how to defeat vampires?

[slowcar]

i usually play with my cohabitant. mostly like singleplayer, we trade techs sometimes but just play our way other then that.
we tested all the races and he is stuck with the vampires.
while he needs longer to build his power i usually command a rather big empire when his vampires come up.

last game we discussed the possibility of ending the game with a fight as we normally end the game when we feel that it is won.
as i have some experience with the calabim myself i just don't find a way to defeat vampires.

vampires get xp very quickly and reach 100xp after a few rounds. playing like 30 rounds nets you at least 3 vampires that have reached the end of "normal" promotions (i.e. combat 5, shock 2, cover 2, formation etc).
collateral is not a real option as they don't need to be moved in stacks.
my normal units are way too weak as promotions are very strong in ffh2.

i'd like to know some tricks to beat the vampires, especially in midgame, lets say 50-100 rounds after the first vampire was built.
(means 5-10 vampires of 300+ xp each)

 

[brainpan]

Just blast him with fireballs or, even better, meteor swarms. Also, a strong dose of Destroy Undead will put a major damper on those vampires won't it?

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Vampires arent undead in FfH.

The best option is to get them before they get to vampires in the first place. If they do have vamps them maybe try to go around them and hit his cities while he is on the front [of course if he builds one you are screwed couse he will be fit for a fight in one turn]

Vamps are imba with multiple fiesting in one turn, you cant help it.

Hmmm, fight IMBA with another IMBA

 

[brainpan]

Thanks for clarification that vampires aren't undead in ffh2. But are you sure you aren't overestimating them? What would be the effect if a few archmages--especially archmages with twincast--concentrated meteor swarms on them?

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Vamires are sooner than Archmages, especially with twincast. Also he could chose magic resistance while he is promoting them to the uber lvl, I always had at least 2 with magic resistance when going to war, just in case.

Siege engines with high withdrawal chance?

 

[brainpan]

True, but they come pretty quick with an able Grigori player. In any case, fireball-casting mages could be made to show up in time to counter vampires.

I like your idea of using Balseraph catapults. I think a small stack of them could make a vampire sorry he showed up for the party.

 

[onedreamer]

if you really can get past 100 xp with feasting then it's hard to think about a counter. I'm hoping that they are limited to 100 xp, otherwise they are a serious threat to balance in MP.
One strategy you can adopt is to beeline for engeneering and promote your early warriors (that can easily get combat V and shock 2) to archers first and crossbowmen later.

 

[onedreamer]

True, but they come pretty quick with an able Grigori player. In any case, fireball-casting mages could be made to show up in time to counter vampires.

I like your idea of using Balseraph catapults. I think a small stack of them could make a vampire sorry he showed up for the party.

A good counter must be viable to all civs, and cats aren't good enough. The OP clearly and rightfully stated that Vampires don't need to go around in stacks of vampires, so a catapult tactic is somewhat odd... plus cats wouldn't do much damage.

 

[jwin]

Playing the game like you do (waiting to fight each other until the game is otherwise one) you will find the vampires powerful. There weakness is in the early game, and if he only has to worry about AI then, he will be able to get to the vampire point without problem.
Try using priests with ring of fir against him. You should be able to weaken him enough with one or two rings that normal, less promoted units can kill the vampires.
Also keep in mind that when you are piling units on his vampires, you won't be helping him level. They already have so much experince that you won't make a difference.

 

[slowcar]

the AI playing the calabim is not the problem, a human player is.
and a balance issue is not fixed if you avoid the situation.
"kill the calabim before they get vampires" is not really possible.

fireballs normally come much later then vampires. with an arcane civ you could have them handy.
vampires get XP for eating a citizen at xp=citysize-5 (or something like that). using farms all over (as every calabim player does) you can easily support cities the, size of 20-30 which grow every single turn. happiness is not an issue, only health limits the growth, and it kicks in at size 40+ on standard maps (yes, farms give so much food).

given a size 30 city you can have a vampire eat it down to size 20 and get 220xp in a single round. 10 rounds later you have the next vampire getting this xp. you can have like 3 or more supercities like that which means every 4 rounds you have a 220xp unit ready. oh, and it can cast spells, too. and it can upgrade to arch-vampires, cast body3 sphere spells and attach itself to other units.
prepare yourself carefully and 20 turns after building your first vampire you have 5 units with combat5, shock2, cover2, formation2, mobility and commando. and they can cast a spell that let them move 1 more.


as i said we play in kind of a controlled enviroment. i can prepare my whole game on the vampires, play as i want, develop accordingly, accept religions etc pp.
but i have absolutely no idea how to stop them.

 

[slowcar]

Playing the game like you do (waiting to fight each other until the game is otherwise one) you will find the vampires powerful. There weakness is in the early game

actually it is not. one of the calabim leaders is aggressive which allows a warrior rush right after appprenticeship.
octopus favors the calabim farm system due to slavery and allows more early and powerful units.

Try using priests with ring of fir against him. You should be able to weaken him enough with one or two rings that normal, less promoted units can kill the vampires.

its an idea. not easy to get them though as they have mobility, an movement enhancing spell and most likely commando. that means they can move at least 6 tiles within your borders. i can't stop them with SoDs as they can walk deep into my territory.

Also keep in mind that when you are piling units on his vampires, you won't be helping him level. They already have so much experince that you won't make a difference.

i am not piling units, he is. vampires can be built as fast as my normal combat units can. for every 5xp maceman i put into the field he has a vampire...
a captured city can be eaten even before resistance breaks down. if you have a promotion ready you have all your vampires be newly promoted (and healed) after capturing a city of a certain size.

 

[onedreamer]

Cities size 20+ are unlikely by the time Vampires can be built. 12 is a more likely size (ah wait... I play on Emperor). Anyways, limit their access to metals. Or use the Rust spell. Without weapon promotions, a couple crossbowmen could do the job (of course combat V and cover II are really tough to overcome, so you need at least one of the 2 xbowmen to be well promoted). But on the long run this tactic won't be good enough. And with the fact that they can feast well over 100xp in one single round...

 

[onedreamer]

i am not piling units, he is. vampires can be built as fast as my normal combat units can. for every 5xp maceman i put into the field he has a vampire...
a captured city can be eaten even before resistance breaks down. if you have a promotion ready you have all your vampires be newly promoted (and healed) after capturing a city of a certain size.

oh well, now this is an exaggeration. Vampires cost 50% more than macemen and crossbowmen. Also, he WILL have happiness problems until he can cast Unyelding Order. And if you don't have Archmages by the time Vampires first come out (and it's true) then he won't too. Also to grow a city as fast as you described he will have to inevitably sacrifice production to food, which will slow even more the production of vampires. It is safe to assume that you can have at least 3 crossbowmen for every 2 vampires. At least. You can also switch to Conquest to produce them faster... but maintenance might be a problem. For the late game, consider death and entropy mana. Death for being able to upgrade your archmages to Liches, and entropy for Enervation.

 

[Bringa]

I hate to recommend something I blasted as imbalanced a few weeks ago, but you should really consider what a poster a few posts up said: Ring of Fire.

Until Kael fixes it in 0.22 with a damage cap, it is the most powerful spell in the game (factoring in cost, availability of casting unit, how early it is available etc). You must realize that RoF doesn't care about the Vampire's promotions at all. For RoF, the vamp may as well be level 1. RoF removes a random percentage of the target unit's FULL HP, meaning that a fixed number of RoFs will kill EVERYTHING.

I'm not sure how magic resistance interacts with RoF, but in a worst case situation you'll simply need a few more Confessors/Ritualists. In the time it takes him to bring one vamp up to 100xp, you should easily get some 9-10 confessors out.

You should be able to get a tier 2 religion plus priesthood by the same time your enemy hits Feudalism, if not earlier.

My reasoning behind this counter is the following: the only weakness I could find in the vampire build is that your enemy concentrates his resources in just a few units. Few units means few attacks per round. This gives you the advantage of time if you come with a lot of weak units. It may be that his vampires could take on your Confessors in a series of one by one fights, but if your confessors have ample time to use their RoF, which ALWAYS cause damage, his vampires should be dead soon enough.

Your weakness in this strat is that you rely on getting one of two religions: Veil or Order, but I think that should be feasible.

And I agree with jwin when he points out that you're doing something very odd. No game can be balanced for any kind of abnormal situation. In a normal game, the vampires are properly balanced precisely because they introduce such a long weak period in the beginning of the calabim game. If you remove that disadvantage by not engaging in war early in the game, it's YOUR decision to do so that makes the vampires overpowered.

And btw, take it from someone who used to be a very timid multiplayer player himself: you and your flatmate, you're cheating yourselves out of a lot of fun by playing in this defensive way. Try a tiny lakes map on quick speed, and try fighting each other from the very beginning. It's quite a difference.

 

[Bringa]

its an idea. not easy to get them though as they have mobility, an movement enhancing spell and most likely commando. that means they can move at least 6 tiles within your borders. i can't stop them with SoDs as they can walk deep into my territory.

At some point his vampires need to attack your cities. That's when you roast them.

 

[brainpan]

A good counter must be viable to all civs, and cats aren't good enough. The OP clearly and rightfully stated that Vampires don't need to go around in stacks of vampires, so a catapult tactic is somewhat odd... plus cats wouldn't do much damage.

I understand. A good counter must be available to all civs. But speaking theoretically, a properly supported stack of catapults with a 90% withdrawal rate would probably be more than enough to bring down a high level vampire. And the "catapult tactic" doesn't rely upon vampire units being stacked, it relies--in large part--upon the catapult's high withdrawal rate.

 

[slowcar]

we play on emperor (which is increadibly easy in ffh2), in singleplayer i play immortal.

first: calabim are not weak until they get vampires. alexis is perfectly suited for an early rush. flauros is the wet dream of every money-orientated player (financial+organized).

second: to beat vampires i should use an exploit which is due to be fixed, correct? actually i am very opposed to using these things. its like using graft flesh on immortal units (which fuses the unit AND has it reborn in your capital) or perpetual anarchy etc.

as for the cities: you don't have to sacrifice production at all. you can use slavery (a lot). and you only need two or three very large food-cities to level your vampires. you can even just remove the "no growth" cap in the city screens and eat away any unhappiness with a few patrolling vampires.

i don't see crowssbowmen as a counter. look what a freshly produced rider with 2xp for cover2 can do to a crossbowman.


i wanted to know if i have missed something, it seems that i did not.
i have to admit that i am not the most experienced ffh2 player and i discover something new now and then. but i beat warlords and emperor (and most of the times on immortal) and i think that vampires are one of the major balance issues of this mod.

 

[Kael]

The Calabim trade production for their powerful units. The best way to beat them is to outproduce them. That means surprise attacks and to many units for them to defend against (preferably high moving mounted units that can attack and withdrawl when the vampires come to retaliate).

If you want to make a Calabim player cry hit his young Vampires with wraiths once they start feeding. This will halves their XP and wastes the population they spend getting there (but it isn't much effect against a fully upgraded vampire since they dont need xp anymore).

I prefer recon units against vampires (since there is no anti-recon promotion the vampires can only use the normal combat promotions against them). A swarm of assassins to poison them (and kill weaker units in the tile) and get them injured works well.

Fireballs, meteors and summons are always good for softening up anything. Look for high level summons that dont fit a normal unitcombat type (beasts).

Lastly every civ is designed to hit its relative power at a certain part of the game. The Calabim are pretty late in. The absolute best way to beat them is to never let them get that far. Unfortunatly the origional posters decision to play the whole game then duke it out at the end is in the calabims favor (since thats when they are strongest). You may want to consider one of the other late game powerhouses like the Sheaim (trading population for xp is nothing compared to trading population for Balors) or the Grigori.

 

[slowcar]

recon units are a very good idea.

but i don't agree on calabim reaching their powerlevel late. as i stated i think they are among the strongest civs from the beginning.

i also don't agree that they trade production for growth. slavery is more efficient then mines anyhow and the uber-farms in ffh2 make it even worse. not a problem directly related to the calabim though.

Is it intended that vampires can eat the population of newly conquered cities without having to wait until the resistance breaks down?

 

[Kael]

recon units are a very good idea.

but i don't agree on calabim reaching their powerlevel late. as i stated i think they are among the strongest civs from the beginning.

i also don't agree that they trade production for growth. slavery is more efficient then mines anyhow and the uber-farms in ffh2 make it even worse. not a problem directly related to the calabim though.

They aren't front loaded in comparison to civs like the Doviello or the Clan. They will usually get beat in speed by the Amurites (rushing mages or firebows) or the Hippus if either of those strike before vampires are created.

Is it intended that vampires can eat the population of newly conquered cities without having to wait until the resistance breaks down?

Absolutly, welcome to the Calabim empire.

Another thought, vampires are alive in Erebus. So armageddon hits them a lot harder than the Luchuirp, Mercurians or Infernal. Rushing a Calabim player right after Armageddon is mean mean mean.

Last of all check out the Reversal of Fortune spell. Its only available to overlords high priests but it ensures that every fight is 50/50 odds. The vampires levels and promotions are meaningless against a reversal of fortuned unit.