Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?

[Cainehill]

To make the most of the servant as thug, you want it out there _early_. If you get earth magic, plain old Black Steel armor makes them solid : I've had black servants with just BS helmet, BS full plate and a lucky coin take 4 or 5 provinces at indies 7-9.

[shovah]

Cainehill said:

To make the most of the servant as thug, you want it out there _early_. If you get earth magic, plain old Black Steel armor makes them solid : I've had black servants with just BS helmet, BS full plate and a lucky coin take 4 or 5 provinces at indies 7-9.

swapping that black steel helmet for a horror helm would let indies go down alot quicker but i agree, armour makes them strong (although armour that dosnt reduce their good defence is prefered)

[quantum_mechani]

KissBlade said:
If I recall, Black Servants don't work during 5.4 anymore since they don't have life drain anymore.

No, that would be next version...

[Oversway]

I havn't tried this, but what about spamming lesser elementals, since they've been moved to level 1? TC has good site searchers so you can afford to waste some gems early on, right?

[Turin]

I still find the best way to go with s&a is using a waterdragon, lvl 9 water is nice, but not needed. He can take most province right at the start, when you script him to hold or fire*5 and then fire closest. Just don´t go to the usual SC killer provinces (crossbows, lizards, strong barbs and cavalry).

Don´t bother buying regular troops, start hoarding CM´s(prophetize one) and immediately search your provinces with them. Research alteration 3 for body ethereal. Once you get there, burn all your watergems for riverdemons, you should get ~10. Send them out with 2 cm´s(for blessing and bodyethereal) on the remaining provinces, which your dragon couldn´t take. With the bless, body ethereal and luck, those demons will be able to take lvl 9 provinces easily.

From that point on it depends on what sites you find, but try to get a second fort early for masters of the way. Use blood masters as bloodhunters, astral masters for demon summoning,fire ones make decent battlemages and you can use the death ones for spirit summoning.

If you get pressured you can hold of research and spam demons of heavenly fires with your CM´s, which make great raiding parties.

[KissBlade]

err.. I'd just have to echo, listen to Turin. =)

[1000yd_stare]

Thanks. So far (report censored a bit because other players read this board) my combat pretender, partially supported by bowmen, has been chomping indies at a steady rate.

Minor problem of not encountering anything other than swamp, mountain and forest, which is great for gems, but not for gold.

One weakness I have found, though, is the difficulty in getting earth magic up to snuff. Or should I even bother?

[Saber Cherry]

Without Earth, you have no hammers, unless you can trade for them. Otherwise it's not crucial.

[KissBlade]

Don't worry, the only thing you need gold for is mercs and mages =P. Seriously the rest of your troops are awful.

[Endoperez]

KissBlade said:
Don't worry, the only thing you need gold for is mercs and mages =P. Seriously the rest of your troops are awful.

Why does everyone say so? They have archers, are they really that bad? They have glaives, which can deal ridiculous amount of damage when massed, are they totally useless?

Do most people here think that Vanir and similar powerful units are the only national units worth using? It feels strange to always find comments like this in here, when I use national units extensively in my single-player games.