Siege question: Lost twice

[OG_Gleep]

Well, I got my butt handed to me the first time, formed an army that was 2-3 times more powerful, tooled out thugs and SC's (some with artifacts no less) and got my butt handed to me. I lost over 300 units and 6 commanders.

The entire Jotun force couldn't have been more than 30 or so units...but they had like 10 hags chain casting summon skeleton and their pretender casting Animate dead. I finally quit the battle after 10 minutes of watching it.

They had so many skeletons that the entire castle was filled.

I had 2 Banelords that flew in at the start which lasted the whole 10 minutes, it was pretty funny.

Anyhow, I don't want to go through that again. Is there anything I can do to avoid this as Ulm?

[quantum_mechani]

This is actually pretty common in MP, even if the AI is often not smart enough to do it. The simplest solution is just a lot of priests. Other options include solar rays (astral 2 mage, or use a herald lance), holy pyre, or wither bones. Enough SCs/thugs can also work if you give them fire shield.

[OG_Gleep]

I had I think 4 Smiths casting Holy Pire...they eventuall got tired. I'll try more, and try and find some astral mages to go next time. Thank you sir.

[quantum_mechani]

OG_Gleep said:
I had I think 4 Smiths casting Holy Pire...they eventuall got tired. I'll try more, and try and find some astral mages to go next time. Thank you sir.

Yeah, a few mages casting holy pyre is not going to do it, you need almost as many of them as the enemy has skelly spammers (unless you have relief and they don't). And you're welcome. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Truper]

Couple other things. If you script your Banelords to "Attack Large Enemy Monsters" they might just cut the skeleton spam off at the source. The next seems obvious, but Blade Wind will kill an awful lot of skeletons fast.

[Cainehill]

OG_Gleep said:
I had I think 4 Smiths casting Holy Pire...they eventuall got tired. I'll try more, and try and find some astral mages to go next time. Thank you sir.



Did you cast Summon Earth Power on the smiths? While it doesn't directly help with Holy Pyre, it does give 4 fatigue back a combat turn, which can be a big help, as would a fatigue-restoring item or two. But mostly I suspect you needed at least a few more of them.

[shovah]

if you could give your smiths earth boots magma eruption is deadly, the one thing that i find strange is the fact that the battle did not reach the 50/100 turn limit

[Cainehill]

shovah said:
if you could give your smiths earth boots magma eruption is deadly, the one thing that i find strange is the fact that the battle did not reach the 50/100 turn limit



Nothing says it didn't - he said he quit watching after 10 minutes. (Incidentally, OG_Gleep : the 'f' key lets you fast forward through battles, while 'n' lets you skip to the next turn : 10 'n' keys skips forward 10, etc - can be handy for letting you see what happened.)

But I wouldn't be surprised if his troops and mages didn't simply get exhausted to the point the undead slaughtered them before turn 50.

[shovah]

but 10 mins i wouldve thought the turn limit wouldve been reached, but then again i fast forward alot

[Cainehill]

Big enough armies, a battle can take half an hour or more to watch.

[archaeolept]

and i've seen large battles, w/ enough spell effects, completely choke even a good (ATI) video card - there's some hotkey (g?) to turn off graphics options in that eventuality.

however, just spamming the "n" key is usually good enough.

[OG_Gleep]

No I didn't have SEP scripted, as I didn't think it would do much. All of them had Rainbow Vests/Boots/Fire Skulls some had additional -supply items. Each turn actually took quite a bit. 3 of my Generals had the air helm, and I had atleast 7 or 8 mages, they had more than 10...so each turn of casting/fighting actually took quite a bit.