Mid/late game defense against undead??

[sfsuphysics]

So I'm playing my latest game, on a small map (60ish territories including water), and essentially own the west coast of the continent with a nice well defended border and left the coast virtual undefended (no water races only the neutrals) and 1 tough neutral with a hundred or so heavy cavarly figured I'd just leave him there since my attack/defense force was thinning out some and it makes a good enough defense just leaving it there (mistake #1).

The very southern tipe is a C'tis owned areas, so I leave a demon commander and a high inquisitor, enough to stave off any attacks from the lizzies.

To the east is the python guys their god's city is right ont he border to I put the majority of my forces in there Druid (6/5 nat/earth) Archdevil(10 Fire and my prophet), Devil(7 Fire) and a King Elemental (5/3 Earth/blood) , not many troops, about 20 clockworks, some imps that survied earlier battles, a few mechanical men and 100 defense in the province (yah you got it, flame arrow ,and WOOF enemy dead). Unfortunately the pythons got a hill fortress, and with not many troops attacking that place would be silly, so I wait it out making more troops magically (I have a buttload of gems/slaves), then I notice Ermor attacking.. sweet.. he's got a huge box its about 200 troops, couple turns later boom the Pythons are no more god is dead.

Unfortunately a few turns after that the box turns absolutely huge so that its larger than the land, a click over at the army and they have close to 1000 troops! Granted they're the weaker(longdead,etc) ones but without a need for supplies NOR upkeep this guy is a definate threat.

So before I know it that neutral province I used for defense falls and I only know this because it takes one of my hardly defended territories right behind it (mistake that bit me in the butt!). Now they're attacking my main city with my God! Now I choose the blood fountain god so I can't move (maybe this is a mistake), luckily I have a lot of magic at my disposal (12 blood, 2/3 in about every other magic) so I can summon like mother, did a couple level 8 blood summons (Demogroras??), unfortunately the only other defense there was 5 mages (who were researching, and not very powerful in any magic) and a def of 30 in that province, needless to say that the defenders fell instantly.

I still figure I had it under control (forgot I had a mage tower so my defense if they breech the walls, which they did, isn't very tough) luckily my 30ish troops had enough high level magic to take out 200 undead, after a few turns I feel its wise to bring maybe that druid and archdevil back to help get things under control, and in a few turns they were within striking distance. Now after a while and summoning all for of those Demogra..etc I broke through the seige, wiped out about 600 undead (plus 12 leaders) and took back all my territories.

So I click on a good hunk of my attack force (archdevil,druid, demons, Vampire Lord, etc) and go attack the one place that busted through to breach my defenses. Next turn, nothing, none of my troops moved EXCEPT the sneaking one (vampires), now what the hell is up with this? Fine did it again, still nothing *grumble* must be a bug here. So I had to go to another territory then click to it and I wiped him out (and before anyone asks YES the original terrority was right next to it). So I take him out, he's dead..

Unfortunately he launched an attack at my base again the same turn I moved into his terrority, so he again broke through the defenses, now I took my attack force back to the base (which they were able to get to now) but then he left the seige and went to attack some other poorly defended areas I just won back.

On top of everything he took over the underwater provinces, since undead apparently dont need to breath this isn't a problem for him, but it is for me since now I have very little money (the many turns of seiging hurt bad) and poorly defended coast line.

So after that huge tragic story to which I'm curious who actually read, I'm left with this delema, how do I fight off this onslaught of constant troops that he can just summon at will. I'm sure he probably owns most the rest of the continent, and the water, probably has a bunch of priests and whatnot that are constantly raising the dead, so within any given turn he can reenforce just about any one of his cities with a couple hundred troops.

I'd hate to see how games play out on bigger maps (200+ territories) where the computer DEFINATELY has the advantage due to the ability to micromanage more quickly.

[HJ]

I wouldn't know about the AI's ability to micromanage more quickly, since this is a TBS, but a few hints:
- hit them with inquisitors - banishment and holy pyre, also purgatory GE
- counter with your own summons - blood or anything else that needs not eat and you can summon in large numbers, which depends on your gem income - vampires & lords might work well, since lords can cast dust to dust etc.
- hit them with assasinations and assassinating spells to take out priests and undead commanders/mages - undead cannot work without them, and cannot be summoned either
- try to quench the undead nations before they become serious problem (early in the game) in future
- recruit even more inquisitors after all this is done
Good luck.

[ December 16, 2003, 21:18: Message edited by: HJ ]

[NTJedi]

take away any provinces with laboratories otherwise he will have more summons and necromancers.

also I have a message from the pretender god of Ermor:
'he's coming to kick your butt'

see he's my roommate and asked me to add that .

[apoger]

A> Large numbers of priests behind a screen will savage undead.

B> Don't include Ermor in single player games. The computer AI players have absolutely no idea how to deal with Ermor, and as such the nation will often get out of hand.

[sfsuphysics]

Originally posted by HJ:
I wouldn't know about the AI's ability to micromanage more quickly, since this is a TBS, but a few hints:

Well but what I mean by micromanage, is if I have say 40 territories my desire to adjust and have each hero do a particular task every flipping round is a bit tedious, so I tend to not do it. Where as the computer essentially does all the tedious bits 'instantly'. For instance for undead I think you can 'call ' and your priest will keep doing it until you tell him to stop (giving quite a large army if you ignore for a while), where as I was doing something like summon clockwork or whatever and each turn I had to tell each mage who could to do that, needs to be a 'lock' so you can say (do that for XX turns) or whatever.

But on another note, when you make a new game I assume the computer randomly remakes a god each time? Ie he's not using my uber powerful Ermor God when I played right?

More often than not the Computer is going to make a more uber god than you can and will depending on the difficulty level.

I can only wonder with that kind of empowered commanders in the OP what turn of the game it was?

[Graeme Dice]

where as I was doing something like summon clockwork or whatever and each turn I had to tell each mage who could to do that, needs to be a 'lock' so you can say (do that for XX turns) or whatever.

shift-'M' tells the mage to keep casting that spell on that target until you tell him to do something else.

[sfsuphysics]

[quote]Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

shift-'M' tells the mage to keep casting that spell on that target until you tell him to do something else.

AHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Thank you so much, the damn "hints" that flash by during the turns are nearly useless until late in the game when the processing turn takes long enough for you read them! Now I will summon hordes of demons to devour their undead souls!!!!

[Saxon]

With the huge crowds of undead you face, accuracy is not very important, but you still may wish to consider getting the Big Blue Eye which raises accuracy and giving it to some priests. This will ensure hits almost every turn, increasing their effectiveness.

As a nice bonus, they will rack up huge numbers of kills, leading to hall of fame entries. If you get the precision improvement on one of them, you have a priest who never misses and can pound those Last couple of undead commanders at the end of the battle.

I know it does not sound that exciting, but buying as many of the 50 gold priests as you can for a couple of turns in every temple you own will quickly generate a force that eats Ermor, as run by the AI. Have priest in each costal province and you will slow down any surprise invasion. Ermor relies on numbers and the priests take that away.

[Saber Cherry]

Along the same lines, if you can get any 3 or 4 holy priest to develop Heroic Quickness, I suggest empowering him in water (for Quickness) or giving him boots of quickness, then making him your prophet. The resultant super-banisher will knock out armies singlehandedly. A Rune Smasher may help (I'm not sure if it helps Banishment).

Blade Wind works wonders against weak undead.