Alexander's ever-expanding Tome of Knowledge

[Pocus]

IN THE SHADOWS WE WALK:

This is the standard operating procedure for nations which have an easy access to body etheral. The aim is to toughten quite a lot some choice units with BE. You dont need awesome units, good ones are sufficient.

Have a mage on BE thrice.

I) In front of him, put 3 Groups of 2 units on hold& attack (yes in the same square, the front one, see below). During battle, they will be placed by the dom2 tac engine with one unit in the square you requested, and one in the south-west square (below the mage, if you follow me). This give you a total of 6 units in 2 squares.

II) In his square put 2 Groups of 1 unit.

Overall you have 3 squares filled, each with 3 units (8 combatting, 1 mage). The hold&attack will make your combattants move on the third round. The mage will cast BE during the first three rounds, on each of the 3 squares. He will commences on his square, has the value is the highest (thus protecting him ASAP).

This lead to 8 etheralized units attacking on round 3.
This formation can be repeated for several mages,depending on mage availability and toughness of opposition. Against indep, you can generally win a battle at 1 against 3 w/o too much problem.

A further interest is that your small Groups prevent you from a total rout. Groups will rout one by one, when some soldiers are wounded. On high end units, like paladins or knights they will rout if direly wounded, and this is what you want : each wounded retreat, thus preventing the loss of the unit.

By the way, for cavalry, adapt the formation, as they are size 3. You can BE 5 cavalry for each mage, put one horseman in each square.

Yes, it asks for some micromanaging

edit : typos.

[ January 17, 2004, 07:35: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[void]

DEADLY SWARM

create GE Haunted forest first.
most ppl(93%) will not go to dispel it(view here: http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=000999#000001 )

put a nature mage into combat. Nature 1 is enough,more levels more better.
give she some emerald---you can only give one.
have she cast "swarm" in the battle.
yes, a nature 1 mage + 1 emerald..what will happen?

it's not a scheme of attacking,but a good tactics for defending(only effective in your dominions).

[ January 27, 2004, 02:43: Message edited by: void ]

[Tuna-Fish]

Originally posted by apoger:
EVERYONE LOVES DRAGONS

BLUE DRAGON

Early research provides Quickness and Breath of Winter, which make the dragon much more formidable.

Water-9 provides the bless effect of +4 defense and "50% quickness". Not bad at all.

In the midgame the spell Grip of Winter might help deal with large forces. This is not as dangerous as the red dragon, but the reserach will be done ages earlier.

Water-9 caster also has a very nice spell that can deal massive damage versus both normal armies and big creatures and cannot be resisted. What is it? Falling Frost!

It has area = 5+ AND damage 18+. When cast by a water-9 mage, it deals damage to an area of 11 and does enough damage to kill all normal troops and severely wound all better ones. And unlike most water/fire spells, it just cannot be resisted with anything but high protection.

I mainly use it with the Jotunheim Son of Niefel, who can easily power himself up a level or two with robe of the sea and sea king's goblet. W-11 falling frost tested against heavies of ulm, nothing survived the first bLast and it has the area of 13.

Instant damage

[Graeme Dice]

AS YOUR LIFE GOES DOWN THE DRAIN.

THis is a strategy that is only really useful with the nations that have easy access to death 3 and death 4 mages. The nations that can reach death 3 fairly easily include:
C'Tis: Sauromancers(Default/Tombs) and 1/8 Marshmasters(Miasma)
Ermor: 1/8 Grand Thaumaturgs(Broken Empire), Dusk Elders(Ashen Empire/Soul Gate)
Jotunheim: 1/16 Gygia(Iron Woods, Niefelheim), 1/4 Norna(Utgard)
Vanheim: Hangadrott(Helheim)

Any nation that can reach death 3 can also summon a mound fiend for 28 gems, which is a death 3 and unholy 3 mage. This is very expensive in gems however, and you may be better off using them otherwise.

What this strategy involves is the alteration 5 spell "Drain Life". This is a range 25, precision 100, 14+ unresistable damage, armor negating spell requiring a death skill of 4 that both heals and removes fatigue from the caster when cast on a living target. Drain life will damage any creature, but will not provide healing or fatigue reduction against non-living creatures. To reach death 4 costs only ten gems for a skull staff for the above nations, so it is a very good investment.

This synergizes very well with quickness, as the mage will get tired only if they face an army almost exclusively of undead. The mages are also usually smart enough to start raising skeletons (enchantment 3) to protecct themselves and overwhelm the enemy. The AI will then alter its spellcasting to use drain life when its fatigue reaches high levels, and go back to summoning more undead, or casting high level spells such as banefire or cloud of death.

[Pocus]

By the way, where is Alex? Not seen since more than a month...

[JaydedOne]

Just thought I'd bump this thread as it's been a month and I consider it one of the more useful/imaginative compilations out there for players looking to pick up a few new tricks.

I'd add some of my own, but I'm afraid I have to admit to not having had the time or experience to be anywhere near this creative yet.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

SACRIFICIAL LAMBS

(Actually I haven't tried this - yet. But I think it should work).

(1) deploy a bunch of communicants in the front line.

(2) have a communion master with blood magic cast Blood Vengeance. The more communion slaves, the better. Theoretically a +4 communion (ie, at least 16 slaves) should allow even a blood-1 mage to cast a level 6 Blood Vengeance. Anything but the most resilient troops should annihilate themselves on your communicants.

[Zooko]

Regarding "we walk in shadows": I don't understand the point of putting three Groups of two units each in the square directly in front of the mage. Why not instead do the thing that you want done: a squad of two units in the same square as the mage, a squad of three units in the square in front of the mage, and a squad of three units in the square south of the mage?

Or for that matter, why not just make a squad of 8 units and put it right on top of the mage?

[Wendigo]

Zooko said:
Regarding "we walk in shadows": I don't understand the point of putting three Groups of two units each in the square directly in front of the mage. Why not instead do the thing that you want done: a squad of two units in the same square as the mage, a squad of three units in the square in front of the mage, and a squad of three units in the square south of the mage?

Or for that matter, why not just make a squad of 8 units and put it right on top of the mage?

Both your suggestion & Pocus are valid, yet for different targets.

Body ethereal is area 1 (1 square), thus you can etherealize Groups of 3x size2 infantry as you suggest, or Groups of 2x size3 horse, such as knights.

A different issue is whether to group everybody together or use small Groups. Both options have advantages & disadvantages (higher morale for a big group, but also higher loses & when you fail a check everybody is gone, which might result in an army rout).
One further reason in favour of using small Groups as Pocus suggests is that you have more control over battlefield placement (which is important to get everybody etherealized), when you stick a bunch of leaders in the same place as a unit (say, 3 mages & 24 troopers) they do not always end in the exact center, and if they are not well placed some of the soldiers might be out of range. Using multiple small units increases the micromanagement exponentially however.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Wendigo said:
when you stick a bunch of leaders in the same place as a unit (say, 3 mages & 24 troopers) they do not always end in the exact center

True, the trick is not dumping the leaders on the same square. Try this:

Code:

---

     +-------------------+

     |       +---+       |

     |       |   |       |

     |       +---+       |

     |       +---+       |

     |       |   |       |

     |       +---+       |

     |       +---+       |

     |       |   |       |

     |       +---+       |

     +-------------------+

---

Big square = 24 Inf squad
Small squares = 1 etherealizer each

Always worked for me so far.

[Edit: for this to work, each leader must be at least 1 tile away from the battlefield edges]