Dacio

Join Date 06/2013

Asking tips for insane/insane and sharing my own experiences...

Hello guys, I'm wondering how I could improve my gameplay, so far the higher level I'm almost beating is Ridiculous/Insane (Still playing, but the game is totally mine)

I've played this game 5 times so far, and I'll share my own experiences so you guys could tell me where I could improve my game play.

1th try (Fallen Enchantress)

Resoln Insane/Insane

I was just wondering to see how badass this game could be and if I could stand any chances... Well I got pwoned very hard...

2th try (Legendary Heroes)

Resoln Challeging/Challeging

Random larger map.

10 total factions (including mine)

I've done many many many mistakes on my development on the game, I was just putting to build everything without any order, also I was investing on melee troops to this faction which is a really dumb idea... And din't even tried to take advantage of the standarg 20 dodge from this faction, which could be combined with Balance (+10 dodge -1 initiative) Lithe (+10 dodge -1 hp) and Acrobat (+1 dodge per level) also a very needed hero with air skills to cast avoidance on my army... To reach 60+ dodge rate, with a range team... should be enough...

For melee they could take 1 hit kill easily against good enemys but never happen on this difficult...

So basically, even with all those mistakes, the game was extremly easy no challenge at all, I've kicked out 3 factions and was on first place...

Alot of trouble with unrest so I was just razing citys up... I didn't have finished this game...

3th try (Legendary Heroes)

Resoln Expert/Expert

Random 6 players (large or medium, dunno)

I think I should focus all my way on magic mainly instead I've focus on economy 1st, magic 2th and warfare 3th (for army limit)

I was getting tons and tons of money, so I've bough all enemys tecnology, the final result was, I've complete all 3 tecnology and my last enemy still with 6 squad limit with 3 dudes each... Very ridiculous result... They didn't even stand a chance agains't me...

But still, money isn't a need for this faction anyway, the main and bigest problem is all about mana generation, also anouther mistake mine was build tons of warfare citys, 2 is more than enough for this particular faction.

Also with summoner build, expert/expert just doesn't gives any challenge...

I've kicked every single npc out, the most cool thing was, magnar was with more than 60 armys and a level 10 city! which gives +2 growth +2 material and +2 essence, freak awesome! But still didn't stand a chance, I've killed like 20 of his armys, and conquer 4 of his citys on same turn (yeah, I've surronded him) and last one toke my 3 - 6 turns to reach it, and then finish him off, but after he lost 80% of his citys, he also lost 30 - 40 armys because could not effort his upkeep, which is really interesting, tactic about how win a game.

4th try (Legendary Heroes)

Gilden Ridiculous/Ridiculous

Tiny map, "Skap's Veil"

I had a bit confortable start, wasn't without much difficult to conquer my lands and clear my path, I didn't even put on max wildland like my 5 try so I didn't really toke much time to clean everything... When my scouts spot a Resoln citys, and the best part was, WITHOUT PROTECTION

Only 3 millitia on capital and 1 on secondary city... Her army was on Yithril city making a visit... So I quicky stolem both of his citys, and when she comes to my capital totally ingnoring her own citys, I just attacked him from behind and killed it.

Very very soon and Resoln was already dead!

But because of that, Yithril was nothing happy with my actions and soon enough declared war agains't me, the problem was...

I've fucked up my development and was with a totally weak army, while I've put 1 full army on south to protect my lands and 1 on north with my main hero to advance and take his cities...

My army on south wasn't strong enough to hold postion, I mean he got double attack than me, double hp, and same defence... I was getting massacred, having lot difficult to kill half army squads, so I've quit, because I did a bad development...

5th try (Legendary Heroes)

Gilden Isane/Ridiculous

Medium map, "Bay of Capacea"

I was the last one very close with Parien, when she get more stronger than I, and after she just stop grow up... stuck on 70 power while I've reached 150 power when declared war against her.

But I'll tell the order of factions.

First Tarth killed Magnar (I was very very far to those guys, just recived the message), when Tithril started a war agasint Tarth, both was on equal level of strengh, but Tithril just start pwoning her very badly, so I've started my war agaisnt Parien, she was with 2 armys, 1 full and other almost full, not quite hard, I killed her very fast and token all her 4 cities... I was really waiting Tithril start a war against me imediatly but he give me some time (20 - 40 turns) I've used this time to finish cleaning the monsters on my land and building last cities... Also did a very nice mission which give me a flute to control a twisted creature... I've used it to tame a level 15 Runed Juggernaut (Which without him, I probally was going to get kicked out easily by him), but thanks to him he saved my ass...

When war begins I was with 300 power and he was with almost 700... I've killed 2 armys striking my citiys, and then, I used the roads at my advantage striking his army and running back to my city, I've killed more 3 armys like that, and then open space to avance for his lands...

There's more 3 armys waiting for me, the first one, was with 2 secondary heroes (first time he used against me) and the last one was a weak with his warlord...

After that, I toke 2 of his citiys, and little time after that, he send 6 armys to take it back...

First army I've managed to kill without any lose (just city guards), 2th, 3th, 4th and 5th, I was taking more damage of course but didn't lose any unit yet, and the most harder armys are the two first, the others was comming with militias which had a really powerfull attack but weak armor, with my tanker build I was just making they waste their attacks on my invulnerability waiting they come to me and while that seding a rain of arrows...

The 6th battle, I've to choose between save my runned juggernaut with 20 hp left against a 1hp left militia or a shiled of gilden...

I know, I should choose to save my juggernaut of course, but he is so powerfull, I wasn't even getting a really challenge with him on my team, I was with a feel of cheating... So I let him die...

After that I toke 2 more of his cities, and he send 3 armys to take it back all dead... And there's where I am now...

The next city is very very hard to take, without my juggernaut I can not win without any lose...

For one side is good, make the game more fun, for other side there's dragons and Anhanh (That undead heroe dude) army on roads which is a bit dangerous, and I'm not so high on metal, so I'm thinking about delay a little bit my invesasion and finish my search my my last plate armor, which gives tons and tons of defence... The max weapon is already searched...

The problem is, he already got everythign on max, so... he's stronger to my units... I'll take many casualities and I could not effort that, I'm low on metal... =/

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My tips about builds to heroes to each faction I've played... (Will be updated if this thread works to me)

Resoln.

- Summoner, I think this is the best build ever, with this path you can freely focus on magic which will boost your mana generation, while you could make more cities to boost more mana and also will provide more search speed, the economy is not a problem for this faction, and 2 warfare cities are more than enough.

- Assasin/Archer, I think this should work, for who wanna try.

I think those are the best combinations possible.

But you still could try a Commander or a Defender, even without the best conditions for it...

I just think Warrior should be the most stupid option for this faction at all.

Gilden.

- Defender, well with the +1hitpoints per level + 25% armor and the best plate armor in this game, isn't hard to imaginate why tanker could be userfull right? But with earth level 4 (diammound skin), you could proabbly make the same with anouther class...

The most userfull skills I've seen yet on defender are, stun and invensibillty, also those +25 hp is great on beginning, the all rest are pointless in my opnion.

- Commander, with a little extra initiative for a army which will suffer alot initiative problem cause of plate and hammer, should be a good ideia, also the skill to force everyone to get his turn is just extremly OP, mainly when you have a army with a really powerfull damage in your hands with crushing blow which does +100% damage, and will be without a turn penalty...

I've taken 2 defender in all my two games, but I believe commander should be a better ideia...

Warrior, and Assasin still ok options, just need focus on earth path if you to increase +100% damage for each attack with giant form or get diammound skin, which will just make you a tanker. Dude tank 3 turns in arrow, is just enough to ruin enemys battlefield, but be sure to hold slow weapons if you're fighting slow enemys, to don't tank just 1 turn instead of 3, also the mana is burn could be a problem. (But I'm with 1400 mana right now...)

Like Tithril for example, they're very slow... Like Gilden armys are...

Mage, I don't think this is a good idea for this faction, first because will lost the greatly potential about armor and hp boost, and also there's the mana problem...

But you could always hire a secondary hero to do this job from other faction.

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Mages and Commanders. Mages because the strategic spells are always useful (tremor, freeze, tornado, strategic damage, city blessings, mostly), things like Blizzard, Fireball, and Horrific Wail can be helpful, and providing blessing or curse support to your army is a good idea, and mages can do this more cheaply (and, for curses and damage, more effectively) than any of the other champion classes. Commanders because a bit of extra initiative and accuracy is always a good thing, and the Command and Battle-Cry abilities can let you weaken enemies rapidly. I wouldn't bother with Defenders, Assassins, or Warriors, at least not primarily as damage units or tanks, because they can't compete with trained troops who are many tech levels ahead of your faction. Note that, if you're using reasonably cheap spells, or spells which cannot be resisted (blessings and shadowbolt), non-Mage champions can do army support as well as Mage champions can, and many of the strategic spells are just something you cast rather than something which gets significant bonuses from Mage traits.

For tanks, I'd much rather make use of troops designed for the purpose than champions. Troops have significantly more health and get to similar levels of defense, and their damage output is at least as good as what melee and ranged champions can do, so unless you want to have a Defender champion always passing their turn or using Guarded Strike for its pitiful amount of physical damage, you can't really tank well with champions.

Same goes for damage units, especially since if you've built a fortress in a high-essence location you could have a significant amount of magic damage on your troops. Also about damage, you should really be making use of the enchanted weapons or the Heart of Fire city enchantment or both, because magic damage bypasses defense, and in most cases will not lose more than 50% of its damage. By contrast, a weapon with a physical attack rating of 20 will have lost most of its damage by the time the defense of the target unit reaches 80 (at that point, you should only be dealing 2-4 damage per figure, as compared to the 10-20 damage per figure against a zero-defense unit; a unit with 12 fire attack will deal 6-12 fire damage per figure against the zero defense target and 6-12 damage per figure against the 80 defense target, and even if the target has Dragon Hide Cloaks (50% fire resistance), they'll still be dealing 3-6 damage per figure; notably, 50% is the highest elemental resistance against any element you can get for anyone without either Altarian Leather (up to 75% fire resistance) or Quendar Blood (fire immunity with a Dragon Hide Cloak, but 50% cold vulnerability means they won't do any better than 0% cold resistance), and I don't think there's any equipment available for troops with lightning resistance, so if you have the trait for the lightning staff, that's a good one to use. Especially if your game drags on, it's not uncommon to see units with several hundred defense, in which case the vast majority of the damage you deal is going to come from the magic attack you can put on your units. You might be able to get a warrior-style champion with good damage, but they'll be very fragile compared to your regular troops, so unless they have enough initiative to run in, get off a hit or two, and run away, melee damage specializations aren't good for your champions, especially if you also lack a good weapon.

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Actually, on insane insane, a Gilden or Gilden Blood souvereign has considerable use as a defender. Although thats more for dealing with powerfull overwhelm critters than for dealing with AI enemies.

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Guys thanks for replying.

joeball@

Yes I feel defenders don't have anything special, but still without the best armor (I don't wanna buy now, to change 2 times later, when reach the final plate from warfare and champion armor from magic) they could tank alot of damage, with that invencibility and stun, some times he delay my 1 - 3 squads for a decent amount of time, enough to my troops do a good job, about putting on defensive instance, even with that strike and stand on defence mode doesn't give a decent defence boost anyway, so I think is alot better cause damage than put him on defence mode...

I've a sword which gives me 38 attack, also I attack 3 times before my Tithril armys, making 15 - 30 damage per hit, and holding 3 units on first turn with invensibility and after messing with one unit with stun, 5 actions later (2 turns) I could use invesibility again to make 1 - 2 squads waste their attacks, the most funny part is they use crushing blow on me...

But like I said, with diammound skin, I could just do the same, yeah I'll miss the stun skill, which I really like but whatever, the battlecry is totally more OP.

About his HP and defence, he don't have a decent defence yet because of my stuff, but is on 135hp right now, could take few hits without any problem, when he gets low on health I just run and use him to assist on damage, which is doing a pretty good job, also this stun is a life saver.

While my new squads got 115 hp and lower defence and lot less initiative, my veterans squads are with 220 - 250hp right now... (4 members)

Yes they could tank very well, but with this initiative, they could die to enemy attacks, so without a commander, my defender have a vital job to keep they alive, but yeah I agreed with you, commander could make a better job.

My cities warfare citys are with Aura of Might (1 def per essence "2") and Heart fire (1 fire attack per essence "2")

About this heart fire, this won't will only increase 2 fire damage per unit on squad? The fire damage could penetrate on enemy armor, but won't will convert my whole damage into fire, only will add 2 more per unit*6 squad could means +12 total damage bonus.

Or it is only +2 damage for all squad and doesn't matter the number of it, I'm not sure...

When I finish my weaponsmith, I'll make a test with 3 squad and 6 squad, to compare if this is +2 fire attack bonus for total squad, or +2 fire attack for each member.

Mighthypeon@

Sorry for this question, but what is a Gilden Blood?

My main problem on this difficult is to expand on very beginning, instead on expert/expert which I could ripe out all the wildlands as quicky as I reach they, on insane I've to wait till I build or upgrade a better army and then rid off them on my lands...(Even now I can't ride off 4 squads of monsters, a dragon level 24 with that purple tiger, 2 squads with epic ogres with 2387hp and that undead army which comes from a random event, not if I want win this war against Tithril)

The good part is it's gives more experience, (but the AI, gets more exp than me from doing nothing...)

The bad part is, I spend lot of time to clean my lands, to even start a war against a enemy faction and take his lands to me.

Which in generaly makes they grow faster than me, also the development is a bit problem...

While I've first armor/weapon TiThril was already with second armor/weapon.

When I reached my second armor/weapon he already got his final armor and weapon... That's makes things really complicated...

I've to improve my development, and manage of citys as well...

I'm thinking on be lot more agressive, make tons of town citys to make a good income boost and also gives +5% hp which is good for each warfare factin but particular better for Gilden and Tithril factions, and make 3 - 4 warfare citys and while 2 citys never stop making new troops, while the next 2 focus on upgrade.

I'm also putting events on more frequently and maximum wildlands, search on very slow , to improve the challenge... Only magic stuff I keep normal on setings, to don't give a unfair advantage for magic factions.

But again, this burns lot of time to clean my territory, and I'm not yet sure how I should make the searchers...

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Quoting Dacio,

reply 3

My cities warfare citys are with Aura of Might (1 def per essence "2") and Heart fire (1 fire attack per essence "2")

I always try to put my primary troop training fortress on the tile with the most essence I can find (usually three essence, sometimes four; if I have Scrying Pools, that becomes four or five; I've also seen someone say that they once found a tile with five natural essence, but I've never seen that much myself). Also, each of the city enchantment bonuses applies per figure, so 1 fire attack per essence on a two-essence fortress when training six-figure units is a 6-12 damage bonus with a damage type that bypasses standard armor. Same applies to Aura of Vitality - you get the extra health as a per-figure bonus, so +1 health per essence on a two-essence fortress training six-figure troops makes for 12 extra starting health, which is then subject to further modification by faction-wide percentage health bonuses. Considering that if your troops are using weapons which provide 20 physical attack, the whole unit might be dealing 23-46 physical damage against 32 defense, down to 10-20 physical damage against 100 defense, or 3.75-7.5 physical damage against 300 defense, assuming that the full unit hits the target, that extra 2 fire attack per figure for an extra 6-12 damage against any amount of defense (4.5-9 against 25% fire resistance, 3-6 against 50% fire resistance) isn't looking so bad, especially when you consider that adding it costs you 100 mana once, and doesn't add any training costs to the units produced there.

Quoting Dacio,

reply 3

Yes, this is correct. However, elemental damage is far, far superior to physical damage - it's only affected by resistances (which in the base game mostly come from the cold-resist and fire-resist cloaks, which are mutually exclusive and provide only +25% or +50% resistance to the appropriate element, though when playing with Athican Leather you can get an extra 25% to Fire resistance, and with Quendar Blood you get +50% fire resistance and -50% cold resistance). It's easily possible against Insane AIs that your 2 fire attack per figure in the unit does more damage than your 20 physical attack per figure, since the AI has the ability to research Refined Defense rapidly and endlessly, which can provide an enormous bonus to defense against physical attacks, but there isn't a good way in the game to boost unit elemental resistance aside from the equipment you give them at training, and that's very limited. Defense can be stacked to the point where you're dealing essentially zero damage even on a good hit, but elemental resistances can't be boosted like that.

Quoting Dacio,

reply 3

Sorry for this question, but what is a Gilden Blood?

Ironeer blood, the racial bonus for the default Gilden faction ruled by Lord Markin. It provides an extra 1 health per level and 20 spell resistance, but makes your tactical spells more expensive. Really good for troops since that +1 health per level gets multiplied by the number of figures in the unit and most troops can't cast spells without mods, okay for champions as long as you don't turn them into spellcasters.

Quoting Dacio,

reply 3

Be wary of expanding beyond your ability to defend. Constantly producing troops also might not be the best of ideas - the AI can probably beat you out in quantity, but if you shift training to a high-essence fortress and preserve your high-level troops, you'll probably have the highest quality troops in the game. It isn't a bad idea to have lots of large armies, I'm just saying that the AI is better suited to field large armies of troops than you are when the AI is set to higher difficulty levels.

Quoting Dacio,

reply 3

You were lucky enough to find a good weapon. That makes a huge difference as to whether or not a direct combat champion is worthwhile compared to a mage or commander champion. I'd still rather go with the mage or commander, though, since even 40 physical attack is only going to be doing 2.5-5 damage per attack if the AI gets enough of a defense bonus to bring its troops to 300 defense, or 5.5-11 against 100 defense. Compare that to the 10-20 damage regular troops can do against 100 defense, or the 3.75-7.5 damage they can do against 300 defense, assuming a purely physical attack rating of 20 (multiply by X/6 to see roughly what your unit does if X figures out of six hit the target - on average, you'll deal more damage than the champion will, because on average more than half of your unit will make its hit), or to the (16 + 2*WaterMana)*TargetFigureCount*1.8 that a decent-level damage mage with Blizzard can do to the majority of the opposing army. This is why regular troops are in my opinion generally much better for melee and ranged damage than champions are, and since they get much more health per level (even an Ironeer Defender champion only gets two-thirds the health per level as a three-figure non-Wraith non-Ironeer regular unit) and often have similar levels of defense, I wouldn't normally use a champion for tanking either, and also why I consider the army bonuses granted by Commanders or the various damage and support spells of Mages to be superior options to melee or ranged Warriors, Assassins, and Defenders. Invincibility and Diamondskin are good for keeping a tank alive, it's true, but Diamondskin can be cast on any friendly unit which means you can keep your champion safely out of the way casting spells rather than sitting on the front for less-than-stellar damage while wearing often less-than-adequate armor.

The longer the game goes on, the worse the average melee or ranged champion is when compared to regular troops. It costs too much to outfit them with decent weapons and armor if you can't find any in loot, and they don't have the health or damage to play with the good troops on the front line (an exception can be made for damage if you found a good weapon, such as the bow with +2 lightning attack per level). This is exaggerated against Insane AIs because the Insane AI will research the entire tech tree rapidly and then starts stacking up on the repeatable techs, which will leave your champion barely able to chip the armor on the AI units if it goes for Refined Defense, or leave your champion very easily damaged if it goes for Refined Attack. Refined Accuracy makes dodge somewhat useless for the late game, too, so don't hope for dodge bonuses to save you.

I'm not saying that the stuff that Defenders, Warriors, and Assassins isn't useful, but I am saying that the worth of a Defender, Warrior or Assassin is less to me than the worth of a Mage or Commander, especially late in the game.

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Quoting joeball123,

reply 4

Quoting Dacio, reply 3My cities warfare citys are with Aura of Might (1 def per essence "2") and Heart fire (1 fire attack per essence "2")

I always try to put my primary troop training fortress on the tile with the most essence I can find (usually three essence, sometimes four; if I have Scrying Pools, that becomes four or five; I've also seen someone say that they once found a tile with five natural essence, but I've never seen that much myself). Also, each of the city enchantment bonuses applies per figure, so 1 fire attack per essence on a two-essence fortress when training six-figure units is a 6-12 damage bonus with a damage type that bypasses standard armor. Same applies to Aura of Vitality - you get the extra health as a per-figure bonus, so +1 health per essence on a two-essence fortress training six-figure troops makes for 12 extra starting health, which is then subject to further modification by faction-wide percentage health bonuses. Considering that if your troops are using weapons which provide 20 physical attack, the whole unit might be dealing 23-46 physical damage against 32 defense, down to 10-20 physical damage against 100 defense, or 3.75-7.5 physical damage against 300 defense, assuming that the full unit hits the target, that extra 2 fire attack per figure for an extra 6-12 damage against any amount of defense (4.5-9 against 25% fire resistance, 3-6 against 50% fire resistance) isn't looking so bad, especially when you consider that adding it costs you 100 mana once, and doesn't add any training costs to the units produced there.

I try the same. On this particular map, I just found 1 city with 3 essences, when I was making a fortress a random event happen and they just blow up my city and essences gone...

My heroes was so far from my city so I've lost 2 of em. (Yeah a mistake learned)

I still got 3 other fortress with 2 essence tile, that's the best I could find... =/

Quoting joeball123,

reply 4

Quoting Dacio, reply 3About this heart fire, this won't will only increase 2 fire damage per unit on squad? The fire damage could penetrate on enemy armor, but won't will convert my whole damage into fire, only will add 2 more per unit*6 squad could means +12 total damage bonus.

Sounds amazing, the best combination should be Heart of fire + Aura of Grace, dude Gilden really need some initative boost, without the best armor yet, I've only 8 initiative per unit...

When I search the last one, I don't want to imaginate how it gonna to be. (maybe 2 - 4 initiative lol)

Quoting joeball123,

reply 4

Quoting Dacio, reply 3Sorry for this question, but what is a Gilden Blood?

Ironeer blood, the racial bonus for the default Gilden faction ruled by Lord Markin. It provides an extra 1 health per level and 20 spell resistance, but makes your tactical spells more expensive. Really good for troops since that +1 health per level gets multiplied by the number of figures in the unit and most troops can't cast spells without mods, okay for champions as long as you don't turn them into spellcasters.

Agreed, defenders need a boost, they need more defence, hp and a taunt which force 1 tile distance units to strike him...

Invesibility is a cool spell, but Diammound skin could do a better job, and like you said, you could cast it with any unit...

Quoting joeball123,

reply 4

Quoting Dacio, reply 3I'm thinking on be lot more agressive, make tons of town citys to make a good income boost and also gives +5% hp which is good for each warfare factin but particular better for Gilden and Tithril factions, and make 3 - 4 warfare citys and while 2 citys never stop making new troops, while the next 2 focus on upgrade.

Be wary of expanding beyond your ability to defend. Constantly producing troops also might not be the best of ideas - the AI can probably beat you out in quantity, but if you shift training to a high-essence fortress and preserve your high-level troops, you'll probably have the highest quality troops in the game. It isn't a bad idea to have lots of large armies, I'm just saying that the AI is better suited to field large armies of troops than you are when the AI is set to higher difficulty levels.

The only thing that saved me to be crushed down by Tithril on his strike, was because I got a runned juggernaut and all my army was with regeneration spell, which makes me hunt his army down on every turn without stop.

But he was with more than 12 full armys when war begins, and I was with only 2...

If he just send everything when war begins, use some of them to hold a city very well defended and others to penetrate my territory and take my unprotected citys, I should be totally lost...

That's exatcly what I did, when I said on my last post I could not take that particular city, I just send a hero to camp there, and kill every opressor he was making unprotected and giving me free exp, while my main hero was going south and taking all of his citys, now he got only 2 citys left.

The war begins with him with 700 power and I with 300, now I'm with 570 and he is with 85.

But instead he just suicide his armys on beggining and put some on roads waiting to be killed... The only move he did which makes a little sence was send 6 armys on same city without stop, that cost my juggernaut off (I was really wanting he to die, he is so OP)

A better idea should advance and take my territory like I said, also he was with 2 forthress which could provide a opressor with 2 turns...

That's very more faster than I. my best forthress take 4 turns to make a shield dude, which is most weak than his opressor on 1v1.

Also he got a better tecnology than me...

So, if I didn't get that runned juggernaut I should probabbly lost, and that's a problem, I can not count on random events to win a game, I need have my own skills to manage to win the fight.

And this is the problem, I must figure out how make things more faster and improve my development of tecnology.

I think make citys of conclave is not really needed, I don't need much mana, I only need full cast regeneration and that's all.

Search is always good but town citys still could provide some, and the extra armys let's say 4 - 6, could be replacement when my main units die, and if I lost 2 units I'm sure will rip out a full army from him, so with 6 armys I could kill 8 - 12 from him, and surely advance to his territory.

I'm also thinking to not lost so much time cleaning my lands, instead make armys with secondary heroes to strike respawn monster to get free exp and back to city and wait he respawn once again...

If his wildland isn't close to where I'll buy the city is possible, but the problem is...

If there's a juggernaut or underdog or dragon or something like that, my secondary heroe could not take them off... So I must choose between leave this territory alone and focus on my enemys or take everything I can before start the war...

Quoting joeball123,

reply 4

Quoting Dacio, reply 3I've a sword which gives me 38 attack, also I attack 3 times before my Tithril armys, making 15 - 30 damage per hit, and holding 3 units on first turn with invensibility and after messing with one unit with stun, 5 actions later (2 turns) I could use invesibility again to make 1 - 2 squads waste their attacks, the most funny part is they use crushing blow on me...

You were lucky enough to find a good weapon. That makes a huge difference as to whether or not a direct combat champion is worthwhile compared to a mage or commander champion. I'd still rather go with the mage or commander, though, since even 40 physical attack is only going to be doing 2.5-5 damage per attack if the AI gets enough of a defense bonus to bring its troops to 300 defense, or 5.5-11 against 100 defense. Compare that to the 10-20 damage regular troops can do against 100 defense, or the 3.75-7.5 damage they can do against 300 defense, assuming a purely physical attack rating of 20 (multiply by X/6 to see roughly what your unit does if X figures out of six hit the target - on average, you'll deal more damage than the champion will, because on average more than half of your unit will make its hit), or to the (16 + 2*WaterMana)*TargetFigureCount*1.8 that a decent-level damage mage with Blizzard can do to the majority of the opposing army. This is why regular troops are in my opinion generally much better for melee and ranged damage than champions are, and since they get much more health per level (even an Ironeer Defender champion only gets two-thirds the health per level as a three-figure non-Wraith non-Ironeer regular unit) and often have similar levels of defense, I wouldn't normally use a champion for tanking either, and also why I consider the army bonuses granted by Commanders or the various damage and support spells of Mages to be superior options to melee or ranged Warriors, Assassins, and Defenders. Invincibility and Diamondskin are good for keeping a tank alive, it's true, but Diamondskin can be cast on any friendly unit which means you can keep your champion safely out of the way casting spells rather than sitting on the front for less-than-stellar damage while wearing often less-than-adequate armor.

The longer the game goes on, the worse the average melee or ranged champion is when compared to regular troops. It costs too much to outfit them with decent weapons and armor if you can't find any in loot, and they don't have the health or damage to play with the good troops on the front line (an exception can be made for damage if you found a good weapon, such as the bow with +2 lightning attack per level). This is exaggerated against Insane AIs because the Insane AI will research the entire tech tree rapidly and then starts stacking up on the repeatable techs, which will leave your champion barely able to chip the armor on the AI units if it goes for Refined Defense, or leave your champion very easily damaged if it goes for Refined Attack. Refined Accuracy makes dodge somewhat useless for the late game, too, so don't hope for dodge bonuses to save you.

I'm not saying that the stuff that Defenders, Warriors, and Assassins isn't useful, but I am saying that the worth of a Defender, Warrior or Assassin is less to me than the worth of a Mage or Commander, especially late in the game.

I don't like to count on random events such find a good stuff, and I've to say, without this sword my tanker should be less userfull.

Defenders really need a boost!

Warrior I must choose him with my main heroe, but I think he won't will survive longer, or maybe will, because he can lech 6 hp per hit, and that's pretty userfull mainly when he makes tons of damage...

Assasins had a good skill which ignore 75% enemys defence passive, but find a nice bow is extremly hard, I never found any nice bow yet on my games... And for melee... Well, let's say the units could make a better job.

For other side, commander and mages are always extremly good...

The best opressor I've seen was with 74 armor, now they're with 50 - 40 (lack of resources and bad citys)

I don't know how it's like for Tithril but for Gilden, I must search all whole magic to reach that +10% attack and +10% armor upgrade...

And for this all long, I could start a war against him to mess up his game or buy his tecnologys to speed mine up and lower his upgrades speed.

The key is how to manage things right.

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Quoting Dacio,

reply 5

I think make citys of conclave is not really needed, I don't need much mana, I only need full cast regeneration and that's all.

Conclaves provide more research than any other city type. If you go in for heavy use of magic, the additional mana also becomes more useful. The other thing is that the benefits of having that extra city enchantment from the Oracle (and making the troop-boosting city enchantments that much better) can potentially outweigh the benefits of using a fortress for training. It depends on your situation and unrest levels, though - it doesn't matter how good the troops coming out of a heavily enchanted conclave would be if they take forever to produce, and there isn't that much difference between a four-essence fortress and a five-essence conclave when it comes to the benefits from city enchantments. Two essence versus three, or three essence versus four, is a much bigger difference, because in that case you could be adding an extra troop-benefiting city enchantment with the extra essence, and the bonus from each enchantment is relatively larger going from two to three essence or three to four essence than from four to five essence. But it depends what type of troops you're training, and on what the AI is fielding.

Quoting Dacio,

reply 5

Personally, I'd say that Assassins are better at melee than at ranged combat, especially since good melee weapons are in my experience more common than good ranged weapons. I still wouldn't really advocate making much use of assassins, though.

Quoting Dacio,

reply 5

Sounds amazing, the best combination should be Heart of fire + Aura of Grace, dude Gilden really need some initative boost, without the best armor yet, I've only 8 initiative per unit...

If I can find a city with enough essence, I like to put all of the unit-boosting city enchantments on it, with priority towards Aura of Grace and Heart of Fire, then Aura of Might, then Aura of Vitality.

Also, are you using custom designs or default designs? If you're using default designs, you really ought to consider making some custom designs, because you could easily triple the initiative of your units.

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About conclave used to be a war camp, I though on this possibility but never though they could do same job...

I mean fortress could provide extra 4 free levels + 25% extra attack to opposite kingdom I believe + 4hitpoints + 3 attack +6 defence plus essences boosts, so if I want to have something better than that I should have 2 more essences of difference as advantage... But still a spot with so many essences could be a better fortress to my troops. 1 essence more could not match everything above... But indeed this takes ages to build everything also needs lot of technology, so a conclave could just help lot more in your game on beginning which is a great help to me discover that, to not mention it will help to boost searches.

I think assassins mainly use is for kill enemy heroes, they get +25 extra damage against they if I'm not wrong, that's pretty badass, also with 9 damage per turn against a hero very faster such Lord Verga or maybe any enemy hero mage with low health this should be just deadly, they could make some moves on battle field to assist your troops, but a normal stack could do a better job, unless you find very good stuff, but for me their main job is killing enemy heroes, which they do a good job on that.

I was using the Shields of Gilden my whole game because they're cheap and stronger, but now I'm making "Iron Lords" and "paladins" soon enough "titans", they have little modifications are more expensive troops and more stronger, using the best technology and gear as possible on those units...

Oh yeah, My defender level 23 could solo a green dragon level 24 with only 1 archer helping him from outside...

I believe he could now tank 3 - 4 enemy squads for a decent amount of time, I'm still thinking they need a boost, but if any faction could make a good defender it will be Gilden, because they have the best plate and extra 25% armour defence bonus.

But still they need really hard a commander, that's why I choose a secondary hero as commander and put on my army, he's already level 13 going to get battlecry... The extra 3 initiative should give a nice boost to me, I believe with right traits + commander on army + accessory I could reach 15-16 initiative that's the double than they have, gonna lose only 3 defence for that... which is really cheap, the problem is the expensive crystal cost.

By the way, how much population is needed to reach a level 10 town? I don't remember how much magnar was on his city...

I already killed 2 Amahah undead heroes, which each one provides +50% growth, my cap on my main forthress will be 2100 population, I believe this should be enought to reach level 10 and get +2 essences right?

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towns can't get to level 10. level 5 is the highest level (unless you play with some mods or something). sometimes AI cities fail to pick their level up trait and keep growing, but that doesn't really add anything useful since they will be level 10 villages or something (which is about as useful as a level 1 village since level ups without a specialization don't add anything). also there's that wildling (or darkling?) village in one of the wildlands that never becomes a proper city and just racks up more and more useless level ups.

also, i think you're using your defenders wrong. they aren't meant for attacking, and frankly, they suck if they don't have a shield. the armor value of plate is nice and all, but even a naked defender with just traits and some low/mid level shield already has more defense than a full set of plate armor. of course, if you use him to attack, he loses all of that defense, so it's quite obvious that a defender shouldn't attack but rather spam guard or use his other special moves to waste enemy turns (invincible/stun). even if you find a 38 damage weapon, the defender still sucks as a damage dealer. give it to a warrior or assassin and they'll easily deal twice as much damage as the defender.

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But on my game with Resoln, Magnar was a city level 10, the population was high than others, will just reload my save and see how much it was...

There is

Growth 5 + "Deorcnyness bonus yield +2" total = 7

Materia 3 + "Deorcnyness bonus yield +2" total = 5

Essence 2 + "Deorcnyness bonus yield +2" total = 4

So it gets 2 extra essences...

City level 10, currently population 287 max pop 2030

Building time -10%, physical damage +1 plus my enchantments grace, heart, might and vitality which gives 5hp, 4 defence, 4 attack and 4 initiative.

Yeah the level 5 city needs atleast 600 population, so how he gets a level 10 city with 287 pop?

How he make this city on first place?

I'm using my defender to tank, make enemys waste their attacks and to my troops come and make a free kill against them...

But with my currently gear and my initiative 24, with heart sword which gives 28 attack plus acessorys = 44 dmg and my torax shield which teleport to my enemys and makes damage also stop them to walk with a bugged mud which no one unit can walk anymore... He's doing a very very nice damage, also have 175 spell resistance, 120 against fire and cold and 100 against poison, he's immune to critical and swarm also had invecibility, diamound skin and giant form, 302 hp and 94 defence, he's a kind of monster... My commander is with vetrar sword which gives 56 dmg plus blizzard spell, good combination.

I've give 2 swords from Amahah hero to my assasin melee and my warrior, each one gives 50 dmg, they just don't have enough level to use them, the game is already over anyway, I got many many armys my power is over 1800 while the only dude alive is stuck with 70 power...

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Deorcnysse is the wildling village i mentioned before. it's part of a wildland, players can conquer it (not very hard, only some wildlings as defenders). it's still a village and can never grow into a proper town/fort/conclave, so it's fairly useless, even with the improved yields. the only use of that super village is spamming pioneers, since it can never build any of the specialized buildings of the level 2 (or higher) settlements

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Back on topic, I'd like to provide my pro-tip about Insane/Insane: don't do it!

It's actually not that much fun trying to optimize every single move you make...

Talking about insane/insane: I tried beating ins/ins with Resoln, as a challenge. Just when I was finally starting to win, I noticed my opponents were only Ridiculous Never try to customize your opponents, my friends!

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Azunai@ thanks for answer, but it's not so bad a Deorcnysse...

I mean a town with 5 essences could almost match a fortress with 3 essences, so it should be pretty useful find one.

Fallen@ On ridiculous ridiculous, a have the felling I could reach a higher level, and I've won a insane/ridiculous setting with Gilden, also every search on very slow...

But Indeed I really do not like the advantage the AI gets, I've started a new game on Insane/Insane with Magnar on very beginning I was with 17 power and Umber was with 20, few turns after now I"m with 25 and he's with 97!

He already had 4 cities, because he don't even need bother on killing strong wildland foes, also he is not doing a shit and got a hero higher level than mine. I still have only 3 cities going to 4 right now, while my fortress have 22 production and take 8 turns to make a pionner his fortress got 85 production and make a pionner on 2 turns...

That's extremly frustrating, I really really really hate this kind of stuff, but for other side if I don't choose those options the game won't will give me any challenge, I mean any settings bellow ridiculous/ridiculous should be a waste of time for me.

After this match I think I gonna play on Ridiculous/Ridiculous with most races and maybe then come back to Insane/Insane then I get this level easy, but for now it's a good one for me...

And I really like to smash and kill a faction on very beginning... It's "satisfactory"

I mean on age of mythology I was trainning that with Loki faction, killing AI on 5 minutes or less on hard difficult, that's what I like to do.

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Assuming custom faction: use the the strategy I more or less detailed in this thread:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/445172

Assuming a non-custom faction: the easiest method of beating this game is (assuming not a Mancer faction whose units can get the road building trait):

Kingdom, where your sovereign: Start with life magic

- use your early starting units + whatever things u find (e.g. sand golems) or train some more militia so you're at 5/5 to easily clear the weaker insane/insane lairs like darklings / wildings / etc.

Your goal for the sovereign is to hit level 5, so that you can get: (mage -> summon I -> wisp -> lightbringer).

The lightbringer has around 18 armour and 40hp as I recall. It can pretty much single handedly crush most mid-level monsters on the map, which will bring your sovereign to level 7 or so fairly easily (go for level 2 and 3 life magic).

The wisp can cast an AoE heal around him, to support the lightbringer when necessary. Both should be summoned on the world map as permanent units, rather than battle summons!

At level 2 life magic: sovereign can cast a heal spell.

At level 3 life magic: sovereign can cast growth / shrink. Shrink enemy monsters to reduce their attack by 50% (below lightbringer's defense), and then you can crush most of the really deadly enemies on the map.

In the meantime, of course, start putting points into spell mastery for the mage instead, so that there's less chance of spell failure (generally, I only engage the really deadly enemies like dragons and such when my sovereign is level 9, after getting +20 spell mastery).

At level 9 or so, it's time to start invading and crushing the AIs.

Now, your very first hero, which you get at 3 fame, you want to make him level 3 asap, with the following:

level 2: commander

level 3: road building (and give him a horse).

- No further XP or battles necessary.

He's basically a support hero: he will run around building a huge road network ahead of your sovereign, so that the sovereign can easily reach the lairs and enemies. This is a priority to get! Without roads, your army is stuck moving only 2 tiles per turn, which gives the AI tons more turns to take advantage of their production and research bonuses and get way ahead of you.

City building:

- essence is critical, for all the boosts it provides (and especially mana production, and +1 research if you have level 1 water magic).

- in terms of units, just use those clubmen for their low production and upkeep cost early on, if you really need to recruit (which you shouldn't even need once you get the lightbringer).

- Mid-game (say turn 40-50 or so), fire or water stave mages are quite useful to provide some ranged attack to support the clubmen.

traits should be:

+2 initiative
+10 accuracy
+1 accuracy & spell resist per level

At minimum, the trainer you're making these from should be a fort with a barracks (for an additional +10 accuracy). Having them mounted on wargs or horses is also nice (your hero/lightbringer/wisp move at 3 rather than 2 after all), as is leather armour, but neither is ultimately required.

Research:

- I think the primary tech to get is horses, so your commander can build roads and also so your mage sovereign has some extra movement in combat.

- studies so your cities produce more search is also very useful.

- civics is also useful for bell tower.

- but after that, I think it's time to get mage staves and leather armour.

Small and medium maps can generally be beaten within 60 turns on insane/insane with this kind of strategy. In fact, you often don't even get any mage units out before victory (the wisp and lightbringer are just that good and capable of beating the AI in battles).

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That's precisely sum all of it Chaosti.

That's what i always did if playing insane, but i loathe creating custom faction (since gal civ 2), no comment about custom faction, but as i see it now, it seems custom faction here is no different than in gal civ 2, they are ridiculously overpowered.

Indeed, basically for insane, lightbringer is the key turning point, it's like everything you do is just aiming to get to this point asap. Well basically in all difficulties if you want to win the game as quickly as possible, this point is also one of the few viable way to achieve the fast win, this is not my style though.

And for the very first thing to do is creating and filling the soverign initial army to max with militia, i always do this if playing difficulty harder than Hard (expert or more).

Life spell is good indeed, the best thing about this spellbook is it give the most benefit for combat with minimum mana consumption from just a few levelups, mostly just life mage is enough, the tier I and II also have good spells, it has good synergy with summoner with just wisp+lightbringer, if you are pariden, because of the crown, you can continue down the summoner path (air elemental is good for many things, fire/earth is good for its overpower but a bit too long imo), the crown allows you to make an army of summons with no mana maintenance, the downside is without good mobility the army will move slowly on the map.

Also in insane, never ever drag the game, or the AI will get to the point where they arrive at the continous tech (usually at around turn 100 for large map with 5 AI), at which point any human player that is still playing is recommended to quit the game, it's almost a 100% lost game. Basically if you want to enjoy the game for fun, stay away from insane, because for fun means dragging and playing with many things a while longer and not really just aiming for the win, but insane is sadly not for this kind of style, insane/insane is purely equal to must win asap or lost asap, that being said, army strategic mobility is very crucial in insane/insane. Perhaps with custom factions there's a way to turn the table, but i have no comment on this.

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