Test games played

[Seravy]

No you don't pick up Myrran if you decided to play an Arcanus game. Those are not interchangable for me.
Libraries or Universities don't produce magic power and you don't want research when rushing (aside from the initial 420 for the spider, if that's your chosen creature. If you are using bears or other common ones, no research needed at all - you rush from your starting spells and maybe trade or loot more spells. Then the conquered cities will produce your research and you can catch up to others due to having more cities.)

You definitely could drop warlord and pick up spellweaver or conjurer - but you still can produce wolves along your spiders and you still can't make more from the 3 magic markets. So while it does show warlord might be a bad choice if you can summon in the early game (depending on the ratio of your creatures and wolves and their effectiveness) it doesn't mean picking the other race makes you have more spiders. It doesn't. Picking other retorts do. Basically, picking Gnolls with conjurer and specialist is still better even if you have spiders, than picking something like high men. (note some late races have good early units, those can work, especially nomads as horsebowmen are move 5, same as spiders)

[Nelphine]

I suppose that's one big difference - I don't pick arcanus or myrror. I pick a realm and strategy, and then fit my retorts and race to suit that.

Myrran and Arcanus are so similar, that they aren't a decision point to me (except myrror looks cooler so it's slightly better? And myrran is arbitrarily easier due to one less earlier opponent who could be maniacal chaos, but since I believe that shouldn't be a difference, I don't let it determine my decision).

Similarly races are similar enough they're rarely a decision point until I get to a very specific unit - high men pikemen or gnoll jackals? Bezerkers or draconian halberdiers? Slingers or javelineers? And even that never matters unless I've gone very specific buff builds


However even assuming that arcanus vs myrror is a decision point, the extra research from libraries absolutely is important for getting spiders and land linking. But even without that, you could pick up magic Mart's, shrines, high Elf population, conjuror and specialist, and you still end up with more than 50 extra power production per turn. You absolutely still get enough extra spiders - or even war bears - to make the possible wolf riders irrelevant.

[Seravy]

You don't need Land Linking. It's expensive and the wolves do the same : grant Pathfinding. +2 defense and attack isn't important enough to spend half of a spider on that - and again, if you need more melee attack, wolves do that. (not the defense but why need defense if I can have twice as many units?)
Libraries and research are not RUSH tactics, they are LATE GAME tactics.
You're basically suggesting "rush is bad, play late game instead and have a good early summon to make up for playing late game". Building up magic economy and research are not rush strategies. Building troops from all resources, magic or otherwise, then conquer to gain the economy, is rush.
If that's true, gnolls and rush in general needs a huge buff, you basically say it's unplayable and summoning is always better. Unless using life buffs, but summons are also better than life buffs, so always...

[Nelphine]

No I'm not. When I play chaos, my rush strategy is to get a full stack of chimera before the lunatic AI is allowed to declare war. (I've never fully succeeded at this, so my chaos summon rush is nowhere near reliable on lunatic; I think I had 6 by that time on my best attempt, and other factors went on to allow me to win.)

Rush is 'get units super fast so they can utterly dominate your opponent before they can effectively fight back.' 

Research CAN absolutely be part of that. Late game research can't, and you often give up late game power (such as by starting with 4 life books); some strategies, such as the 4 life version absolutely eschews research. Sometimes I don't have summoning circle, let alone better spells, researched in 1404 with those strategies.

Rush is NOT randomly just get a ton of units quickly. You still need those units to conquer something, and the AI IS effectively built to make most early game winners very hard to do.

What I'm saying is, if you are rushing, you need to build around your rush. IF you go buffs, you can't take summons. Summons individually are better than individual buffs. So if you're going buffs, you are doing so because the combination of buffs and the unit they are buffing is better than summons. This will only happen with buff stacking, which means those buffs are even more expensive, which means you can't afford to waste any time on summons, or you don't end up getting enough buff stacking going, which means you don't need the buffs, which means you don't need the units you were going to buff.

IF you are going summons and rushing, go all in on those summons! Don't split your time doing other things - pour everything into those summons. Your opponents will have the same summons, so either you need to get them faster, like my chimera, or you need to get way more, like my spiders. And if going 'way more' then having a plan to turn individual stacks slightly stronger to beat the strongest enemy stacks (who will be the same type of summons) is important, thus focus magic ghpuls, and land linkng spiders. You certainly don't use those buffs, until you meet an enemy that can't be overcome by the stack of summons - but when that happens, you need to already be ready for what you do, or you're not rushing, you're reacting, and that turns you into late game.

Rushing is still far better than long term strategies, when you commit fully to it.


Gnolls just happen to be hard enough to play that you realistically need to commit to such a strategy or simply by choosing them, you're already choosing to make the game hard even at expert.

[Nelphine]

Another way of saying what I'm trying to say.

At expert, we expect the player to pick a build and race that synergize, even if not optimal.

Rush races (barbarian, gnoll, lisardmen, klackon, troll, poor dwarves), have no synergy with any strategy except a buff strategy built around there particular units (which all have different advantages).

However, of all these races, only gnoll do not get some other major benefit that no other race has. (Barbarian have crazy strategic strength and thrown, lizardmen water walk, trolls regenerate, klackon have major production and unrest bonuses, poor dwarves have taxes and production bonuses.)

In addition, gnolls also have a major weakness, not hitting fliers.

So choosing gnolls on expert only works if you build a rush strategy around their units. Any of the other rush races at least have their unique advantage to fall back on to help synergize.

[Seravy]

Buffing isn't or at least shouldn't be the only way to have synergy between a spell and unit.
For example Blur has Synergy with klackons, or Phantom Warriors with Apprentices.
Might as well look at each spell and what they offer for Gnolls...

Nature
They have no ranged so earth to mud isn't helpful. Call Centaurs would be good but they are too expensive to be relevant in the early game. (suppression from ranged units shooting can help melee survive better, and both wolves and centaurs are fast and can outmaneuver enemy units - but to suppress in a relevant manner, you need two ranged units.)
Web is not synergy, but a requirement, and the effect of stopping a unit isn't synergy either because gnolls are fast enough to reach anything on their own.
Sprites are too slow and fragile to use in gnoll stacks.
Earth Lore is semi-redundant because wolves can scout a distance of 5/turn as early as turn 10. It's still useful for finding targets faster but it's far from essential.
Uncommon spells in general are too slow to matter in a rush game so I'll only consider low research cost ones.
War Bears are pretty much the same deal as wolves except slower in movement so they just drag down the wolves.
Spiders are actually good and have synergy. They move 5 like wolves so the two can function together as a fast stack. They are resistant so even if the stack faces an enemy that targets resistance, the spiders can deal with it. Finally, wolves are cheaper to produce than spiders and have higher melee attack to overcome armor if the enemy is too resistant. So Wolves and spiders do have synergy.
Nature's Cures has synergy - wolves are good at hiding in a corner after taking damage and surviving battles, so there is an abundant amount of healing to be done. Unfortunately this costs too much to research to be viable for the timespan when wolves are relevant. Land Linking is worthless because you have natural pathfinding. Fairy Dust is acceptable but weak direct damage, and you can only afford using it once a combat. Nature's Eye offers a bit of extra research but for spending overland skill, exactly the thing you shouldn't do when rushing, furthermore wolves have decent scouting range and movement so the scouting range on the eye is also not useful.

So Nature offers absolutely nothing at common and while it does offer two spells at uncommon, one is way too slow to research and the other, while amazing, is an overland summon soit directly competes with life (making life/nature builds the worst possible, as in that case nature literally offers nothing). So Nature only really does "web enables attacking flying creatures" for the race, and for that you need no more than 2 books. Any further Nature books are waster picks. Transmute if far too slow so it only becomes relevant when you are at Jackal Riders - which is midgame.

Sorcery has Floating Island, which is a decent solution if you need to reach another continent, but building a ship isn't expensive so it's not much of an improvement.
Phantom Warriors are great for rush - they deal nice damage and you can expect to kite enemies with wolves easily. Sadly you can only summon one PW a combat but even that can be quite effective. Likewise, Confusion can be used to eliminate enemy units while wolves kite the enemy. Blur helps the otherwise not durable wolves to last longer. Nagas don't help much as they move slower and you have enough melee attack to not need poison. Psionic Blast can kill sprites, probably the only flying ranged unit you can expect early, albeit only one a combat due to the high cost. Later, Flight can completely negate the disadvantage of the race. Aura of Majesty can ensure you can divide and conquer one enemy at a time. AEther Binding is costly but can negate most of the "no power" drawback by providing SP as much as the amount of missing power or more. (finally, while it's a buff, Resist Magic is the only thing in the game that can ensure your Gnoll units won't get hit by nasty spells, which is great because they are fairly durable and hard to kill with direct damage)

So overall Sorcery is quite helpful for the race, unlike Nature.

Chaos offers Gargoyles, a strong early resistant flying creature that's also durable - the exact opposite of nonflying, fragile, low resistance gnoll units, so having it ensures you can fight any kind of enemy. Wall of Fire ensures you can defend your cities while your armies are away from home conquering. Fire Elemental can kill enemy units while wolves kite them, if they have no magic weapons. Fire Bolt is cheap enough to cast twice per battle, allowing you to deal repeated damage while kiting. Chaos Channels have a high probability to let you attack flying enemies, and provide immunity to possession and shatter.  Shatter and Warp Creature can ensure your wolves get to destroy the enemy without taking too much damage. Raise Volcano can let you have more power, and occasionally create ores for your military center if built on tundra. And finally Fire Storm ensures your wolves remain powerful conquering tools way after they normally get obsolete - stacks of units down to 1-2 figures each are easily destroyed by the fast moving wolves. Corruption is useless - you're expected to conquer the things you'd corrupt. However Disrupt is amazing - city walls can be a major problem to overcome with wolves. Warp Wood also provides nice support if the enemy army has too many archers, and the general low cost of Chaos spells ensures you can do something relevant even though you can't afford raising casting skill over the starting 14-20. Finally you can raise the already high attack strength even further by Flame Blade which is rarely needed but ensures nothing, not even buffed units, can stop you - and it's quite powerful on halberdiers once you get there.

So overall, Chaos is very good for Gnolls.

Life offers buffs and healing but we're specifically looking for something else so no need to talk about this, life can be good with Gnolls, although I have to keep remembering Guardian Spirit is the answer to poison and resistance targeting spells.

Finally Death. Black Sleep is not as good as confusion or shatter but still useful. Ghouls are ranged - they can deal with weaker flying enemies and even provide you with additional troops for rush. Skeletons can be good for your economy - more taxes so more gold so more wolves faster. Weakness is maybe even better than Shatter this early in the game. Life Drain is on par with Fire Bolt and offer you opportunity to gain casting skill. Fear is amazing and can make a single wolf good enough to slay entire armies. It's like getting limited Jackal Riders but on turn 10. Wraith Form can give you weapon immunity, cross water, and immunity to earth to mud and city walls. Mana Leak and Darkness don't offer much but Mana Leak can at least allow you to easily conquer neutrals defended by shaman. Summoning zombies can add free units to your army and you can also use them as a burn spell like phantom warriors. Unfortunately, werewolves are regenerating - once you have them, having non-regenerating troops becomes obsolete, but even then the wolf riders are useful for quick but powerful garrison while the werewolves are busy conquering.

Overall, Death is also quite useful but going too heavy into death does make picking gnolls bad since werewolves really work better and make regular wolves look bad. Even then it's still a lot better than picking Nature. (although you have no answers to flying enemies, sadly)

So I think the main problem here is Nature/Life simply being the worst possible choice of realms for this race. Any single realm or two realm combination other than this is better.

[Nelphine]

Pretty much yes. (I don't think you can play nature without summons, but any other realm either the summons aren't nearly as important, or you can choose to do other things. Like gargoyles matter, but the other things chaos does can be tailored to really maximize the gnoll units.)

Although I disagree that other uncommon spells can't be relevant, you are right that it requires very particular builds to make them matter, and usually you design the entire rush build around that spell.

[Seravy]

Spiders btw are extra good because they even cast webs. Ironic how we are tempted to think Nature is good for Gnolls when it's the worst possible (single realm) pick. I had bad experience with using web itself too - nodes counter it and you can run out of skill if the enemy army has multiple flying units and it's early. Rushing Chaos Channel research probably helps more than picking web.

I guess I'll feel extra proud if I win this game then, it means I should have done it on Advanced.

[Seravy]

Third game is now going very well.
Bless was enough buffing to be able to fight the death/chaos wizard. Against Chaos/Life I was actually good enough even casting some of my bless in combat as I only needed it to cross the wall of fire.
Haven't used Endurance at all yet and haven't used Holy Armor and Weapon outside of combat.
Spamming wolves from two cities all game, plus blessing them where needed was enough to crush all three Arcanus wizards early, at least to the point where they wanted peace. Now they are all far weaker than me and while all of them have at least 3-4 cities, they are generally tiny cities as I conquered (or razed) the big ones.
However troop buildup during peace is significant so while I'm guaranteed to conquer this plane, if I'm not careful they can make it miserable. I'm making sure I attack every city before it starts to become dangerous.
Flandre is mostly beaten, down to their starting island (probably 2 cities) and one more hamlet. Tenshi is down to the capital, one medium and two small cities. I'm planning to summon spiders there and add elite elven halberdiers (with war college), and build enough to be able to cancel their forces once the war continues. Silver the first one I fought will likely be the next, and only "big" war left on the plane, they have about 5 cities but I have left them alone so they summoned quite a lot of ghouls. That isn't much of a problem though, as garrisons in my cities start to get good enough to actually defend against a stack of 9 common tier anything. However I spotted a Shadow Demon, and those can be a problem. I don't have Star Fires, and while I did get a Ranger hero, I have no equipment so I don't think she can kill a shadow demon either. I guess I have to rely on summoning centaurs, I do have high enough skill to get up to 3 in a battle. I haven't fought this wizard in a while so unsure if it's safe for my heroes or not, but they don't have any equipment I'd worry losing and I will get Resurrection. The Bard is actually pretty good for Gnolls but the Ranger is useless and I would have refused if it wasn't as a prisoner. I even considered sending her into the nearest lair to die. She got Legendary and Armsmaster as randoms...in end the temptation of armsmaster won, but this hero won't stay with me long.
I also have the Wind Walkaer in my capital but she'd only slow my army down (no movement items) so I'll be saving that hero for later use and casting skill.

Maybe buffing a single wolf can be a good strategy in other cases but with the first enemy having Confusion, buffs were literally useless this game. I found myself using my casting skill on Just Cause, some more Sprites, lots of Earth Lore, Heavenly Light, and occasionally Heroism for heroes or a Spider or two later.

Oh and I found a Cult Leader retort. With that keeping low/mid sized High men cities will be viable, but on high max pop spots I'll still need to raze those. More importantly, Heavenly Light is 5 power which is nice. Still aside from what Sprites did, I couldn't do much node and lair hunting, nowadays getting the majority of (easy) lairs seems impossible. At least I'll get all the harder ones as no one will be left to compete for the soon.

This good start means I'll probably have about 4 years to to the lairs and prepare for the Myrran invason, maybe even more. I expect the Myrran wizard to be Byakuren (Death/Life).

[Nelphine]

You contradicted yourself - you said you needed bless against the first opponent and that buffing was useless.

Your description actually matches what most of my life games are now. I don't need the buffs against early opponents except for resistance. The buffs are for later - when you're fighting strong uncommobs or rares. Megabuffing let's you even fight very rares, all with the same stacks that you were using to kill the first opponent.

Buffing as a strategy is against all 4 opponents, and life buffing (and sorcery buffing) allows you to keep it rolling even if your opponent reaches very rares.

But yes, early opponents only need starting buffs, such as being elite by warlord + war college.