I have never won a sp game...

[shovah]

Endoperez said:
That general strategy might work. You just have to come up with a way to start conquering provinces before you get to Conjuration 7 and Lamias. I think Carrion Woods can conquer provinces even without a combat pretender, especially with high-level nature blessing. You took expensive magic, and received a good blessing, so you could as well use it! (before the population of your capital withers away and you cannot recruit any more living units)

You might also want to use more cheaper mages instead of fewer good ones for research, as magic scale gives more benefit to more mages. You should also search all your conquered provinces for nature sites, to get more gems and researchers.

i did conquer a bit with my carrion elephants but most of my focus was on the lamias, and the good thing about the carrion lords is they are nature 3 and can help with lamias (thought they were conjuration 6 though)

[Endoperez]

Might well be. I haven't used them in a long time. I might have to try, though... That did sound like an interesting strategy.

[shovah]

5 gems for 13 creatures that have lifedrain+regen+come back as serpents when killed seems more than 'interesting'

[High_Priest_Naresh]

playing a game against the comp. I am pangea carrion woods
started in quite a good place built a fort or two in strateigic places (like choke points or river crossings)
and was getting about 30 nature and 20 death a turn when I started with my 50 researchers spread out over 3 provinces to cast hundreds of v/o and with the ivy crown I was getting about.... 70-85 vine ogres a turn gave them to that ettin manikin (or whatever) gave him
heart finder sword
whip of command
rod of the leper king
horned helmet
horror helm
boots of long strides
wolf pelt?
ring of regen
gave him 90 saggitarius/ mino taur manikins
30 vine ogres
and make him a prophet!

teamed him up with a carrion centaur
and gave him 15 of those wooden construct thingies
and a horde of mandragora+other undead
and sent them on a rampage
go to about the oak of all ages waited 1 turn so that build up a small defense there and replenish my lost troops
next turn?
ulm has built a castle in oak of all ages defended by about 100 black plate infantries 50 trolls 4 troll kings
30 mech. men and 5 golems! thats even before I saw how many other commanders there were there(harpy sout )
I was feeling bad in just one turn he had built a castle, and raised a huge defense and no one was close enough to help me reinforce my troops or position
well I won in the end lost 8 v/o 2 lumber constructs and 50 undead thingies most of his army ran away though! I killed about quater of his army then he pegged it!

then his army went on a killing spree and I was alwys one porvince behind them until...
they stopped for a turn to be continued!

[shovah]

gj, vine ogre spam is fun to try with kings (but crowns work aswell)

[PDF]

How many turns did all that take ? I suppose 60+.. Vs AI it looks like total overkill to me

[Wyatt Hebert]

The Naga/Lamia strategy is absolutely brutal, but it does have a _few_ problems... nothing insurmountable, though. The beautiful thing is that the Regeneration is a percentage, I believe, so Gift of Health is an absolute must for these... they regenerate all the damage they typically take every turn...

It's not my favorite strategy, but it's definitely one of those that is rather easy to win with. Any of the auto-generating unit themes (Ashen Empire, Soul Gate, and Carrion Woods) tend to be easy as well.

And don't forget, people, that Lamia Queens are, imo, one of the better conjurable researchers. And they get good paths, and if you are lucky it won't take much to put up Haunted Forest... that puts paid on Ulm at the very least.

Wyatt

[High_Priest_Naresh]

33 turns... turn 35 now

[BigJMoney]

Here is my newbie story. I had only played one game until I read this thread. It was Caelum as my first Empire (suggestions? good/bad choice for newbs?) I got hammered into dust. Reading this thread, I decided to play on that downloadable "Talis" map. As a side note -- THAT MAP ROCKS FOR NEWBIES! Ehem. Okay, so I went with Machaka, because everyone is saying Carrion Forest is pretty easy, etc. Also, I kept all the game options default; no easy research or ANYTHING to handicap the AI. I set up one opponent, an EASY AI Mictlan. I probably could have made it one or two levels higher, though. I used this Lamia Queen/Lamia strategy and I crushed them. They didn't even have a chance.

I was using a level 10 Nature only Dragon (50pts, woot!), so I could use my pretender to help in an emergency. I also took adv of his holy blessings, and started a 10 dark hunter army with my prophet. This was my main attack force for most of the game. At the end of the game (and only then!) did I build two forts near my enemy's front door and start pumping out troops to absorb casualties so my Lamias and Blessed Hunter Spiders could get their job done. Mainly armies made of light inf
(I think), but also Spider knights for a little more staying power.

From day 1 I was hiring Sorceresses for research purposes. I also had a Magic 3 dominion to help with this. Later in the game, this map had some sages I made use of, but I don't think it did anything because I had all my Lamias and Gift of Health already going. I did very, very little army recruiting in the beginning game, other than my holy regenerating, berserking spiders! I think I sent my starting troops to go with them, and maybe buffed them a tad. I know many of them ended up being 2 star grunts at some point in the game. I used no heroes effectively. I tried to; I even equipped them, but their attack AI along with soldiers was really crappy.

Naresh, the real trick for me was definitely playing on Talis. If it weren't such a boring strategy, I'd do it again against a HARD AI and see if I can do it. I think I'm going to diss Machaka for a while, though. I don't really like them :-P. From what I hear about Carrion Woods, I'd like Pangea even less. My next several games will probably be astonishing losses, but hey. Anyway, if you ever want someone to MP, I'd love to. Maybe even a co-op scenario! That would be cool.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[High_Priest_Naresh]

bigjmoney try the thread calling all players were missing a player