Troops vs magic, what am I doing wrong?

[sector24]

Skellispam is definitely the most cost efficient move for C'tis. You're going to get much more than 5 casts of Raise Dead per Sauromancer because as you flood the battlefield with skeletons, your mages have time for their fatigue to dip below 100 and cast it again. Also, your opponent's fatigue starts to build and as the battle drags on they start taking more hits.

Shadow Blast is much more useful for removing difficult units from the battlefield than it is for just general destruction. For instance fighting double blessed troops that could kill 10+ Elite Warriors before going down would be a good time to use Shadow Blast. But the computer obviously doesn't do that so I don't think there's ever really a need for that spell against the AI.

To take your argument to extremes, it's much more cost effective to put 125 PD into every province than it is to recruit Elite Warriors. For a one time investment of 8,000 gold your province becomes impregnable for the rest of the game. The AI almost never builds the right troops in the right numbers to defeat a free army like that.

The problem with Elite Warriors and PD is that they aren't time efficient. It's going to take years and years to conquer the enemy a few provinces at a time. With magic, once you get the spells you need you can teleport in raiders, wipe out huge armies with just a couple spells, basically redraw the map in a couple turns. It's not cost effective for a long time, but it is efficient.

PD: Cost Effective, not efficient
Elite Warriors: Somewhat cost effective, somewhat efficient
Mages: Not cost effective, very efficient (becomes moreso at higher research levels)

[krpeters]

Originally Posted by sector24

To take your argument to extremes, it's much more cost effective to put 125 PD into every province than it is to recruit Elite Warriors. For a one time investment of 8,000 gold your province becomes impregnable for the rest of the game. The AI almost never builds the right troops in the right numbers to defeat a free army like that.

LOL!!! You know, now I'm going to have to try this and see what happens!!! This may be the ultimate AI opponent killer strategy! ;->

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by sector24

To take your argument to extremes, it's much more cost effective to put 125 PD into every province than it is to recruit Elite Warriors. For a one time investment of 8,000 gold your province becomes impregnable for the rest of the game.

As a further example... it is relatively easy to take out 8000 gp worth of pd. It can be done with as little as 100 gp worth of troops....

[sector24]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

As a further example... it is relatively easy to take out 8000 gp worth of pd. It can be done with as little as 100 gp worth of troops....

I can't think of a 100gp troop that the AI uses that will kill 125 PD. But feel free to prove me wrong.

Also, I'm not sure that the game's difficulty level affects this much. They get more gold and resources but they aren't any smarter. Most of the time the PD is such a deterrent that they will not even attack you. Even if they do have a huge army on your border, they rarely attack with the full stack and/or they use poor orders. The difference between 50 PD and 125 PD is unbelievable, just make a SP game and try it out.

[Rookierookie]

Originally Posted by sector24

I can't think of a 100gp troop that the AI uses that will kill 125 PD. But feel free to prove me wrong.

Also, I'm not sure that the game's difficulty level affects this much. They get more gold and resources but they aren't any smarter. Most of the time the PD is such a deterrent that they will not even attack you. Even if they do have a huge army on your border, they rarely attack with the full stack and/or they use poor orders. The difference between 50 PD and 125 PD is unbelievable, just make a SP game and try it out.

Have you ever seen AI armies in the four-digits?

[sector24]

I'm on year 10 in my current game (EA T'ien Ch'i). Typically 1000 guys will roll up to my border starving and demoralized, attack 200 at a time for 3 or 4 turns and then sit in their castle until they get reinforced by another army. The only threat is Ermor because they can't starve and they can skellispam from the back so 1000 guys is actually more like 1500 by the end of the fight. I do lose to the big Ermorian armies without mage support, but most nations buckle like a pilgrim's shoe.

[Rookierookie]

Do you have supplies set to 300?

[PyroStock]

Originally Posted by Rookierookie

Do you have supplies set to 300?

Is there a way to bypass the artificial supply multiple limit of 300?