Mechanos question/help

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Mechanos, flavor wise, are one of the coolest civs I've seen, despite some of their text still being missing [or I have a bugged version, one or the other]. But I can NOt win with them no matter what strategy I try. How are they meant to be played? I think my problem is I'm ussually a magic-heavy player when it comes to combat, and their lack of any REAL magic as best I can tell really hinders me... but I'm not sure I completely grasp their concept. What works for others?

[Same thing happens with the Khazad in whichever one of the mods they don't have magic beyond adepts.... I usssually go Luichuirp anyways if I want to play dwarves so I'm not even sure which one it is or if it's all of them. ]

 

[arcticnightwolf]

Well ... I'm playing as them right now, and I don't see any way how to wage a war without plenty of Dragoons + Adeptus with medic3 (for heal spell) + couple of Handgunners for defense
(I'm in mid game)

 

[jcjcjc]

I haven't played them in .22d, as I'm working out how to play Scions, but in .22c they went as follows:
Obviously dependent on Map, difficulty level etc.

Very early, Copper Warriors are strong enough to take & hold an early barbarian city.

Go for multiple Adeptus(forced healing), Trebuchets & Witchhunters as backbone of SOD(Mobility 1 essential); Mob 1 Trebuchets get a lot of movement so you can move them out of the stack & back.

Taking over the whole world:
Go for Trebuchets promoted to Howitzers & Zeppelins to carry them, your Adeptii & Witchhunters. Nexus to throw in your garrison troops & you can close to take over a Civ @ 1 city per turn. Because Zeppelin carried SOD can pass through territory with no Open Borders agreement, declare War without being kicked out, sit on a Mountain Top whilst your Howitzers Blitz/Barrage enemy garrisons with no damage cap (no garrison can survive 10 Howitzers with 4 barrages each); & just as icing on the cake, Zeppelins can pick up units from the ground that have no movement points left.

Anyway thats how I did it in .22c

Regards

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

I've never been big on seige. Howitzers have no damage cap? Really? 0.o Sounds OP....

I love it. XD Gonna try all that now.

 

[jcjcjc]

P.S.

I should have mentioned that until the Ranged Attack Xp Bug is fixed the above method is going to be a bit cheesy, Multiple Level 15 Howitzers ??

With a stack of Ranged Attackers as the health of the target(s) drops the XP the attackers gets goes up, even if no further damage can be done.

Regards

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Tried it, and all I can say is? Ooooooh I feel stupid. XD Thought you meant the RANGED damage isn't capped. Still can't kill with ranged apparently, even fully upgraded. But deffensively, my army ROCKED finally. I took on a combined Grigori/Hippus army, each of which had 1/3 of the map, and I only had two cities and the legendary culture [minus bits stolen by enemy cities] around them. Ran conquest since I had no hammers but LOTS of food resources, and could produce a gunner per turn for deffense... and although I couldn't assualt [Don't know why but I got approx .1 percent odds no matter WHAT I did] I held them off long enough for my tiny Svartalfar allies to start taking cities. XD

 

[jcjcjc]

XD Thought you meant the RANGED damage isn't capped

I did.
Back in 0.22c, a Stack of Trebuchets promoted to Howitzers could wipe out a City Garrison (with Ranged Attack) by themselves. I haven't tried it in 0.22d as I don't want to rely on Ranged Attacks until the XP bug is sorted.

I do know that in 0.22d a Fort Commander, after a few promotions, will occasionally do 100% damage (either outright or incrementally); most annoying when you want your melee unit to get the XP.

Regards

 

[arkham4269]

Well I've already brought up in the Questions thread the point that the Mechanos cannot win via a religious or Altar of Lutunar conditions so it makes them hard to play.

Oh, one thing that can help, though, is that the Mechanos howitzer is probably one of the nastiest weapons in the game.

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

Wierd... I had thirty attacking a mini-stack of four enemy archers and it didn't kill them. Brought them down to 1.1, but didn't kill any of them.. Ironically, my gunners STILL only had like 50% odds against them, highily promoted, because they were on a forested hill. XD Grigori, not an elf either. <.< >.>

 

[arkham4269]

Wierd... I had thirty attacking a mini-stack of four enemy archers and it didn't kill them. Brought them down to 1.1, but didn't kill any of them.. Ironically, my gunners STILL only had like 50% odds against them, highily promoted, because they were on a forested hill. XD Grigori, not an elf either. <.< >.>

Well as I pointed out on the Bug thread, there are some odd things going on in FfH/FF/Orbis when it comes to units. My horse archers (depending on the Civ) seem to either be REALLY nasty or not worth building. I complained that the Khazad horseman (!!!) seem to have all had secret Hippus training and could kill entrenched spearmen in cities when my horse archers would get whacked attacking axemen in cities w/their defenses taken down to nothing.

Recently I noticed that Clan wolf riders would have odds like 6.0 vs. 8.0 against them yet would win almost every time, usually with little damage to themselves! (good for me, but strange) so I think there is something odd going on.

 

[sputnik323]

so I think there is something odd going on.

There must be! I totally agree.... I had 2 spearmen attack 2 horsemen with 98% and 96% chance and they died in a row. I know Im unlucky ... but a 2% and 4% chance in a row? I ended up using a swordsmen with less chance and won.

 

[BenjaminEmbarec]

That's nothing. I lose CONSISTENTLY with a greater then 99.9% chance of victory. EVERY single game I lose any hero I build.. ussually to something STUPID like a scout or a worker or an allready 60% damaged wolf.... Seriously, I lost Auric Ascended on his FIRST ATTACK after being built to a scout. Not even a city'd scout, just a scout out in the ice fields near my empire.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

There must be! I totally agree.... I had 2 spearmen attack 2 horsemen with 98% and 96% chance and they died in a row. I know Im unlucky ... but a 2% and 4% chance in a row? I ended up using a swordsmen with less chance and won.

IMO lots do archers' strikes on very start of combat ... it changes odds - and not little

 

[sputnik323]

IMO lots do archers' strikes on very start of combat ... it changes odds - and not little

I wish this were the case... Then I would have something rather than bad luck to attribute to the loss. There was only horsemen in the stack and they didn't have many upgrades because it was the first war of the game.

 

[Valkrionn]

Now that I'm about to start balancing the Mechanos for FF, is there anyway you could tell me what you had in mind while designing them? I've got quite a few ideas, but I don't want to mess with it much until I've got the design goals in mind... I'd like to keep them pretty faithful to the Orbis version.

 

[Seon]

I remember that, just for fun, I made an army just out of gunpowder units , siege weapons, couple of Techpriests and Adeptus.

What I think is missing is that Mechanos Immortal looks like a Greek...

 

[civ_king]

Mechanos Immortal should look cyborg... Resistance is futile

 

[Valkrionn]

I'm actually making them Goliath Prototypes in my version. Not immortal, directly buildable, but strong. Like the Scion abominations.

 

[Ahwaric]

I want them to be cyborgs from the start, just not found a good (or even passable) art yet.
Smaller, unlimited goliaths are good idea, but I would probably add them somewhere else.

 

[Valkrionn]

Yeah, I've been searching everywhere for art. Particularly for Goliath... And Immortals are basically the last high-level unit that is not a UU for the Mechanos, unless you want to use the cavalry line.