I ALWAYS loose.... I need advice and have MANY questions heh!

[Lach]

I ALWAYS loose.... any advice?


A quick preface.... I bought my copy of ominions 2 from a used games bin at an electronic botique, just the cd.... no manual. I looked at the walkthrough and read the FAQ on the website which helped alot but still missing some info i'm sure. So a quick question... what determines how much resources for making units other then gold a province produces other then your fortress type?

I like to play ermor(sp?), and I am a HUGE fan of the 110 lich so I always use that. I give em 4 astral and 7 or 8 death magic, castle and as high domain as I can get, offhand I think its 4 or 6. I always disable the three races which can go over water.On turn 1 I have my lich research enchantment, I recruit one of the 340 mage/priests(always forget the name) and enough of the valite(sp?)-the cheapest infantry to fill up the centurion the game starts with.

I make the centurion a prophet.

Turn two I send my lich off... a few quick notes on my lich. I think he already qualifies as the new overgod... I always send him to deathmatch when it comes up, of the 25 or so I've done, hes lost 2.... on the famous board he usually has more kills alone then the grand sum of ALL other units, combined.

After the first death match is there any reason to go again? Whats the real benifit of being on the fame board? I have my 340 gold mage/priest(always forget the name... sorry) finish researching enchantment. I have my prophet centurion reanimate long dead so as to not drain population. ANY time any undead producing unit is idle I have them produce long dead so as to not drain the population and get a few extra units.

My primary goal is to make a border.... any kind of border to make a bottleneck, if I see physical barriers I fight my way to them then fight to capture the border around them from the neutral territories. My primary path usually turns out to be a circle or elipse around the center city but not always...


My lich goes off doing his own thing, he goes to every neutral provence where domain is positive and just steam rolls over all opposition.

As for other Groups..... I send out centurions along with the cheapest infantry... another side note, yes there are quite a few heh .

Is anything more exspensive then the cheapest infantry cost effective for the ermor? The best infantry cost about 3x as much and are twice as effective.... roughly.

I have my group leaders always hold behind troops. I comprise my Groups of one centurion and as many valites as I can fit, sometimes a flag holder or two but usually not. I line them up infront of the center, to the right.

In the begining when its only the lich, the centurion prophet and the 340 mage/priest, the lich is still going and just terrorizing, the centurion and priest conquer as they can and stop at every province they do for one turn to raise souless if there are corpses or long dead if there are not so as to not drain the population.

Another sidenote... how does raising undead work? Gouls subtract fromt he population, so do souless, long dead do not-long dead seem to be the worst type of the 3 however. It seems the number of souless is directly proportional to their unholy priest strength or their strength in death magic.... do you raise more souless if there corpses, what about gouls? How many gouls/souless do you make compared to
your dark priest/death magic skill? I ALWAYS use my undead as fodder, putting them in one big lump to the far more right in the center. I can usually keep my mundane soldier casualties VERY low though often my undead get massacred. This gets my volites trained pretty damn well.... they live a very long time and fight many battles.


So I try to get a border.... as this happens I make more 340 mage/priests and centurions and fill the centurions with volites.

If I can I build forts on the border as I can....

Lets fast foward!


If I get a good border and luck out with natural barriers I get a couple of bottlenecks and prosper putting a fortress in every city, YEY! I place 340 priests on the border and have them raising massive numbers of long dead. At this point I like to change my group composition. Instead of a centurion and make volites I put a centurion 12 volites, and 12 archers from conquered provinces. I have several 340 mage/priests in my home city and have em researching.

THIS I have managed to get very stable several times, even taking about 1/5'th of the map behind my massive fortifications twice-the problem.... the moment I step out I encounter g-d only knows how many units...... they toss armies of 100-200 people at my strong points, plow over them then just destroy me.

Any advice?

Quick questions.....

Any benifit to placing a temple besides the units it can produce and domain bonus? Besides a few spells and my immortal god ressurecting in it, how exactly DOES domain help?

One thing I know is a problem but I dont know how to fix... orders! I usually leave most of my units orderless! When I DO order them they usually get massacred. I carefully position my troops... I order archers to fire, I order my undead to attack closest, I order my commanders to hold back or cast spells, my mundane troops however usually have no orders.... any thoughts? Also I never use calvalry.... I never seem to get provinces with good resource #'s and having calvalry so I dont recruit em.

Any answers to my many many questions heh?

I REALLY enjoy dominions 2... its addicting and reall fun, I just suck at it heh .

[ July 13, 2004, 00:55: Message edited by: Lach ]

[Norfleet]

Aiee! My eyes! I think I'm blind now. Thanks a lot.

Okay, let's address the points I actually understood.

Dominion is a good thing. It spreads your national scales of choice, which, depending on what you picked, may or may not be any good. It also gives you an income boost percentage equal to your dominion strength, and allows your lich to, obviously, respawn if killed inside it. It's usually a good thing, unless your scales suck. You can also wipe out other players entirely if you replace all of their dominion with yours, and you lose if you run out of dominion.

If you're running into armies of 100-200 enemies, your options are to simply try to overcome them by brute force, I.E., have more men than them, and simply crush them in an overwhelming wave, or you can fight dirty: Summon powerful commander units, equip them with magic items, and watch as they mow down entire armies like grass, singlehandedly. Search the Boards for the relevant information on "SCs" and "Bane Lords", since this seems to be your most immediately accessible option.

[Demosthenes]

Your strategy sounds decent, but you are conspicuously lacking any plans for a gem economy. You will need to harvest those death gems and any others that you can find in order to get to the next stage of military and magical might.

[Lach]

Sorry about formatting... it got messed up when I copied it over heh, I fixed it .

OOOOOOH so the higher the dominion the more it shifts to the default I picked at the begining? I thought that was just for the home province.....The income boost... so I take it it is 10% per dominion strength, or?


I shoul try the commander thing with powerfull items heh .

Thanks for the info, lets see if anyone else answers any of my other many questions

Originally posted by Demosthenes:
Your strategy sounds decent, but you are conspicuously lacking any plans for a gem economy. You will need to harvest those death gems and any others that you can find in order to get to the next stage of military and magical might.

I am usually swimming in gems. I send my 340 mage/priests or my lich to searc for gems in each province they go to. I also usually elevate one of my 340 mage/priests(usually the first because he has alot of experience... they rarley die) to higher death magic and astral magic when I have enough gems.

[ July 13, 2004, 01:02: Message edited by: Lach ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Lach:
the cd.... no manual. I looked at the walkthrough and read the FAQ on the website which helped alot but

Looks like somebody ripped you off there.

still missing some info i'm sure. So a quick question... what determines how much resources for making units other then gold a province produces other then your fortress type?

The number of resources a province has is determined by a number of factors. The basic amount is determined by the population and land type of the province. Mountains produce more resources, while farmlands produce less. Farmlands have more population, however, which makes their gold income much higher. There are also magical sites in some provinces that increase the amount of available resources. The amount of resources is also modified by the productivity scale.

In any given province, the presence of a fortress will give you all of the resources that the province is capable of producing. If you don't have a castle, then the available resources in a province are halved. The other source of resources is the fact that a castle pulls its administration percentage of resources from neighbouring friendly provinces that do not have a castle.

I like to play ermor(sp?), and I am a HUGE fan of the 110 lich so I always use that.

You should try the Lich Queen, as she is a cheaper deal for Ermor.

After the first death match is there any reason to go again? Whats the real benifit of being on the fame board?

There isn't a lot of reason to go to the death match ever, since once you win you always have to go back on subsequent occasions. The hall of fame provides heroic abilities to commanders that are not pretenders.

Is anything more exspensive then the cheapest infantry cost effective for the ermor? The best infantry cost about 3x as much and are twice as effective.... roughly.

Praetorian guards are considerably more than twice as effective as Velites, since they are much less likely to suffer attrition in battles. Principes are probably the best general purpose infantry for Broken Empire Ermor though, as they have excellent morale and other stats.

Another sidenote... how does raising undead work? Gouls subtract fromt he population, so do souless, long dead do not-long dead seem to be the worst type of the 3 however.

Ghouls take population, soulless require corpses, longdead do not require anything.

do you raise more souless if there corpses, what about gouls?

You can only raise soulless if there are unburied corpses in a province.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Lach:
OOOOOOH so the higher the dominion the more it shifts to the default I picked at the begining? I thought that was just for the home province.....The income boost... so I take it it is 10% per dominion strength, or?

You only get an income boost from your dominion if you have picked positive order scale. It's a 7% bonus per level of the scale, and only applies to those provinces whre you have enough dominion to enforce the scale.

[Molog]

You could try taking ashen empire dominion for Ermor against weak AI opponents and then just playing a game to test things out.

[Lach]

Looks like somebody ripped you off there.

Got it for $20.00 heh, so nah .

In any given province, the presence of a fortress will give you all of the resources that the province is capable of producing. If you don't have a castle, then the available resources in a province are halved. The other source of resources is the fact that a castle pulls its administration percentage of resources from neighbouring friendly provinces that do not have a castle.

So any bordering provence to one with a castle will also get its full resource value?


Thank you for the other info

[Demosthenes]

Originally posted by Lach:

So any bordering provence to one with a castle will also get its full resource value?

This is where the Admin value of a Fort comes into play. The admin is what amount of resource draw that fort has from its surrounding provinces.

Those provinces get drained of resources.

[ July 13, 2004, 02:33: Message edited by: Demosthenes ]

[SelfishGene]

Actually this brings up the question i had regarding unholy summoning; Ghouls vs. Longdead vs. Souless.

Soulless are only raised with weapons and armor after a battle (a nice touch). Otherwise they come back unarmed. And unskilled - the lowest in the game. They're virtually worthless in combat without weapons. But they do have 15 hp.

Longdead are skilled and their armaments are varied. Many have 11+ armor and 11 attacks skills. But most have only 5 hp - banish bait. Longdead tend to die just about as badly as Soulless.

Now i used to have a deep aVersion to Ghouls because of the way they ate pop. But on further reflection (and experience), they have the advantage of Paralyzing Poison, which if it connects and sticks, is just plain better than some feeble zombie limp-wristed punch. And of course you can use summoning Ghouls to burninate one of those random provinces you oftentimes take over.

Ghoul / Soulless / Longdead?
(I have this idea of plaing base Ermor with 3 Growth and pumping out Ghouls.)