and maybe 2 of 3 castings hit. Even the cavalry and knights take enough hits to break their morale before they reach my troops who are now advancing past the mages.

As I said - I think my strategy needs improvement, to expand more quickly early on in MP games. But the casters with lightning are great against heavy armor, especially if they have Air-3 or higher - the reduced fatigue means they can cast lots of them.

Besides Air Magic, Nature gives you some nice spells to start with. Sleep (starting spell for Man) is now better than Paralyze because the target keeps the high fatigue for the battle. With 110 fat your opponent loses 11 def and most hits negates half of the armour ! (I've killed a knight with 26 prot and 22 def in one round with some modest archers Last night, thanks to Sleep).
Tangle Vine is easy to reseach and can negate high def I believe.
Sleep Cloud needs some more reseach, but the area is larger.
Cheers