Good late game SCs?

[llamabeast]

What chassis do people use for SCs late in the game.

Things that come to mind for me are:
- Tartarians
- Elemental Royalty
- Angels

But, assuming I don't have access to either angels or death magic, and I'm too slow to grab the elemental royalty, what other options are there? Surely Tartarians can't be the only widely availably non-unique SCs?

[vfb]

Ice Devils and Arch Devils are nice enough to solo, and there's a few of each, if you want to dabble in blood.

[Kuritza]

Wish for seraph, gift of reason him; perhaps the best SC possible.
Pray that you dont play against micltan, because then your mighty SC will miserably lose to mere blood hunters with Leech or Life for Life. Did I mention Mictlan is... slightly higher than life? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Edratman]

Other chassis that I have used are Tree Lords, Tarrasque and abominations. The last two only have 2 slots, but they have plenty of hit points. And I believe all 3 are not unit limited. I've used them because I could get them.

Basically, you need to make use of the highest hit point units that you can obtain. They all work. Some are better, but all can be killed somehow. Wish obtained Seraphs are great, but very expensive and if you don't have access to 2W1N (?) mages, clam spamming is not viable and Wish all but out of the question. Arcane nexus fills the bill, but it has the same problems getting to as Wish.

I think the cheapest SC's obtainable are Tartarians, if you have death.

[Torin]

Wish for a giant pretender works good. If you can afford it you can empower your monster at 50 gems for his/her first time (empower in air for cloud trapeze and mistform/mirror image).

[Kuritza]

Clams are 3W1N
With conjuration 6, Jade sorceress can craft bracelet (W1 needed) and a robe (W2). Also, there are amber clan tritons with water and nature paths. Normally, Seraph costs 120 astral, so 100 astral and 40? Nature isnt too expensive in comparison.

[mathusalem]

@Edratman how do you use Tree Lords ???

[vfb]

Don't summon a treelord in wasteland like I did once http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif!

I thought I was getting a bargain at a 50% off site. Well, I did pay less than full price, but immobility was a wee bit of a limiting factor.

[DrPraetorious]

I'm a big fan of poison golems. They are mindless, which makes them immune to a whole plethora of badness, and you don't have to GoR them.

They also come out of construction, which is the same path that gives you the equipment with which you outfit them.

They absolutely *must* be given bone armor, and probably a life draining weapon as well, because they can't be given regeneration. This tends to limit their MR vs. other crazy-late-game chassis types, but you do what you can.

My favorite chassis for late game SCs? The Niefel Jarl http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[mathusalem]

But Poison Golem kill pop, isn't it ?
So when you have one around, you never want to go back it at home.

[Baalz]

Mindless *and* lifeless. Lifeless means they can't be life drained so they're great for raiding previously mentioned leech-spamming blood hunters. That banefire shield really does a number on the imps they tend to otherwise default to.

[Edratman]

mathusalem said:
@Edratman how do you use Tree Lords ???



Via stupidity mostly. I had to empower in one air, air helmet him then cloud trapeze because I was unaware of his limitations. Worked in SP. Probably not the best choice, but it worked. Took several provinces all alone before getting red hearts.

I was playing Caleum (MA?) for the only time. I did not like anything about them. Very limited magic options. Couldn't summon squat. I think I picked up the treelords via enchantress site. IIRC I had to use empower more as Caleum than I have for everyone else added up (very minor exaggeration).

[Kuritza]

But poison golems have AWFUL stats. Afaik they are like simple golems, but they kill population and they dont have any magic... so with the exception of banefire shield which is maybe good vs chaff, they are even worse than an ordinary golem.
Who, in dominions 3, is a very, very bad SC.
Sea troll kings make surprisingly good SCs, when properly equipped. Quicken self, breath of winter (chill aura + cold immunity), regeneration, 60 hps, good MR, all in all a very good chassis. But they do need some reinvigoration, vine/eye shield and some low enc armor, rainbow or robe of shadows. Really, you should try it.
But thats more of a middle game choice - I thought we discuss top-notch SCs here.

[DrPraetorious]

The lack of astral is an *advantage* on the Poison Golem, b/c it means he can't be autokilled by magic duel.

Yeah, the poison golem is not a skilled combatant, but once he has boots of quickness it doesn't really matter, except in duels against other SCs, a task at which he is, admittedly, far from ideal.

[K]

About 3 out of 4 games I play as Lanka, so I have to say that I like the Mandaha. He suto-casts Darkness, has good stats, has a fatigue aura, can cast Soul Vortex, Mistform, Mirror Image, and Blood Vengeance, and can Cloud Trapeze into hot areas as needed.

[Baalz]

Equip a poison golem like this:
standard of the damned
fire helm
boots of quickness
armor of souls
amulet of MR
ring of tamed lighting/ring of frost (whatever makes sense for who you're fighting)

That makes a 29 protection & 85hp (constantly increasing from the drain life spam) and with that MR, lifeless, mindless he's pretty much immune to everything. Banefire shield handles most crowd control while the 2X AN life drain attacks will hit the larger foes. As mentioned, the lack of astral removes that achilies heel...the only way you're bringing this guy down is with strong anit-SC tactics.

[Kuritza]

Bad combat stats do matter not just against other SCs, but against anything that can fight back. Sacreds, for example. Damn, astral golems manage to die vs Abyssia infantry... and they have body ethereal, which poison golem lack.
Also, in my tests, thugs started meleeing with standard as soon as enemies were getting into melee. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Shovah32]

Astral Golems may die to abysian infantry. But they have much lower natural protection.

[Edratman]

The fact that nothing is invincible is truly the best feature of the game. Otherwise first one to invincible wins and there are many games like that available.

[Kuritza]

>> The fact that nothing is invincible is truly the best feature of the game.
Sort of a pointless remark, excuse my bluntness of course. SCs may not be invincible, but when a so-called SC cannot beat national troops, he's just not an SC. Thats what I'm saying - astral golems are upkeep-free high-hp astral mages, poison golems are... well, a funny feature, maybe good thugs to raid and poison enemy lands at the same time. But there are not SCs.
I'll pay more attention to poison golems, though... perhaps are better than astral ones somehow. I still doubt they can beat properly blessed jaguars, though.

[Shovah32]

Poison Golems have better protection, a banefire shield and no astral magic that would make them vunerable.
Astral Golems can do the obvious astral buffs and cast the very useful teleport, but in straight-up combat my money would probably be on the poison golem(not 100% sure though).

[Micah]

Astral golems are less SCs and more super-heavy raiders. Properly geared they're pretty able to plow through normal troops without a problem and they have incredible mobility. Great for knocking out blood hunting sites or dropping in to take out an enemy's retreat province(s). They're very, very good.

Posion golems at 9th level research are a bit underwhelming, since they invite the inevitable comparison to tartarians, which is a comparison they lose. They've got a small niche due to lifeless/mindless and not undead, but in most cases I'd prefer the tartarian.

[Rytek]

Vine Ogre Kings aren't too bad. No head slot, but they do come with regeneration. And the best thing is that they have 0 enc. If you can put some Elemental armor on them you can get em to 100% resist to everything with 1 spell. so, boots of flying,elemental armor,(insert weapon here),lead shield, amulet of antimagic,amulet of luck. If the resists arent a factor you can go with armor of quickness instead for more damage.

[DrPraetorious]

I agree that the poison golem is *generally* inferior to a Tartarian. It's smaller, for one thing.

BUT it comes out of construction instead of conjuration and this is a huge deal! Tartarians cannot make SCs at all without both Const 6 and Thaum 4.

[Rathar]

To derail..

How does one make an effective Dragon SC pretender?!

I have been messing around a fair bit and all I can seem to produce is something which has a 50% chance of taking a weak (militia, hvy infantry, archer) province and almost always picks up 1-3 afflictions the next time they try it and then are done until I have chalice or etc etc.

I know I am just sucking somehow as I see you folks speak of them as being great for province clearing and early expansion but I just cant seem to do it!

Here is what I usually try..

I take a dormant dragon, usually fire, and give them more fire, at least 3 water (quickness) and I have been trying earth, nature, and astral of 3 min also. The 3 value is to enable the dragon to still be able to cast spell in that magical area when in dragon form. I am decking them out in whatever helmet I may be able to afford, usually horror or the nature/gore attack one, a luck misc and a regen misc or reinvigor or things like that. I usually play with an indy level of 9-8 but I have this trouble on 6 too so..

Any clues?

[Micah]

Are you giving your dragons awe by bumping their dominion to 9+? That'll probably fix your problem.

That being said, dragons are kind of poor choices for that because of their low base dominion score. A Prince of Death is a much better choice for an SC...cheaper when you account for awe, more slots and magic in combat form, 0 enc, built in immunities, and a better fear value. Wyrms and Cyclops are also popular (Cyclops is usually used with high earth to hit 30 protection instead of needing awe, especially useful when sacreds will get mileage out of the E bless)

[Rathar]

Hmm is awe that awesome?! heh Perhaps I have never boosted it far enough but the results have seemed to be mediocre and the cost to get dominion to 9 seems so gigantic.

I completely agree that there are many other better choices for SC's these days and I can make those, I just want to succeed with a dragon. The mental imagery is just too hard to resist.

[vfb]

If you still really want to use a Dragon to take indies, you might want to use a Blue dragon, W9, Dom9. W9 is probably an OK bless for whatever nation you are playing, and will also give you a bit more defense in case the indies make their Awe checks. Dom9 will also help to keep your HP up due to higher dominion, and higher HP means less chance of afflictions.

Don't fly into provinces with crossbows or lances yet. If it's really early (no research), place the dragon at the far right of the combat setup, then script 2 times "Hold or Fire" and then "Attack Archers" or "Attack Rearmost". You'll land one or two cold blasts, then hopefully you'll fly over and kill or scare off the commanders.

Pretty soon you can hang back on the left and script Breath of Winter, Quicken Self, 3 * Fire, Attack Archers, and you should have no more problem with any indies (obviously attacking lizards is a bad plan though.)

[mathusalem]

for dragon I love the undead one (only for Jotun). With D3 and soul vortex, pendant of luck, of MR and Crown of ... (Etheralness) He is very useful.

[jaif]

Via stupidity mostly. I had to empower in one air, air helmet him then cloud trapeze because I was unaware of his limitations. Worked in SP. Probably not the best choice, but it worked. Took several provinces all alone before getting red hearts.



I don't understand this at all. I summoned a treelord just now in an SP game just to see what they were like. They only have 2 misc slots, and their branches are 15 point attacks - hardly anything special. On top of that it's nature magic, which is hardly that offensive. So what do I do with a treelord besides give him a magic carpet and use him to summon defenses and creatures all over?

-Jeff

[K]

jaif said:

Via stupidity mostly. I had to empower in one air, air helmet him then cloud trapeze because I was unaware of his limitations. Worked in SP. Probably not the best choice, but it worked. Took several provinces all alone before getting red hearts.



I don't understand this at all. I summoned a treelord just now in an SP game just to see what they were like. They only have 2 misc slots, and their branches are 15 point attacks - hardly anything special. On top of that it's nature magic, which is hardly that offensive. So what do I do with a treelord besides give him a magic carpet and use him to summon defenses and creatures all over?

-Jeff



Treelords, as far as I can tell, have one purpose.

You cast Transformation to turn them into non-unique moose, and then run around with Nature 4 moose-mages. Resummon, and repeat.

[vfb]

You can use them to cast Nature globals, then when someone comes looking to kill whoever cast the global, they can pretend they are just an ordinary tree.

[RamsHead]

Rathar said:
To derail..

How does one make an effective Dragon SC pretender?!

I have been messing around a fair bit and all I can seem to produce is something which has a 50% chance of taking a weak (militia, hvy infantry, archer) province and almost always picks up 1-3 afflictions the next time they try it and then are done until I have chalice or etc etc.

I know I am just sucking somehow as I see you folks speak of them as being great for province clearing and early expansion but I just cant seem to do it!

Here is what I usually try..

I take a dormant dragon, usually fire, and give them more fire, at least 3 water (quickness) and I have been trying earth, nature, and astral of 3 min also. The 3 value is to enable the dragon to still be able to cast spell in that magical area when in dragon form. I am decking them out in whatever helmet I may be able to afford, usually horror or the nature/gore attack one, a luck misc and a regen misc or reinvigor or things like that. I usually play with an indy level of 9-8 but I have this trouble on 6 too so..

Any clues?



I know vfb gave some advice already, but so will I. If I am using a red or blue dragon, I set usually set him in the center and far back. I give him fire*5 then attack closest orders. He will walk into range and spit out some flames/frost, and then, if the troops are not already on him, he will fly the short distance and attack. I have consistently taken indies doing this without awe and rarely getting afflictions. Obviously certain indies should be avoided, but your general ones can be taken down without much effort.

[Shovah32]

*Deleted for stupidity*

[mathusalem]

vfb said:
You can use them to cast Nature globals, then when someone comes looking to kill whoever cast the global, they can pretend they are just an ordinary tree.



LOL http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Shovah32]

An ordinary tree with a face? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Tichy]

As long as he doesn't sneeze, he's fine.

[Humakty]

I just can't imagine a moose transformed treelord running all other the place, casting ToM on every missile/spell caster he stumbles upon....

[DigitalSin]

Hooray for non-unique meese!!

[Meglobob]

K said:

Treelords, as far as I can tell, have one purpose.

You cast Transformation to turn them into non-unique moose, and then run around with Nature 4 moose-mages. Resummon, and repeat.



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Wow! I really after try this! I always wondered what they were for... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Tips hat to K's brilliance.

[jaif]

I need to try too. A magic carpet didn't work. :-(

[mathusalem]

It's expensive !

40 for the treelord + ? for Transformation + risk of bad transform

[Shovah32]

Unless you really want a natural N4 mage, or really love those meese(as we all do) then you would probably be better with an ivy king+thistle mace.

[PyroStock]

35 ng Treelord
8 ng Transformation

If the transformation kills it you lost 43ng and that is far more likely than an ape or ettin. If you want the 5N tree even an IvyKing+Treelord Staff from a hammer would be a better deal. If you want the N4+1B tree then the lamia queen + items. The only thing the N4+1E tree could do is Gaia's 50%allresist spell, but it wouldn't be too hard for an enchantress to do that.

A safe transformation could come from the lycanthropy amulet, but then the magic is useless in battle and you might as well give it a snickers because it's still not going anywhere for awhile. A thistle mace for an ivy king is still better.

I don't see an immobile treelord making hero so mummification is highly unlikely.

IF you can get it into battle and kill it off (maybe with your death mages with soul vortex near it and high chill?) with Life After Death (also a L7 enchantment) active then a 5N tree becomes a 5N mobile soulless with all slots. 5N + 2N treelord staff + 1N thorn armor + 2rings (moon/sorcery/wizardry) and you have a 10N lifeless mage, but IIRC at only 15life. Even then does anyone really need that extra 2N (maybe for a few more mandragoras per turn edit:mandragoras require death so only lamias and slightly more impressive battle spells)?

[Xietor]

I like seraph/mandaha. against astral races that get higher level s mages, the seraph is risky.

Mandaha's weakness is no natural resistances, so it is hard to cover every base.

Late game sc's should be considered expendable because none can travel safely solo.

In alpaca Llamabeast, I had no astral or death, so I went with vampire lords. They can cast like for a life and are also decent thugs with a brand and shield.

Took down tyrant's water queens with vampires.

[Shovah32]

Aren't vampire lords a blood/death summon?

[Xietor]

Vampire Lord only costs bloodslaves. Does take 4 death/3 blood magical paths. I was playing Pangaea, so with 1 empowerment and boosters i made it to d4.

But it is much easier to get to d4 than d7 for tar gates.

So if you are not a d nation, but find a d1 mage somewhere, vampire lords are obtainable.

[Loren]

Xietor said:
Vampire Lord only costs bloodslaves. Does take 4 death/3 blood magical paths. I was playing Pangaea, so with 1 empowerment and boosters i made it to d4.

But it is much easier to get to d4 than d7 for tar gates.

So if you are not a d nation, but find a d1 mage somewhere, vampire lords are obtainable.



If you have a d1 you can add boosters so you can cast lichcraft. With lots of boosters they can summon tartanians.

[mathusalem]

in late game, I prefer many Thugs than "good late game SC" who will be killed by some nasty spell I forgot.