Some beginner gameplay and strategies questions

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Kobal - did you try using quickness? The quickness spell or boots of quickness should allow the ability to strike back, at least every other turn.

It's the first thing I tried No dice.
I think what happens is, when you get caged/rooted/whatever, your AP are brought down to 3 or so no matter how high they were before. Which gives you only one move action to break out, and then you're spent.

[Zywack]

I've played a few quick turns with multiple nations in order to get a better general idea of them: It's been pretty enlightening but I encountered a few things I'm confused about. Everything's with the most recent CBM version.

1) LA C'Tis has unique priest spells like Royal Protection. The spell description states that it affects an entire undead army. I had a small army consisting of C'Tis longdeads, undead chariots and undead wyrms and casted the spell with a Lizard King. The thing is, only about a third of my undeads got the Magic Resist boost with no rhyme or reason that I could figure out (For example, some chariots got it, some didn't and location didn't seem to be a factor). I tried again with both a Lizard King and a Tomb King casting Royal Protection and the result was the same. How come?

2) Patala early expansion. They look like a very interesting nation with a ton of unique summons, nagas (I like Nagas in general), a seducer with multiple magic picks and absolutely amazing mages for late age (Are they the ones with the most magic picks?). I considered using them in the next multiplayer game I join until I tried a few a few test runs for early expansion and failed horribly on every single try.
Is it actually possible to take a province on turn 2 without having an awake god? I tried:
-Bandar Archers (Can't afford enough to make a difference)
-Two elephants (They rout before making contact with the enemy no matter if I put them in their own separate squad or with the starting melee monkeys, even against enemy armies of 40 militias + archers). Only won once against a tiny province and lost the majority of the starting army.
-Nagas (They do okay against small melee units but die horribly to any archer/javelin and the armored version cost a ton of ressources). Bandar melees would suffer from the same problem.
So is there a "trick" to early Patala expansion, or are you forced to expand slower than anyone else or require an awake SC pretender?


3) Not a gameplay question at all, but... Does anyone else find it a tad depressing to read the progress of races through the ages? Things seemingly go from bad to worse for pretty much everyone... Ignoring all the people who already got blown up in the past like Tir na N'og, let's see what's happening with the late age nations, alongside with a "turned to death magic" count:

Abyssia: Their race virtually disapeared alongside with most of their power.
Agartha: Race stops existing, seal weakening, turned to death magic and necromancy (1).
Arcoscephale: Surprisingly doing okay, I'd say even a step up from MA.
Atlantis: Kicked out of their homes, turned to death magic and necromancy (2), and Oceania is completely destroyed.
Bogarus: Just read some of the unit descriptions, that's just horrible!
Caelum: Realm took over by user of death magic (3), replaced by weaker beings.
C'Tis: Their home swamps are turning to desert, turning to necromancy (4)
Ermor: ... no need to explain this one (5)
Gath: Dying race living in a land destroyed that's still enslaving another race.
Jomon: Doing great, improving every age (at least by peasant viewpoint).
Man: Losing their tradition and magic, but doing okay otherwise. Not that bad.
Marignon: Doing awesome, beside the questionable addition of limited blood sacrifice.
Mictlan: Evil blood sacrifice returning to the foremost of their culture.
Midgar: Vanir's race vanishing and magic fading, but doing okay-ish.
Pangaea: Their home is being destroyed, their traditions are lost, turned to death magic and necromancy (6)
Patala: Nagas don't seem to be cruel masters, so I'd say equal to what they were.
Pythium: Heretics everywhere, about to blow up
R'lyeh: Everything went to hell. No death magic and necromancy, though.
T'ien Ch'i: They got invaded by Mongols... That's never fun for anyone.
Ulm: Darkness and vampires now roam the land.
Utgard: Jotun population dwindling, but they are getting along with humans so it's not that bad.

So to recap we have:
2 nations where everything went completely to hell
2 nation which is close to that state
6 nations that turned to death and necromancy
4 nations where their races are about to become extinct
3 nations overtaken by darkness and blood
2 nations doing fine
3 nations doing great

That's a pretty depressing tally!

[Shardphoenix]

The thing is, only about a third of my undeads got the Magic Resist boost with no rhyme or reason that I could figure out

This spell is negated by MR. Either recast it several times or bring PEN items.

Two elephants (They rout before making contact with the enemy no matter if I put them in their own separate squad or with the starting melee monkeys, even against enemy armies of 40 militias + archers)

You need to use archer decoys for elephants.
Make your commander as far back as possible and command your decoy squad (consisting of couple melee monkeys)to "Guard commander) and put them forward with elephants slightly behind them. Monkeys get attention of enemy archers and start running back to your commander, increasing distance and thus making it harder to hit them with missles. Thjen your elephants get into melee, start trampling everything, enemies rout, you win. Later on, use indie heavy infantry instead of monkeys - they have bigger shields, thus, better protection against archers. Oh, and leave markatas at home - they are just plain bad without Flame Arrows.
Prophetising your starting commander helps too.

R'lyeh: Everything went to hell.

Why? Illithids love Dreamlands - it feels just like home to them.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Zywack

1) LA C'Tis has unique priest spells like Royal Protection. The spell description states that it affects an entire undead army. I had a small army consisting of C'Tis longdeads, undead chariots and undead wyrms and casted the spell with a Lizard King. The thing is, only about a third of my undeads got the Magic Resist boost with no rhyme or reason that I could figure out.

Learn to read and understand what "magic resistance negates" means. It is in the spell description.

Originally Posted by Zywack

2) Patala early expansion.

Not every nation is strong in the early game. Some nations need 3 turns to gather their starting army. Also, overpartrol, pick a scales build.

Patala is a hard nation to play just because you have so many choices but you need to pick the right ones for the situation.

Originally Posted by Maerlande

Patala Expansion

Your sacreds are terrible. Ignore them. Buy elephants. Simple enough. Some bandar warriors for morale boost helps. And some markata screens. Get your research running solid and you have the body ethereal trick to use.

Originally Posted by Zywack

That's a pretty depressing tally!

Yeah, rocks fall everybody dies is kind of a theme. Compare it to how the increase of science exploration and rationality has decreased our stories about fairies, elves, etc. Magic fades as the ages go on.

[Zywack]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Learn to read and understand what "magic resistance negates" means. It is in the spell description.

Meh, that'll teach me to check things on the wiki instead of the game itself. I didn't think about the spell being resistable when I was playing yesterday but I did think about that possibility this morning before making my post... Since the wiki doesn't state that it's affected by MR I simply assumed it wasn't. I should have rechecked in the game itself before making the post, sorry.

Regarding the Naga Warriors being useless, does that still apply to CBM? If I'm not mistaken, they have Awe +0 added compared to the vanila version. Does that pull them out of the completely useless category? I know it'd be foolish to go with a specific strategy for them (Capitol only, size 3 with low hp for infantry, high encumbrance but not necessarily out of whack compared to other heavy infantry) but they don't look like such horrible buys thanks to the high protection, awe and not-insane gold cost. I'll admit that Awe in late age is probably less effective though considering just how many skeletons and mindless units there are, though...

Good point about the magic fading.

Thanks for the elephant walkthrough, Shardphoenix! Regarding Dreamlands... Yeah, I suppose that based on the point of view of a few of the ruling elite it's nice but I doubt all their population, citizens and the rest of the world at large would agree

[Shardphoenix]

Nagas are cold-blooded, and Cold-3 is a common scale choice for design points, so don`t expect them to be of any use in actual war (well, except for Abyssia or Mictlan - they have heat preference).

[Immaculate]

Regarding Patala:


Firstly i love patala. I'm not great with them mid or late game where they are supposed to shine but early game i've got a good method.

Nagas are much stronger in CBM with the addition of their awe. I take production three so i can really lean heavily on them in the early game. I also grab a bless. I like a weak earth/nature for endurance, sometimes with a weak fire to make sure those big hits actually hit. Or else I like a strong astral. The reason for this is that they have awe and good protection so they can actually avoid getting hit for awhile if you have good archer decoys.

So expanding with the nagas:

Turn one: build a seducer naga commander and as many warrior nagas as you can.

Turn two: Attack with seducer naga and prophet, all forces.. Three of them tanking (the warrior nagas with the armor- not the other ones- they suck) while your starting archers and poo-flingers do their thing (archer decoy, fire archers for makata, fire closest for atavi) while your prophet divine blesses (and smites should help you take your first indie province (preferably with high resources). While you are taking it you are building one of the seducer naga commanders and as many warrior naga as you can.


Turn three: You attack another high resource province with both your new nagas (approximately 3) and both of the naga seducer commanders and your prophet. Build more naga warriors.

Turn four: return one commander to your capital and keep building naga warriors and naga seducers (or the 2s1n monkeys if you lack money). Your naga/prophet/monkeys army should be good to take one province per turn now for awhile with six+ nagas and monkey support.

Your next expansion parties will be naga seducer commanders and 6-8 naga warriors and maybe some archer decoys. Some stuff you might need elephants for and you can and should recruit them when and if you need them but they are very expensive so I don’t recommend it too much.


Once you take the provinces sorrouding your capital, you should be able to launch an expansion party every turn or every two turns depending on the resources you got. The problem is that you have to lead them with your nagas (at least until you build up a bit of infrastructure in other provinces) which can be bad for your early game research.


That said, I find that I accumulate gold pretty quickly using this method of expansion since the constraint is not gold but resources and I always end up with another fort before turn 13 and usually around turn 11 or 12. With another one by turn 14-16. Secondary, tertiary and quaternary forts should focus on building your research base and your mid-game communion mages. But that’s mid-game and I won’t discuss that here.


Go to magic in the early phase is
1) construction two for the crystal shield (turns your H2, N1 naga priests into H3, N2 naga priests that can cast panic after they divine bless) and
2) thaum 3. The awe and fear combo is very powerful on SCs/thugs and it works just as well with your naga. Your combination of panic spam and awe on your nagas mean that most opponents will not land a melee strike on your nagas. (you’ll need archer decoys obviously).

One thing I would like help with is turning the naga warrior/priests into efficient thugs- seems that with their awe and a bit of a bless they should be good but even with a frost brand they are not great- any ideas?



A lot of mindless units are good trample targets for elephants...

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Zywack

Meh, that'll teach me to check things on the wiki instead of the game itself.

The spell database is better for looking up spells. And, only the battlefield wide one is mr resist. (To be honest, I also missed that when I first used it).

[earcaraxe]

I'd like to add, that abysian mages also turn to necromancy to have contact with their ancestry/past.

[curtadams]

Originally Posted by Zywack

3) Not a gameplay question at all, but... Does anyone else find it a tad depressing to read the progress of races through the ages? Things seemingly go from bad to worse for pretty much everyone...

It is a bit depressing, but it's kind of par for the course for worlds with magic. Critical tropes of magic stories, particularly lost artifacts/spells/lineages of surpassing power, don't make much sense in an improving world. If we found a working Hittite chariot it would be cool and historically interesting, but it would hardly win a battle against a tank!