Fomoria - Where is your God now? (AKA - The Other Giant Meat)

[vfb]

EA has pretty good indy diversity, so the chances of getting S from lizards or crystal amazons are pretty good. Also site frequency is higher in EA, giving you a better chance of getting Astral through Wizards of the Crescent Moon or whatever.

One thing the guide does not mention is Air Domes. It really really sucks to have a disabled capitol as Fomoria, and Kings can get an Air Dome up pretty easily. A contingent of Firbolg slingers should patrol your capitol if you are in a mixed-age game. (Are there national recruitable spies in EA? I can't think of any.)

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by vfb

One thing the guide does not mention is Air Domes. It really really sucks to have a disabled capitol as Fomoria, and Kings can get an Air Dome up pretty easily. A contingent of Firbolg slingers should patrol your capitol if you are in a mixed-age game. (Are there national recruitable spies in EA? I can't think of any.)

Good point, though I tend to keep some "reserves" at my capital anyways, whether it be the last few turns of Unmarked production waiting for assignment, or just some summons intentionally held on the back burner. If you throw some of these on an Umarked Champion (you should always have a number in "reserve" as well, they are potent defensively and in quick deployment), then you can forgo paying for Firbolgs to do the job.

As far as Air domes go, I guess I shouldn't have cut corners, as I tried to make this guide as friendly to new players as possible, while still appealing to the more experienced.

I have a few edits planned, I will include mention of Air Domes, certainly. <3

[Redeyes]

I recall being disappointed by Morrigan when they were unable to even faze a generic marble armor thug. Is there an effective way in the Fomoria arsenal to make them competitive against foes with decent protection?
Their baseline damage is just 19.

I haven't tried them in the CBM though.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

I recall being disappointed by Morrigan when they were unable to even faze a generic marble armor thug. Is there an effective way in the Fomoria arsenal to make them competitive against foes with decent protection?
Their baseline damage is just 19.

I haven't tried them in the CBM though.

Well bear in mind, this isn't really their intended application. Obviously someone can always toss a few well geared thugs in with their larger armies. This will do them no good as if it's a "large vs large" confrontation, a few thugs won't be able to bind up enough Morrigans to keep them from ravaging the rest of the army. It's highly unlikely that we could consider it a "large" enemy force, with those thugs making up more than 25% of the HP of the force, meaning you will force them to route by destroying the rest.

If it IS more than 25% of the HP of the force, either it's not a "large" army, in which case you deploy your own anti-thug squads, whether Unmarked Champions, or Kings as applicable - or he has essentially placed all of his eggs in one basket, in which case your strategy is to lead him around and play tag while your raiding forces ravage the landscape. Tactically in that scenario, it's very much going to come down to a game specific plan where you're really going to need to analyze your exact capabilities, and his exact gearbuilds. If he can't manage to get 100% Shock Resist for example, a couple casts of Living Clouds will likely do the trick. If he has the SR, he likely will be vulnerable to Poison, or to Frozen Heart from your N and W randoms. And when all else fails, push MR by spamming Disintegrate.

Again, if he wants to build his meat so as to be relatively impervious to your national capabilities, say a Tartarian with a Ring of Tamed Lightning, Antimagic Ammy and whatever to get to MR 25+, this is when your W random Kings are the weapon of choice. 2 Kings can Cloud Trapeze onto a Tartarian, in such an anti-SC scenario, the -only- buff that they will need is Personal Quickness. Give them both a Flambeau, or 2 Swords of Swiftness, or 2 Dusk Daggers, etc, and that Tart should be dead by the end of round 3 (assuming you also wear Flying Shoes so you are on him on the second round).

Obviously your opponent will try to counter what you are showing him that you are capable of. For this reason I tend to suggest that you keep secrets. For example if you get Enchantresses, don't spread around Fire forged items unless you feel it doesn't matter. When out of nowhere you are wielding Flambeaus, or you have FR gear, it can cripple what your opponent thought of as his "best weapon" against you. But I still feel that with a little creativity, the key is that anything that Fomoria cannot do with magic (and they certainly can do almost anything with it, even lacking 4! paths), they can do with swift application of brute force.

Also remember that you should always have Unmarked Champions just hanging around your empire. When a Tart drops into your territory and you Cloud Trapeze an anti-SC unit onto it, plant a trap for your opponent. Move several Unmarked into the province that turn as well, and perhaps a few scripted Druids for backup. This will spread out any retaliatory Mind Hunt attempts (oh no, you Mind Hunted a 70g, expendable random guy!), but if he chooses to Teleport in an anti-SC-SC, the extra forces can easily throw a wrench in his intended scripts. Also of course, if you have more than minimal Astral magic, a couple mages tossed in will totally shield you from Mind Hunts altogether.

[DonCorazon]

Alright, I am sold. I am just bitter about no Astral in one of my games
And I am kind of infatuated with the enchantress...

[Baalz]

Yep, what Jim said. I don't think "how can I make the morrigans do enough damage to punch through serious armor", I tend to think "what gems do I have laying around to forge cheap magic weapons for my very strong quickened giants." Slap almost anything armor piercing (preferably two one handed weapons) on an unmarked champion and he'll chew up most anything while the morrigans keep them tied up. If thugs are a pretty regular problem, just make it a habit of equipping those Nemedian champions with something nasty, set the morrigans to guard commander and him to attack large enemies. If you give him the right weapon his 13 strength is plenty to lay some hurt down. Demon bane, moon blade, and serpent kryss are darn cost effective if you've got a good idea what you're facing, while a frost brand lays out plenty enough damage to chop up anybody even if they're frost immune.

[Wrana]

Right now, Air bless doesn't help against Sauromatia. But it will probably help against Mictlan.
Also, there are 2 more nations with strong enough Death in EA: the little ones called Helheim and Yomi.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Wrana

Right now, Air bless doesn't help against Sauromatia. But it will probably help against Mictlan.
Also, there are 2 more nations with strong enough Death in EA: the little ones called Helheim and Yomi.

Well, I've had good results empirically but I've never actually watched, so you might be right - I'll have to watch.

But currently I believe, If it doesn't hit in the square, its not hit by the secondary effect. So this is more effective for small units (which is what mictlan fields) rather than huge honking armies.

[Executor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fomorians

It's pretty interesting how the developers come up with nations like this, I'd never guess Fomorians were from Irish mythology.

[Baalz]

A couple extra things I've dug up on this nation playing around with it.

Conj 6 is such a huge game changer that it can be well worth making it a very early target even at the expense of some of the other stuff that is nice to have. You've got plenty of muscle to carry you through the early game with no magic support. Get some N1 druids out site searching to drum up a small N income, it doesn't have to be much.

Conj 2 - dark knowledge. Work it like you mean it and hope you've lined up a solid D income by the time you hit conj-6.

Conj 4 - Summon Niad. If you've managed to squeeze in a sleeping lady of rivers (who generates W gems) you can probably pump one out the turn its researched. Send the niad out site searching (just be careful to bring her back to her home province every so often) and you'll fairly rapidly build up a decent N/W income. Your W income is pretty much going to all go into more niads because you've got a bunch of regenerating giants and undead love to play in foul vapors, relief takes a lot of the sting from not having an E bless, and later on quickening just folds extremely nicely on the who tear your face off strategy.

Conj - 5. Air elementals. Can be a tremendous surprise and have won an important battle or two for me.

Conj - 6. Morrigans, yeah, of course. They're the primary justification, but you already knew that. You also get:

Summon valkyrie which is damn nice with your bless, it's like swarm on unbelievable steroids, if you can bless them they've got 20D, along with regen and modest protection, and of course fly so for big fights they tie up the enemy extremely well while you presumably pound the crap out of them with lightning. They make a great way to stretch your Morrigans out for raiding squads as just a couple Morrigans will generate that nice fear aura so even if you don't kill the PD fast enough they'll probably route being unable to hit anybody.

Summon specter. This has already been mentioned, but there's another angle which wasn't - Specters get you S/E, which is something you have to otherwise get very luck to land. S/E gives you crystal/slave matrixes which Jim lays out some suggestions for, but even better it gives you crystal shields. Crystal shields get you a couple nice things, but maybe the biggest is an easy way to get H3 guys to reasonably bless all the stuff you've got zooming around. It also turns A/D druids into valkyrie casters, so no need to have your kings doing that.

Enchanted forest. Hey, your pretender can cast that! Now, this isn't the strongest global around, but if you've pushed up to conj-6 early it can be a substantial boost, particularly in an area Fomoria can struggle with - sieging castles. Oh, vinemen like foul vapors. Just sayin... Your niads probably haven't had time to contribute much to your N gems, but this global only costs 35 so it's pretty likely a N1 druid or two site searching can build that up over 20 turns pretty easily. If you took a growth scale (instead of order), it may even be worthwhile recasting it later with more gems as your N income kicks in, its nice to have upkeep free chaff. And of course, you're headed to fog warriors...

Llamia queen. A 50D empowerment of your pretender (plus a staff) puts this into your pretender's reach. 50D is expensive, no doubt, but at that point you're using N gems which you don't have too much else competing for (hopefully those niads have lined you up a supply). Llamia queens get you - among other things, into blood. Not heavily into blood, to be sure, but enough that you should be able to mint a steady supply of flesheater axes and warrior rings to help outfit those unmarked champions you're pumping out (which seem likely to be constantly short of forged gear). Pulling into late game you should be able to pile up slaves for awhile and empower your way up to robes of the magi - which may be well worth it since you're gonna have a tough time making your way into rings of wizardry. Tarts are pretty hard with no rings. You could also get into vamps, which seem like they'd fit your whole flying, stealthy, undead thing. Finally they give you more foul vapors casters, along with more heavy D mages to take some of the load off the kings.

Streams from hades. Well, as long as you're empowering your pretender, these chicks also open up. I don't have anything particularly sneaky in mind, but strong D mages are always welcome.