Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions

[Shardphoenix]

The thing is, only about a third of my undeads got the Magic Resist boost with no rhyme or reason that I could figure out

This spell is negated by MR. Either recast it several times or bring PEN items.

Two elephants (They rout before making contact with the enemy no matter if I put them in their own separate squad or with the starting melee monkeys, even against enemy armies of 40 militias + archers)

You need to use archer decoys for elephants.
Make your commander as far back as possible and command your decoy squad (consisting of couple melee monkeys)to "Guard commander) and put them forward with elephants slightly behind them. Monkeys get attention of enemy archers and start running back to your commander, increasing distance and thus making it harder to hit them with missles. Thjen your elephants get into melee, start trampling everything, enemies rout, you win. Later on, use indie heavy infantry instead of monkeys - they have bigger shields, thus, better protection against archers. Oh, and leave markatas at home - they are just plain bad without Flame Arrows.
Prophetising your starting commander helps too.

R'lyeh: Everything went to hell.

Why? Illithids love Dreamlands - it feels just like home to them.

[Shardphoenix]

Nagas are cold-blooded, and Cold-3 is a common scale choice for design points, so don`t expect them to be of any use in actual war (well, except for Abyssia or Mictlan - they have heat preference).

[Immaculate]

Regarding Patala:


Firstly i love patala. I'm not great with them mid or late game where they are supposed to shine but early game i've got a good method.

Nagas are much stronger in CBM with the addition of their awe. I take production three so i can really lean heavily on them in the early game. I also grab a bless. I like a weak earth/nature for endurance, sometimes with a weak fire to make sure those big hits actually hit. Or else I like a strong astral. The reason for this is that they have awe and good protection so they can actually avoid getting hit for awhile if you have good archer decoys.

So expanding with the nagas:

Turn one: build a seducer naga commander and as many warrior nagas as you can.

Turn two: Attack with seducer naga and prophet, all forces.. Three of them tanking (the warrior nagas with the armor- not the other ones- they suck) while your starting archers and poo-flingers do their thing (archer decoy, fire archers for makata, fire closest for atavi) while your prophet divine blesses (and smites should help you take your first indie province (preferably with high resources). While you are taking it you are building one of the seducer naga commanders and as many warrior naga as you can.


Turn three: You attack another high resource province with both your new nagas (approximately 3) and both of the naga seducer commanders and your prophet. Build more naga warriors.

Turn four: return one commander to your capital and keep building naga warriors and naga seducers (or the 2s1n monkeys if you lack money). Your naga/prophet/monkeys army should be good to take one province per turn now for awhile with six+ nagas and monkey support.

Your next expansion parties will be naga seducer commanders and 6-8 naga warriors and maybe some archer decoys. Some stuff you might need elephants for and you can and should recruit them when and if you need them but they are very expensive so I don’t recommend it too much.


Once you take the provinces sorrouding your capital, you should be able to launch an expansion party every turn or every two turns depending on the resources you got. The problem is that you have to lead them with your nagas (at least until you build up a bit of infrastructure in other provinces) which can be bad for your early game research.


That said, I find that I accumulate gold pretty quickly using this method of expansion since the constraint is not gold but resources and I always end up with another fort before turn 13 and usually around turn 11 or 12. With another one by turn 14-16. Secondary, tertiary and quaternary forts should focus on building your research base and your mid-game communion mages. But that’s mid-game and I won’t discuss that here.


Go to magic in the early phase is
1) construction two for the crystal shield (turns your H2, N1 naga priests into H3, N2 naga priests that can cast panic after they divine bless) and
2) thaum 3. The awe and fear combo is very powerful on SCs/thugs and it works just as well with your naga. Your combination of panic spam and awe on your nagas mean that most opponents will not land a melee strike on your nagas. (you’ll need archer decoys obviously).

One thing I would like help with is turning the naga warrior/priests into efficient thugs- seems that with their awe and a bit of a bless they should be good but even with a frost brand they are not great- any ideas?



A lot of mindless units are good trample targets for elephants...

[earcaraxe]

I'd like to add, that abysian mages also turn to necromancy to have contact with their ancestry/past.

[Zywack]

Question about something that just happened in the multiplayer game I'm part of. earcaraxe did suggest something but I'd like to make sure I understand it correctly since one part doesn't click in my mind and I'd really like to understand this so that I can prevent this from happening again.

Let's say I have province A and B, the enemy has province C (with a castle) and the other provinces are neutral.

I give the order to A to attack C. I give the order to B to attack C.

What ended up happening is that A attacked C alone, while B didn't move: Their order simply returned to "Defending". They didn't get attacked or had any event happening. I double-checked the turn I sent, and I did have all my movements configured correctly.

How can this happen?

The enemy caught a scout of mine before the battle and their entire army fought scout which indicates the enemy was likely on Patrol. Plus, during the attack from army A, their entire army was defending outside the castle, which should indicate that they had all their forces on Patrol. If I understand the patrol/castle defense mechanism correctly at least.

The only way that I could sort of see is if they had given orders to attack B. My army at B consider itself under attack, so it switch to defending. My army from A lands on C, stopping their movement and making them defend. Is that correct? It doesn't make too much sense, but it's the most logical explanation I can think of right now...

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by Zywack

The only way that I could sort of see is if they had given orders to attack B. My army at B consider itself under attack, so it switch to defending. My army from A lands on C, stopping their movement and making them defend. Is that correct? It doesn't make too much sense, but it's the most logical explanation I can think of right now...

Most likely something along those lines, yes. This happens occasionally, though not at all often. I'm not sure if it's a bug or a 'feature'.

[Soyweiser]

Sometimes armies do not move. It sucks. There is a high chance next turn movement from B to C still doesn't happen. (At least in my experience).

[thejeff]

It likely has nothing to do with what the army from A did.

Occasionally 2 armies crossing will block each other instead of fighting on one of their territories. They will also sometimes swap provinces.
There is a bug, where this happens repeatedly if you continue trying to move the two armies. It's not clear whether it happens at all without the bug.

[Vanguard X]

Does dominion spread follow along movement paths only? In other words, if 2 provinces appear to border each other, but they are not connected (cannot directly move troops into) does dominion spread as if it is 1 province away, or more than 1?

Example: Impassable mountains separating 2 provinces.

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by Vanguard X

Does dominion spread follow along movement paths only?

Yes.