Age of Ice - getting pounded

[Jars]

So I have played it a few ways, but every time by turn 100 there are unstoppable armies of barbarians and Doviello pounding me. This last time I even had the eagle killing my best units.

I have 4 cities in the starting valley, but once I lose the barbarian city I took they just keep coming and I get wiped out.

I am apparently doing this completely wrong. Suggestions?

Help!

[wilboman]

A lot of people focus very heavily on defence for he first 100 turns, just build archers and place them at chokepoints. Eventually you should be able to break the offensive.

[Jars]

Thanks. I will try that again.....just tend to get behind in tech and over whelmed.

[bhavv]

I can hold two cities with a few warriors in each easilly untill I have finished teching through most of the science tree..

[Breunor]

As others have said, it is important here to avoid the normal Civ technique of producing buildings and get troops out. You have to survive the initial waves, get scouts out, and then build the cities up later.

Best wishes,

Breunor

[marsrover21]

I, too was having quite a bit of difficulty. As Breunor pointed out, the thing that saved me was going W-W-W-W-W-W in my first city before building even a worker. Then on my tech tree, I focus on getting to archery so I can bombard with my archers. After that, I usually go settler, settle the southern choke point, and move on from there.

[xalien]

I usually pick Ephona as a hero unit and send her out to fight frostlings to get some combat promotions so I could upgrade her to sorceress, then she really kicks ass. Keep churning out warriors, with Ephona's help you'll have no problems taking away cities from Dovielo and making him your best friend. After that it's just a mop up, especially if you act nice with the ogre event.

[Justicar333]

I kept getting wiped out using a Civ mindset. Instead of assuming the game should be almost over by the end of the tech tree, try focusing on not seriously going out till the tree is complete.

I put cities in the choke points, and just slipped recon out. By the time tech was done, had explored the map, and built a powerful well equipped army. Just left the little matter of flattening the Dovellio/Illians, which went smoothly then.

[MagisterCultuum]

I still say that the best way is to turtle up and send recon units (including Caerbulin) straight for the Chancel. That gives you KotE for free, so once Caerbulin is killed off you can get Epona and instantly upgrade her and use fireballs.

[Annex]

I send out the scout hero early on to gain xp and capture animals. If he has enough promotions capturing Fiaca (the giant eagle) isnt too difficult.

[fuzzy_bunnies]

Hrmm I kinda did the opposite. I found that if I turtled at the 2 choke points, I could never come out ahead because without copper, my low tech units couldn't compete with their high tech units.

Eventually I changed my tactic and the first thing I did when I finally won was spread out immediately, take the barb city to the southwest and then build a city on the hills with the copper in the bfc. Then I filled in the 2 chokepoints and I think I put another city southwest of the copper city. That cut the Doviello from a main resource and made it much harder for them to expand to the east and crush me. Eventually they built up and headed around the north side of the map but I had upgraded archers and could hold them off pretty easily.

[cypher132]

What I usually did was build two large platoons of archers and place them at both choke points. If you build enough, you can survive the Doviello-Illian rush and get at least a good 50 turns of peace with only a few Frostling attacks.

[cypher132]

What I usually did was build two large platoons of archers and place them at both choke points. If you build enough, you can survive the Doviello-Illian rush and get at least a good 50 turns of peace with only a few Frostling attacks.

[cypher132]

What I usually did was build two large platoons of archers and place them at both choke points. If you build enough, you can survive the Doviello-Illian rush and get at least a good 50 turns of peace with only a few Frostling attacks.

[megamanx06]

triple trouble?

[cypher132]

Yes. That was very odd.

[zup]

I took my two starting scouts to the chancel right away, got epona to sorceress and killed lots of doviello with her. It was a simple matter of steamrolling once I got the ogre event. I took Doviello cities and razed Illian cities, teched to the max and built some mammoth riders to take care of Drifa. Fiacra got me the godslayer piece from the island so I did not need the boat. Frost Giant castle fell to a fireball, but I guess that's nothing new. By the time I actually went back to get the sword fixed, there was just about nothing left to train Kylorin on.

[megamanx06]

i've never actually finished this game. The furthest I ever got was having the dovidello capitulate.

[cypher132]

Ive beaten it. Used Caerbulin and upgraded him to an assassin. Had him hunt things all over the map. Made a few other assassins and used them to weaken Drifa then killed her with Caerbulin. Built up a large army and led it against the Doviello and got them to capitulate. Then I forged the sword, and had Caerbulin escort Kylorin to Mulcarn. Rather simple as long as you survive the occasional triple-stack attack of Illians, Doviello, and Frostlings.

[Meee]

I started with Benennlus. He starts off a fair bit stronger than an other unit. Sent him out to earn a bit of xp, after which he was pretty much unstoppable. I brought him home to defend against the attacks, withdrawing to heal occasionally. The attacks just ended up making him alot stronger. I was far behind on tech, and i didnt have copper anyway, but it didnt matter. I used the hero to take the Dovi cities almost singlehandedly, with just some units to cover him as he healed. I ended up finishing out the tech tree a few turns before I forged the sword.