So, how do you play this game?

[Taqwus]

Tried the Druid last evening. 'Dark Ages' map, otherwise normal settings. Not one ancient forest on the continent, but... Legendary Monsters summoned in mountains are nasty.

You'll either get Chimeras (large-area fire attack, Basilisks (large-area petrification attack), or Rocs (seem to be large melee nasties), haven't noticed them doing anything too funky.

Just don't get your druid killed, as I don't think you can hire any replacements (even apprentices), unlike a Necromancer. Then all your herbs will be useless.

Odditiy: Cannibals can be domesticated?

[SlipperyJim]

Taqwus said:
Trying a Cardinal of El in the 'Empire' age might also be easier; more high-population, high-congregation squares should let you boost your Congregation value rapidly. Once it's fairly high, you get to bless your troops, get free paladins and saints, get the inquisitors and their troops running around on your behalf...

Yes, indeedy. That was my first highly-successful game. Cardinals of El rock hard once they get rolling, and it's easy to get rolling quickly with loads of potential worshippers around every corner.

The key to being a Cardinal of El seems to be maximizing your income. Bless every settlement, farm, town ... everything you can bless. When your congregation is large enough, build temples. By that point, the gold is pouring into your coffers at a ridiculous pace, and you can simply outbuild anyone. Economic warfare, baby!

Taqwus said:
I have stomped around as a Necromancer, but it does take finding at least a graveyard before somebody else is ready to stomp you, and pref. getting a Flesh Heap.

Bah. My current game is a Necromancer in the Fallen Empire, and I'm not thrilled so far. 90% or more of your uncroaked summons are worthless chaff. Only a handful of the beasties are any good at all. Now, that handful are pretty darned good....

My biggest problem with the Necromancer is the limited supply of bodies. Reanimate once, and the graveyard is practically empty! Okay, so keep moving and reanimate the corpses of your enemies, right? The problem with that strategy is that your poor apprentice is too insane to follow your armies after only a few reanimations.

If insanity wasn't a problem, I could reanimate on the road. If graveyards had a limitless (or nearly so) supply of corpses, then I could stay in one spot and summon the zombie hordes.
Unfortunately, with limited graveyards and the threat of insanity, my reanimation options are very limited. The cool feature of my class becomes something that I can't use very often.

I'm diligently saving my Hands of Glory. When I make the transition to Lich, hopefully this game will become more fun. But WOW, that will require a lot of Hands of Glory! Meanwhile, most of my expansion is being done with conventional armies. Cavalry, crossbows, and archers ... yawn.

---

By the way, try playing as a Dragon Lord. That was a blast!

[capnq]

My first win was with a Cardinal of El.

Had an amusing encounter in my current game as an Elf King. I've had a number of immobile Clackers spawn in my forests. One of them was attacked by a computer player's (a Demonologist, I think) Spirit of Fear. I lost count of how many rounds the battle ran, as they just kept throwing fear spells at each other without effect.

[SlipperyJim]

OK, finished the Necro game, and I'm still not thrilled. Not gonna play a Necro again for a while....

My current game is an Elf Queen in the Dark Ages with extra forests. Yes, I'm stacking the odds a bit in my favor.

Elf Queen is really interesting because of all of the freespawns. My forest & jungle squares are popping all sorts of interesting units. Wolves, brownies, sylphs, great eagles, satyrs, fauns.... Unicorns! (I'm not sure exactly what the unicorns do, but they look cool.)

Then, there are some really high-quality freespawns...

Nymphs: Cast mass charm on every turn, get a bunch of free recruits!

Then, there's this guy:

Llanhollen, the Lord of the Dance. Here are his stats:

Yeah, he's that good. CoE2 does have supercombatants, it seems.

I also got some Sylph Queen. She isn't as impressive as Llanhollen, but she can fly. If you also have access to flying troops, then flying commanders are great! I'm stacking her up with a bunch of sylphs and great eagles to form my quick-response team.

Thematically, playing an Elf Queen almost feels like playing Ermor (Ashen Empire) in the Dominions series. Freespawns, freespawns, and more freespawns! Every chance you get, recruit a commander to round up all of the freespawns, and you have another army. Except -- unlike Ermor -- you don't burn your economy to the ground. Therefore, you can keep recruiting troops at the most-convenient fortresses and gather up the freespawns. Before long, you have a ridiculous amount of troops. And then you win.

[Fate]

Ok, so I just won my first game (as the Senator). My first games were all as warriors. My observations so far:

1) The weapon master makes your armies MUCH more powerful. The baron starts with one, and I got one as a Senator. Very good.

2) Wizards are worth it. That is what (I think) allowed me to win as Senator: I saved my cash and got one or two of those random wizards and arch bishops

And my rating of the warriors:

1) - Baron. Higher taxes and free weapon master.

2) Senator. Cohorts are that good.

3) Barbarian - mostly because of the occasional minotaurs and bear warriors.

4) Maharaja. Elephants are too expensive to just be a meat shield (I think).

I would like other's opinions on these. I would also like to know what the Senator's Slave Girls are good for (the manual doesn't say).

[johan osterman]

If you have enough gold the wizards can be well worth it, especially if you are playing a nation lacking ranged attackers.

The slave girls really aren't good for anything.

[Arralen]

Speaking about what things are good for:

What is the "cauldron-button" of the elf queen good for?
It takes me to a dark screen with "lifeforce xy" displayed, but nothing else .. seemingly .. ?!

[Taqwus]

Killed the Four Horsemen, *smirk*.

Question: is it possible for a Cardinal to have a sufficiently high Congregation score that even an Archbishop (or Saint or Angel?) could start the Apocalypse, or is this unlike the other abilities and strictly Cardinal-only?

Thinking it might be the latter, to prevent horseman-spamming, given that archbishops are recruitable.

[capnq]

Taqwus said: is it possible for a Cardinal to have a sufficiently high Congregation score that even an Archbishop (or Saint or Angel?) could start the Apocalypse, or is this unlike the other abilities and strictly Cardinal-only?

According to the manual:

The archbishops and bishops have the same powers as the cardinal but require larger congregations for their abilities to work.

Thinking it might be the latter, to prevent horseman-spamming, given that archbishops are recruitable.

I assumed that the Horsemen were unique units that can only be summoned once per game. Has anyone seen more than one set in play?

I won my Cardinel of El game before I was able to summon the Horsemen. I'm pretty sure the other ranks can also summon them, if only because your starting leader can die and have his underlings continue the game without him. My starting leader has died fairly early in every game I've played so far.

[johan osterman]

Each Cardinal of El player can summon the horsemen once. IIRC.