So we all know the AI loves them some lizardfolk, but I generally didn't start with them. I like to build tall and lizards are not a tall pick.
However, I've been forcing myself outside of my comfort zone recently and tried them. They certainly have a strong start, especially on island maps. And it's nice that a third of the AIs are building cities of your starting race for you.
But there's something I'd missed, in part because the AI rarely does it, and in part because I'm biased against single figure units:
Stacks of dragon turtles are really good. Basically, their main weaknesses are that they're slow and middling in the damage department. Otherwise they are high HP, high defense, amazing resistance units that can attack flying units and water walk, are cheap to make and cost 1 g+f in maintenance. Resistance based chicanery can mostly be igored, offense is good enough, and the stacks are cheap and replaceable. As a one figure unit, buffs and xp don't matter very much so you just beat your enemies to death with turtle shells, Mario-style, and not worry too much about losses.
So my lizard strat now boils down to "Grab a bunch of land early, <ahem> 'turtle' up until the DT pipeline gets going, make full stacks of turtles and go on a conquering spree.*" I call this "Yertling" because Yertle was the pioneer of the "stack up turtles and conquer the world" strategy.
As a side note the Yertlestacks move pretty fast on the strategic map with carracks, but you will need a plan to take down fast units on tactical. I suggest starting out with a solid line of turtles 9 squares wide but magic can obviously help here.
This is not an amazing game crushing strategy, and it is admittedly a little tedious, but it gives the lizards a little more mid-game ooph, at least for me.
What do you folk think?
*Obviously, wizard picks matter a lot for the deets here, in the late game especially.
However, I've been forcing myself outside of my comfort zone recently and tried them. They certainly have a strong start, especially on island maps. And it's nice that a third of the AIs are building cities of your starting race for you.
But there's something I'd missed, in part because the AI rarely does it, and in part because I'm biased against single figure units:
Stacks of dragon turtles are really good. Basically, their main weaknesses are that they're slow and middling in the damage department. Otherwise they are high HP, high defense, amazing resistance units that can attack flying units and water walk, are cheap to make and cost 1 g+f in maintenance. Resistance based chicanery can mostly be igored, offense is good enough, and the stacks are cheap and replaceable. As a one figure unit, buffs and xp don't matter very much so you just beat your enemies to death with turtle shells, Mario-style, and not worry too much about losses.
So my lizard strat now boils down to "Grab a bunch of land early, <ahem> 'turtle' up until the DT pipeline gets going, make full stacks of turtles and go on a conquering spree.*" I call this "Yertling" because Yertle was the pioneer of the "stack up turtles and conquer the world" strategy.
As a side note the Yertlestacks move pretty fast on the strategic map with carracks, but you will need a plan to take down fast units on tactical. I suggest starting out with a solid line of turtles 9 squares wide but magic can obviously help here.
This is not an amazing game crushing strategy, and it is admittedly a little tedious, but it gives the lizards a little more mid-game ooph, at least for me.
What do you folk think?
*Obviously, wizard picks matter a lot for the deets here, in the late game especially.