Frustrating experience

[Banzai]

Thanks for the detailed reply. There do seem to be options at the common/uncommon level for many race/magic combos, but not so much for the one I am playing (which as I mentioned is life and high men). I don't have magicians or paladins yet, and am just starting to research uncommon spells. As I said, it may just be that life and high men do not have the tools to deal with this combo, which is fine - Just wanted to be sure I wasdn't missing something that might be available, or ways to help with their weak early game that could have put me into a better position by this stage of the game so that maybe I could have a few magicians in each city. Paladins wouldn't work so well since cockatrices fly though, right?

[zitro1987]

A lot of suggestions in previous page do not work - wraithform and associated units are not resistant to stoning attacks

[mshih]

Holy bonus would boost the resistance of the stack.  As would priests.  With your heavenly light, that's +3 resistance for each unit.  Prayer would be another +1, if you have it.  Unicorns +2... Life generally has many sources of resistance boosts.

[Anskiy]

Unicorns and Priests resistance bonuses don't stack afaik

[Seravy]

Focus Magic will not be used on Cockatrices on low difficulty settings by the AI after the update.
When the AI uses it, high resistance and Stoning Immunity are the best counter. Life shouldn't have a problem with boosting resistance - Unicorns add 2 and Prayer adds one so you can have a total of +3 in every battle.
High Men have a weakness against resistance based effects unfortunately, so they are pretty bad against cockatrices but most normal units don't do well against larger amount of buffed uncommon creatures. The best solution is probably Magicians as they hit hard and have 6 figures. Support them with Paladins, Unicorns, and Prayer for +4 resistance total. Leveling up units with Heroism also adds +2 resistance. However, I would probably try to avoid conflict against that player as Life generally doesn't do so well against Sorcery heavy wizards - if it's a high player count game where you can outclass that opponent by conquering others, that works best. If they don't have Resist Magic, then trying to rush research for Holy Word can be effective. A single casting should destroy half of the enemy cockatrices.
I don't remember if Guardian Spirits have Stoning Immunity? They are probably too weak to fight against cockatrices even with buffs but if they can tank the projectiles, you can spam Star Fires and Exorcise and kill them one at a time that way. In general if you have any resistance 14 unit, even if it's too weak to fight directly, if it's cheap enough to mass produce then combat spell spam works.
And while it's a long shot, if you can hire the Sage hero, and give them some resistance items to let him survive the battle, he can cast Dispelling Wave for you, likely removing it from at least several of the cockatrices. If you can also make him invisible, he can do it as many times as you want.

[Banzai]

Yeah, I had priests and heavenly light going. No holy bonus, unicorns, or prayer in march of year 7 - was researching prayer when I was banished. But even so, high men get -2 to resist, and cockatrice stoning touch is -4, so a -6 to death at max range per cockatrice per attack is where you start with high men before adding bonuses. Life definitely has some ways to counter this, just not ones that I can see how to obtain by year 7.

Magicians might have turned the tide, and a faster start may facilitate having magicians at the start of year 7. That's what I'm working on now - how to take down lairs and nodes earlier with life and high men to get that faster start and the snowball effects that come from it - it seems substantially more difficult with the tools available than with other colors and races that I have played/seen. I don't see the way to fight this combo with life and high men at the stage of the game when they showed up at my capitol. Which is why I'm here asking the pros

Maybe I just got zerged and it won't ever happen again. But I'd sure like to figure out a way to counter it by year 7 for future reference. And it seems like the only real option is to have better units and spells by then. And that means better lair and node busting earlier to use that gold and mana to boost research and building.

PS. The opponent was maniacal, so there wan't much to be done to make peace or avoid them attacking my capitol.

[Anskiy]

Realistically I think the best defense against any wizard is to scout them out early and then choose a strategy based on the threat they pose to you. Unfortunately mono realms are in general far less flexible than other combos, but if you spotted the Nature/Sorcery wizard early you could've rushed magicians and/or Exorcise to deal with them.

I do still maintain that focus magic cockatrices are a bit too strong, I'm not convinced combining one common buff and uncommon summon should lead to a creature hurling -4 instant death at range.