Help me survive against Ermor

[ywl]

Originally posted by Coffeedragon:
I am playing Man/Tuatha against a nmber of difficult AIs on Urgaia, been at war for half a dozen turns with Ermor/Broken.

Even though I have twice as many provinces as they (~11-14 against ~5-7), it looks like I can´t win. It´s not so much their Undead but their Human troops that seem invincible. Longbows can´t hurt them, Knights don´t fare so well against the Legionaries, even Daoine Sidhe occasionally falter. A couple Troll mercenaries were my only unit that could really pound the Legions, but they are gone now, and Ermor replaces their losses with phenomenal speed. It looks like they may win the war of attrition, and time is running out for man.

Heeeeelp!!!

As General Tacticus said, Longbows should work in enough number (>30 to 40 in a group). Man's Longbows are very powerful. I think you might able to win a game versus AIs with Longbows alone .

Few rgular units can match Man's knights, or other good quality knights, in one-on-one combat. They're probably overwhelmed by number.

You also seems to be using all those high-end units. Man's tower-guards or axemen may not be the best heavy-infantry around but they're adequate versus the legionaires. Remember, you want number before quality in the game.

Number of provinces is not the most critical, it's the total gold and gem (in you can use them) income that matter. Who is higher? How about army size? The AI has a tendency of keep throwing their units at you. If you keep on fighting, ending each battle by inflict a larger casaulty on your enemy than what you suffered, eventually they will break (unless another AI decides to attack you also from another side before that ).

[Coffeedragon]

Originally posted by Zen:
Bards can't cast panic.

Are you sure? Me thinks the rulebook says any Magician can expend a Gem to cast a spell that is 1 above his level.

If opponent has nowhere to retreat, Panic should (theoretically) be able to kill, not individual units, but the entire army. Of course it depends on the question if Panic does stack? (In the sense that 6xPanic has a higher probability of success than 1xPanic. If that is so, and I kill an army of 80 with a Grand Thaumaturg, why on Earth should that be a waste?)

[Coffeedragon]

Originally posted by General Tacticus:
Longbows not working ? Are you using enough ?

They do very well against the undead, but badly against the Principes, Praetorians and such.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Coffeedragon:
If that is so, and I kill an army of 80 with a Grand Thaumaturg, why on Earth should that be a waste?)

Ermor has standards to counteract the morale loss caused by panic. You'd have to get very lucky to have panic break them all by themselves.

[Ragnarok-X]

i recently played Man aswell, though the normal Theme.
My suggestion: get 2 or 3 of the crones, summon lots of vine ogres. Start pumping Longbowmen whenever you can, and put the at the end of the battlefield covered by the vine ogres, they SHOULD do really well, esspecially against Elmor since your arrows wont really "miss". If you have problems with the undeads, banish them. If you can afford buy those guys with the green cloaks, they are REALLY good, set them to hold and attack for one or two actions.

hope it helps

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Ragnarok-X:
My suggestion: get 2 or 3 of the crones, summon lots of vine ogres.

Tuatha doesn't have crones, does it?

Start pumping Longbowmen whenever you can, and put the at the end of the battlefield covered by the vine ogres, they SHOULD do really well, esspecially against Elmor since your arrows wont really "miss".

This is broken empire Ermor, arrows, even longbows, aren't that effective against their human troops, as they have to get through both a defense of 14 vs. an attack of 10 for the arrows (due to the tower shields) and a protection of 14 (vs the 13 damage of the longbows).

[Coffeedragon]

It worked!

I managed to surround their largest army, and wiped them out. I used Bards, Longbows, Daoine Sidhe, a few Slingers, Horned Serpents, one Lord, one Tuatha and the Eternal Knights which I got just in time. Panic was cast a few times, don´t know if the Bards did cast Panic or just the Tuatha. I might have won even without Panic, but I think it helped. Lost only 3 or 4 men, though a few Daoine and a Castellan got feeble-minded.

I am now finally numerically superior to Ermor, so I think they are finished! Thanks to everybody who gave advice, even those who were sceptical about my brilliant strat! Special thanks to Saber Cherry -you were dead right about the necessity to rethink my Research.