How exactly DOES one deal with shadows and other powerful stealth units?

Iblis

Chieftain
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I'm getting slightly tired of my stack o' deaths (TM) from being wiped out a unit at a time when moving around in the late game by shadows and the like. How the hell do you counter them? They seem to remain invisible to all units, even those with sentry. The solution can't be to just bring cannon fodder along and hope the shadow gets unlucky in one of their attacks.

Someone help me! :cry:
 
unfortuneatly atm nothing can see a shadow but a shadow (i might be wrong). you have a couple of options though.

1 - build shadows and keep a shadow with you stacks.
2 - when your hit by a shadow guess on what square the shadow is in and surround that square. then move a big unit into the square. if a shadow cant run you can kill it. the same works for loki

ya , not teh best options. but about the only ones i know. jsut be glad those shadows are not named brandig and mulesine (sp)
 
daladinn said:
unfortuneatly atm nothing can see a shadow but a shadow (i might be wrong). you have a couple of options though.

1 - build shadows and keep a shadow with you stacks.
2 - when your hit by a shadow guess on what square the shadow is in and surround that square. then move a big unit into the square. if a shadow cant run you can kill it. the same works for loki

ya , not teh best options. but about the only ones i know. jsut be glad those shadows are not named brandig and mulesine (sp)

You're wrong. The Marksman unit is the natural counter to shadows, with the ability to see and kill them. Unless it was changed recently, shadows cannot see other shadows.
 
I think Shadows can be seen by:

Marksman
Sand Lion
Floating Eye

I suggested that invisible units have a 20% chance of becoming visible for a turn after winning a battle, so that you at least have some chance to deal with them without advanced technology. Kael said it's a neat idea for consideration in the Shadow phase, when inivisibility is one of the main foci. Unfortunately that's a looooooong time away.

For the invisibility given by promotions it would be easy to write a python event that takes away the invisibility promotion. Unfortunately Shadow invisibility and the ability to see invisibles are inherent unit abilities that as far as I can see cannot be temporarily taken away without some rather complex and probably resource-consuming events.
 
Yeah, alternatively you can bring along a divine mind II caster (OO priest or Balseraph Druid) and use the "Floating Eye" spell, which also shows them up.

Edit: Bah, beaten to the punch.
 
sorry i forget about marksmen ... so hard to get for the use... hehe

and i had no idea of sand lions ... ncie to know
 
Floating eyes can see them?!?! You mean I've had this promotion and ability available to deal with the problem all this time and I didn't know :mad:

Well, at leas I know what to do now, thanks guys.
 
daladinn said:
2 - when your hit by a shadow guess on what square the shadow is in and surround that square. then move a big unit into the square. if a shadow cant run you can kill it. the same works for loki

Not true for shadows, I recall someone testing and saying that they would teleport to the nearest open tile, even on other continents (If it was the last free tile on the map, the 2 enemy units would share the tile)
 
That's entirely true. Invisible units will retreat to wherever they can... but they don't always retreat. Invisible HN units seem better at the retreating game, even being able to share squares with their foes under certain conditions. Indeed, I've seen a HN Giant Spider share the same tile with a Barb instead of fight (to the great, if short-lived, dismay of the worker it was guarding).
 
M@ni@c said:
I think Shadows can be seen by:

Marksman
Sand Lion
Floating Eye

I suggested that invisible units have a 20% chance of becoming visible for a turn after winning a battle, so that you at least have some chance to deal with them without advanced technology. Kael said it's a neat idea for consideration in the Shadow phase, when inivisibility is one of the main foci. Unfortunately that's a looooooong time away.

For the invisibility given by promotions it would be easy to write a python event that takes away the invisibility promotion. Unfortunately Shadow invisibility and the ability to see invisibles are inherent unit abilities that as far as I can see cannot be temporarily taken away without some rather complex and probably resource-consuming events.

The last isn't really an issue - just make Shadows start with the Invisibility promotion rather than having it inherently :)
 
i find bringing a druid along with my important stacks works well, the summoned tigers are great meat shields .. and in infinite supply :)
 
BeefontheBone said:
The last isn't really an issue - just make Shadows start with the Invisibility promotion rather than having it inherently :)

Yeah, but will Marksmen, Sand Tigers and Floating Eyes still be able to see Shadows?
 
I do the same.... priests/druids, whatever is able to generate tigers.... they are my fodder to slow down shadows.

Nothing worse than losing all your arch mages to shadows because you forgot to build those tigers!

Yet again though, this is a way in which the AI just doesnt handle things well... it doesnt do the same.... my Shadows sit next to his cities taking out Conjerourers (!spl?), Priests and anything else they can manage with relative imunity... I have yet to lose a Shadow by it being attacked....
 
Same can be done with Calabim vampires. Each one can summon a skeleton, and they serve as your main attack force.
 
saw a curteson with shadow and marksman but could not attack it don't know why ?
 
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