Infinite archer training

[Tsathoggua]

1. Build fort next to Wild Mana node.
2. Park Archer in fort.
3. ???
4. Profit.

Turns out that ??? is "bombard every turn as long as you can stand it for." Since the Wild Mana guardians are Held, they just sit there and take it. Worse, if Barbarian units get within bombard range of a Fort, you can just keep them there while the AI tries to heal them every turn. So parking near Wild Mana nodes isn't even entirely necessary, and a few lucky forts could turn into veritable Archer training halls.

This is especially brutal if you get a Great Commander from ruins early in the game, and is one of at least two ways that I'm exploiting that reward in my current game with the Mechanos (the other is a no-brainer: surround all other Civ territories with forts -- once you have many of them, the Civs act as though you have a massive standing army and won't make a peep at you for it).

I won't be sad if this is slated for change in an upcoming patch... and if not, it probably should be. I don't think it would hurt the game overall to make Wild Mana guardians worth 0 xp.

 

[Valkrionn]

1. Build fort next to Wild Mana node.
2. Park Archer in fort.
3. ???
4. Profit.

Turns out that ??? is "bombard every turn as long as you can stand it for." Since the Wild Mana guardians are Held, they just sit there and take it. Worse, if Barbarian units get within bombard range of a Fort, you can just keep them there while the AI tries to heal them every turn. So parking near Wild Mana nodes isn't even entirely necessary, and a few lucky forts could turn into veritable Archer training halls.

This is especially brutal if you get a Great Commander from ruins early in the game, and is one of at least two ways that I'm exploiting that reward in my current game with the Mechanos (the other is a no-brainer: surround all other Civ territories with forts -- once you have many of them, the Civs act as though you have a massive standing army and won't make a peep at you for it).

I won't be sad if this is slated for change in an upcoming patch... and if not, it probably should be. I don't think it would hurt the game overall to make Wild Mana guardians worth 0 xp.

Yeah... Won't be possible next version. As I've said before, they will be leashed instead of held (Done a lot of work with leashes, can be set via promotion now).

Basically, all Guardians other than the Lich will have a leash range of one. Meaning they can walk the tiles immediately around their mana. They can then attack one tile past that range. Your archer would not be completely safe, and the guardian could get out of range.

 

[Segolenus]

Reminds me of something else to do with wild mana guardians:

If Zarcaz spawns on the map next to a (command-able) mana guardian, he tends to stay on the guardian's tile for the rest of the game since he's trying to command it. I wonder if the same thing happens when the player intentionally tries to lead him onto a mana guardian's tile. If so, that's a pretty efficient way to neutralize him.

 

[Cyrusfan]

I had that theory once, too, but it turns out that's only a good way to train one archer at a time. At least I found that eventually you run up against the maximum damage the unit can do, and only one archer can attack in a given turn. Also, my experience with barbs, at least the savages is that they're pretty happy to bum rush forts even after I've hit the stack once (especially the lizardmen and wild trolls that fort commanders have a relative weakness to).

 

[Tsathoggua]

I had that theory once, too, but it turns out that's only a good way to train one archer at a time. At least I found that eventually you run up against the maximum damage the unit can do, and only one archer can attack in a given turn. Also, my experience with barbs, at least the savages is that they're pretty happy to bum rush forts even after I've hit the stack once (especially the lizardmen and wild trolls that fort commanders have a relative weakness to).

I have a Creation Mana node next to my second city in this game, and I train Archers two at a time there. Three is possible if one of the other two gets a low-damage bombard. Just so as not to be *too* abusive, I station them elsewhere after they hit 10xp.

I've got a band of Forts stopping Svartalfar settlers from nosing around, and one of them is keeping two Frostling Archers busy (somebody popped Samhain early on). Several other forts have their own pet Hellhound they're grinding XP off of. With Fort Commanders, it's worth the trouble to do this up until 60xp or so. I've got a couple at 82xp and I'm just coming up to turn 200. Maybe that's not how the savages behave, but obviously, the demons do.

It's interesting to note that Orthus has spawned and has been sitting on the same square doing nothing, within sight range of one of my forts and on the Balseraph border, for some few tens of turns now... which is bad, because all my units capable of killing him are stuck commanding forts.

 

[inuyashasama]

I've seen Orthus do that before, and I think it's so he can build up XP with his hero promotion. When he hits full XP, I bet he comes at you like a bulldozer.

 

[Tsathoggua]

I've seen Orthus do that before, and I think it's so he can build up XP with his hero promotion. When he hits full XP, I bet he comes at you like a bulldozer.

Is the AI really that smart? Comforting.

 

[Sjru]

Speaking about mana guardians, would you add spell books as seen in Wild Mana mod, so you can actually train your archmages to get all Master of promotions?

 

[Valkrionn]

Possibly, the mechanic is an interesting one.

Not until the magic changes are in, however, as the changes would make it pointless to do now.

 

[Zai]

Or you could just give them water walking and park them outside a coastal enemy city, or off the shore of a tiny island with a stack of barbs stuck on it. The AI really doesn't have any concept of water. I think I've seen 3 AI boats in the past 5 games I've played.

Is the AI really that smart? Comforting.

If I had to guess, I'd say when he spawns he tries to find a target he can take with relative ease. If he can't find anything to attack that wouldn't be suicidal he will just stand there or pace around near where he spawned. It just so happens that he gets stronger over time, so eventually he gets to a point where he decides he can take something and then starts moving toward it. I've watched him do it a few times, he doesn't wait until 100xp, usually he starts to move after he's leveled just 2 or 3 times.

 

[Tsathoggua]

Or you could just give them water walking and park them outside a coastal enemy city, or off the shore of a tiny island with a stack of barbs stuck on it. The AI really doesn't have any concept of water. I think I've seen 3 AI boats in the past 5 games I've played.



If I had to guess, I'd say when he spawns he tries to find a target he can take with relative ease. If he can't find anything to attack that wouldn't be suicidal he will just stand there or pace around near where he spawned. It just so happens that he gets stronger over time, so eventually he gets to a point where he decides he can take something and then starts moving toward it. I've watched him do it a few times, he doesn't wait until 100xp, usually he starts to move after he's leveled just 2 or 3 times.

In that game I actually had him settle down in a fort on my border with Acheron. He never left, and was still there when the save game finally broke before I could send a fully-promoted Goliath with Alazkan's Mirror to work on them both.

In other news, Acheron can settle down in forts. What is really weird about this is that the barbs had a city nearby that fort, in which the Hoard spawned. I definitely did not earn the Hoard that game.