please help me in this game situation !

[Ragnarok-X]

okay, here s the deal.

I started a new game on friday.
Map: Targa's Kingdom of Karan, which is GREAT btw.
Players: 11 Players, more about it later, AI MEDIUM
Using cherrys schale mod.
1 production, 1 grow, 2 luck.


I myself went with man, standart dominion.
My pretender was a arch druid, 2 fire, 3 nature 3 earth.


I played approx. 10+ Hours now, turn 179 now

Right now only Tien Chi, Ulm and i are left on the map. Ulm is almost gone, only 3 provines left, which will be mine soon.

Now here is the problem: Everything went okay until about 10 turns ago,

The map is ruled by 1/3 by me, 2/3 by tien chi, -> bad.

I could propably hold off since i have a load of lamia queens (lebrosy), a lot of wraith lords (summon ghost), the two elemental fire kings (summon ally, fires from afar) and two treelords(beckoning).

I have approx 10 cranes in chimera form, researching and casting seeking arrows.
Gem income is GREAT, approx 3000 gems in total, rising.

My research is about lvl 6-7 in each Category.


so here is the problem:

In the beginning i had a VERY good dominion, had almost 1/2 of the world with at least dominion 1.
So i decided to go with thinks like riches from beneath and gift of health, which rely on strong dominion.
My main strategy was LOTS of longbowman, and small forces of 20-30 knights, worked and still working very good.
I also had about 4 call of the wilds ingame, each eqipped with a whip of command, a weightless tower shield a food pott ( gives 50 supplies) which summoned wolves.
I was able to conquer several nations this way.
Lately i had some problems with ulm, but they are almost gone, too.
I have to admit i became slow, i waited for turns just to see research finished, and i didnt really did anything. Anyway, i was able to get good lands and nations were destroyed, i noticed tien chi made good advandes, too, but i didnt thought of them as a threat...
Anyway, suddenly all those armies appeared at the border of my border provines (in the middle of the map if you know it)
My dominion was surpressed within turns, almost 1/3 of my current provines are with a negative dominion.
The worst thing is that the provines at the front have things like -4 -8
I cant really pump out units anymore and my troops get killed quite easily (since Gift of Health and Riches from Beneath rely of dominion).
Tien Chi even casted Foul Air, which decreases morale by dominion.........

I have to admit i didnt had any priets at all, i relied on my temples.
When i noticed the strong dominion loss i recruited approx 20 priets in the front provines 4-5 is each, those are preaching for 5 turns now, still i cant seem to get dominion increasements.
I still have a strong force, approx 400 longbowmen, approx 100 warden, approx 200 Knights, about 2 douzen lesser caster, approx 3 douzen priets, approx 10 greater caster/summons.

I can still raise big armies with two of my back fortresses which still have big dominion and thus big benefit from riches from beneath.

Now here is the question: what would you adwise me to do ? I need something to get dominion, and i need to get it quick....i dont see another way to beat tien chi.
I have to admit fires from afar, summon earthelemental, beckoning etc are a REAL help, esspecially since i dont loss gems at all. I relieing on my rituals. I have better troops, BUT i get beaten by sheer numbers.

THe scores are against me, too.
Provines 1:3
Income 1:3
Research 1:1
Army 1:2
Gems 1:1


Anyone ? I guess i will try to get more free units, mean call of the wild and wraith lords (for summoning allies)

I dont see a worthwhile research goal though.


sorry for bad grammar btw.

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EDIT: thanks Arryn !

My base dominion was 6, but since i have like 30 temples my current max dominion is 10, i still have a few 10 dominions, but they are rare and only back in the homelands....i just cant seem to spreed it out, even my prophet isnt useful, though he is a bard and stealth +30 is quite awesome

[ February 29, 2004, 20:12: Message edited by: Ragnarok-X ]

[Arryn]

You haven't told us what your base and max dominion is ...

[Ragnarok-X]

thanks Arryn !

My base dominion was 6, but since i have like 30 temples my current max dominion is 10, i still have a few 10 dominions, but they are rare and only back in the homelands....i just cant seem to spreed it out, even my prophet isnt useful, though he is a bard and stealth +30 is quite awesome

[Arryn]

You need priests. Lots of them. The ones you used to build all your temples should be used to always make sure that dom is 3+ at any of your temple sites. Only after temple sites are at 3+ should you move priests somewhere else. And it doesn't hurt to have packs of priests. I like to send them in Groups of 3-4 to preach. Larger numbers if I'm doing a major siege.

As for dealing with the superior numbers of your foe, you need to recruit and/or summon tougher troops of your own. You cannot win by numbers, so your units have to be able to each kill lots of the enemy. Build magic items appropriate to making lots of mini-SCs. Send the SCs out with very tough bodyguards and let them savage the enemy. Items of fear, fire shield, and missile protection just to name a few. Spells like astral shield and invulnerability. Have your SCs with very high protection.

You can also use mages to cast powerful spells that can hurt or kill most of what's on the battlefield. If you have a few super-hardy leaders, you can sacrifice your fodder and just wipe out all the weaker creatures on the map (yours and theirs) with mass-effect spells. As long as you win, it doesn't matter. Provided the troops you lose are disposable.

[ February 29, 2004, 21:12: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[Torvak]

Wraith lords alone when properly equipped can do alot of carnage. In my current game one wins one arena deathmatch after the other and the other are also not much behind. Soon the hall of Fame will only be my Wraith Lords

[CharonJr]

You might try bringing conjuring up to lvl 9, but depending on your research points this might take some time.

At conj9 there are some very powerful summons and from the number of gems you seem to have you can empower enough mages to really put some hurt on Tien Chi.

Getting one/some raiding armies into the fairly light defended rear areas of Tien Chi and razing the temples there might help, too, since the spread of dominion might come to a hold fairly quickly and building new temples will prevent him from spending the same gold for some troops.

Some flying SCs should work fairly well in the role of rear area raiders. When you take a province set the taxes up to max and leave him "verbrannte Erde" (scorched earth).

CharonJr

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Torvak:
Wraith lords alone when properly equipped can do alot of carnage. In my current game one wins one arena deathmatch after the other and the other are also not much behind. Soon the hall of Fame will only be my Wraith Lords

I love WLs.

[Taqwus]

Do you mean Foul Air, or Dark Skies? -very- different effects; the one you described (morale loss for enemies in caster's dominion) sounds like the latter. In any event, with your gem stash, why haven't you dispelled them ?!?! Use alchemy to astral and empower if you must.
With that kind of province disadvantage, you probably need to wreck temples en masse before you get overwhelmed by hostile dominion. Remote summons can be good, although the air/nature ones aren't that strong (compared to Conj 9's Ghost Riders, for instance, which is a decent raiding force, and Army of the Dead, which is a nice followup).
Masses of unbreakables will also help neutralize the whole point of dark skies. Many magical units are mindless and unbreakable; at that point, you just need to make sure the mages won't rout.
Wish would be nice, heh; it's hard to rout a Doom Horror.

[Torvak]

you probably need to wreck temples en masse

And here we are back at wraith lords. They are excellent to fly around behind enemy lines, wreck temples and deal with any province defense. Though a good number of tartarian monstra is also not bad. But this would depend on your ability to heal afflictions.

[st.patrik]

By now means a solution in and of itself, but maybe you should think about researching to and casting "Wild Hunt" - quite a fun nature spell in which the lord of the hunt attacks a different powerful enemy priest each turn - keeps going until he gets defeated, which is hard since he's accompanied by a pack of wolves and Cu Sidhe. Best part is, you get to watch an enemy priest die each turn, without having to do anything.

The other thing is, if you're getting swarmed by numbers mainly (rather than magic) there are quite a lot of fun spells which can make your army an uber-army. Albeit you will need to empower like crazy to be able to cast them, but for example if you could cast the following spells, your troops would be a lot more hardy:
• Mass Protection/Army of Gold/Army of Lead
• Fog Warriors [gives your entire army mistform]
• Arrow Fend
• Mass Flight
• Life after Death
• Mass Regeneration

All of these affect all friendly units on the battlefield

I experimented with Mass Protection, Mass Flight, and Fog Warriors as Last of Tuatha Man, and combined with good bless effects those Daoine Sidhe were pretty much unstoppable.

All you need is one uber-army and you can go around from province to province, destroying temples and causing trouble.

If, of course you're getting beaten by good use of magic, the solution is different - the above is mainly good if you are facing superior numbers of regular troops.

[ March 01, 2004, 02:39: Message edited by: st.patrik ]