Strategy advice wanted

[Loren]

PDF said:
I'm unclear about what you did encounter : in SP I've never seen the IA empower mages, rarely boost them and overall it doesn't have enough of it by far...If you're playing MP well that's life with a better opponent

Single player--I don't think about playing a game MP until I can consistently beat the AI.

It was a whole pack of mages with death 4. My troops would rout before they could close.

Also make some Skull mentors to boost research, give them to Flamen or such that you can recruit anywhere.

I never found a death gem the whole game.

Then go Ench5 for Pale Riders, Ench6 to summon the dreaded Banefire Archers, and Conj5 for Bane Lords, those are even stronger and with some equipment can kill many foes.

I never lived long enough to reach such levels.


I finally won one as Ermor. 4 opponents. One attacked me, basically the whole game was my cav stomping on him. I had two provinces with contact with other hostile forces, I put high defense in both and they kept wasting their troops on inadequate attacks on those. I dominion-killed both of those. As I was closing in on the guy I was dealing with he was dominion-killed by the remaining enemy--and then a few turns later I dominion-killed him.

The only difference I can see is that I started out with a more defensible starting point. I was on a peninsula and there was no water enemy.

[Shovah32]

You never got to around lvl5 research? You realise that you should be aiming to recruit atleast 1 mage per turn right?
And as for never finding a death gem, afaik all ermorian eras have some starting death income and mages who can cast dark knowledge(remote death site searching)

[Lasu]

Shovah32 said:
And as for never finding a death gem, afaik all ermorian eras have some starting death income

They don't have any in the early age.

[Shovah32]

Then alchemy will be needed early on.

[PDF]

Yes it was 40%; not 50%, but it doesn't change the numbers much... Anyway I didn't say that Acashic everywhere was a good idea, just that it can pay for itself if you cast it from time to time on a high magic freq province (waste, swamp, "magic rich if marked on map..).
Manual searches don't cost gems but cost valuable mage-time and are a lengthy process, evreything has its pro and cons (hi Gandalf ! ) and I usually use all methods - first "manual" searches, then magic, and possibly Acashic if I have the resources later on.

[PDF]

How long were your game, and what map ? Unless it was very crowded (a 40-prov map with 8+ players) you should live at least to turn 30, and be able to have a decent research and get gems. You need to send a couple Augurs out to search sites early, then cast the site-searching spells (Dark Knowledge for Death, Augury for Fire, Astral Probing for Astral).