Countering Master Enslave...

[Twan]

My opinion remain that the defender advantage is far too big in late game, and the late game would be far more interesting with another initiative system, with a casting duration of several rounds for endgame spells, or simply without any instant offensive spell affecting the whole battlefield.

Now as Max said master enslave is nothing special, it's just one of the spells of this problematic category. Rain of stones and bone grinding (combined with fog warriors or high hp mages) are worse for me, as some nations can easily cast them 3 or 4 times in round one (if you can cast it 4 times bone grinding is the nastier spell against human nations, as it kills even the mages who had an armor to survive rains of stones). Undead mastery and arcane domination are more niche, but being lower level can be cast with better penetration bonus (and considering late game troops often include some feebleminded tartarians, undead mastery may give excellent returns for its price).

ps : red text hurts my eyes

[Ironhawk]

Originally, I was opposed to your view, Twan. But I think I am begining to agree. I'm in a very late game now and I expect to be Enslaved / Stoned so I will know soon if it is trully possible to resist them in a meaningful way. However the posts in this thread have me worried...

[Baalz]

*shrug* Very late game has nuclear weapons and as the analogy suggests warfare is very different than before. If your opponent has access to significantly more nuclear weapons than you do...well you're gonna have a very hard time winning using traditional armies. Properly leveraged Tartarian Gate trumps master enslave/rain of stones/etc. Chain wishing, arcane nexus, army of lead....the very late game has a couple flavors of nuclear weapons which can trump each other depending on the situation. If you don't intend to stockpile nukes and shift how you play, you darn well better plan on winning before others do.

[Xietor]

Rocky, the GOR Gargoyle whistles innocently.