Thunderstrike - what am I missing?

[krpeters]

I have tried playing multiplayer a few times. The usual result is that several human players gang up on me and crush me. I'm looking for a strategy which will compensate for my opponents' numerical superiority -- and playing against AI hordes seems to be good practice.

[Redeyes]

The biggest difference between AI and humans in troop composition is that humans tend towards fewer, elite, armies, whereas the AI recruits largely at random in massive numbers.

Hence thunderstrike is more effective against the typical human, as it deals more and armor-piercing damage at a better range, than falling frost. Naturally, falling frost might still be the better choice sometime even against humans.


I remember thunderstriking through communions with Bogarus Astrapelagists. At 2 air they can't cast it naturally, but with a 4 slave, 4 master, setup the masters can spam thunderstrikes for the length of a major battle.

[rdonj]

I just want to point out one more thing - you can't really think of effectiveness of cast spells in terms of how much gold the mage casting it cost you to purchase. I.E. 112.5 gold per thunderstrike is a bogus figure. The real cost of using mages in battle is that they aren't spending their time researching better spells instead.

But even if you want to look at it in terms of gold cost of a mage casting spells, one mage makes back 100 gold for each random AI soldier you kill, approximately, generally more because the AI does recruit expensive soldiers too. But anyway, each battle a mage is in he kills more soldiers. It is incredibly easy for any random mage to get more than 50 kills over the course of their lifetime serving on the battlefield, especially against the AI. Once you've made up for their initial purchase cost of the mage after probably as few as 3 battles, then you are just paying for his upkeep cost, which is easily overcome by kills made. You should only lose mages fairly infrequently, and primarily due to stray arrows even then. This is important because the lifetime effectiveness of said mage should quickly outstrip the gold effectiveness of purchased troops who will die a lot more often and force you to keep spending the premium up front cost of the purchase.

[krpeters]

I measure it as gold cost for mages vs. skipping magic altogether and just hiring more troops. Obviously that's a fail for any long term strategy, but I expect to be out of the game long before L9 spells are being tossed around anyway.

So my thunderbolt slinging Theurgs have to convince me they're more valuable than a squad of principes.

[rdonj]

So the argument of paying more up front but earning your money back and more in kills over time doesn't work for you, I take it :P If your mage is killing 100g of enemy units per battle, then it doesn't take long at all for the mage to earn its cost back. And upkeep is cheaper to pay for than the cost of hiring new units all the time. Mages allow you to spend less money on continually hiring new units to do the killing by doing the killing of a decent number of troops every turn, with little risk to the mage.

[Knai]

Originally Posted by krpeters

I measure it as gold cost for mages vs. skipping magic altogether and just hiring more troops. Obviously that's a fail for any long term strategy, but I expect to be out of the game long before L9 spells are being tossed around anyway.

So my thunderbolt slinging Theurgs have to convince me they're more valuable than a squad of principes.

Even in the case of battles alone that doesn't work very well. A squad of principes suffers from significant attrition in basically every battle, mages hidden at the back don't. Granted, neither do small scale hydra squads and such (unless it is a battle you lose), but the mage is basically worth principes and their replacements for as long as the mage survives. When you look at the sort of kill counts these mages get, in troop cost alone they usually pay for themselves.

On a side note, there is also the matter of being able to turn mages into much more temporary thugs that will suffer attrition at higher rates, but be more more dangerous while they last. Mistform and a series of Shock Waves can do a lot of damage to an enemy army.

[krpeters]

So let me post a strategy I found fairly effective, and maybe this will help explain why I consider other strategies comparitively ineffective.

MA Tien Chi
80xImperial Crossbowmen -- 1000 gold
8xImperial Geomancer -- 640 gold
1 astral pearl - eq 50? 100 gold?
20 PD - 210 gold

So depending on how you add it up, this is equivalent to 2000 gold, or a 200 troop army.

First 6x geomancers scripted to: Communion Slave, hold, 3xGift of Heaven
Geomancer #7 scripted to: Communion Master, Summon Earth Power, 3xhold
Geomancer #8 scripted to: Communion Master, Power of the Spheres, 3xhold (he has the 1 pearl)

The result? 54 meteors plowing into the enemy ranks -- the bigger the opposing force, the more effective, but I imagine this would also do a reasonable job against elite forces, thugs, and SCs. Meanwhile, the crossbowmen supply additional damage to cause routing, and hold up reasonably well in melee combat.

What other combinations can obliterate 100 or so enemy troops of an opposing force before they have a chance to reach your troops, using only 640 gold worth of mages, only one gem, and without causing significant collateral damage?

[Louist]

Originally Posted by krpeters

What other combinations can obliterate 100 or so enemy troops of an opposing force before they have a chance to reach your troops, using only 640 gold worth of mages, only one gem, and without causing significant collateral damage?

If you don't mind a little collateral damage, I had an Eagle King go from 0 kills to 240-odd kills and catapult to the top of the HoF by a single casting of Wrathful Skies