Alexander's Ever-Expanding Tome of Knowledge, pt 2

[Endoperez]

First, the original (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showthreaded.php?Number=245150) is well worth reading.

Does anyone have any additions?


To stop the world
Spies. They are annoying little buggers that can hamper your enemy's economy. They can be much more, though! Imagine a group of 6 spies. They stealth through enemy lands, find his capital - and in one turn, cause over 100 points of unrest. No more sacred troops for you! No more capital-only mages for you! No more income for you! Even better, to catch the spies, the target of this strategy has to patrol, which reduces unrest, and as long as the unrest stays high, it's hard to catch any stealthy units, and he it will often take a turn or two to bring suitable patrollers. Once he has brought the patrollers in, you can move your spies out and wait until the capital is empty again.

Fearful Symmetry
Fear directly lowers enemy morale, as is easily noticed if you click on enemy units surrounding your Prince of Death. Heavy Cavalry with morale 4 are rather absurd sight... But, besides making it easy to rout them, low morale is also very effective protection if you happen to have Awe. Dominion values of 9 and 10 gives Awe, and I'm sure you all see where I'm going... Fear and Awe alone won't keep a unit alive, but you'll be fine if you add in some protection. Prince of Death can wear Black Plate armor without being fatigued by its encumberance. There are many, many ways to build an effective early expander around this idea, from Gorgon (med-to-high Earth for extra protection) to more monstrous creatures like Wyrms.

[incognito]

Rain from Hell

Works well with either a VQ pretender or a Tartarian Cyclops - both can get Earth & Air combination. Suit up the SC with reasonable protection gear/good shields/resistances and cloud trapeze into an enemy army.

Immediately cast rain of stones, which does the equivalent of blade wind to all units on the field. Normally, this is a double edged sword causing as much damage to your own units as to your opponents. With a high protection SC, however, you're insulated from this effect. In cases of mass undead, the damage is staggering. Have some extra air gems to cloud trapeze out again when the opponent retreats.

In my test case, the opponent had cast multiple pheonix pyre buffs on his mages in the midst of his troops - they all exploded for even more damage to his army.

[Ironhawk]

incognito said:
Have some extra air gems to cloud trapeze out again when the opponent retreats.



Cant cast cloud trapezee without a lab. Better to give your SC boots of flying or some other means of flying and just fly them out after the battle.

[Meglobob]

A small tip.

Research comes 2nd in the order of events. This means that spells researched at the beginning of the turn can be cast in that same turn. Just script cast spells and hope the computer AI selects the new available spells.

[TruePurple]

How do generic spies cause unrest or hamper economy Endoperez? Or do you mean something with stealthing that has a secondary effect of unrest by its presense?

[Endoperez]

Spy is different from Scout. Any unit that is stealthy can gather basic information, but some nations also have Spies. Spies have a special "Instill Unrest" order, and they also see the details of enemy lands in much greater detail that ordinary scouts (the spesific income, unrest, resource, PD etc numbers as well as the number of magic sites).

[HoneyBadger]

The Ancient Kraken is a really fun Pretender to play if you're a water-loving nation, but he needs some help.
One consideration is the fact that his poison cloud also poisons him. Accessorize your Ancient Kraken for less! Give him a snake ring and he'll not only be protected, he'll poison his enemies. That's 4-18 hp armor piercing attacks that now do poison damage as well. Doesn't suck. Cost: 5 nature gems, 1 level of nature magic, and 0 levels of Construction. Other good, and cheap, magic items for your Kraken-on-the-go are the ring of regeneration-I've had Ancient Kraken pretenders with 690 pre-Wish hp before (see below), and throwing regeneration onto that is a beautiful thing. It also helps avoid those nasty afflictions. Sure your kraken heals them eventually, but why suffer with a limp for any amount of time if you don't have to? Ok, it's not THAT cheap at 6 const and 10 nature gems, but it's dirt-cheap when you consider your Ancient Kraken will be regenerating 65 HP+ per round. That's one whole entire Niefel Giant,
every
single
round.
An Amulet of Antimagic is a real bargain for the Ancient Kraken, not only because it protects him from spells, but because the worst thing that can happen to him (besides death, and a well-played Kraken doesn't die very often) is Curse or Horror Mark. Even those aren't really that bad, but still, better to avoid. When you have an Ancient Kraken, Dom 10 is worth the cost. Not only will you get Awe +2 in addition to your Kraken's natural Fear +0, but your Kraken's stats will JUMP! Don't ask me why /threads/images/Graemlins/Bug.gif but I've had over 550 HP in mediochre Dom provinces with a 10 Dom Ancient Kraken. A 10 Dom province will give you 690 HP, around 28 str, MR of 25 with an amulet, and greatly improved attack and defense. It's hard to improve on immortality, but what if your Pretender...

just...won't...die?!?!?

Good magic paths for your Ancient Kraken include Water-just one level and your Kraken can cast quicken self-remember those 4 attacks at 18 points AP damage each? well now make that 8 attacks etc etc etc yadda yadda yadda. Earth-stoneskin and ironskin are fun, but the real beauty is Invulnerability. Cost is a little higher at 3 levels of Earth magic, but the payoff is 25 points protection, and if you're still wearing that snake ring, there's no downside! The real treat though is Astral magic. Just 1 point allows you to cast both Body Etherial and Personal Luck. Another truly beautiful spell for an Ancient Kraken is Mossbody. Finally, 3 Death will enable you to cast Soul-Vortex, and 4 Death will allow Darkness (and did I mention Ancient Krakens have 100% Darkvision?).
Not too many armies-let alone SCs-have what it takes to tackle a 690 hp etherial, lucky, invulnerable, magic-resistant, quick, poisonous and poison immune soul-sucking Ancient Kracken of Fear and Awe, especially in the dark.

'Nuff said.

[PDF]

Just beware of Magic Duels though ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[alexti]

Magic Duels are not elegant http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Consider somebody parking well-armoured ghost king with a good defense near that Ancient Kraken and just waiting for Kraken to die from hypothermia http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Ygorl]

Magic Resistance doesn't help against Curse or Horror Mark, does it?

[HoneyBadger]

I believe magic-duels are based on the respective power of the participants in Astral magic? If so, I should warn that I usually play Ancient Krakens with 8 levels of starting Astral, empowering other magic paths as needed. As far as I know, MR does help against Curse and Horror Mark.

[Endoperez]

The spells Curse and Horror Mark don't allow for magic resistance. Horror attacks might be affected by magic resistance, and high magic resistance helps to keep you from dying if a Horror attacks.

Ancient Kraken with 8 levels of Astral is so expensive that it should be undefeatable. It isn't, but it does come pretty close.

Van rush
This strategy works with EA Helheim, MA Vanheim and LA Vanheim. It works for EA Vanheim with few changes.

This strategy is based around sacred, mounted cavalry that has glamour and insane defense. Take an imprisoned pretender with Water 9, Fire 9 (Father of Winters is fine), full Order to have enough money for the expensive Vanir, and some Sloth and Cold scales to afford anything else you might want. Dominion 5-7 works well. Build groups of half-a-dozen or so sacred cavalry and use them to conquer independents. Avoid barbarians, heavy cavalry, Dark Vines and other tough provinces until you can bring a bigger force (10 to 15 Vanir) against them. If you meet another nation early on, you can probably kill it before it can come up with a way to deal with Vanir.

[Meglobob]

Endoperez said:
Spy is different from Scout. Any unit that is stealthy can gather basic information, but some nations also have Spies. Spies have a special "Instill Unrest" order, and they also see the details of enemy lands in much greater detail that ordinary scouts (the spesific income, unrest, resource, PD etc numbers as well as the number of magic sites).



Bards can instill unrest as well.

[Endoperez]

Mechanics-wise, Bards are spies. They aren't named as such, but this is probably just propaganda. Chelms has a stealthy spy-mage too, BTW.

[thejeff]

As do Tien Chi and Late Era Ulm and probably others.

It would be nice if both spying and assassination had icons so you could be sure who could do what, before sending them out.

[HoneyBadger]

As per Ancient Krakens with Astral 8 being extremely expensive, they are, but they're also the ideal Pretender for R'lyeh, especially if you're going for Wish rush combined with clam-spamming. I like to build up a posse of 5 (4 wished for) empowered (4 death, 3 earth, 3 astral, 2 nature, 1 water, plus atleast 1 fire and air if you're going to give them amulets of the fish and send them onto land), gift-of-reason Ancient Krakens by mid-game, and by end-game have a Kraken-factory, producing, gift of reasoning, and empowering atleast 1 (different) Kraken per turn. Backed up by communion-slaved Aboleth Mindlords, they really are pretty much unbeatable, being able to handle swarms, SCs, and anything magic you throw at them, since with Aboleths, the one thing you can count on being bigger and better at than anyone else is research. You can use your Krakens as a single force to take out heavy provinces, or divide them up and conquer quickly. They work almost as well on land as they do in the water, and by end-game you can factory-build well-equipped gorgons and void-lords almost as easily as you can your Krakens-(infact, you can summon up any Pretender-type in the game, just summon, equip, and empower whatever SC best suits your needs. You can start laying down Fountains of Blood and moving fast and furious into blood-magic. If you like the units of another nation, make your own. Do what you feel.) You do need a TON of astral pearls though, because each Kraken represents atleast 3 wishes-one to summon and then two to get the gems to empower them to level 1 in each magical path, unless you're getting in 50+ gems of each type a round-which, with this tactic, you should be by mid-game, but each Mind-Lord, once empowered to level 1, can produce clamshells. You'll want a couple hundred of these going by midgame, so get shucking! You also need several (not just one) mages who can cast Wish by mid-game. It can be risky, and it's easy to screw up, because you're basically putting all of your Nation's eggs in one basket, but the payoff can be enormous.

[upstreamedge]

<b> Frogmen Eskimos have you confused? </b>

while struggling to come up with a stratagem for the odd late era Atlantis i accidentally came upon something. Nature 9 bless is REALLY effective on the national sacred. Although I am sort of lost as to why the Assarut just tore through enemies while berserk,fire bless did not produce the same results. back the sacred up with seal hunters and you have a good early to mid game force

[PDF]

upstreamedge said:
<b> Frogmen Eskimos have you confused? </b>

while struggling to come up with a stratagem for the odd late era Atlantis i accidentally came upon something. Nature 9 bless is REALLY effective on the national sacred. Although I am sort of lost as to why the Assarut just tore through enemies while berserk,fire bless did not produce the same results. back the sacred up with seal hunters and you have a good early to mid game force



Can't explain why berserking makes them more effective, but Water9 bless also works well, coupled with Fire4 for the Attack increase. 10 Arssartuts (1 turn recruitement) can take on most indies with no or 1 loss. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[HoneyBadger]

Atlantians always seem to kick more explitive than any other race while berserk. I don't know why, but I've noticed this with Living Pillars too. They're well-nigh unstoppable, for no real statistical reason I can put my finger on. I've seen one Living Pillar take out around 5 sacred W9/F9 Helheim sacreds, while the rest of his army ran away. Some do die quickly while berserk, but with others-maybe 5 to 10%-it's like this switch gets turned on and they just kill and kill and kill past all reasonability or believability. It's really one of the high points of playing Atlantis when it happens.

[Aleph]

Basic question from someone new to the game: Why a Kraken and not a Wyrm? Less attacks, less hitpoints, less defense, but starts with regeneration, more protection, more attack, more strength, is poisonous and fully poison immune from the get go, is amphibious rather than aquatic (saving a misc slot if you want to go on land), has 2 helmet/2 misc rather than 3 misc, and has more leadership. You could go with Spirit Helmet/Wraith crown/Stone Bird/Pendant of Luck for a combat model, or Skullface/Starshine Skullcap/Water Bracelet/Crystal Coin if you want to gain turn and gem advantage through less empowering.

The big loss would seem to be some vulnerability to afflictions, but you could always use some of your turn advantage to create a Mother of Serpents to act as forward magical support and healing if that becomes an issue.

[HoneyBadger]

The Wyrm is a fine Pretender, there's no question of that, but the thing that makes an Ancient Kraken outshine a Wyrm is the Kraken's efficiency in dealing with large groups of creatures. Large groups of creatures-and you'll learn that this is much truer in Dom3 than it was in Dom2-are very common, and can be the bane of many an SC. Most don't deal well with them. The Gorgon is one that does, because of her inherant Petrification. 200 units attack most SC's and you've got 199, maybe 198 units, and a very dead SC. 200 units attack a Gorgon, and you've got an art museum full of classics. The Kraken also deals well with large groups, and it's got three ways to deal with them better than a Wyrm. 1: The Ancient Kraken has 4 tentacle attacks-8 with quickness-each able to instakill a single medium-toughness armored unit. 2: Poison cloud-the Kraken doesn't even need to specifically attack a unit to weaken those around it-and you can easily add Breath of Winter on top of that, making for two different types of damage, which is hard for large armies to be resistant to. 3: Rejuvenation-my personal favorite inherant ability. Rejuvenation isn't easy to get-easier than petrification or immortality, but still not a dime a dozen. No matter how many healers you happen to have, they're never going to be as efficient as a creature that heals itself, no muss no fuss. Plus-and this is the most important-I just like the idea of playing an enormous ancient giant badass ship-devouring kraken. I don't get the same thrill from a Wyrm. I don't know why, but I don't. Maybe if it had more heads?

[Aleph]

That's cool if it comes down to preference. I just don't see the edge; the Kraken needs to spend a round casting personal regeneration, so that's another damage shield that the Wyrm could have up, and with the additional item slots (both inherent and due to lack of need for poison protection and air breathing) and lack of need for Nature paths you can produce more Wyrms more quickly, so I think we're back to a conversation similar to the Mictlan bless strats. Some like super quality, others are happier with high quality in quantity.

Edit: Or a Carrion Dragon, which has a lot of the properties you like in the Kraken but more so - 8 attacks per round before quickness, recuperation, fear +10 - but can also raise the dead and when Gift of Reasoned has the benefit of already having 1 level each of nature and death, allowing you to avoid the 1st point premiums when empowering.

[HoneyBadger]

Oh yes, I love the Carrion Dragon. As far as I'm concerned, with the Gorgon and the Ancient Kraken, it's the third corner of the Holy Triumvirate of Dom3 SCs.

I just wish it were amphibious and/or immortal, but then I wish Ancient Kraken had 6 tentacle attacks (or ideally the 4 it currently has plus two killing-arms, like a real giant squid) 5% natural regeneration, an extra misc. slot (accounting for 10 total tentacles) and a bite attack.

Yes they would be overpowered. Yes, I would certainly give them a price-hike. No, they wouldn't be overbalancing, because they're still 1 unit moving 1 province a turn, and they still have plenty of disadvantages.

I think many Pretenders-SC Pretenders anyway-in Dom3 could use significant physical boosts, (not magic-path boosts mind you), to make them more outstanding compared to the droves and droves of units usually present in a game. Whatever it is, it's a GOD and gods should kick a godly amount of explitive.

The Gorgon, the Ancient Kraken, and the Carrion Dragon are the only Pretenders out there (that I am familiar with) that you can use continuously-from the beginning of the game to the end of the game-as lone province-taking SC's without risking death/crippling affliction. I don't think this is right.

Keep the multitudes of units on the battlefield, but bring back the SC, I say.

[HoneyBadger]

Gandalf, I noticed you stickied Tools and Tutorials in Mods Forum. Along a similar vein, is there any chance we could get this excellent thread stickied too in this forum? While you're at it, could we get the original stickied and added to this forum as well? Even though the original deals with Dom2 etc. it's definitely informative and useful for everyone, and should be one of the first things someone new to the game sees. A description and a rename wouldn't be a bad idea, for clarification.

While I'm at it, thank you Endoperez for posting this terrific thread and it's precursor in the first place.

[void]

Stunned by the weird discussion.
Generating a couple hundreds astral pearls a turn, yet struggling to find a way to win. Sorry, but simply I don't see that.

With THAT MANY gems, where "THAT MANY" stands for ten thousand gems (I do means 10000, assuming 33 "superior unit" x 300gem/per), any player, no matter johnny/tommy/spike who s/he is, should be able to win the game if s/he's not playing on a vast map, by "vast" I mean 2000+ provinces.

300 astral pearls =
* 12 Juggernauts
* or, 12 Abominations
* or, 12 Imprint Soul spell
* or, 30 Ghost raider spell (60 if it's 300 death gems) (that is almost enough to ruin somebody's day)
* or, 10 Black Death spell (20 if it's 300 death gems) (that is almost enough to ruin somebody's day, too)
* or, a silly....I mean a very equipped Seraph.
* or, ONE so-said SC kraken? (oh, yes, 300 is the "at least" cost for such a great unit.)

I'm not a great fan-of-tentacles. Not that great, at least.

[Teraswaerto]

Any strategy that involves Wishing for units and then empowering them is only for playing around in SP. The goal, I guess, is not really to win, but to make crazy units.

Anything that doesn't have all slots is generally bad choice for an SC. Empowering to let them cast buffs that make up for the slots is really wasteful and expensive. Only for SP, only for experimenting, etc.

[Meglobob]

Teraswaerto said:
Any strategy that involves Wishing for units and then empowering them is only for playing around in SP. The goal, I guess, is not really to win, but to make crazy units.

Anything that doesn't have all slots is generally bad choice for an SC. Empowering to let them cast buffs that make up for the slots is really wasteful and expensive. Only for SP, only for experimenting, etc.



Spot on Teraswaerto.

SP and MP are too completely different games.

SP is very, very easy and for experienced players is just for testing strategys used in MP.

MP is a harsh, very rapid, ruthless game. Expect the unexpected in MP.

Very, very few MP games will get anywhere near wish before someone wins. Also anything, 'wasteful' like globals, low level summons, clam spamming etc...are useless in MP and will get you killed. In MP you after make every gold piece, gem, research count.

[Teraswaerto]

I agree in principle. However, some globals, clams, and even low level summons can be useful at times.

Globals are risky since they can be Dispelled so easily, and cost so many gems, but gem producing globals will pay themselves back quickly. Most others are very situational, and some I would probably never use (Ghost Ship Armada for example).

Clams are an investment to the future. Most of the time it's probably best to use the gems for something useful right then, but I would't say they are useless.

Low level summons can be used if there's a war you are losing and need every bit of help you can get. Saving gems does no good if you are wiped out.

[HoneyBadger]

Playing on very large 1500 province maps with many opponents is also a completely different game from playing on a 25 province map.

I'd play larger if I could.
That's the kind of game I like, and very-long-term is the kind of strategy I follow.

I also tend to play ocean races over land races (except for Mictlan) so a lot of units and strategies which I otherwise would use, aren't as available to me. I do consider globals (except gem-producers) to be wasteful, but I don't believe juggernauts or abominations are amphibious (maybe abominations, but I don't know).

And playing R'lyeh, how exactly are you going to manage to pull off a blitz game? All you've GOT are SCs (another reason to play huge maps). So I'm stuck with 1 very good SC capital only commander per round, kinda crappy to very crappy everything else, and summons. 12 abominations at a time might be great, but by the time I've crossed the board and it's down to me and one other nation, the other guy is going to be pretty damn tough too, and I'm going to lose abominations and juggernauts-lots of them at 25 pearls a pop.

If I can take out a hundred of the other guy's troops per SC of mine, and still keep the SC, it could very well decide the game, even if I'm putting all of my astral pearls into SCs. After all, I'm going to have a lot more of them than the other guy, because that's one thing R'lyeh's good for.

If somebody handed me 300 astral pearls at the beginning of the game, sure I'd use them differently than I would if I were producing that many every turn and had most magical research done.

People need to get around the idea that every MP game is a blitz game.

[Teraswaerto]

I've never played a blitz game. Have you played an MP game, HoneyBadger? I am curious.

I like games that last long. Getting to high levels of research is fun, but the only time I can see one would have enough gems to Wish for and empower pretenders would be if one had Arcane Nexus up and even then there would be, IMO, a better use for the gems.

[HoneyBadger]

I have, though not a lot. So yes, I'm just speculating like everyone else, since we're not all currently involved in the same specific MP game.

Arcane Nexus is a given, but if you make a determined effort at clam-spamming right from the beginning-and Aboleths can do this very quickly into the game-you can be generating tons of them, at an exponential rate. That's just applied mathematics.

And certainly, you can find lots of good uses for 300 astral gems. That's not at all the point. Circumstances differ and different strategies should be developed which can get the most out of whatever circumstance you happen to find yourself in.

I don't suppose that this particular thread is intended to find "the one true only best way" to do anything, regardless of the game you find yourself in, and your own feelings on a specific subject at a specific time. It's for coming up with strategies and expanding our knowledge about the game-tools in the toolbox.

[mivayan]

HoneyBadger said:
The Gorgon is one that does, because of her inherant Petrification. 200 units attack most SC's and you've got 199, maybe 198 units, and a very dead SC.


Equipping a charcoal shield (7 ap fireshield) works pretty well too against weak foes.


Aleph said:
Edit: Or a Carrion Dragon


It can cast soul vortex, but it cant regenerate (unless you play pangea and cast the right national priest spell). No regeneration seems so scary against lifeless units.


HoneyBadger said:If I can take out a hundred of the other guy's troops per SC of mine, and still keep the SC, it could very well decide the game, even if I'm putting all of my astral pearls into SCs. After all, I'm going to have a lot more of them than the other guy, because that's one thing R'lyeh's good for.


One risk of a solo 300-gem supercombatant in late late late game is running into a squad of 20 blood-3 mages. Each scripted to cast "life for a life". Total cost 20 blood slaves for 800 armor negating damage at range 100/precision 100.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, SCs aren't the answer to every strategy problem. I wouldn't solo any 300-gem SC in anything but an early to early-mid game, though. The idea of a 300-gem SC isn't that you solo him, it's that you group him with 4 of his buddies, put a tough army and lots of magical support behind him, and use him as a high-powered shock troop/support unit that you can send head-on into large groups of the enemy and don't have to worry so much about losing.

Basically, it's a main tank.

[void]

shall i say that, 12 abominations kill units much faster than a single (empowered or whatever) kraken--much faster than you can ever imagine, while 12 juggernauts spreads your dominion like crazy.

yes, abominations can be summoned underwater;
no, even ocean races are able and should build labs above water and casting spells from there.

btw, i'll be very happy to use a group of 50 abominations against 4 ancient krakens, and i'll be even happier to use 250 abominations against 20 krakens, assuming i have an equal "magical support" on the battlefield.
tough army or not, it doesnt matter....

[HoneyBadger]

Void, maybe we should just play rock-paper-scissors, that way we've only got 3 choices and we always know who's going to win. It'll take a lot less time.

[HoneyBadger]

Maybe you could even use two hands to play, while I could use the larger SC giant foam football hand to play, and then we could both post strategies for the "best way to play"?

[upstreamedge]

Well, in one sense they do not. ME Pangea has no unit which can give you the detailed info of a spy, but they can instill uprisings, Here is how.

1) get a black harpy

2) give it ten revelers

3) send it to an enemy province

as each reveler has a check to produce turmoil separately you will average about 5 points of turmoil per turn. One drawback is the fact that you can not see how much turmoil you have caused, but the target will not be alerted that someone is causing trouble in their territories.

[void]

I'm posting here coz' I love the Ever-Expanding Tome, not for a paper-scissors-rock game. That said, it would be sad to see comical tactics--while relaxing--write in the tome.

Here's another example of such a comical idea, although IMHO it's far more executable than the great Karkens March On tactic, that had me stunned a few minutes ago on another Dominions Forum.

The idea is simple:

- Build a high astral unit. 10S Pretender can be a good start.
- Raise the unit's astral magic to 15+.
- Give him some penetrate bonus items. +7 or +8 would be very ideal(that's possible on a blind 4-misc slot unit).
- Get some astral gems for him.
- Have it scripted "Master Enslave","Master Enslave","Vortex of Returning"(or simply Returning).

Guess what?

Yup, that's the "THE GRAND MASTER". as hilarious as Kraken Swarm, but way more effective shall I judge.

[Meglobob]

Meglobob's quick & easy guide to slaughtering the opposition with MA Man:-

MA Man is a strong nation, it has alot going for it and many possibilites. Here is one based on stealth...

Bards, only 75gp, +30 stealth, can instill unrest, fantastic, recruit loads, get 4+ to every enemy castle, take unrest over 100. Your enemy can't recruit anymore. You have won.

Mothers 130gp, 2N 1A, stealthy, cool, research upto storm of thorns, put into squads of 4, script 5xstorm of thorns, should defeat most PD upto 30+.

Monks, 30gp, stealthy, can cast bless, can lead 10 stealthy blessed wardens into enemy lands. Can any PD defeat 10 wardens with a W9F9N4 bless? Or if you want decent scales try...E9N4.

Put all those together, plus plenty of longbows (wind guided of course, flaming arrows if your lucky) mix with plenty of lightning/thunder strikes...cool.

[HoneyBadger]

Void, my point is that we're here to write suggestions about strategies in the game, not to be arm-chair generals and nitpick about the merits of a particular strategy as applies to our own personal method of playing the game.

I'm not at all trying to be comical except as a means to an end, nor am I suggesting or intending to suggest something that would necessarily lose someone a game.

If something I suggest flat-out cannot be done in the game, then please inform me, otherwise I fail to see your point as we don't play the game the exact same way, and no two games, or players, are alike.

[Meglobob]

Gold, you never have enough, especially in dominions, so here is a nice way to get more of it.

Research watcher spell, cast 2 of those in your capital and any other high population province with a lab. Get 1 of your cheapo mages to patrol with them. Now slam taxes upto 200% and leave them there. You now have double your income permanently, with 0 unrest and a mounting stockpile of corpses. Watchers have +50 patrol bonus and are tough defenders who discharge lightning and never retreat, so a decent defense to support your PD.

Also to get the most out of this, turn those corpses into free troops, research carrion reanimation, and when you reach 100 corpses get 100 souless undead for 10D gems, cool...

[HoneyBadger]

Ok, since my previous posts were-atleast to some-potentially not terribly worthwhile, here's an easy and useful strategy for Kailasa Early Era. Note: this draws upon an earlier strategy posted in the original Tome and just specializes it for Kailasa.

Create a Pretender with Air 10 and Death 8 (Destroyer of Worlds is a good candidate, but you might want to go with something cheaper. He's worth it though, because you're going to want a strong capacity to fight hand-to-hand. If you feel you can get away with it, give him Fire 4 and it'll really help your melee forces, while at the same time allowing easy access to Flaming Arrows for maximum messiness.)

Yes, it's very expensive, (especially if you go with Fire 4 on top of it), but there's no real reason not to make your Pretender imprisoned. The Bless effect payoff of this is to make your sacred Yavanna troops completely immune to missles, while at the same time your own sacred Yavanna archers are dealing out +300% affliction arrows.

The enemies' archers can only hurt the enemy, and your own archers again can only hurt the enemy, effectively nullifying as much as a third of all Independent forces, and forcing human-run nations to cross a battlefield under fire and fight your melee forces either hand-to-hand or with spells, but not air spells, since your sacred Awe troops and summons are now 75% resistant to lightning-a fact your Air 10 Pretender should be able to exploit.

[HoneyBadger]

By the way, one nice thing about Wishing for a Pretender Type is, once you've Gift of Reasoned it, you CAN Prophetize a wished-for Pretender!

[HoneyBadger]

Fear and Awe on a really powerful Pretender (like a Carrion Dragon for instance) can be great, especially if you're using your Pretender to capture independent provinces. But, one thing you need to be aware of and avoid when "soloing" such Pretenders is that Fear and Awe have very little effect on undead
(they're back from the dead, you don't impress them).

A good strategy when "soloing" a powerful Pretender is to create a backup "holy slayer" squad made up of maybe 15 regular troops (your starting army should be fine for this in most cases) and atleast 5 commander units with atleast 1 level of holy magic each. Set each commander to cast Banishment x5 and then "cast spells" in the back of your forces, and put your regular soldiers in the front, set to "hold and attack". Not many undead will survive the Banishment party, and the ones that do can be cut down safely by your troops.

Use this type of squad to take out the undead provinces your Pretender has to avoid.

They can then be used to increase your Dominion around the edges of your national borders, which will make your Pretender stronger and protect your Dominion.

[Meglobob]

In SP you can gain a advantage over the AI by buying all the mercenaries and never letting any AI nation have any.

Simply bid 1gp over asking price and they will be yours, everytime. When it comes to renewing there contract you after bid full price again +1gp, to 100% guarentee you keep them.

The AI it seems only ever bids the exact amount...

When you get a mercenary commander with a magic item, consider sending that mercenary to his death in the last month of his hire. Simply place him up front on his own and give attack closet orders. Have your own commanders in the rear with empty slots, with a little luck you will pick up the magic item off your former employees rotting corpse...

[Gandalf Parker]

Interesting tactic altho it might be hard to duplicate on purpose.
For Pangaea:
In a solo game of mine there is an "eater of the dead" walking around randomly and just munching up provinces. At first I thought that it would be a major problem for me but it turned out to be a bonus. I followed it around with Pans while leaving them invisible. He devastated anyone elses armies that got in the area. But I was able to take any province with the few maenads that the pans tossed. Id crank up the taxes and maybe try to recruit some things. I was able to follow it closely since my pans werent susceptable to it, and take the empty provinces faster than other nations using scouts and attack orders.

[Foodstamp]

Meglobob said:
In SP you can gain a advantage over the AI by buying all the mercenaries and never letting any AI nation have any.

Simply bid 1gp over asking price and they will be yours, everytime. When it comes to renewing there contract you after bid full price again +1gp, to 100% guarentee you keep them.

The AI it seems only ever bids the exact amount...

When you get a mercenary commander with a magic item, consider sending that mercenary to his death in the last month of his hire. Simply place him up front on his own and give attack closet orders. Have your own commanders in the rear with empty slots, with a little luck you will pick up the magic item off your former employees rotting corpse...



The bit about bidding 1 gold over the asking price does not always work. It seems to work 99.9% of the time, but in an EA game I just played as Kailasa, I bid on the amazon archers with the pegasus commander 1 gold over the asking price and was outbid. Other than that one incident, which happened a few hours ago, I have never had the AI outbid me on mercs if I go 1 gold over.

[Meglobob]

Foodstamp said:

Meglobob said:
In SP you can gain a advantage over the AI by buying all the mercenaries and never letting any AI nation have any.

Simply bid 1gp over asking price and they will be yours, everytime. When it comes to renewing there contract you after bid full price again +1gp, to 100% guarentee you keep them.

The AI it seems only ever bids the exact amount...

When you get a mercenary commander with a magic item, consider sending that mercenary to his death in the last month of his hire. Simply place him up front on his own and give attack closet orders. Have your own commanders in the rear with empty slots, with a little luck you will pick up the magic item off your former employees rotting corpse...



The bit about bidding 1 gold over the asking price does not always work. It seems to work 99.9% of the time, but in an EA game I just played as Kailasa, I bid on the amazon archers with the pegasus commander 1 gold over the asking price and was outbid. Other than that one incident, which happened a few hours ago, I have never had the AI outbid me on mercs if I go 1 gold over.



Foodstamp, I have done this 100's, perhaps 1,000's of times now in Dom 3. It's never let me down yet. Perhaps due to excessive Dom 3 playing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif, you were tired and bid under by mistake?

[Foodstamp]

I am pretty sure I bid on them right. The game I was playing was a test bed for an upcoming MP game and I had just read your post so I decided to test it as well.

The nation that outbid me was a modded in nation from Master of Magic and the mercenaries were the archers in white. It's possible I did not bid on them properly, everyone can misclick, but I am pretty certain i bid 1 gold over because I usually check the merc screen before I end turn.

[HoneyBadger]

I just thought I'd give this one a bump since it's potentially pretty useful, especially to new players

[Horst F. JENS]

not so cool like the Kraken, but maybe useful for new players (got this from dom2 thread):

If you get Elephants or other big units, your main fear is that those beasts rout and trample over your own troops.
Avoid that by placing an nature mage in the square over (north of) the Elephant and let him cast Beserk.
Set the Elephant on "Hold and Attack". Note that the Elephant will attack as soon as become berserked. If possible, have an Astral mage in the same square as the Nature mage cast Body Etheral and/or Luck.
Cast any buff spell that has short range and Area of Effect of 1 square.

You can replace each Elephant with 2 cavalry units.
Place mages in the combat squares north and south of each Elephants, casting buffs.
Enjoy the sight of unbreakable, etheral (75% chance to avoid hit) Elephants trampling over your enemys.

[MaxWilson]

Combine a D9 blessing with a Shroud of the Battle Saint and Evocation spells. Falling Fires and Cloud of Death are already great spells, but usually don't do enough damage to kill a unit on the first hit. If the casting mage has a high Death blessing, however, they inflict enough damage to afflict an enemy most of the time. Weakness seems to be especially common, with Cripple, Battle Fright, and Lost An Arm making a showing too.

If you take an E4 blessing the mages in question also benefit from the slight boost to reinvigoration.

-Max

[Sandman]

SCOUT FERRY

Construction-2 has got two breathing items, the ring of water breathing and shambler skin armour. Using only three of these, it's possible to send an unlimited number of scouts, spies or assassins through underwater provinces to land on the other side.

Give one scout the shambler armour and two scouts water breathing rings. Have them travel underwater until they reach a land province. Once there, give all the breathing items to one scout, and have him travel back underwater, whilst the other scouts disperse. Repeat as needed. It's time consuming, but efficient.

[HoneyBadger]

Niefelheim is a powerful nation with great troops.

By far it's greatest troops are the Niefel Jarls themselves-and they're equally deadly against living and undead enemies.

You can maximize this ability by choosing an Imprisoned Cyclops with totally negative scales (make sure temperature is set to cold, because that only helps you).

You can then add those points to Earth (10), Water (10), and Nature (10) for a practically unstoppable bless. The extra 7 points go right into Dominion (3).
Perfect efficiency!

Don't bother with regular Niefel Giants-atleast at first.
Build up your gold and buy Jarls only-you won't have much gold to begin with, anyway, but that should quickly change.

Also, kill off your starting army by any means possible, because they're a really big money-pit in the early game, and if you keep them around they may get you killed before you get your first Jarl (the longer you go without a Jarl, the more chances you have to lose your Temple or Lab to bad luck, and that'll finish you in the first turns of a multi-player game).

Your first Jarl should become your Prophet. Use him to expand your domain, and he can also help maintain your Dominion. If the Arena comes around early in the game (like within the first 10 turns), stick him in-he should be strong enough to beat anything else in the game at that point, except for a really tough SC Pretender, and if he wins, he'll get 3 stars of experience and a nifty trident for free. At that point, he should be able to tackle most neutral provinces by himself.

Keep buying Jarls-you should soon have enough gold income to buy 1 every round, if you're lucky. At that point, start leaving some of the Jarls in your home-provinces to pray and to research construction so you can arm your Jarls and maintain your Dominion. Don't worry about expanding your Dominion very quickly-as long as it's strongly maintained in your core provinces, you should be fine, and your poor scales will really hurt you in the long run, so out run them with swift expansion until you can inflict them on your enemies' home provinces with your Jarls.

You may want to avoid provinces with lizardmen at first, unless you need the province for strategic reasons, because their shamans are really efficient at cursing your Jarls. You can build a small force of non-Niefel jotuns for this purpose in the later stages of the game. Skin-shifters are ideal for this purpose.

You should also start building scouts and creating a scout supply-train by equipping scouts with an endless bag of wine and endles cauldrons of broth, each, and then attaching them to your armies. This becomes easy once your Pretender shows up, and forging these should eventually become his main job-after he's searched your Core provinces for magic sites.

Your Pretender also makes a handy defender SC in a pinch, if you equip him, but don't risk him without a very good reason, because he's your main earth/nature mage and he won't be much better than a well-equipped Jarl.

Expect some of your Jarls to become Cursed eventually. It shouldn't hurt them that badly-they won't get hit that often, but it's something to be aware of. Counter with the Ritual Spell "Gift of Health" (Enchantment 5/Nature 5) which heals afflictions on your troops, en masse, and grants extra HP-infact, stockpile Nature Gems (you'll need atleast 50) and research this spell as soon as possible after your Pretender awakens. Horror-marks are somewhat more dangerous. It's a good idea by late-game to protect your Jarls from assassins with regular Niefel bodyguards and to equip your Pretender with a ring of warning.

Look for neutrals that give you sacred troops-especially sacred calvalry-they'll help diversify your forces, which can make you stronger, overall.

Eventually, you'll have more provinces than just Jarls can defend easily, at which time you can put expansion on the back-burner and start consolidating your forces/ strengthening your borders-you can use regular Niefels, in moderation, to suppliment your Jarl-and building up a couple of stronger attack-forces to hit neighboring human nations.

Build labs and temples in your most strategically important provinces so that you can place multiple Jarls there, and then get the full benefits of their research and prayer. Fortresses will let you build boulder-throwers, javelineers, skinshifters and huscarls on the spot-expensive, but quick-it may end up saving your province from the longest and worst attacks.

When you've got a surplus of cash, put one Jarl in each of your border-provinces to help out your PD, and keep expanding. Your Jarls are actually better defenders than they are expanders/attackers, since they can move over 3 owned provinces in a single turn, but only 1 province they don't already own-allowing you to quickly dispatch reinforcements to troubled areas-a very useful ability indeed. Build up squads of 3 or more Jarls-possibly with supplimental Niefel troops-in centralized locations within 3 provinces of your borders, so that you can ship them off to relieve defenders in case of attacks. Afflicted Jarls should go here too, and incase of a massive border collapse, these locations can also serve as rallying-points and magic equipment stockpiles for specialty items, like Gate-Cleavers.

Don't buy non-sacred troops, unless you have a good reason! like buying mages who have paths you lack (fire, especially) and reacting to strong attacks. Otherwise, they're just cash-leeches, given your bless and the horribly bad scales you have.

Good scripted level 1 combat-spells for Jarls are Breath of Winter, Holy Avenger, and (for some) Air Shield.

Some good combat equipment for Jarls (off the top of my head) are: horror helmet, sword of swiftness, rhyme hauberk, hydra-skin armor, fire plate, dragon helmet, amulet of magic resistance, wraith sword, golden shield of awe, ring of regeneration, ring of fire resistance, pendant of luck, storm bow, midget masher, boots of the behemoth, lucky coin shield, amulet of rejuvenation, amulet of missle-protection, wraith crown, and hellsword.

When you've conquered the land, amulets of water-breathing should be easy for your Jarls to mass-produce.

Even if they don't have the very *best* equipment possible, it's a good idea to improve the quality of your Jarls on a quantity basis. If you can't make swords of swiftness fast enough, give them piercers or ice swords. You can save the better, more efficient equipment you can produce later on for your experienced Jarls with heroic abilities. Don't worry *too* much about saving gems for the end-game, while there are some higher end spells which will help you, the lower-end spells will help your Jarls a lot too, and the only one that's a real *need* is "Gift of Health".

[Sandman]

I don't think that would work. Using Jarls to research is hopeless, you'll never get anywhere.

[HoneyBadger]

Nah, Jarls are great researchers. They've got like 5-7 points of researching ability each, and they can forge skulls pretty easily. On top of that, they can arm-wrestle a dragon, so what's not to like? If you really don't care for them though, you can always use Gygjas-it's just kind of wasteful.

[Shovah32]

Lets pay 500 gold for 6rp a turn! yay us... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[thejeff]

Yeah, build Jarls as thugs and use the other mages for research.
If you're not sending a mage out to fight, why is Gygja wasteful?

[Meglobob]

Well...Honeybadgers method is extreme but it is very sound in principle. I am basically following a similar strategy in a MP at the mo. Basically why recruit inferior units? Just recruit purely sacred troops and have a massive bless, then the giants of Niefelheim can walk where they wish and none can stand before them, hopefully!

[HoneyBadger]

That's what I'm going with here, that you not waste gold on mages you can pretty much *only* use for research. Why not use Jarls to research for a while, and then have more Jarls around by the end of the game, since you can only recruit 1 mage-type a turn from your home-province anyway?

Why use that single slot for a mage that isn't also a Jarl? Yeah it's great to recruit other mages at other provinces for research-go ahead. But in your home province, you've got two choices, a Jarl or something *Other* than a Jarl.

[Sombre]

Why buy 'inferior' troops? Maybe because they're cheaper and make better researchers.

[HoneyBadger]

Niefelheim doesn't really need that much better research, though. I mean, 5 Niefel Jarls with really good spells and 35 gygjas aren't going to do a lot better than 40 Niefel Jarls with mediochre spells.

[thejeff]

No, but 20 Jarls out fighting and 20 Gygjas back home researching will do better than 20 Jarls out fighting and 20 Jarls at home researching. Especially since the savings on the Gygjas will let you buy more sacred Neifel giants to go fight with the Jarls.

The better research will let also let you equip the Jarls sooner, raising both their effectiveness and survival rate.

Gygja also have different paths and can thus you summon, forge and site search more than with just Jarls.

[Manuk]

Don't worry, honey badger is in a Jarl-Rage state.

[Graeme Dice]

This is why you build a second castle and lab early on in the game, so that you can avoid wasting your commander slot in your capital province on things other than Niefel Jarls, while still building researchers.

EA Atlantis should do the same thing to get as many Basalt Kings as possible.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm not in a jarl-rage state.

When I go into a jarl-rage state, I turn blue and grow to 30 feet tall. I start singing, drinking mead, and killing things with battle-axes and giant swords. You don't want me to go into a jarl-rage state.

You...wouldn't like me...when I'm in a jarl-rage state.

[MaxWilson]

[cracks up]

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

I'm just going to keep on bumping this until someone stickies it.

[Edi]

It's not going to get stickied, period. Want an easy permalink to it, make one in your sig. There are other threads that are more worthy of being stickied, but aren't, so this one is not going to get any special treatment in that regard.

[SlipperyJim]

I don't think this would work for multi-player, but it's great against the AI.

Get "in his face" by taking a province near an AI opponent. If this province is a "chokepoint" on the map, that's ideal! Then defend the heck out of that province. If you have decent PD, buy as much as you can afford. If you have any commanders that summon allies (maybe even freespawns!), park a few in the province. Build a laboratory and set a couple of mages to monthly castings of some sort of cheap summon.

Basically, the idea is that the AI will try a big push with all available troops to kick you out of your province. If you can resist that push, then you can grind up an insane amount of your opponent's resources. Then, each subsequent attack will be easier and easier to repel. While he's wasting troops by throwing them against your unbeatable defense, your armies can conquer other provinces to add to your strength. He's stuck at a standstill, while you're still making progress. Guaranteed win for you!

A human opponent will figure out what you're doing quickly, and the trick probably won't work. But the AI seems to fall for it nearly every time. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[MaxWilson]

I'll mention in passing that another reason it's easier to defend a chokepoint than to attack armies is that you have easier access to gems for big combat spells (Flame Storm, Rigor Mortis, Shadow Blast, etc.).

-Max

[SlipperyJim]

Very true, MaxWilson.

To clarify: The point of the meat-grinder is not just strong defense. That's good, but it won't win the game. The point is to keep your opponent distracted and wasting resources while you are making progress elsewhere. He throws all of his troops into the meat-grinder. You capture provinces, search for sites, and generally build your empire.

Then you return and crush him when you have an overwhelming advantage. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Needless to say, this strategy works exceptionally well if you can combine it with some other strategy (or strategies) to strangle your opponent. For example, heavy use of spies, blasting his provinces with hostile magic, raiding parties behind the front lines, etcetera....

[HoneyBadger]

Well then, Edi, I'll just keep bumping it into infinity.

[MaxWilson]

<Ahem> While I'm all for keeping the Tome expanding, bumps should probably include a useful tactic, whether it's original or a link to one posted in some other thread. Like the Fog Warrior hydras, for example. Or the scorched earth hydras in the same thread.

(Personally, I largely ignore the stickied threads because it's hard to tell when there's new material.)

Army setup tip: if you're having problems with cavalry munching your mages, set the mages on the extreme lower edge of the setup box, with a squad of units in front of them and a squad of units directly above them. Since attack-rearmost will only cause units to move forward and laterally, not backward, and since it's impossible to place units further down than the bottom of the box, any cavalry will always run into one of the two blocking squads. This is better than a single large squad on "Guard commander" for a couple of reasons: your mages aren't in the middle of the guards (vulnerable to javelins, etc.), and they're also further away from the attacks ("Guard commander" guards sometimes get right in the same square as the mage unless they're size 4, which won't block attackers from meleeing your mage). On the down side, you need a commander in the middle of each blocker squad to anchor it unless you want to risk "Hold and attack," which leaves you vulnerable to "Hold and Attack Rear." You might risk it if you used "Hold and Attack Cavalry," though.

-Max

[vfb]

That looks like a great tactic, Max. Another advantage of the extra commanders is that they have a chance to eat up assassination attempts (rituals or actual assassins) that might otherwise target your mages.

[HoneyBadger]

Bumbs for this thread inevitably *do* include a useful tactic. Maybe not by me, but this one, for example, has garnered 2 so far. I'm going to keep bumping it because I feel it's a very useful, important resource that everyone new to these boards should have immediate access to, and if Edi won't sticky it, then I'll just bump it as a "good deed".

[Foodstamp]

Meglobob said:

Foodstamp said:

Meglobob said:
In SP you can gain a advantage over the AI by buying all the mercenaries and never letting any AI nation have any.

Simply bid 1gp over asking price and they will be yours, everytime. When it comes to renewing there contract you after bid full price again +1gp, to 100% guarentee you keep them.

The AI it seems only ever bids the exact amount...

When you get a mercenary commander with a magic item, consider sending that mercenary to his death in the last month of his hire. Simply place him up front on his own and give attack closet orders. Have your own commanders in the rear with empty slots, with a little luck you will pick up the magic item off your former employees rotting corpse...



The bit about bidding 1 gold over the asking price does not always work. It seems to work 99.9% of the time, but in an EA game I just played as Kailasa, I bid on the amazon archers with the pegasus commander 1 gold over the asking price and was outbid. Other than that one incident, which happened a few hours ago, I have never had the AI outbid me on mercs if I go 1 gold over.



Foodstamp, I have done this 100's, perhaps 1,000's of times now in Dom 3. It's never let me down yet. Perhaps due to excessive Dom 3 playing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif, you were tired and bid under by mistake?



This just happened to me again. EA game playing as Agartha. I bid 1 gold over the demanded price and I am absolutely positive I did it correctly. Ermor outbid me and got the mercenaries. The independents were Asparides (spelling?).

I was thinking, maybe this has to do with other nations getting special deals on certain mercenaries that fit their theme?

[Ewierl]

Meglobob said:Simply bid 1gp over asking price and they will be yours, everytime. When it comes to renewing there contract you after bid full price again +1gp, to 100% guarentee you keep them.

The AI it seems only ever bids the exact amount...



I'm with those who have definitely seen the AI make higher bids on mercenary forces. It doesn't happen too often, but neither is it all that rare. I find that I can keep my mercs 95%+ of the time if I put my bid above the minimum by about 50 gold.

[Ballbarian]

At 6 gold over the minimum I have never, not once ever lost a bid against an AI opponent. Not in Dom2, and not in Dom3 (not sure about DomPPP since I only played the demo). Keep in mind that this is on normal difficulty and it may be a different story all together on higher difficulty where the AI gets gold boosts. The only time I have ever lost mercs was when I forget to bid. (Doh!) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[UncleYee]

Ever since learning about the 1G over trick, I've used it religiously on the harder difficulties, and I've NEVER lost a mercenary except by my own forgetfulness. And I usually end up with all 5 of them for much of the game. But that's just my experience.

[SlipperyJim]

FWIW, I usually bid about 10% over the asking price, and the AI never outbids me.

[Edratman]

When I first started I just bid the asking price and found that I had about a 50% success rate. Then I changed my method to bid 10 to 15G over the asking price and seemed to always win.

Then I read this thread, was impressed by successes people had with bidding 1G over and adapted that technique. I started to lose about half the bids again. I'm now at 5G over and to date I am back to 100% successful.

[Wrana]

Actually, I had myself outbid several times while giving about 10 gold extra on repeat contract. I mostly play Imp AIs, though (but don't remember whether it was so in these cases).

[Aezeal]

ehm is it just me or is having 5 mercs for a large part of the game just a waste of cash??? better train your own troops if you are just having them running around right?

I always thought mercs where to trow into the fray for quick reinforcements without having to pay them more than 1-2 times

[VedalkenBear]

Aezeal: That all depends on the mercs involved. For the cost, the Farstrikers are probably the best mercs in the game, and I will happily keep them around forever.

The various Inquisitor merc units are nice because they give you a H2 priest, which is sometimes not even recruitable by the nation, and allows for 2 armies to move around both bolstered by Sermon of Courage.

Almost all of the mages, IMO, are worth their cost. Especially if you want to diversify, getting (e.g.) the Illusionist is much better than Empowering someone in Air just to try to find more Air sites.

Edit: Oh, regarding the actual hiring of mercenaries, I offer 5g over their asking price, and the only time I can remember getting outbid is when a nation has an advantage with that given mercenary troop. E.g., Fordo Boggit charges less to Ulm, and so AI Ulm gets them quite a bit. I don't think the AI is programmed to bid the lower cost they could, and so they 'overbid' by (in this case) 80g, and nab them.

[jimkehn]

I never use mercs against the AI. It's a rule I have about SP games. I never use the mercs. It kinda helps a little against the AI, but you still always win. It just makes the early game a little more challenging.

[Wrana]

To the list of mercs I would like to keep forever I would add Renegate sage & possibly all mages of Metal Orders (the same reason - research bonus). It also allows to diversify not only magic, but troops, too. Especially if you need/want to grab some underwater provinces... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[NTJedi]

VedalkenBear said:
Aezeal: That all depends on the mercs involved. For the cost, the Farstrikers are probably the best mercs in the game, and I will happily keep them around forever.




I would rate the Farstrikers as good, yet definitely not the best.
Per cost verses value the best would be Orion and his band.
Per overall game effectiveness the best would be the air mage which has the large group of slyphs.

[VedalkenBear]

Mm. NTJedi, you have a point, but Farstrikers are quite possibly available from turn 1. I don't think Orion is available until year 2 if not year 3, and the Sylph Mage is VERY rare.

[Renojustin]

I've seen the Sylph Mage quite often, I'd say in most games I've played.