Strategy and Tactics of the Enemy

Squirrelloid wrote:

rdonj wrote:
Another thing happened that I think is worth noticing... vanheim's gem income just tripled over what it was last turn. That's pretty damn impressive.

A few lucky searches will do that for you (the gem spike - i don't know how you spike income like that without taxing everywhere like crazy). I mean, admittedly finding like 10 gems/turn in one turn is a little obscene, but finding multiple sites and a good site included per searcher and I can see it with 3-4 searchers. Ridiculous luck though.

Vanheim has Adepts of the Iron Order (S2E2 + 100% FAES) and there are three sites that give those. Two give 5 gems and one four (all a mix of earth and astral).

So that explains half the jump.

The Adepts are in the Banded Hills, just West of his Capital. So I am guessing that is where the site is. The site comes with a free Lab too.

Squirrelloid wrote:I think I've figured out what Baalz did...

First research priority was Alt 3 for barkskin/mistform. Alt 3 would account for ~120 of his RPs thus far, which might mean no thunderstrike *yet*.

He's thugging with Sidhe lords and light on troops. His pretender is probably giving him a rainbow bless like F4E4N4S4 and some other stuff. (F and S are easy with a Great Sage, E and N are desirable).

(if i were him, i'd also have beelined Constr 2)

I witnessed a fight of his. Described in a previous post. His bless is E9N6. Only other spells I saw him cast were alteration.

Eriu failed to expand into even one province this turn, so I would guess he moved all of his thugs back to labs and is about to deliver a world of hurt, via Cloud Trapeze, to someone(s)...

Ashdod has an E9N6 bless. Random assorted Edomites and slingers fronting for Sheshai Anakim (who are a beating) with the occasional Gileadite. His forces are almost entirely on his left side of the field, and at least some of them were throwing javelins. (Of course, his forward army is down to just Sheshai Anakim now...)

Leaders were an Adon and a Zazzumite. Both of them were scripted to cast blessing while the Sheshai Anakim held (and the rest of his army moved forward).

Zazzumite 'script'(?): Blessing, Earth Might, Animate Dead, Animate Dead, Frighten, cast spells (mostly frighten spam)
Adon 'script'(?): Blessing, Blessing, Sermon of Courage, Twist Fate, Attack

Sheshai Anakim script: Hold and Attack

Lets get some counters down for dealing with each nation and exploiting their weaknesses. Rather than creating a seperate thread perhaps gather and moving this extremely important info at or near the beginning of this thread. I want this information collect in a single place and easily retreivable.

Ashdod:

General weaknesses: Expensive troops, easily swarmed, has to rely on human slingers or indy archers.

For regular giants:

Anything that can reduce or destroy their armor, fatigue them, swarm them, or hold them for a turn or more.

Fire Bola/Vine Bow wielding commanders
Lots and lots of small cheap units.
Summons such as Clockwork Horrors, etc.

Spells:

False Fetters
Destruction
Armor of Achilles
Earth Grip
Earth Meld
Ghost Grip
Stellar Cascades
Tangle Vines
Numbness
Slime
Rust Mist
Sleep Cloud
Thunderstrike (armor negating, plus stun effects)
Dessication
Bonds of Fire
Prison of Fire
Sleep
Paralyze
Confusion

For Ashdod's sacreds, any of the above spells that cannot be negated by MR, are armor negating/piercing and/or that cause a good amount of damange might be good.

Buffs: Anything I guess, Strength of Giants, Weapons of Sharpness, Legions of Steel, Haste.

Especially for a relative handful of tough uber-giants, Armor of Achilles might be good too. And I think a lot of the water-based cold related spells also cause incidental fatigue?

Great now lets compile counters for the other nations as well.

How can we deal with Ermor? With T'ien Chi'? With Vanheim? Weaknesses, exploitable game mechanics, effective counter strategies and tactics for dealing not only with regular troops but with commanders and special units as well.

The vets choice of T'ien Ch'i is interesting. A nation with incredible unit diversity, it is apparently a good choice for those who are expert enough to deploy the right unit(s) in the right situations (and I beleive Dr. P may be). Though, as with all nations, they've weaknesses that can be exploited.

One of those weaknesses is their capital only mages. They've alot of them, but if we can shut down the cap via seige or unrest, he couldn't recruit em.

Septimius Severus wrote:The vets choice of T'ien Ch'i is interesting. A nation with incredible unit diversity, it is apparently a good choice for those who are expert enough to deploy the right unit(s) in the right situations (and I beleive Dr. P may be). Though, as with all nations, they've weaknesses that can be exploited.

One of those weaknesses is their capital only mages. They've alot of them, but if we can shut down the cap via seige or unrest, he couldn't recruit em.

The other obvious weakness would be to rapidly change up what he's fighting against. Ie, if ~3 nations tag-teamed him with very different forces he wouldn't be able to build appropriate counters to all of them. This would require some cleverness so he wouldn't be able to guess what he'd be hit by next.

Raiel wrote:Eriu failed to expand into even one province this turn, so I would guess he moved all of his thugs back to labs and is about to deliver a world of hurt, via Cloud Trapeze, to someone(s)...

I hope thats not me, im headed right for his capital.

Squirrelloid wrote:The other obvious weakness would be to rapidly change up what he's fighting against. Ie, if ~3 nations tag-teamed him with very different forces he wouldn't be able to build appropriate counters to all of them. This would require some cleverness so he wouldn't be able to guess what he'd be hit by next.

That's correct, the diversity and versatility of his forces are both a blessing and a curse. Mixing and changing up our attacking forces is thus a good plan.

Was thinking of the following army composition when dealing with Ashdod's sacreds:

Large group of harpies, large group of maenids (wish I had some size 1 units), small group of sacred white centaurs 8 or so. A Pan or other mage.

Wish I had some native size 1 units, but:

First two turns: I could buff the courage of the harpies, bless the sacreds, whislt the maenids advance on the target.

Then the harpies attack rear at the same time as the maenids reach em from the front. Should keep em busy while my mage slows/destroys some armor and the sacreds (and perhaps a few other troops) charge in and finish up.

Will test and see what happens.

Tried to recreate the same/similar conditions in the test. The result with 4 Sheshei and one Adon: 2 were killed. I used only a single dryad and about 40 troops, 16 harpies, 16 maenids, and 8 sacreds. In more numbers and/or with a pan it would have gone even better. Still working on an ideal troop composition for Ashdod. Perhaps throwing some war minotaurs into the mix. Maybe I'll read some more guides.

Regarding Vanheim's Skinshifters:

"The major weakness of Skinshifters is their low protection. They wear furs, which only provide 7 protection, and nothing on their heads. The most obvious way to exploit this weakness is archers."

Source - OW's Guide to Midgard, Scales, and Skinshifters

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=38147

Septimius Severus wrote:Regarding Vanheim's Skinshifters:

"The major weakness of Skinshifters is their low protection. They wear furs, which only provide 7 protection, and nothing on their heads. The most obvious way to exploit this weakness is archers."

Source - OW's Guide to Midgard, Scales, and Skinshifters

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=38147

Yes, I've come to that conclusion already. I'm currently testing to try and find an efficient way to use my only ranged unit - slingers - effectively against skinshifters. so far it looks like it MIGHT work.

Yes archers of all kinds should work well. The problem is you need mass. I have had groups of 30 odd slingers do no damage at all. As they only damage them - causing the shapshift. They have 13hps, then another 20 in werewolf form. So each archer/slinger needs to hit them a few times, especially as they have regeneration (2hp/round in both forms I think). Both forms have low protection.

So you need either a lot more archers/slingers than he has skinshifters or you need something which can act as an effective meatshield to stop the very high damage that they do getting to your missle line so you can get a few more rounds of missles off. Arco's standard light infantry the Peltast should get off two Javlins before closing with them which should soften them up if set to fire closest. But I am not sure if Arco is using them. Their second shape is strong (14) but it's three attacks are all low damage so maybe the heavy infantry's high protection (the prot 17 ones) would make them better blockers if they could be massed?

Skinshifters are also only 7 resources each. So as long as he has cash (they cost 25 each so they are not cheap to buy or in upkeep) - which his allies could provide - he can build a lot. Fortunately he only has one castle but I imagine he has at least one more in production.

His vanadrotts can lay down Mist (Evo 3), Arrow Fend (Ench 6) and Storm (Evo 5) which will kill off the archer strategy. So the window of using archers is fairly short.

Hoplosternum wrote:Yes archers of all kinds should work well. The problem is you need mass. I have had groups of 30 odd slingers do no damage at all. As they only damage them - causing the shapshift. They have 13hps, then another 20 in werewolf form. So each archer/slinger needs to hit them a few times, especially as they have regeneration (2hp/round in both forms I think). Both forms have low protection.

So you need either a lot more archers/slingers than he has skinshifters or you need something which can act as an effective meatshield to stop the very high damage that they do getting to your missle line so you can get a few more rounds of missles off. Arco's standard light infantry the Peltast should get off two Javlins before closing with them which should soften them up if set to fire closest. But I am not sure if Arco is using them. Their second shape is strong (14) but it's three attacks are all low damage so maybe the heavy infantry's high protection (the prot 17 ones) would make them better blockers if they could be massed?

Skinshifters are also only 7 resources each. So as long as he has cash (they cost 25 each so they are not cheap to buy or in upkeep) - which his allies could provide - he can build a lot. Fortunately he only has one castle but I imagine he has at least one more in production.

His vanadrotts can lay down Mist (Evo 3), Arrow Fend (Ench 6) and Storm (Evo 5) which will kill off the archer strategy. So the window of using archers is fairly short.

I'm already testing infantry meatshields with slingers behind them. peltasts do seem to work rather well. next turn I'll have two forts able to produce a pretty fair number of peltasts and slingers.

The problem with using heavier infantry is that its 1) expensive and 2) baerly going to last longer than light infantry. the armor would work well against the werewolves, yes. but before they shift into that form, the great swords would mince heavy infantry. So possibly if you screened them with light infantry and had heavy infantry behind it, and slingers behind that. The problem with that is that arco heavy infantry has idiotically high encumbrance. heart companions, for example, have such high encumbrance that you could have an E9 bless, and they would still fatigue out extremely quickly, at which point the werewolves would shred them.

I can beat his troops. the difficulty is beating them without spending more income/resources than he does.

Scratch that last post. I'm pretty well screwed at this point.

Marignon just killed my commander on the turn his fort was going to be completed, and looks to be preparing to move on my cap.

I won't have a second fort until two turns form now.

He's trying to stop me from attacking vanheim. And short of my army already on it's way, He'll succeed. I can't fight off marignon and attack vanheim at the same time.

Machaka, can you repel Marignon? He's your sole focus this game, so do what you can.

noobs on the north - I'm pretty sure we've lost in the south. it might be vaguely possible to salvage it, but personally I doubt it. Losing that fort right then would be game over in a 1v1, and completely ruins my ability to fight vanheim, even if Marignon were repelled right now without attacking my Cap, which he's going to do, since he has two armies 2-3 turns away from it. I can beat those armies easily enough, but being forced to completely breaks my attack on vanheim - if my elephants don't succeed, vanheim is home free. I'm attacking Vanheim's cap this turn. I don't know whether I will win or not.

If we do lose the south, vanheim is probably going to destroy our entire west side unless we can stop him somehow. if vanheim takes jotunheim, he'll have too much area and forts for caelum to stop, then he'll roll through ulm and bandar as well.


so noobs on the north? try to start taking out vets as soon as you can. If we can collapse the vets up north we should be able to get somewhere.

I'll have my armies moving in behind his forces in another turn, which should cut them off from reinforcements except via teleport. I don't know exactly what he has, though. Can you give me more information about that? All I see is crossbowmen and royal guard. Got me some machaka hoplites for the crossbowmen, and spiders should be able to eat the royal guard because of webbing. But, if he's doing something like using a few blessed knights of the chalice then I'll probably need to switch up some strategies.

LumenPlacidum wrote:I'll have my armies moving in behind his forces in another turn, which should cut them off from reinforcements except via teleport. I don't know exactly what he has, though. Can you give me more information about that? All I see is crossbowmen and royal guard. Got me some machaka hoplites for the crossbowmen, and spiders should be able to eat the royal guard because of webbing. But, if he's doing something like using a few blessed knights of the chalice then I'll probably need to switch up some strategies.

All I've seen him use is crossbowman and royal guard. he had maybe 6-8 royal guard and the rest crossbowman in the army that killed my commander. and would blessed knights of the chalice be a problem? wouldn't webbing work a well on them?

O.K. guys, here's my first EVER encounter with something approaching a SC:



He captured one of my (thankfully) undefended provinces and now I'm trying to predict his next move:



I see a glaring weakness, I think, but to exploit it, I need to know where he will attack. My home province may be tempting because of the income it generates, but that's the only thing that sets it apart from other provinces with forts. Any ideas?

Hard to say where he will attack. he might try to attack your armies on the front line to stop you from killing ermor if he thinks he can win.

I assume the glaring weakness you noticed is fatigue?his bless will give him re-invigoration, but not enough if you focus on fatigue causing spells and skelly spam.

your other option is to try and get an army behind him and cut off his retreat then fear him off the field.

you could also use a bunch of guys with magic duel. send like 4 guys with one astral at him and he's dead. you'll lose some of your guys, but he will die. That's probably your surest way to do it. I would go with this. It's annoying to lose guys doing it, but it is your surest way.

Well, it's nice to hear that we Noobs also have access to some capable pretender SCs (no knock on your Gorgon, Pangaea - I just think she'd be a bit to fragile to go up against other gods, who'd likely ignore her Awe and Fear). I definitely think we should all look for ways to 'pimp' him out (like the Vets are obviously doing). BTW, how much Astral is he packing? You don't want Marignon to Magic Duel him...

Regarding Vanheim's Father of Winter, I'm hoping my Horror Marking will send him home to hide soon. He might hit me hard once or twice more, but only at the risk of making Kurgi (and others) his best friend. Then again, he could always swing East against C'tis - Raiel, do you have a plan for if this guy messes with you?

OK, this discussion now properly belongs in another thread - I think I'll cut and paste it there.

So we're now entering fully into the thug/SC portion of the game. Time to start discussing what we have available. Anyone have an active Pretender (Pangaea's Gorgon, Arco's Titan, what else?)? Any summons coming around (sounds like C'tis will have Bane Lords soon)? How can we best trick them out?

How about ways of dealing with the Vets' nasties? We've got the Father of Winters (I'm hoping Horror Marking can make him at least retire from active duty) and T'ien Ch'i's Deva (did someone say fatigue was her weakness?). And of course, we've got Ashdod's various giant commanders. How best to deal with them in all their variety?

Time to step up our teamwork. One of our weaknesses is our actual numbers! The Vets, 6 wise crafty players who likely know each other well (and thus have a much easier time communicating and planning), versus 12+ (including subs) rookies who mostly don't know each other from Adam. We need to work better on communication and coordination. Make use of this forum, but also make use of PMing! Remember, we're not a mere MP game alliance, we are a TEAM!

Someone has a moloch with fairly decent stats. Agartha or abysia I believe.