Neat combinations/tricks you've found

[BeijingCat08]

I just discovered that Nox Noctis + disciples to culture bomb captured cities + a mage-heavy Amurite attack is win. The most effective anti-assassin technique I've found yet. Of course, it only works when attacking your immediate neighbour, but that's normally enough to kill off the initial huge stacks ...

Also, is there any way to defeat Nox Noctis? I was fighting another civ with it when playing Lurchuirp, and the normal 'see invisible' tricks didn't seem to work.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

To defeat Nox Noctis? Maelstorms and summons around your troops, until you manage to capture the city that has Nox Noctis! The most difficult time I have is playing agaist a civ that has Nox Noctis! I cannot target a single enemy unit, and even with maelstorms and blinding light precautions their cavalry,and assissins, can still come from far away and pick up my troops...
Just 1 stack. with 4 Archmages and 4 Liches with summoning level III spells, preferably water elementals, blinding light, maelstorm and charm can also help, including the mellee troops of course, since you may end up on tiles next or on enemies without knowing it.
Anyway, it is hard! But, the AI still is incompetent, and it is winable.

 

[megamanx06]

is this for posting our combinations, or just commenting on yours?

 

[Brugarin]

Who cares? Just POST YOUR COMBINATIONS!

We will be scanning.

 

[DarkxL0rd]

don't know if others do this, but i always carry a few disciples around to bring rioting cities under control immediately that i've captured. giving all your elves the woodsman promotion is pretty nasty too, since you'll be around forests in your home turf.

 

[zup]

I love to get nightmares for my cavalry. Usually only demons and undead can get fear after combat 5, but nightmare promotion lets you take it too. Just attack the enemy stack and scatter it back. Yes they may have a huge advantage of numbers but will never make use of it because they cannot advance. Not so useful against raiders though. Fear also helps defending against huge stacks of cannon fodder. If they are too scared to attack, they do no damage, and the fearsome unit is still healthy when the next one attacks, likely it is too scared too. Nightmares give a flat bonus strength too, there's just no downside to using them.

The real way to getting nightmares and the AI weeping. Get ashen veil, summon Hyborem, make a permanent alliance with him, convert to Order. He'll be more than happy to give you nightmares for free. Meanwhile, you are immune to hell terrain but your enemies are not. You get dragged into a permanent war with Basium, but I think the trade off is worth it. Don't forget that when you punish the evil-doers, your ally get manes, lots and lots of manes. For some extra fun, build the mercurian gate yourself.

 

[orgonebox]

Attaching great commanders to your main barb killers to get them over the 100 xp bump.

Switching to Kilmorph just for the Mines of gal-dur.

Building any sort of early religion heroes that you don't plan to stay with and wasting the heroes indiscriminately.

As mentioned, get Nox Noctis, but also be sure to get Dies Dei. The two in combination make you nearly unassailable.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

In the Decius scenarios, you get the Decius unit back whenever you don't have one and a unit with a Great Commander promotion dies; this means that attaching him to a immortal unit can give unlimited great commanders.


The Mistform summon counts as a living unit and any living Mercurian unit will come back as an Angel, so Basium can use this spell to get a lot of free angels. Plus, being HN lets you use it to attack friendly units of good religions, for more experienced angels.


Higher difficulties are much better for the Mercurians, as the AI units will start with more xp an make getting the level requirements for your strongest units easy to attain.


Wasting Heroes is actually not a very good combination, as if they abandon you instead of dieing they become buildable by other civs. It is nice to get a lot of religious heroes when playing as the Sidar though, so that you can Wane then all. The Shades should generally be used as Great Merchants, as that gives +1 and can sustain larger populations of specialists.

 

[zup]

Wasting heroes means getting them killed? Or I misunderstood something?

 

[Brokenbone]

Neat trick?

Malakim Lightbringers are disciple units, but if they get enough XP to be level 4, they can upgrade straight into magehood (assuming Sorcery tech and a Mage Guild someplace or other to do the upgrade).

As disciples, these guys can get a lot of free XP from say, a heavy duty Altar. Stuff like Theocracy, Apprenticeship, stuff like a Command post and whatnot, can get you to 4th pretty fast. Unfortunately you may have to sort of "waste" non-magical promos before 4th, call it Mobility plus Combat 1 & Combat 2. Still, having an Altar city churning out instant mages is kind of surprising / non-obvious, though still takes a few gold, but it would've taken that gold anyhow if you were upgrading Adepts. Take the "trick" for what it's worth.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Neat trick?

Malakim Lightbringers are disciple units, but if they get enough XP to be level 4, they can upgrade straight into magehood (assuming Sorcery tech and a Mage Guild someplace or other to do the upgrade).

As disciples, these guys can get a lot of free XP from say, a heavy duty Altar. Stuff like Theocracy, Apprenticeship, stuff like a Command post and whatnot, can get you to 4th pretty fast. Unfortunately you may have to sort of "waste" non-magical promos before 4th, call it Mobility plus Combat 1 & Combat 2. Still, having an Altar city churning out instant mages is kind of surprising / non-obvious, though still takes a few gold, but it would've taken that gold anyhow if you were upgrading Adepts. Take the "trick" for what it's worth.

That isn't really anything special about Lightbringers. That is a Savant ability, which Lightbringers have because they can upgrade to Savants. Since Savants don't require a State religion, you just need to allow an AV temple in one of your cities while still remaining Good/Neutral to take advantage of this, as any civ except the Grigori/Illians. I'd probably consider the Savant's free Medic I promotion for the Mage better than the Lightbringer's Sentry.

 

[Blackmantle]

Or you just get both. For a measly 5 additional gold. (by upgrading Lightbringer to Savant while still green and then spending the xp as Savant to intersting things. Presto. Mage with Sentry + Medic 1 + March + Potency if Varn + whatnot. )

Another thing which might sound minor but might still be worth it is to avoid savants to not feed the infernals manes. If you go Lightbringer ---> Mage not all those mages should be forced to be following the Ashen Veil. So more power to basium if you summoned him. But then the temptation to get Medic 1+March might still woo you over to the teachings of Agares...

Potency alone might make that worthwhile either way. And if you want those things to be summoners (sand lions ftw. ) combat sounds alright anyways. So it sounds like quite a powerful idea honestly. Since i missed it, thanks for that small one.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Raider + Pillage + Conquest + Mercenaries. Wage a war against someone, and go pillage crazy. Pillaging gives you lots of money to buy even more mercenaries. With conquest and raider it gets ridiculous.

Go to 0% Science, and click on mercantilism and consumption, and you have almost infinite army capacity.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

OK people! Half of what I read are just exploits of the current implementation!
If I were Kael, reading this thread I would make notes on what to do to prevent the smart exploits

 

[zup]

The AI cheats and so must we in order to win. And yes, that line on the score board / hall of fame is important, to me.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

The AI cheats and so must we in order to win. And yes, that line on the score board / hall of fame is important, to me.

The AI cheats because if it didn't, it would have been no challenge at all
Poor AI...

 

[Brokenbone]

Or you just get both. For a measly 5 additional gold. (by upgrading Lightbringer to Savant while still green and then spending the xp as Savant to intersting things. Presto. Mage with Sentry + Medic 1 + March + Potency if Varn + whatnot. )

Another thing which might sound minor but might still be worth it is to avoid savants to not feed the infernals manes. If you go Lightbringer ---> Mage not all those mages should be forced to be following the Ashen Veil. So more power to basium if you summoned him. But then the temptation to get Medic 1+March might still woo you over to the teachings of Agares...

Potency alone might make that worthwhile either way. And if you want those things to be summoners (sand lions ftw. ) combat sounds alright anyways. So it sounds like quite a powerful idea honestly. Since i missed it, thanks for that small one.

Good twists there, and in the above post from MC. If going from a roleplay perspective, I guess "Savant to Mage" is a perfectly explainable path!

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Something that should be fixed: Brigit+Pyre of the Seraphic. You can get something like 7 permanent fire elemental a turn. Makes Keelyn's puppets look like child's play.

 

[hbar]

Govannon and city defenders. Wall of stone, inspiration, summon skeleton, etc. Once you get to priests and firebows, it gets better. Hope, Regeneration, Maelstrom, Stoneskin, and so on. This one is well known but often overlooked. I usually think of Govannon as teaching mostly offensive spells, but the defensive and 'building' spells are just as useful.

 

[Kael]

OK people! Half of what I read are just exploits of the current implementation!
If I were Kael, reading this thread I would make notes on what to do to prevent the smart exploits

Im on it!