C'tis strategies?

[Ironhawk]

KissBlade, Ctis is a really easy nation to use. Strategies for it are really simple, straightforward, and effective.

My starting strategy is this:
Light Infantry, supported by 2-3 Sauros casting: Eagle Eyes, Terror x4
(Terror is a base Ctis national spell, you dont need to research it)

Then, research up to enchant and switch to:
Raise Skeletons x5

Keep researching in enchant until you get to Relief. Then switch over to Const until level 4. This will allow you to build Thistle Maces. Use your 2N Sauros to build maces and then give them one so they are 3N. When you have done this you will be ready for the standard Ctis Skelly Spam Strategy.

Which is, just get like 6-8+ sauros together and have them all cast Raise Skeletons x5. Then have your 3N sauro cast Relief x5. In this way each suaro should be able to cast upwards of 10 Raise Skeletons (ie about 50 skeletons per sauro!!).

The enchantment school also has various other neat things for Ctis to diversify your forces a little. Pale Riders if you need cavalry. Banefire archers (use your F suaros) if you need some archers.

[KissBlade]

Hi, thanks for the responses. How do I make my caster cast "5x" a spell and then switch to another though...?

[Morkilus]

This is what I think he means in longhand:

There are two kinds of Sauromancers, one that has two levels of the Death path, and one that has two of Nature. The death ones can cast Raise Skeletons once you research Enchantment up to level 3. The nature ones need to equip a Thistle Mace which raises their path to "N3", which you can't forge until you research Construction up to level 4. They are the ones that cast Relief, which you can program from the Orders menu (hotkey t). Just set their orders to "cast specific spell". Program the Death mages to cast Raise Skeletons, and you're good to go. I don't think you can have them wait five turns, then start casting. If you can, I'd be thrilled to find out how... I'd rather have the nature mages do something useful for the first turn or two, then start Reliefing.

The magic system is kinda complicated since you need both research levels and path levels, and sometimes gems, to cast anything. The path jargon is the first letter of the type (n=nature, d=death) except for astral (s=astral).

Good luck! And I hope to see you on the MP field when you get your copy.

[RonD]

What he means by "5x" is that you can repeat the "cast specific spell" up to 5 times. So you can "script" the 1st 5 actions that a commander will do, but after the 1st 5 rounds they make their own choices.

[Boron]

RonD said:
What he means by "5x" is that you can repeat the "cast specific spell" up to 5 times. So you can "script" the 1st 5 actions that a commander will do, but after the 1st 5 rounds they make their own choices.

Yeah this is important. Because they will often do very weird own choices.

Example: You fight vs. an undead SC (VQ). In order to stall her you just do the skelli-spam. But you have to script wither bones or dust to dust manually in, e.g. 2x skelspam and then 3x wither bones. Because the scripting AI will never cast wither bones on your own troops, though it would be very reasonable to do so in the above mentioned special case or in general with your battlefield summons since those are battlefield summons, so not permanent and the AI should not care about them.

When you have the game you will learn how important this is. You have to learn how the AI "thinks".
Because the excellent players like QM do "abuse" this too.
So in long drawn out battles (which are very often exactly the crucial ones) those very skilled players get a huge advantage out of "exploiting" the ai .

Ctis is one of my favourite nations too, they are as Ironhawk said straighforward but powerful. Out of the 3 themes i personally find Desert Tombs is the weakest.
Miasma is in theory more powerful than base because their marshmasters are twice as effective undead spammers once you have relief researched (water for quickness) and they get extra positive effects from their miasma dominion. But because the miasma dominion is so annoying this is also their bane. Your neighbors will dislike you almost as much as ermor or pan cw.
And finally miasma doesn't get natural banefire casters while base occasionaly does (1/8 of the sauros).

P.S.: If you play vanilla consider hoarding fever fetishes. Ctis and Machaka are imho in vanilla the best fetish hoarders. When done correctly this can be very powerful.

[shovah]

if your going skele spamming as said go miamasa (in a decent sized marsh master group of around 10 id say have maybe 3 of 4 of them on quickness+relief) and another (so far unmentioned) use of miamasa are its empoisoners which are capable assassins and when equiped with a death booster can raise skele spam (or you could give skull staff+boots of quickness for double speed)

[KissBlade]

Thanks for the strats folks. It works really damn well, especially if I have a screen of useless militia to block archers.