Please Help Me Tune My Man

[Raen]

Stand by your Man!

(Sorry, sorry, move along please)

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by apoger:
Storms was used to protect MAGES, not troops.

Mages AND troops, especially the ones like Wardens. I once used the Call of the Wind trick to have a Storm casting Crone waste her gems, and followed with a crossbow army backed by Wind Guide and Fire Arrows. The result was ugly for those 80 poor Wardens, not a single one was given a chance to land a blow.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by apoger:
You should pratice with a fire-9 dragon. They need no support at all. It speeds up the province grabbing tremendously. Just learn what provinces to avoid.

I perfectly know what a fire dragon can do (or an astral manticore for that matter). My point was however powerful they may be they still can't grab more than 1 province/turn (or else tell me how). You need your regular troops to conquer more provinces, and a few air-shielded Wardens + a few longbows should do the job as well as a lot of Tower Guards and longbows can. Smaller armies = more armies = faster expansion.

Jebus

Just play each other and you can test your styles and see which one is 'better'. Or it could be that you play them both very well and each have their own advantages.

I prefer early super-combatants to orb-specialists, so I use some of Alex's ideas, though I think NGF's are completely viable as well; depending on how and what you are playing.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

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Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
I know you are mourning the old Lava Warriors Alex but the new ones can be spectacular with earth9 and Abyssian mages love it to.

Um... have you used Abyssian mages in combat? . . . Or is this just theoretical?

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Ooff - brutal.

I have been using Abyssian combat mages since I first began playing dom1 and Abyssia is historically my favourite race. While they do suffer they have their value. My standard first turn is to build an Anathement Dragon to command my first army and use all my resources on HI and/or Lava warriors while cashing in all my gems. The anthement Dragon can cast Flare in between Fantacism/Divine Blessing and gets onto the hall of fame. Fanaticism makes all the difference to early expansion and allows the use of the early small units approach which increases the reliability of early expansion with Abyssia.

You'll notice the Cyclops mentioned had Air3. For . . . Eyes of Aiming. Anathement Salmanders are far from hopeless combat mages with Phoenix Power and Fire Ball. In the first MP game I played of Dom1 I ended up with a bunch of mages dominating the Hall of fame until my Ice Devils got going. I would choose wether or not I liked their heroic ability to decide wether or not to keep them as army mages or send them searching.
With increased precison (Eyes of Aiming etc) Fire Balls etc become deadly and Falling Skies is a nice new addition.

So yes I am speaking from experiance not just blowing smoke. Sure I want the precision of Abyssian mages improved but thats not because I don't use them - its because I use them and know how hard you have to work to make them effective. Sure I could give up on them because they score low on efficiency but if I approach themes/races like that they will all end up looking somewhat similar. Like Nagot I find Pythium et al somewhat unappealing and I'm more interested in trying to make less mainstream approaches work. You can find some hidden beauties (or monstrosities) with this approach.

Cheers

Keir

ps If I was going to use Pythium I'd put together a mixed force of the 2 strat move legionaries and the emerald guard can go sit on their plumes.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
I have been using Abyssian combat mages since I first began playing dom1 and Abyssia is historically my favourite race.

Well... that's the same with me. I build a Demonbred first, though, as I like to have a strong prophet that won't get killed easily, and flight is nice too.

However... I don't use eyes of aiming, ever, because I don't like to wound my commanders. And without them, Dom II Abyssian mages are about 1/10th as good as Dom I Abyssian mages in combat.

Though flare seems to be working better than Fire Flies/Darts... hmmmm. Must be the prophet precision bonus, plus the 1 extra precision of Dragon versus Demonbred. And now that I look, the Dragon prophet gets 12 precision instead of 10 like it should. Hmmm...

Well, that's an odd bug, or something. You got lucky=)

P.S. Does Chest Wound or Eye Loss from a magic eye or heart heal, say from the Heal command or in an immortal, while the item is still in the commander?

[Joonie73]

Which sacred troops do you think are justified even with their cost? I think Niefel giants are a no-brainer.

Originally posted by apoger:
>Hmmm, I won't agree with you on this. Warden may have lost their +3 to strength and attack in Doms 2, but I think air shielding and lightning protection would more than make up for this.

I am sure many will disagree with me on this, but in my opinion there are few sacred troops worth going out of your way for. They are expensive and slow to build. In order to justify their value I demand serious firepower or resiliency. So far the only sacred troops that I like are Hydra and Niefel Giants (and I'm not a fan of the themes with which they are attached).

If I can get some "bless effect" while designing my pretenders I certainly do it. However I do not design my pretenders to do blessing effects as their primary purpose (so far...).

The air-9 Virture would have impressed me more in Dom1, however Wrathful Skies has been toned down enough that air-9 no longer equals an instant army killer. Partial missile and lightning protection for Wardens does nothing for me as it leaves them as nothing more than very expensive HI. I'd rather have a Fire-9 Dragon. Such a dragon could go out and take provinces early, and thus expand the economy. Plus the Wardens would get an impressive bonus to hit and 8AP fire damage (extra attack and damage is a synergistic effect).

However I recommend the "astral manticore" for new players that ask for advice, since it's effectively a tutorial showing how to develop combat oriented gods. It allows for fast expansion. Provides good defence until the late game. And can devour many other pretenders in a melee fight (like the virtue or dragon from above). It's my standard suggestion since it's easy and strong.

[Teleolurian]

Heh. Does anyone play the Druid for anything (stealth, perhaps) if his vine summoning isn't all that great?

Wardens make for a wonderful elite troop. I haven't seen anything wrong with bless effects on them, since they seem to be the perfect platform to build on; they're fast, stealthy, and hit a lot. Air definitely seems to be a good choice; I've already seen the power of taking a very high Nature Not to mention the Warden Commander with Heroic Quickness tends to decimate things quickly; I even had some luck making him a flanker-attacking-rear instead of purchasing the very expensive Knights.

[Gandalf Parker]

Building around stealth is a subject unto itself. Players who build around visible armies tend to disregard stealth entirely since its often on units that they dont feel are worth using. To a lot of them stealth=scout.

I like stealth armies. Wardens (especially if you can add those druid archers) make a nice army. Mans ability to soften with Call of Wild/Wind makes it even better. Having stealth mages and priests is yet another step up since its so easy for them to completely setup shop in the new province.

[LordArioch]

Joonie's question is interesting, but maybe it should make another thread. I've been wondering why some sacred units seem to be overlooked. Battle vestals seem almost equivalent to serpent dancers for cheaper, get around the lack of armor somehow and they look very appealing. And it seems with any minor bless heart companions are a better deal than standard hoplites...they only cost a little more, barely more upkeep (important for such sturdy units), and with the right blessing they get signifigantly better...some fire-9 heart companions can stop and repel the enemy and then hit back in force.