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| Thread: How to tackle with Castle | |
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Thunder
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted February 25, 2002 01:55 PM |
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How to tackle with Castle
Castle's main hitters are Arch Angels, Champions and Crusaders. Of these Crusaders are most vulnerable and easiest to avoid. Castle's shooting power comes from Zealots and Marksmen, vulnerable shooters and will perish when forced to melee.
In most cases, opponent has no other choice than to wait with the Arch Angels. This will enable you to cast Mass Haste or Mass Prayer and attack with most or all of your units right away.
For a fairly succesful blitz attack you need, at least, comparable might stats between your and enemy hero. Offense secondary skill gives you an another reason to do blitz attack. Speed structure (of both forces) is also important. You wan't that most of your units reach opponent's units and the opponent won't have units moving between your troops. With Mass Haste units who have speed of 6 or less can't reach opponent's units. With Mass Prayer units who have speed of 7 or less can't reach opponent's units. Speed Artifacts and heroes like Terek or Loynis will ensure that more of your units are able to reach opponent creatures than they would normally. Tactics skill will help also. Even opponent's Tactics skill can help, in the case he or she should move troops closer to your troops.
Another weakness of the Castle is that, in most cases, they can't wait with spell casting until it is the turn of Arch Angels. So they seldom get the chance to cast last in the given round, which gives you the advantage to counter Castle spells (like Curse after Bless).
STRONGHOLD
You need either Mass Haste or Mass Prayer (very unlikely spell for Stronghold) and Tactics secondary skill. Castle's best way to victory is blitz attack, so deploy your troops carefully when and if you have Tactics advantage.
1. Deploy your units out from the shooting range of the Zealots, but not necessarily out of the shooting range of Marksmen if they have only their normal speed (6) and only if you have resistance (or some speed artifacts or battle is on rough).
2. Deploy your units out of the Hasted range of Crusaders and out of the normal range of Champions (in the case opponent casts Mass Slow albeit some hero classes (especially Knight) have to struggle to get Earth Magic).
3. Ensure that all of your non-shooter units are able to attack opponent troops after casting Mass Haste. Especially Ogre Magi.
4. Ensure that if Castle casts Mass Haste no more than one unit is able to attack Thunderbirds.
5. If possible try to shield your Wolf Raiders from attacks.
6. Don't make it possible to block both of your shooters with one unit
7. If possible try to deploy your Behemoths so that they can reach the Castle units with normal speed (in the case they should be blinded).
This way you can cast Mass Haste or Mass Slow before the turn of Crusaders, Halberdiers, and Marksmen, in the case opponent should cast Mass Haste or Prayer. If you wan't (or if it's possible) to keep your units out of the shooting range of the Marksmen and out of the range of Crusaders. Eat retalition(s) with your troops that had suffered most. Attack Arch Angels with your Ancient Behemoths and wear them down needed. Attack Champions with rest of your stacks (using either a tough stack or a stack that doesn't have many creatures left). Another solution would be to kill Arch Angels and to kill as many crusaders as possible and attack Marksmen with Hobgoblins.
If Angels simply wait and Castle hero doesn't cast anything, cast Mass Haste. Attack Crusaders with Thunderbirds. Attack Arch Angels with Behemoths, in the case you can attack them with other units also. If you can't gang them attack Champions instead. Wolf Raiders can attack either the unit Thunderbirds or Behemoths attacked. If Halberdiers are next to Marksmen, attack Marksmen with Hobgoblins. If unit already attacked is next to Marksmen, attack attacked unit instead with Hobgoblins, positioning them so that they block the Marksmen. Ogre Magi and shooters will complete the carnage the Behemoths and/or Thunderbirds started.
If there is no tactics advantage on either of sides, Castle might cast either blind on your Behemoths or Mass Haste/Prayer. If Behemoths are blinded, blind Arch Angels if you have that spell if not, undo the blind.
Thunderbirds and most propably Wolf Raiders will perish in the case of Mass Haste or Prayer. If you are attacker, however, you can shield the Thunderbirds by putting them on the middle slot and placing the Behemoths and the Wolf Raiders next to them. This way Castle can attack Thunderbirds only with one unit (+Zealots). But problem arouses from the vulnerability of the Wolf Raiders. If Castle can kill them with Arch Angels or Champions alone, it might be possible then for them to kill Thunderbirds.
Nevertheless Crusaders and Halberdiers can't reach your units and you are now able to kill (some of) the stacks that came to you.
Awkward situation is, if Castle has tactics advantage and appears to have Mass Haste (or worse till, Mass Prayer) too. That way Castle can reach you with all of his units. Which is another reason to get the Tactics.
RAMPART
Shielding the Elves, Tactics advantage or not, is propably your best option. If you don't have tactics advantage, though, Castle might just cast clone (if they have that spell and on the expert level) on the Arch Angels and finish off the Elves with the Clone, forcing you to go on offense. However, it will give you a benefit to cast free spell. Blind on the Arch Angels is a good move if you have it. It will enable you to go first in the second round and to cast Mass Prayer or Mass Slow and to kill off enemy stacks. If you don't have Blind, and you don't have any damage spell that can seriously hurt the opponent, it is best to cast some good mass spell on your own troops. Castle won't shield his shooters due to your Dragons but advances carefully instead. That will enable both Dragons and Pegasi to attack shooter stacks. Without Mass Prayer (or Haste) good move would be teleporting the Dendroids on round 2 to the Champions after the Champions have moved. Simple haste on them will be better if that enables them to reach the Champions and thus negating the special of the Champions.
You don't have to fear Mass Haste (provided you can counter it) or Mass Slow due to the high speed of your Dragons and due to the magic resistance/immunity of your forces. Or any offensive spell for that matter.
When you don't have Tactics advantage and Arch Angels appear to wait and any lasting spell (that you can counter) isn't cast, wait with Gold Dragons and Silver Pegasi, shield Elves with War Unicorns and Centaur Captains, shoot Marksmen with Grand Elves and advance with your Battle Dwarves and Dendroid Soldiers. At the end of round kill shooter stacks with your Silver Pegasi and Gold Dragons. On the round two it might be best to pull back your Pegasi and Gold Dragons, especially when opposite shooters are dead while Elves are still numerous. Should the opponent kill guard stack with Arch Angels, guard elves with Gold Dragons. If Champions move before Royal Griffins make sure that they can't kill the Unicorns (if they are guarding the elves), that would enable the Griffins to attack or block the Elves. Champions are main target of your Dendroid Soldiers, but any stack, except Halberdiers, is a good target.
If you have Tactics advantage, move your troops like in former situation. If you have Mass Prayer you can deploy them more offensively. Should the Castle cast Mass Haste on the turn of Arch Angels and attack with them, cast Mass Slow and attrition the Angels down. Should the Castle wait with casting and attack with Arch Angels, cast Mass Prayer. If possible try to kill both Griffins and Champions, which will enable the Dendroids to move before the turn of Castle.
Would the Castle have Tactics advantage, they will have hard time to put it on good use. They can't defend their shooters due to your Dragons, but should they do that anyway, you have 2-hex attack for your Dragons then. Would the Castle deploy aggressively, your Dendroids will get into action earlier.
Please, feel free to add your strategies against the Castle and/or patch any holes in my strategies I left open.
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Sir_Stiven
Honorable
Legendary Hero
banned
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posted February 25, 2002 02:46 PM |
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Wow Thunder isnt famous for short posts is he? 
/Stefan
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"Youre zeroes and ones, youre wrong where im right"
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Djive
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Zapper of Toads
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posted March 17, 2002 12:15 PM |
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Well, you've based your strategy on the Castle vs- Stronghold troops in that thread.
However, Stronghold would never build up that way if they could reasonably build in another way, and castle would also build in another way.
So for the troop numbers Stronghold would build the level 1, 2, 5, and 7 buildings in week 1. Castle would build level 1, 4, 5, and 7 (provided they can afford the gold & resource cost of the angels dwelling in week 1.) The less that is prebuilt the less changces to get angels. The level 4 building requires Blacksmith and level 5 requires Mage Guild.
This changes things in the game:
Castle Units
7 => 9 Arch Angels
14 Champions
21 => 27 Zealots
36 Crusaders
75 => 58 Royal Griffins
81 => 63 Marksmen
126 Halberdiers
Stronghold Units
7 => 9 Ancient Behemoths
14 Cyclop Kings
21 => 27 Thunderbirds
36 => 28 Ogre Magi
63 => 49 Orc Chieftains
81 Wolf Raiders
167 Hobgoblins
If castle cannot afford the angels then they have a lot of other build alternatives. The castle town is the town with the most chaotic dependencies between the builds, where level 4 is required for level 3 and level 2 is not required for any of the higher level dwellings.
An advantage of Stronghold is that you can get the Behemoths early and week 1 would not be too difficult.
With these new troop numbers the nature of the battle will change a bit, won't it? With enemy having 9 Behmeoths rush tactics from castle just got a lot more risky.
Also be ware that in our battle Castle weren't guaranteed to take out all the T-birds. I believe there was a 20% or so chance of 1 T-bird surviving the Champion's attack.
New troop-numbers mean probably means a slightly different deployment.
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"A brilliant light can either illuminate or blind. How will you know which until you open your eyes?"
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AndiAngelsla...
Disgraceful
Famous Hero
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posted March 17, 2002 01:00 PM |
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all those theories are useless, you need to play the game to get a feeling for it, and most of all understand that almost every game is different...
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Thunder
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted March 17, 2002 06:15 PM |
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Djive, I haven't mentioned the build-up in this thread (it just doesn't belong here). Nor I have based my strategies here on that Battle thread.
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Shadowstormed
Known Hero
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posted March 17, 2002 10:22 PM |
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Good post, your mainly right!!!!
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My pet dragon Perthodous, remeber him Sir dunco!
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bjorn190
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Jebus maker
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posted March 18, 2002 04:06 AM |
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First you build city hall, then you build capitol, then you build barracks, monastary, and portal of glory, and if you got the wood, stables and training grounds. Then you build archers tower and griffons, then upgrade archers and swordsmen.
then you get haste and tactics and win.
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Aculias
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Pretty Boy Angel Sacraficer
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posted March 18, 2002 06:57 AM |
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For the first time I thought I never would but I agree with Andi you cant just theorize in words of one tactic in this game shoot I used so many tactics for castle for example it's not funny.
Depends on what you build first,spells,skills& primary & other things like artifacts.
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Dreaming of a Better World
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thunderknight
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted March 19, 2002 09:12 AM |
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First of all, the full line-up battles between various town types led by their respectively typical heroes will be VERY rare if not impossible in real games especially in human vs human games. (Well, vs AI, you will always win, so no need to bother too much. )
Anyway, let me add something to the "imaginary battle" thread to kill some time before h4. 
The feature of Castle is its high damage potential (AA, champion, crusader + the highest chance to get bonus attack due to morale). So, to play against Castle, you may probably want to equip the Spirit of Oppression more often than not unless you are Castle yourself.
The key drawback of Castle if the great speed lag between AA and the 2nd fastest troop. So, they will most likely to wait with AA and then it would be your turn in most cases.
Tower can outshoot castle. Dungeon/stronghold/conflux can tie it in shooting games. So no need to rush for these towns.
Inferno may choose to cast exp beserk (if available) on champion and other troops and let those castle heavy hitters kill themselves. (Ya, I know Thunder has made a good post about castle deployment to minimize effect of beserk  )
Anyway, there are too many possible tactics and I don't think there is a best way to tackle Castle if it's played by a good human player.
Well, if you have a choice, Conflux may be the best town to tackle castle especially play S/M size map. If castle build portal of glory, it will have cash flow problem, if not, no angel to worry about. Just rush it by week 2 or 3. Your fire birds led by planewalker is enough to crush them. But problem it that Conflux is usually not allowed in multi-player games.
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Choose what you love
and love what you choose.
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The_Gootch
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Kneel Before Me Sons of HC!!
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posted March 27, 2002 10:52 PM |
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Awwright Thunder, I'm here. Let's see.... Um nope, I have totally different tactics than that.
I have to say that I disagree with your assessment of the Rampart's chances.
Level per level its creatures do not stack up well against the Castle. Hell, I'd take Zealots over Dendroids any day of the week. Centaur Captains vs. Halberdiers? I'll take Halberdiers. The rest don't even compare. Marksmen/Battle Dwarves? C'mon. Royal Griffins/Grand Elves? Nope. Levels 4, 6, and 7 are even worse for comparison.
Tactics? Protect the Elves and wait will not work. The elves will die before the marksmen will bite the dust. Protect the elves, wait, but send in the dragons and Pegasi? Fine by me, I'll destroy those 2 stacks with minimal losses and then release the big guns. Blind my angels? Well, that's always a possibility, but that's what anti-magic and cure are for(mostly Cure). Send in your infantry? Hah! Without Haste, it will take 3 turns for your dwarves and 4 for your dendroids to get to my side. All the while I'll be shredding you with my superior range because you should realize how suicidal it is to send in the dragons and pegasi to disrupt me. We've all played the haste/slow game, you can't really argue it.
"What about Heroes," you might say? "Thorgrim's a rock, you can't cast a spell on me to save your life." I don't need to. As the Castle, I don't worry as much about your troops as I am boosting mine or dealing with your nasty little spells. I am that confident that toe to toe, I will win.
All in all, the only thing that stops the Castle are poor development(the player's fault, not the creatures), and luck. All things being equal, Castle is superior.
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sos
Known Hero
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posted March 28, 2002 12:49 AM |
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hehe Gootch,
in any halfway decent map Castle will have less troops than Rampart. Moreover Castle's troops will have a lot less health and will cost more. So even if you are able to build relatively fast (which is a problem because of expensive buildings - both money and resources) you may not be abe to recruit your troops. Rampart on the other hand has the cheepest HP, so recruiting is not a problem.
Also, the shooting advantage is not that much in castle's favor. Weekly production of elves will do more than 70% of the combined damage of marksmen/zealots, but you prolly will have less zealots so the difference is even smaller. Its very unlikely that your marksmen will shoot more than once anyway, unless you guard them in the first round. If you do this you can be attacked with spells like meteor shower with high chance of success since you dont have any natural resistance. On the other hand its more difficult to get to the elves, because of magic resistance. And did I mention that your spell cost more?
Also, unless you cast antimagic on AA, Rampart will always have last move/spell if they want to as long as dragons are alive. This will force you to always cast early or risking having your AA blinded. And if you have antimagic and cast it on AA - this is in effect a free spell to Rampart.
I can go on on Castle's weeknesses, but my points is to show that its not as onesided as you want it to be
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Thunder
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted March 28, 2002 06:29 PM |
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Quote: At the end of round kill shooter stacks with your Silver Pegasi and Gold Dragons. On the round two it might be best to pull back your Pegasi and Dragons
Which means that you can attack them only with Arch Angels (twice) before I pull back. Sure, you could try Mass Haste and to kill my Pegasi but Gold Dragons turn is after Arch Angels and you get slowed. So at the beginning of round two I have shooting advantage and you have to come to my side of battle field.
And you can't get through to my Grand Elves. You could attack Centaur Captains which are shielding my Grand Elves with your Arch Angels at the end of round 1, and try to kill them with second blow from them in the beginning of round two. But then I can fly my Gold Dragons to replace them. And Dendroids are near units shielding elves so they can reach your units when they come for Elves, as can do Battle Dwarwes.
You can't kill enough Grand Elves with your Zealots and Marksmen (who take the shot from Elves before their turn).
And against Castle I rather choose Mephala than Thorgrim.
Unit comparison: 8 Dendroids win 6 Zealots, no matter what you think, while 20 Battle Dwarwes kill 18 Marksmen (neither of them can't kill enough until grunts are at their throat), 28 Centaur Captains can kill 28 Halberdiers by waiting them out (and Centaur Captains are clearly better than Halberdies). Arch Angels win Gold Dragons, Crusaders win Silver Pegasi, Royal Griffins win Grand Elves and Champions can win War Unicorns.
But unit comparison doesn't mean anything. Grand Elves are shielded and you can't reach them. Champions can be binded or blinded so their special don't do any good.
Here is problems that Castle have: They can't reach the Elves (unless they attack right away with Arch Angels), Arch Angels get blinded and Anti-Magic is somewhat wasted spell in first round against might hero, Gold Dragons move right after Arch Angels haste or not and Castle can't shield its shooters without giving Gold Dragons two-hex attack.
Believe it or not, but Castle can have real hard time fighting against Rampart.
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