Sauramatia Strategy tips

[Endoperez]

The thing about undead is that you can easily get huge amounts of them, and still have your normal armies. Enchantment 1 spell Reanimation is slow. Once you have few Death 3 or Death 4 mages casting Raise Skeletons (Death 2 mages go unconscious from the fatigue too soon), you'll get a constant stream of new undead fighting for you. You'll have to position your army so that the summoned undead won't get stuck behind your real troops while your mages are protected, but that isn't hard. And once you can cast Pale Riders you can mass lots of fast undead units really fast. Most undead can also go underwater, and are immune to cold and poison, never rout, and only get fatigue from spellcasting thanks to their 0 encumberance.

The summoned undead aren't that good at raiding because their numbers usually go down pretty fast, but again, Raise Skeletons works nicely if you've got other troops as well.


Hydras are hard so slow it's hard to get them to archers. Think of them as stationary defence, instead. Enemy comes at you, is poisoned, retreats. Also, enemies pursuing a retreating hydra sometimes suffer huge losses because they go straigth through the poison aura the hydra leaves behind. That's not easy to do intentionally, though.


If you go for a Death bless over 6, Prince of Death is good. He's pretty tough in battles if you give him any kind of armor. Just don't let him get fatigued before attacking, because fatigue kills.

[KissBlade]

The Medusa is one of the best pretenders in base. No reason you shouldn't use her if you can get her considering a) she doesn't sync with your magic so you diversify your magic and b) you don't need blesses except a minor earth one which she provides. Archers = win for Sauro but their cavalry isn't bad either.

Also nether spells are the order of the battlemagicking day along with cheap enchants for your guys to spam undead buffers. Antimagic goes a long way for your undeads against banish.

[sector24]

I agree, if a nation lets you take the Gorgon; take it.

[MKDELTA]

sector24 said:
I agree, if a nation lets you take the Gorgon; take it.

3rd. The auto-petrification-damage shield is terrifying.

[Dectilon]

I'm trying out the master lich at the moment. He starts with high death magic and dominion, so he's a good choice I think. Also I don't have to worry about him getting killed too much ^^

[vfb]

Don't forget Sauromatia can blood sacrifice. You can blood hunt with a N1B1 Warrior Sorceress who has a Sanguine Rod. Witch Kings are a bit expensive to just use for blood hunting. And best of all, N1B1s can make Jade Daggers too. I like to have an indy priest with a Jade Dagger blood sacrificing on every temple I build.

Also, Enaries are "Fortune Tellers" (only 5% each though). While luck is fun to play with, I prefer Order-3, Misfortune-2 for Sauromatia, and use Enaries as my primary mage. 10 researching in each castle of yours will cut down on bad events in the castle provinces, and just a few can immediately take back any neighbor province that get by hit barbarian events. You can even try Order-3, Misfortune-2, Death-2, high dominion, and push the misfortune and death out into your neighbors with your blood sacrifices.

[Olive]

Is there a good reason to buy androphags ? They seem to be very similar to oiorpatas and more expensive.

[vfb]

Swamp Survival? If you have a W9 pretender, he could cast Quagmire. Plus when the rider dies, the lizard fights the rest of the battle. I usually buy Oiorpatas though, but I do like a W9 bless. So maybe I should try Quagmire with a bunch of Androphags some day.

[Olive]

Got to give it a try.

[mathusalem]

What's the effect of Quagmire ?