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Crap. Raise Volcano strategy does NOT work... when the blasted AI has Gaia's blessing CAST on cities in 1403! Blargh!
March 25th, 2018, 13:42
(This post was last modified: March 25th, 2018, 13:43 by Nelphine.)
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Ugh. What the heck do I DO as chaos? I have no good units... ugh.... (no uncommon summons have shown up in my research yet).. oh well, more volcanoes! (i'm getting over 50 power from volcanoes already... my skill is through da roof! but nothing to DO with it.)
March 25th, 2018, 14:26
(This post was last modified: March 25th, 2018, 14:28 by zitro1987.)
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10 chaos / specialist / omniscient / high elves is a super combination if you manage to do ok the first few years with just hell hounds and beat at least 1 lair to get mana/gold.
Selecting early-guarantee gargoyles/immolation and researching them is a great strategy, but any early uncommon summon would work. The key is the massive power potential of omnicient with 10 books, magic markets, high elves, etc
I have 143 power and ~100 city-based research in October 1405 with a doom stack of immoltion gargoyles getting 2 chaos nodes. I am easily 1st place in 'expert'
March 25th, 2018, 14:36
(This post was last modified: March 25th, 2018, 14:42 by Nelphine.)
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I'm playing on lunatic, it's early 1404, I have about 400 power production, and 80 overland casting skill (only 8 books as I took spellweaver, and myrran instead of specialist). Which means I couldn't start with an uncommon summon.
But now I don't know what to do with my overland spells. I literally can only do hell hounds (can't fight anything ai has effectively), raise volcanoes, walls of fire, and flame blade (no military retorts makes this seem less than stellar, especially as I don't have a fighters guild yet)
Incidentally, this is the first time ive ever kept up with lunatic AI on power production, at least before getting 4 or 5 nodes.
I've cleared.. 3 lairs I think. Might only be 2.
Only reason I'm still alive is that the 2 AI with me are at war due to one being chaotic (and the chaotic one allied with me).
Wasting 7 volcanoes (and triggering a war) on the other ai who got gaias blessing so fast kind of sucks though.
March 25th, 2018, 15:11
(This post was last modified: March 25th, 2018, 15:12 by Seravy.)
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I tend to use Gargoyles, but Flame Blade on Longbowmen, Horsebowmen or Javelineers might work well too.
I don't think pure chaos is very playable on high difficulty if you don't research any uncommon summon spells, albeit volcanoes might work - with enough power you can fire bolt/fireball/shatter/immolation/lightning bolt your way to victory in most battles (if you have Archmage/Specialist). There aren't much early game units your spells can't kill effectively - bears might be the only one but flame blade ranged units can dispose of them. Of course against stacks of 9 this is problematic, you have to intercept those and wear them down in multiple battles.
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Yup, I've been holding off the AI from the cities they have on my continent; however, they just waltzed in with multiple 9 stacks of focus magic sprites/water walking bears straight at my fortress (ok, not multiple stacks at my fortress, but multiple stacks which destroyed my back cities, and are both next to my fortress). Without load cheesing Mystic Surge (which I did get early, as well as lightning bolt, just no blasted summons), I just can't stop those stacks.
Pure power doesn't help without military to back it up. Which is as it should be. And I still suck with chaos.
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To have success at Lunatic, you generally need to be able to deal with an enemy that has many times your resources. (2.5 if it's a one way war, 5 against two etc)
The only way to have that done is if you have a way to "multiply" your resources similarly through your realm or other tactic - and not all realms are equal at doing it. In order of decreasing effectiveness :
Life has this in buffed units - a buffed unit can kill an infinite amount of weaker units without getting hurt.
Death does it through undead - undead are effectively a free resource you don't have to pay for, or at least pay much less than what you actually get.
Nature can use Sprites to get additional resources from treasure.
Sorcery might be able to do it if they can counter enemy stacks through Guardian Wind (against missile), Resist Magic (against save or die) or Flight (against melee) stacks but it's much more situational than the other three and if the enemy has mixed stacks you have trouble.
Chaos...doesn't really have a spell that has this kind of effect. The only one I had great success at using for this purpose is Wall of Fire, which with a strong enough unit at the gate and a wall, can annihilate entire enemy armies, but only if those armies are melee. Immolation can work similarly to a lesser extent but without the +3 Def City Wall bonus you likely won't have a unit durable enough to not take any damage at all from engaging 9 other units. And both of these don't work if the enemy has ranged units.
Alternately, a flame blade ranged unit can do the same, if and only if, the enemy isn't ranged themselves (or you are the defender), and has no direct damage (meaning they are pure life).
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Right. I was hoping that pure power would work (given how much success I had been having with it in other attempts). But with no way to turn that power into military, I couldn't maintain it. Given another, oh, year, I would have had enough random units in all my cities to just wear attacks down via repeated mystic surge (or targetted direct damage depending on how many enemies were attacking me.) I had actually just conquered my first 2 nodes on the turn I realized I was doomed.
March 25th, 2018, 16:34
(This post was last modified: March 25th, 2018, 16:35 by Nelphine.)
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Trying again, except with 7 nature and 1 chaos instead of 8 chaos. Never done nature on lunatic successfully (even back in the sprite mania days), so, this will be interesting!
And summoning huge hordes of war bears. September 1402, 256 power production, already have 2 full stacks of war bears beelining for the first AI I found.
March 25th, 2018, 20:00
(This post was last modified: March 25th, 2018, 21:08 by Nelphine.)
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I didn't really think about this, but Transmute.. wow. This is going to be gross. Nature wins! Never mind. Too busy summoning creatures (finally got giant spiders..) to waste time on transmute.
First AI died, second AI, I managed to banish, but he killed all my war bears in the process. (I think he's killed 6 stacks of them now.) Of course, I can summon ~3 stacks in a year, so this isn't the end of the world.
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