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| Thread: [HotA] - Cove Strategy |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted January 15, 2014 09:59 AM |
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[HotA] - Cove Strategy
Opened as requested by 8882 here.
Share your strategies people!
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted January 15, 2014 12:06 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 12:12, 15 Jan 2014.
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Mass Haste (Expert Air Magic) being a friend of the faction is a well known fact. Seaman (God, I hate this pun  ) or Nix profit from it the most...
Not strategies, but suggestions (not the most brilliant ones, but worth mentioning...):
The most effective unit in Cove to cast Bless on is the Sea Dog. He has a wide dmg ratio, so cast Bless (if you don't have Mass Bless that is) on him in the first place to maximize his dmg.
Splitting Sorceress is a good idea if you have free space. They can debuff more units that way, and enemies tend to cast Blind on them...
Another good unit to cast Bless on are Ayssids. There is no faster double attack melee unit in the game (though they must kill at least one enemy unit to attack two times with their Ferocity ability). Wait until the end of turn, cast Bless, and attack. Ayssids have good speed so usually they move at the beginning of next turn, as such you can attack 4 times (more with high Morale) in the row. Perfect for those pesky archers, or to throw some chaos into enemy ranks (though enemies like to attack them, you can lure them by moving with and sacrificing Oceanids to take some heat off them, cus Oceanids are also enemy favorites  ).
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Hobbit
Supreme Hero
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posted January 15, 2014 01:35 PM |
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Strategy no. 1: buy Cannon immediately.
blob2 said:
The most effective unit in Cove to cast Bless on is the Sea Dog. He has a wide dmg ratio, so cast Bless (if you don't have Mass Bless that is) on him in the first place to maximize his dmg.
Actually Sea Dogs already have their Accurate Shot ability, so they don't need maximizing their damage that much. I'd rather go with casting Bless on Sorceresses or Ayssids - they also have pretty wide dmg ratio.
blob2 said:
Splitting Sorceress is a good idea if you have free space. They can debuff more units that way, and enemies tend to cast Blind on them...
Not only they can debuff more units this way, but they can also debuff one unit more. If Weakness is already cast on target, just 3 stacks of Sorceresses can decrease one stack's def by 12 in one turn. Can be useful, especially combined with Eovacius' specialty.
Some other nice things:
 If you have many Haspids and your enemy is quite powerful, put them in as few stacks as possible. Their Revenge ability is most powerful during long fights, when they're taking a lot of damage.
Since Corsairs have no melee penalty and no enemy retaliation, they often don't need to be defended by other units. It's really useful to know because Oceanids and Seamen (seriously though, why not Sailors? ) tend to die quickly because of that, while they can do quite a lot of damage in high numbers if they just have the opportunity.
If you play as Necropolis, remember that Sea Serpents and Haspids turn into Bone Dragons in Skeleton Transformer, just like Hydras and Dragons. 
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Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted January 15, 2014 02:49 PM |
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Indeed cannons rock! Triple damage, they can destroy walls too...really powerful in early game and sieges 
I find seamen to be quite good in terms of health/price.
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 15, 2014 03:30 PM |
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Cove is pretty easy to play. You can ravage the land only with your main hero's starting troops + your secondary's and the city troops in day 1. But that also depends on the difficulty of the map. I don't play any levels but impossible, and that's still far from enough for me.
Anyway, with those things in mind you should have 60+ nymphs, 20+ crew mates and 10+ pirates. You can easily kill tier 1 and maybe even tier 2 non-ranged creatures. Lots, hordes and even throngs. I usually split up my nymphs into other 5 nymphs with 1 nymph each. I use those depending on the situation, you can block your creatures into a corner so that the enemy won't reach them for a few turns, you can use them as bait, for pixies for example, to get them in range for your pirates. You can kite some stacks away, you can even use them to avoid retaliation into your main stacks. There are loads of things you can do, depending on the situation. Now, you don't want to waste the 4 shots that the pirate has doing only half dmg, instead you should wait for the enemy to get in range, even if that means skipping a turn, in some situations it's really worth it.
Another thing, you should really look to get Leena as your secondary because of her +350 gold per day and the Estates skill. That will boost your economy significantly and help you reach middle game a lot faster. As for as your main hero goes, I guess it's up to you and your preferences, I myself use Corkes because of his Offense specialty.
Canons are pretty good, especially if you have artillery. When you get access to it, you should buy it as fast as possible, because the combat power that comes with it is tremendous, and you will be able to best more stacks of creatures and claim their treasures. However this will make you waste 5000 gold, whereas you could use it for upgrading your Hall to Capitol, so take into account all the factors when you want to make a wise decision. Since I'm more economy-oriented I would seek to build Capitol as soon as I can, but if there are creatures on the map which have treasures that I could use more, I would definitely take a canon and try to fight them.
There are more things that could be said, like skill that you should take or whatnot, but I think that would be enuf for a good start, and... I'm already tired of typing. So, I hope this helps
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted January 15, 2014 03:47 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 15:56, 15 Jan 2014.
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Hobbit said:
Seamen (seriously though, why not Sailors? ) tend to die quickly because of that, while they can do quite a lot of damage in high numbers if they just have the opportunity.
Or Man of the Sea
And yeah, they are quite sturdy and can pack quite a punch. Definitely worth their money... They are good units to protect your rear lines, like absorbing retaliation from enemy units or taking off heat from your ranged units.
Stevie said:
Canons are pretty good, especially if you have artillery. When you get access to it, you should buy it as fast as possible, because the combat power that comes with it is tremendous, and you will be able to best more stacks of creatures and claim their treasures. However this will make you waste 5000 gold, whereas you could use it for upgrading your Hall to Capitol
Or you can take Jeremy as your main hero. Taking a hero with a War Machine was never this profitable
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Stevie
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted January 15, 2014 04:28 PM |
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blob2 said:
Or you can take Jeremy as your main hero. Taking a hero with a War Machine was never this profitable
Yep, Hero + cannon, all in for only 2500 gold. And the skills he has are pretty good also. But, is his specialty that good? My guess is that Corkes's better, at least on the long run. So with Corkes as main, who should I get as secondary, Leena for economy boost, or Jeremy for his cannon... such difficult decisions...
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Hobbit
Supreme Hero
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posted January 15, 2014 05:09 PM |
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted January 15, 2014 07:44 PM |
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Jeremy is ideal for small maps. You can count the cannon as a strong additional unit (like a single Titan maybe? 250 hp + triple dmg). Great in first few weeks!
Also I wonder why there aren't any Nix heroes to choose from (for instance Dungeon has Minotaurs and Troglodytes!). I know there's a "special" hero in the campaign, but he's only limited to the campaign. Bummer...
Also do you guys know if throwing a Haste'ed Nix right into an enemy army makes sense? I mean, by the look of their ability, they are ideal for tanking dmg, while your other troops mess up their ranks. I didn't have many occasions to test Nixes as of yet (I'm planning to finish the campaign first)...
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Hobbit
Supreme Hero
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posted January 15, 2014 08:13 PM |
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Quote:
Also I wonder why there aren't any Nix heroes to choose from (for instance Dungeon has Minotaurs and Troglodytes!). I know there's a "special" hero in the campaign, but he's only limited to the campaign.
There are 19 Cove heroes, counting regular and campaign ones. There's an Elf, a Nix and a Nymph. The rest are humans. So that's how Cove is made - most of guys here are humans, and this actually fits pirate mood (and Regna from MM8, BTW) perfectly.
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Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted January 16, 2014 12:21 PM |
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One or two Nixes as standard pick-able Heroes wouldn't hurt
One with Nixes specialty, other with Armorer for instance...
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Hobbit
Supreme Hero
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posted January 16, 2014 12:38 PM |
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Nah, that's more original for me. Besides - Tark already has Offense and Armorer as secondary skills, and there's Illor with Armorer and Tactics, so it wouldn't really be a good idea.
And again, this almost-human style is really similar to Regna, so it's fine for me.
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Horn of the
Abyss on AcidCave
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nik312
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted January 26, 2014 06:09 PM |
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Edited by nik312 at 18:14, 26 Jan 2014.
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Current Cove strategy
Ok, I decided to post here as well. And this will be my view of Cove on random maps against decent players. At least some of it.
Starting heroes: I see 3 possible variants. Anabel, Corkes and Jeremy. Jeremy could be taken either to rush opponent at 121 or if to play at 200% difficulty. But the only multiplayer format with 200% difficulty (aka m200) states full-random start, so not a very reliable starter.
If to speak about standart 160% game I usually prefer Anabel. Though on Jebus Cross Corkes can be a decent option. Some people might like Cassiopea/Illor start, but I am not one of them.
Start I like building pirates day 2, not rushing for nixes. It's always great to strengthen your main striking stack. About 30 pirates + meat are capable of taking most things you need to take week 1. This includes crypts, mini-cons, dwarven tres, most zone and between-zone guards. The only thing that it takes really poorly is dragonfly hive, which is really bad on high tempo templates like Jebus. But Jebus always needs some special approach
Overall strategy: So, at week 1 you should have Nix + Castle (or Citadel) and maybe some pirate upgrades. If you have outer Serpent dwell, then of course it is better to tempo-up resourse collection (concentrate rather on banks and big guarded gold clusters) and build Serpents.
Week 2 is standard: if you got mass-slow/mass-haste - go clear treasure zones, if not - just try to find as many conses/hives/red towers as you can and build effective chains to collect 'em all in a few days. Hives should be taken with nixes + crew mates + foreign meat to die.
Conses are taken with 70+ sea dogs, bless and striking stack(s) strong enough to finish off griffin stacks.
Another way is standard shooter tactic - 2 good covering stacks and sea dogs (for 10 shots), going into corner. The problem here are 2 covering stacks, as only Nixes are initially capable of that. But few crew mates dwells or native secondary castle can solve the problem. That tactics can be seen here at Castle example.
Week 3 is usually the final deadline for finding and taking some Dragon Utopia. Earlier and more you take it - earlier you get massive advantage against your opponent.
Overall town specifics Heroes have high attack, close to barbarians. Units mostly have high damage in combination with low hp. Almost all key units have huge damage dispersion, so expert bless is one of the most efficient mass-spells here. Captains have high chances for archery, path-finding and offence. Above average chance for Luck. Navigators have most chance for water magic and intellect. Earth magic is of equal probability for both classes. Also, all potential starting heroes have extremely good sec. skills.
The most wanted skills (not counting standard stuff like earth magic, logistics and off-def) are tactics, water magic and archery.
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blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
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posted January 26, 2014 08:12 PM |
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Edited by blob2 at 20:16, 26 Jan 2014.
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Of course, it's harder to get, at least in the first few weeks, but if you have luck in getting them, Expert Water Magic + Prayer is better then Expert Air Magic + Mass Haste combo. It also boosts initiative of your units, gives enough bonus movement for most of Cove units to reach enemies in one turn, and boost attack dmg. Cast Mass Bless in the next turn and your OP Cove army is ready (love throwing those Nixes into the center of enemy army). The only downfall is Prayers cost, but usually when reaching Expert Water you already have a few Knowledge points... besides, Water is Coves theme
PS: You need Wisdom skill though, as Prayer is a 4th level spell...
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Storm-Giant
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
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posted January 26, 2014 09:10 PM |
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Thank for the insight, nik. It's very appreciated.
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MagniBronzeb...
Adventuring Hero
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posted January 27, 2014 01:00 AM |
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I see also Zilare a viable starting hero (could be situational), in case of too many ranged guardians, advanced water magic should not be a problem to get.
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coupDegrace
Tavern Dweller
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posted February 28, 2014 05:07 PM |
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hi so after 4 games ill share what i think about cove town strategy
heroes:
Corkes-for his speciality and its good to have pathfinding with this town alltough u have 8/112 its very likely u will get it anyway.
Jeremy-starting with this cannon and on top of that with logistic is indeed very good.
Illor-he is surprisingly good , rushing day 2 Ayssid(7-9)+ your hero gets to sleep with 12 speed unit and u have tactic so from day 2 u can go against some nasty shooters that usally are not doable week1,they are very strong against the map if u learn how to use them ,and going for aissid+nyx is better in my opinion then going for blacksmith + 2-3 upgrades in pirates.Dont forget this town has 2/112 to learn armorer and alltough its close to useless against the map u almost allways want to have it in end battles vs your opponent.
Eovacious- might be worth a shot but i dont have played him yet
i can say this town is very expensive
against the map your best units are 1/3/4/7 rest are average or sux
oceanid dmg 1-3
sea dog dmg 3-7
aissyd dmg 6-10
sorseress dmg 10-16
haspid dmg 30-55!!!
and so alltough u most likely will use 4 out of thies 5 units( without sorseress) still your units CRY "get us bless"
But thats a drawback , if u skip earth magic u might not do very well against the map, but indeed mass bless + mass haste is porobably best spells for end battle.
if u get earth + water and your opponent has earth + air if u dont have mass prayer (very unlikely considering how most games end week 3-4)u are snowed up again.
and if u pick 3 magic schools hmmm idk it can work sometimes but most often it will fail if u lack one of the following logistic/offence/armorer are they worth it just be carefull not to end with 2 of them advanced and be attacked be your enemy ( thats what happened to me last game lol it was humiliating me with mass bless, 1 mass slow and battle was over)for this to work the game must get really late , late week 4+.
So just to make a note this is opinions from me playng on balance/panic/(not yet but soon will be played jebus template)with friend on 130%-160%difficulty.
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Warmonger
Promising
Legendary Hero
fallen artist
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posted February 28, 2014 05:26 PM |
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gatecrasher
Famous Hero
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posted February 28, 2014 05:26 PM |
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coupDegrace said:
heroes:
Corkes-for his speciality and its good to have pathfinding with this town alltough u have 8/112 its very likely u will get it anyway.
Actually, in case your army is comprised of Cove units solely, with Swamp as native terrain Pathfinding is least useful for Cove (and Fortress) of all towns since you will not encounter the 75% movement penalty of Swamp terrain anyway.
Not totally useless (Sand etc.) though.
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nik312
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted March 02, 2014 03:31 PM |
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Warmonger said:
Could you recommend any Cove playthrought movies on random maps?
I've done a tutorial on random-map gameplay for inferno. I was using HotA, but it is yet in russian... Didn't find the time to make subtitles.
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