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| Thread: Witch civ do you like |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV |
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sos
Known Hero
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posted October 24, 2002 04:11 PM |
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what about (mass) cancelation, (mass) dispel - your potions are gone and your precios mage is dead round 1 
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csarmi
Supreme Hero
gets back
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posted October 24, 2002 07:54 PM |
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Yes, and I just sit with hands crossed and watch it on TV.
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sos
Known Hero
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posted October 24, 2002 08:01 PM |
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oh yea? and what exactly do you do about it?
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Laelth
Famous Hero
Laelth rhymes with stealth.
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posted October 25, 2002 01:41 AM |
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Death vs. Chaos, cont.
I see what you're saying wub, but I have to say that the blackie's magic resistance is more a blessing than a curse, specifically against other creature stacks. An efreeti's fire shield, for example, won't even work against a blackie. In actual game tactics, yes, I'd send my vamps against my opponent's black dragons too. No retalliation is the one magical creature property to which black dragons are not resistant--a game bug, perhaps.
Lately, I've been testing my new map and I played the whole map through twice--once as death, and the other as chaos. I admit that I beat the map more quickly with death, but I was testing it, and I'm not sure if that affected the speed of the outcomes.
It's funny, but in the polls I've seen, necropolis has usually been listed as the most powerful town, followed by the academy. The Asylum is always toward the bottom of the list. I find this confusing. Let me remind everyone that the Asylum can hire both the Necromancer and the Death Knight (the real power of the Necropolis). In fact, in my last game I had three heroes in my main army--a grandmaster-necromancy necromancer, a grandmaster-pathfinding and master-nobility guildmaster, and a grandmaster-tactics death knight. I ended up (late in the game) with a huge stack of vampires, a stack of about 20 blackies (produced at the rate of 1 every 5 days because of my master-nobility thief), and about 30 nightmares (in 2 stacks of 15) casting terror. Admittedly, the nightmares slowed down the whole army, but they were still moving at 35 because of the thief's grandmaster pathfinding and the death knight's tactics.
Wub, I know you'd discard the nightmares, but even so, if our original question was necropolis vs. asylum, I think the blackies make all the difference here. Necropolis can't get them--the asylum can. The asylum can also get the things that make the Necropolis powerful (tactics and necromancy).
My 3 or 4 cents worth,
-Laelth
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Alan P. Taylor, Attorney at Law, LLC
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tree
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 27, 2002 11:55 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
LV 1 creatures becomes skeletons
LV 2 creatures becomes skeletons
LV 3 creatures becomes ghosts
LV 4 creatures becomes vampires
True, but you can get bone dragons out of your undead transformer. Just put faerie dragons or black dragons in. You get 98 bone dragons for 100 faeries and 1 bone dragon for 1 black dragon.
...But where do you get the black dragon...if you have black dragon, why would you want to change it to a bone dragon...not a good deal.
My favourite is still Order. Genie are great, so are their 4th creatures. Sea of magi can use poison which takes 100+ life per turn. Titans works well combined with Order magics, and robo dragon can be great against melee units (especially in large numbers), no melee units can strike dragon golem with their full strength! Robo Dragons will always attack first and weaken them greatly before they retailate. The bad thing is they are too slow. Both movement and construction.
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Nidhgrin
Honorable
Famous Hero
baking cookies from stardust
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posted October 29, 2002 09:54 AM |
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@Wub: Advanced strategies for the Death alignment. Bonus applied. Fantastic post. Almost every single thing you say is correct. People who play differently and try this will find out that it is (currently) the ideal strategy for the necropolis! (though I tend to leave the ghosts at home after mid game and take some more heroes along lately but that's me)
At one point I have to disagree though. Whacking black dragons or fearies is usually not such a brilliant thought. Behemoths and cavaliers for vamps, okay. Blackies no! They're far more valuable in their 'living' form. Those few extra bone dragons aren't going to make the difference anyway.
One piece of advice for multi still. Go for the devils. Why? They die faster, aren't undead and don't have aura of fear. True, but during castle sieges, you can use them to summon those ice demons first, then use them to hit and run over the castle walls having your other units (ghosts, skels, ice demons) take the retal damage. During PvP battles then... Weak enemy force? Take em along. Strong enemy force? Take em along. Killing heroes on turn one is just something you don't want to leave outside of the battle, even if it means losing some devils (there's always sacrifice and imps  or simply vampiric touch). Medium enemy armies or big PvAI battles? Hmmm, it's risky and you shouldn't lose devils if you don't have to. Leave the devils out of the combat, then have them rejoin afterwards.
@sos: Great hint! I never thought about it this way, but actually potions function like spells. Brilliant, I have added it to the Good tricks to use thread.
Some remarks concerning the bashing on might. Might can start pretty fast and by the time differently aligned spellcasters take their first steps on the path of the more powerful magics, barbarians have grown to killer heroes that are not to be underestimated. I've been in the situation where I had to towngate myself out of combat because the barbs and their creatures were mashing my army to shreds. In the long run, the lack of magic is the downfall of any stronghold player, but not if they're at the enemies door before the enemy heroes have decent spells! Beware of barb rushes, two barbs with some potions can take out entire armies!
Chaos. I would strongly advise against taking minotaurs. The blocking ability is fun but does not weigh up against the powerful abilities of the medusa's... ranged, no melee penalty, unlimited shots, stone gaze. They kick serious butt. Something I've seen plenty of times is shown in this example: 4 fearie dragons perish, the stone gaze takes along 7 of them. Insane if you ask me, no other lvl 2 creature can do this amount of 'damage' to high level creatures. PS: give the efreet a chance as well. In some situations they're simply the better pick.
Then something about spellcasting in combat. The first two combat rounds are often critical. The spells cast during these turns often decide the outcome of battles. Priority for your army is keeping your spellcasters alive so that they may deal with the greatest threats in the opposing army. Turn 1 an 2 your spellcasters should be able to cancel or seriously cripple the most dangeroes enemy creature stacks/heroes. If you've done that, you can start casting beneficial spells on your own creatures. If there are too many dangerous enemy stacks, then it's always better to sacrifice one of your stacks to save your heroes or to cast spells on your heroes to ensure their survival in stead of dealing with the many dangerous enemy stacks immediately.
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tree
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 31, 2002 12:23 AM |
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...Agree about the medusa part...once I used 36 phoenix vs 60 medusa, and I ended up with 24 phoenix left. 60 medusa's stone gaze kills 6 phoenix per shot...and after I use rebirth, they kills another 6. Then I attacked, and lost another 6 in medusa's retailation. That's crazy...60 2nd level trade with 12 4th level?
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Wub
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted October 31, 2002 12:34 AM |
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Edited By: Wub on 30 Oct 2002
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Death vs Chaos, Death and Might
I see in the past few days there is posted much that I have to catch up on. So here it is.
The Death vs Chaos discussion
Let’s be clear about Black Dragons. They rule. They have remarkably few weaknesses with their magic immunity, great mobility and good durability. But...they aren’t perfect either. Their breath attack causes them to be slaughtered by phoenixes for example. But, admittedly, Death cannot profit from that. What is relevant for the Death vs Chaos discussion, is the black dragon’s magic immunity. Now don’t get me wrong here either, this specialty is a very good one. But still, it is a mixed blessing: sometimes you just wish that you can cast beneficial spells on the Blackies. It is of course not really easy to say if and how much better Black Dragons are than other 4th level units, but I think I can share your opinion on the Blackie to a very large extent, Laelth.
Having said that, let me emphasize that of course it is usually not a good idea to put a black dragon into an undead transformer! So I agree with you on that, Tree and Nidhgrin. Of course I think that 1 Blackie is better than 1 Bone Dragon. I just wanted to point out that it is possible to do so and it seems that such information is nice to know. Besides, transforming faerie dragons is not at all a bad idea (in the few situations that you can get them).
Of course it is true that many things that can be acquired by Death, can also be obtained by Chaos. But I disagree with the following reasoning:
Death = GM necromancy + Death Knight + Necromancer
Chaos = Death + Black Dragons.
Of course, there is a big difference between the amount of vampires that Death and Chaos can acquire. Not only it helps that Death can breed them in their town, since they often start out with a necromancer you will reach GM necromancy faster than the Chaos alignment. After all, it costs money to hire a necromancer. Money you often don’t have in the beginning. And the other creatures you get from necromancy are more useful to Death as well.
Also, mixing Black Dragons and Nightmares with Vampires and Death heroes means that you will suffer from a morale penalty. With that penalty, it becomes the question if Black Dragons are (still?) so great in comparison with Bone Dragons/Devils who don’t have that penalty.
Furthermore, you mention that you acquired a guildmaster, Laelth. I must say you were lucky then, because the nobility skill is often very hard to get with Chaos (not with Death though!). And finally I must say that it makes quite a difference if you get vampires at day 2 (and thus get a supreme start) or that you get vampires in the first few weeks when you have reached GM necromancy.
For short, Death is a lot faster than Chaos in acquiring Death creatures (vampires) and Death skills (GM necromancy). And if Black Dragons are really better than Bone Dragons/Devils, it is still questionable if that compensates for this difference in speed.
When I read your strategies, Laelth, it seems that you like to play large maps most. You focus a lot on the end game in my opinion. For example, you emphasize 4th level creatures, you mention which grandmaster skills your heroes acquire etc. My experience is that on many maps the game is already decided by the time the first 4th level creatures are produced. I often even don’t reach GM necromancy if my main is a necromancer. Therefore I was wondering how effective you estimate Chaos in the beginning of a game. I know most of your strategies in that period, but I am curious if you think Chaos develops faster than other alignments. Can it compete with vampires on day 2? Do you suffer many losses in the begin game, for example: how do you beat level 1 stacks of creatures on impossible difficulty when you have only your level 1 and 2 units? What stacks can you handle after the first week? How fast can you build? Etc etc. Because, as I see it, a fast development is the key to having the initiative in the later game and only your development determines if you can reach GM necromancy and Black Dragons in the end game.
More advanced strategies for Death
I am glad that you liked my post about advanced strategies for Death, Nidhgrin. And maybe you’re right about choosing devils over bone dragons. I have never made a definite decision over this creature choice because in this very case you need multiplayer experience more than ever. Creature analysis offers no satisfying solution and when I play the computer I have won already anyway when I build either one of them. But since the knowledge that has been acquired from multiplayer games is still limited at this moment, I am undecided too. Therefore, your comments are very welcome.
You tell me that you tend to leave ghosts at your Necropolis and rather take an extra hero with you. Well, I see it as follows. You have seven creature slots to occupy for a battle. It leaves little doubt that you at least take the following units/heroes with you: Devils (at least in your case, though it isn’t so sure that you have them yet for the battle you are planning), Vampires (of course), a Necromancer and a Death Knight (both heroes complement each other nicely on the battlefield). As you see you have only 4 slots occupied, which means you have 3 left! So why leave the ghosts at home? After all, they can keep up with your high army speed (in contrast to skeletons, venom spawn and cerberi). And I don’t know which extra hero you would add, but if I have 3 or more heroes, my third and fourth hero are economical heroes (thieves and lords) which I certainly don’t take in battle itself.
I’d like to say some more about composing your army. As you saw, you have two slots left. This leaves you some great tactical possibilities. I usually use the tactic I described earlier, which is taking two stacks of 1 ghosts with me purely for the aging attack. But I can also decide to take a few imps with me to win spell points from my enemy. You see, I usually don’t include any imps in battle itself, though they travel with my main army. They serve more as scouts and pre-combat mana drainers. But sometimes they make a valuable addition to my army in combat.
So for short my tactic usually is to take devils/bone dragons, vampires, two heroes, all my ghosts, and two sacrificial ghost stacks with me.
Bashing Might
When I wrote these comments on Might, I wasn’t aware of the effectiveness of the barbarian + immortality potions combo. Maybe that is the factor I overlooked in my assessment of the power of Might. I tried the strategy and it seems very promising. But I like to know more about this strategy. For example, what is your build order for this strategy? Day 1 wrestling pits and day 2 arsenal? And what creatures do you take with you? Some sacrificial centaur stacks? Or do you even choose ogre magi for their bloodlust? Which potions and artifacts do you buy at your arsenal (except for immortality potions of course). How many immortality potions should you buy? Do you hit and run often on enemies? Does this strategy work well on impossible difficulty, where wandering creature stacks are huge and money scarce? How fast is your army movement? Do you advance in the combat skill or the melee skill (or something else?). These are just ‘a few’ question that occur to me. I would like answers very much, because this may very well be the strategy that makes Might one of the best alignments available!
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Laelth
Famous Hero
Laelth rhymes with stealth.
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posted October 31, 2002 12:36 AM |
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I admit, Wub and others have convinced me to build the statuary garden (medusas) instead of the labyrinth (minotaurs) when I'm playing chaos, but it's not too long before all lvl.2 creatures are out of my army and, instead, back defending my home town. Both 2nd. lvl. chaos units, minotaurs and medusas, are too slow to stay with the main army. I get rid of them both as soon as I can. Wub's right on this one--a fast army is essential.
-Laelth
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Alan P. Taylor, Attorney at Law, LLC
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emperorsly
Known Hero
Destroyer of Liver
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posted August 05, 2003 05:42 PM |
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thread revival!
a wicked thread with hydra's ultimate death strategy guide on page 4.
anyway -- time has passed, people got more experienced, would be interesting to know whether people still have the same favourite alignments as in the beginning of this thread.
can't help but admit that i'm still sticking to the good old order. death might be stronger, but they stink.
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Aquaman333
Famous Hero
of the seven seas
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posted August 05, 2003 06:56 PM |
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My top three: Order- great magic shool, genies, Dragon Golems, and Mage/Poison
Death- Vamps, vampric touch, Bone Dragons
Nature- Creature Portal, Phoenixes, Summoning
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"Brian, look! There's a message in my Alphabits! It says,
"OOOOOOO!"."
"Peter, those are Cheerios."-Family Guy
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