abysia strategies

[Caseus]

Many posters say Abysia is a top-5 race. However, I'd never had any success with Abysia. So either I was doing something wrong, or the posters here are cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

I decided to experiment. I ran some test games with a Phoenix pretender with Air-4, Fire-4, whom I named Crispy Chicken. I researched Alteration-1 for Aim, and used Crispy as fire support behind my main army. At the same time, I tried to get my blood economy rolling.

Crispy was a huge success at fire support. The blood economy was incredibly easy to get started. I built soul contracts and the devils poured in. However, I had no way to get dwarven hammers or ice devils. Plus I was reminded once again that castles suck.

I tried a new approach. My pretender was a Great Warlock, whom I named Evil Todd. I took Order-3, Prod-3, Heat-3, Misfortune-2, Watchtower, Dominion 7. Evil Todd had 4 Air (for SoS and easy access to Air Queens), 3 Earth (hammers), 3 Water and 3 Blood (Ice Devils). The plan was to research Construction-2, Blood-5, Alteration-2, Construction-4, Blood 6, Construction-6, etc.

Holy bleeping bleep.

Abysia may be slow to get started, but once they do get going they are awesome. It is almost criminal how fast they can get a blood economy going. Devils are quite potent in large numbers, and their mobility is terrifying. Which is good, because the Abysian HI are dangerously slow.

I built about 6 soul contracts during my current game. I put them on scouts. One scout got attacked 4 times by Lesser Horrors. He was unequipped and had no bodyguards, and yet he won every single time. Fear my l33t Dom2 skillz! (or fear the Bad VCR Header error I got when I tried to view the battles...)

I got my first ice devil on turn 15, but only sent him out on turn 19 once I got him equipped. I've never had ice devils with less than ideal equipment, so I was nervous about losing him to stupidity.

Equipment for the Ice Devils/Arch Devils/Air Queens mostly consisted of the following: Blood Thorn, Lucky Shield, Horror Helm, Red Dragon Scale Mail (later Jade Armor when I got someone with 1W 1E), Winged Shoes or Boots of Quickness, Antimagic Amulet and Ring of Regeneration.

My pretender spent most of his time site searching or summoning Ice Devils (and later Air Queens).

I tried Send Horror for the first time. Again, holy bleeping bleep. Armies just vanish when attacked by a Horror. I cast 2 on Ulm's capital, and my army walked in to an undefended province. For Abysia, 4S 3B is not hard to get at all.

Okay, now to my questions for the Abysian gurus:

1. Soul Contracts: how should I defend my scouts, if at all? Because of the Soul Contract, the scouts can have up to 10 undead under their control, so perhaps 5 Devils as bodyguards would be good. How many Soul Contracts are recommended?

2. Blood Harvesting: how many provinces should be dedicated to blood harvesting early in the game? I tried 3 provinces each with 3 hunters.

3. Research: from early to mid-game, should Abysia research anything but Alt-2, Constr-4, and Blood Magic? In other words, am I missing anything?

4. Blood Summons: other than Ice Devils and Arch Devils, which blood summons are worth casting? I just summoned a Father Illearth in my current game, but haven't yet tried Fallen Angels, Demon Lords or Heliophagus (Heliphagi?).

Any comments or thoughts on my approach would be most appreciated.


Caseus

[Gandalf Parker]

The biggest error I see when people first try to make Abysia playing (well actually its the first mistake I see when people try to make ANY nation worth playing) is ignoring obvious major central concepts to the nation. I didnt see it specifically mentioned in what you had so you might already be beyond this point but I want to mention it for newbie lurkers.

Abysia LIKES heat. Yes I see you took heat-3 scale but thats not what I mean. I mean keeping an eye on your dominion and making use of it. If you have trouble taking a province and have multiple choices which one to hit next then take note of how your dominion is doing there. Hit the province which is most affected by your monions heat scale and you will gain bonuses while the enemy usually gets minuses. Most of the nations have some sort of scale benefit but people want to play forward of their dominion or not make an effort to push their dominion forward to play under the benefits of their god.

If I remember correctly heat causes fatigue? There are many strategies mentioned which use fatigue to overcome SuperCOmbatants or Pretenders. Keep it in mind.

Also, another obvious one for any new people trying Abysia. One reason that Abysia tends to NOT be a good starting race for new players is that *&$%*&@#$ heat aura. Its easier to do well with Abysia when you have experience in formations, or you are the type of player who is into managing formations heavily. If you arent that type of person then Abysia will quickly go on your C list.

[Truper]

If you can get an Ice Devil by turn 15, and have him equipped by 19, your blood hunting/research strategies are just fine.

Personally, I wouldn't put Soul Contracts on scouts, I'd put them on the Demonbred that will be leading the Devils. Why waste time gathering them up, when you can have them spawn right where they need to be?

Abysia doesn't necessarily need to be played Blood first. They can also, if you like, do some nice things with fire magic and their innate fire immunity. Their infantry is slow, as you noted, but it is quite potent.

Don't overlook Hordes from Hell. Being able to call down 20 Imps and a Devil wherever you need to is a nice ability, and the Devil makes a fine commander for other devils.

[Boron]

Warning : I'm no Abysia guru

1. Imo you shouldn't defend your scouts at all just hide them . Afaik they never die cause of the bad vcr header error . Even if they die the horror attacks are rather rare so not worth guarding your scouts .

There is no limit for soul contracts , if the game Lasts long there is nothing wrong in having 50 , 100 or even more soul contracts .

2. I always try to hunt Asap in all 3,5-8 k provinces and only keep the rich farmlands etc. with huge population for tax generation "unhunted" . 3 Blood hunters / province is good .

3. Early to midgame you should research construction 6 instead of construction 4 cause blood thorn + brazen vessel are construction 6 .
Alteration you can research up to 3 or even 5 , depending on your strat + pretender : alt 3 gives nice extra buffs , ironskin + mistform , alt 5 gives incinerate + invulnerability . Enchantment 1 for fire shield + breath of winter i normally research very early too .
Finally thaum 2 is important for sitesearching spells like augury .

4. Basically the lvl 9 troop summon spells are very worthy being casted . I like particulary forces of darkness and infernal tempest .

As you say Ice devils and Arch devils are very potent SCs .
The rest , demon lords etc. are nice but optional . Demon lords lack some slots , mainly body slot and Heliophagii are similiar to Arch devils but lack the fire resistence etc. .
The devil you get from horde to hell is a leader and makes a good thug .

[Graeme Dice]

Caseus said:
My pretender was a Great Warlock, whom I named Evil Todd. I took Order-3, Prod-3, Heat-3, Misfortune-2, Watchtower, Dominion 7. Evil Todd had 4 Air (for SoS and easy access to Air Queens), 3 Earth (hammers), 3 Water and 3 Blood (Ice Devils).

Watchtowers suck. Using them with a nation that has resource heavy troops without a combat pretender (or even with) is asking to get run over by somebody who has a decent castle.

Armies just vanish when attacked by a Horror.

AI armies will be hurt. Anything that a human puts together won't be damaged by normal or lesser horrors.

[alexti]

Caseus said:
I tried a new approach. My pretender was a Great Warlock, whom I named Evil Todd. I took Order-3, Prod-3, Heat-3, Misfortune-2, Watchtower, Dominion 7. Evil Todd had 4 Air (for SoS and easy access to Air Queens), 3 Earth (hammers), 3 Water and 3 Blood (Ice Devils). The plan was to research Construction-2, Blood-5, Alteration-2, Construction-4, Blood 6, Construction-6, etc.

I wouldn't design Abysia with Air Queens in mind. Your chances to get an Air Queen in competitive MP is about 0, because you don't have any way to generate air income quickly, unless you're lucky with indies. Besides you have easy access to Ice- and Arch- Devils, so you will have enough SCs. SoS isn't something which is a must for Abysia. You will rarely need it yourself and your opponents are likely to bring it anyway. So you may be better off by spending points on something else. For example, on better fort. Having access to death and nature would be nice too.

[Caseus]

Thanks for the comments!

I appreciate knowing what works in multiplayer, but I play exclusively single player games.

Years ago I played a lot of VGA Planets. I have found those who play multiplayer games to be ultracompetitive to the point where any semblance of fun in the game is gone. After reading the Norfleet threads, I am convinced Dominions 2 is no differently, sadly.

I prefer Watchtowers over Castles for several reasons:

1. cost to build -- 150 gold is a lot, especially early on
2. time to build -- 1 less turn is huge when you're at war
3. 80 design points are not insignificant

I build watchtowers everywhere. Watchtowers reduce enemy army speed by 50%. In the turn it takes the AI to seige my watchtower, I fly or teleport in reinforcements.

I forgot about Enchantment 1. I tried fire shields in my current game and found them quite fun.

In single player, it's pretty easy to get Air Queens out the door. However, the point about Air is well taken. I might take 2 Air and put the points elsewhere. I checked my design and my Great Warlock does have 3 Death but no Nature.

What is a good combat pretender for Abysia?


Caseus

[archaeolept]

the thing is, SP is not really the game. almost any strategy can work for SP once you get the basics down, since the AI is unable to deal w/ pretty well anything.

the sole real measure of the value of a strat is for MP.

[Cohen]

I talk for MP experience.

Personally I prefer however Watchtower. Even if I pump out less HeavyInf.
First try with a combatant pretender, Caeseus, like the Ghost King that now as it is, it's like a jolly because he could do almost anything.

You could exploit Death til 3, that Abysya won't lost the gold income nor the supplies. But the population will die however.
Pick always magic-3. It's the lone way to have a decent research, considering your bloodhunters and researchers are capitol only (I mean those cost-effective, even a 200 gold costy ant.salamander can research).
For productivity, it's not that useful, soon the heavy infantry get useless AND considering that a rout in any battle == them all dead, AND the time you need to replace an army of them, AND a huge amount of time to bring them in an attack position, AND if in early expansion you get your way closed by another nation, or by a sudden appearing of 4 heavy cavalry province all neighbouring the new aquired province and you've to waste a turn to get back, you'll discover the Abysya Infantry is very poor for their cost. And with their low morale they'll flee very easily. You can consider Productivity only if you want extra gold. Your pretender should be the way you conquer indies, Abysya really lacks of a capable army.

About Air Queens, forget them. To have that research and air income you should find a lot of sages, or indep mages. Even if they're awesome.

I usually go at least blood-3 before any construction, and even blood-5 if my pretender is capable of binding Ice Devils. The lone Abysya benefit is that her blood hunters start with 2 blood, so if there's the devil race with mictlan you can forgo the sanguine douzing rods. But usually expect Abysya get outmatched in blood by Mictlan, default Jotunheim and Black Forest Ulm.
You need however blood 3, if someone go at war with you and you can't hold him at bay with pretender and heavy infantry (thing very very easy), demonbred can summon single devil, and warlocks can summon fiends of darkness.
They're good raiders if led by a Demonbred, they can't hide but they fly.

Fire Magic doesn't count a lot. Abysya has no real battle mages. With low precision, to be useful you've to send an entire battery of Anthemats in battle, and when you go to the fight the enemy could easily make a ring of fire for his most precious leaders.
Communion? Well Warlocks perhaps in communnion could do something, HEY but they're your lone researchers and blood hunters, unless you're desperate do you really send them into the battle?

However Abysya isn't one of the top five nations, IF there's another blood nation in. If in the game perhaps there'rent the 3 above, oh well, it's quite different.
Even in my opinion is one of the weaker nations.

[Caseus]

For me, single player IS the game.

In multiplayer you have to contend with cheaters. You have to contend with people exploiting loopholes in the game system to do things the designers never intended. The actual fun parts of the game -- the huge variety of spells, magic items, and units -- are lost in the intense competitiveness of multiplayer. "You can't do X, that doesn't work in multiplayer!"

I suspect it's far worse than that. I suspect that in multiplayer, your race is merely a chassis for getting out the Big Summons. The incredibly diversity of races and units is virtually meaningless compared to the power of Ice Devils, Air Queens, etc.

Having never played multiplayer, I could be wrong. But I doubt it.


Caseus