Seiging castles of nations with free summons

[Snacktime]

Quick question - if you are up against Pan with the maenads or Ermor with the free summons, how could you ever seige their castle? They have an absurdly large garrison without even trying. It just seems impossible.

[chrispedersen]

Yup, if they have a lot of pans, it more or less is.

[Snacktime]

so whats the counter then, just take all their non-castle territories and hope for the best? seems kinda hopeless.

[Snacktime]

also, what's the formula for how many maenads they get each turn? i know it depends somewhat on misfortune, but exactly how? if he has 3 pans in a territory, will he get three times as many maenads, or does it work some other way?

[chrispedersen]

Yep, each pan summons maenids. I've had forts summoning a couple of hundred each turn. Essentially, if Pan buttons up - even without *any* income his pans can hold castles forever.

Your best bet are storming the forts quickly before he sees it coming. Bring gate cleavers.

Definitely one of those situations you need a plan.

[Kuritza]

Preach your dominion if you've got Order. Not gonna help you with hundreds of maenads who are already inside, of course.

[Humakty]

If you have access to them, the spells Murdering winter/Flames from afar/whatever similar, casted the turn you move onto the province, can solve the maenad/undead problem.
You'll need to have gate cleavers so as not to let them rebuilt an army during siege.

[K]

A few castings of Crumble in the same turn seems to crack just about any fortress.

That being said, ritual magic that kills large numbers of tiny men is ideal for this situation.

[Jarkko]

Against the pans any of the above suggestions are good. Also, maenads need to eat. If you can take the pans out (and thus stop more maenads from spawning) with assassination spells (seeking arrows etc) the maenads will eventually starve, get diseased and die away (although it will take a small eternity).

Ermor is not a problem, as the undead just count as 1/10 when defending a sieged castle. Well, unless there are over ten thousand undead defending, of course then maybe.

Other than that, Crumble and gate-cleavers are your friends, as suggested above.

[Calahan]

Ermor is not a problem, as the undead just count as 1/10 when defending a sieged castle.
Fear the Ghoul!!! Fort defender extraordinaire :)

[Executor]

If you don't have crumble than you're pretty much screwed. They can last indefinitely, food is not a problem for Pan with all the nature gems, assassinations aren't all that useful either against Pans.
However, Pans enemy number 1 is MIND HUNT!!! Make use of it.

[SlipperyJim]

Or you can just skip the storming altogether. Camp out around his forts and preach him to death. If you can eliminate Pan's dominion, all of those maenads will go *POOF* next turn....

Tinkerbell Effect FTW! :p

[Kuritza]

If you cant blood sacrifice, dominion-killing is a very long and mostly futile task, in my experience.

[MaxWilson]

You could try Harvester of Sorrows (with or without a Black Heart) since it bypasses domes. Or you could just, you know, bypass his castle and go take over his provinces. Blood-hunt in his castle province first (= high unrest) to make sure he won't be building any more units behind you.

-Max

[Illuminated One]

Hmm, Ermor can be nasty. Been sitting on a castle of them with their god and a large army in it for 10+turns before it fell. With gate cleavers...

[Agema]

It's not that bad: undead have massively reduced siege effectiveness, so an Ermorian fort with even hundreds inside can be relatively easily overwhelmed.

[ano]

Blood-hunt in his castle province first (= high unrest) to make sure he won't be building any more units behind you.
Blood hunting in province with enemy castle is impossible. Maybe shift-b trick works though but it is an exploit if so.

[Tolkien]

Seige and preach, or blood sacrifice, or bring in stone idols. It'll be your best option if you can't crumble or anything. If your nation has horrible preachers and no crumble...heh. Leave the province and keep casting assassination remotes and stuff? The undead part isn't too, too hard thanks to the whole 1/10th defense value. The Pans though... If you are seiging a random Ermor fort and can get it into your dominion, Purgatory should (I think, I'll need to test it) work.

[MaxWilson]

Blood-hunt in his castle province first (= high unrest) to make sure he won't be building any more units behind you.
Blood hunting in province with enemy castle is impossible. Maybe shift-b trick works though but it is an exploit if so.

When did that change? *PILLAGING* is impossible if the enemy holds the fort, but Blood Hunting isn't, or didn't used to be anyway.

-Max

[ano]

I am sorry for my mistake. Blood hunting is indeed possible but pillaging is not.

[OmikronWarrior]

It's not that bad: undead have massively reduced siege effectiveness, so an Ermorian fort with even hundreds inside can be relatively easily overwhelmed.

Actually, I think its mindless which has reduced siege resistance effectiveness, not undead. Admittedly, there is a lot of overlap. But, ghouls at least should be much better at protecting forts than soulless or longdeads.

[chrispedersen]

mindless undead - hence the comment that ghouls are fort repairers extraordinaire.

[namad]

mindless units cannot repair walls... either 10% effective or 7%effective I've heard both...


so many freespawn aren't repairing walls at all (though some aren't mindless)