Orthus overpowered?

[Zobo]

I find a nice flat square, park a sacrifical lamb (warrior) there, so orthus kills him and ends up in a place without any defensive benefits. It's a bonus if I can make him cross water to attack that square, but the important thing is my counterattacking warriors get the best chance.

3-4 warriors against an unpromoted orthus, 8-9 against combat V orthus should do the trick.

Bring a few extra, though.

 

[Senethro]

Orthus with 2 strength promotions and a hill or forest gives 65% defense, bringing him up to 9.9 strength. Attacking that first with 3 strength warriors is sheer futility.

You've messed up already then. Once you spot him you should immediately move to intercept him in a suitable location. Sacrificing a 0xp warrior (I just can't get rid of them fast enough) to be bait on a plains 0%def tile is also a good gambit.

Edit: Oh, new page, and someone beat me to it.

 

[Tlalynet]

What Zobo said, preferably a desert tile if you can. Orthus is super gullible, on plains 3-4 like Zobo said, on desert 2-3.

If he is really strong and has enough XP that another kill and turn won't let him level up I like leaving a bunny trail of Forrest hill units (well, 2 tops) for him to eat up and get weak against, then lead him onto the plain for the kill. I don't think that guy ever refuses a battle.

Pity the AI kills him so easily, I wish he got his little orc army more often, if he has a few units around him he can be a problem. He does seem to try to gather a stack of units if he's left along long enough.

 

[Blankk]

When Orthus was near me, I just had him chase a hunter around in circles for a few turns :/ I finally got him close enough to the elven empire that he seemed to give up chasing my hunter and died to their stacks of warriors.

 

[Tlalynet]

Thats a pretty good plan.

 

[Onionsoilder]

I only had trouble with Orthus once, and that was my first game. My problem was that I kept trying to run from him, and he kept following me, pillaging my improvements, and attacking my cities.

I can't stress this enough though. If he spawns near you, build 5-6 warriors and attack him. Usually my third or fourth one kills him. If I'm unlucky, the fifth or sixth will finish him. If he survives past that, then that's just crappy luck. If he doesn't spawn near you, he might have several Combat promotions by the time you find him... but at that point you should have other ways of dealing with him. Magic, priests, horses or catapults are all great options. If you have your own hero who is strong enough, just use him.

 

[Tasunke]

I thought he was underpowered, so I gave him March promotion along with a 25% chance of spawning an orc warrior every time he wins a battle. He went back to something to be feared again.

THIS - giving him march and a percent chance to *Spawn* a barbarian warrior would make him very interesting indeed. It would also be an incentive for some MP games to ban him from classic start or advanced start games

Still, it would make him much cooler, and I like the idea that the more he wins, the more orcs he can win over to his immediate cause.

 

[Tlalynet]

He would still be totally vulnerable to an early dogpile, but yeah, that would make him more interesting.

 

[Neomega]

Depending on the % chance of orc spawn, it could make him unbeatable.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

How about his level % or 2*his level %?

 

[Tlalynet]

It couldn't make him unbeatable, if he winds up with just over 3 str he would have a good chance of dieing without having any orcs to protect him. If he winds up with just under then you get to kill the orcs first (if they are on desert that would be easy, and you shouldn't attack him on a hill) then he would be vulnerable. I suspect it means you would need to pack an additional 2 warriors when preparing for him though. Even if he spawns 2 orcs and winds up with 2.8 str that's not too overwhelming, and usually he wouldn't do that.

 

[Neomega]

It couldn't make him unbeatable, if he winds up with just over 3 str he would have a good chance of dieing without having any orcs to protect him. If he winds up with just under then you get to kill the orcs first (if they are on desert that would be easy, and you shouldn't attack him on a hill) then he would be vulnerable. I suspect it means you would need to pack an additional 2 warriors when preparing for him though. Even if he spawns 2 orcs and winds up with 2.8 str that's not too overwhelming, and usually he wouldn't do that.

How are you suppose dot kill the extra orcs? What's all this desert/hill nonsense? Now you have to pick a start location near a desert, because of Orthus? No way.

I dunno, Orthus sometimes is easy, and sometimes he is hard just the way he is.

 

[Tlalynet]

You kill them with 2 extra warriors, 3 tops. I would hope there is some kind of flatland near you no matter where you start. He tends to survive less battles in the desert, but attacking him on a hill would be much less of an option. If he only has a 25% spawn chance that will only produce 0-2 warriors if you attack him four times (which you probably don't need to do) Worst case scenario he produces 4, but that is unlikely.

Giving him 25% orc spawn would make him stronger, and thats good, but it would make him nothing like unbeatable.

 

[Cromagnum P.I.]

The timing seems to be critical on this. I pop up the message window, then wait until the "Orthus has spawned" message scrolls up on the main screen, then click the "Orthus has spawned" line in the message window. It doesn't seem to work if you click it too early or too late (there's a timeout of maybe 15 seconds).

Ok, that worked. Thanks dude. With this and the other advice I can see now how to handle him. Really liked the advice of luring him into a low defense tile. It seems that in the game that I lost to him I should have just thrown everything at him long before he got to my city.

 

[Tlalynet]

Thats the idea, I hope you have a good time axe harvesting from now on.

 

[Cromagnum P.I.]

Thats the idea, I hope you have a good time axe harvesting from now on.

*wrings hands*
Indeed I will, muahahahahaaaaaaaaaa

 

[Neomega]

*wrings hands*
Indeed I will, muahahahahaaaaaaaaaa

You would be amazed how easy the game gets once you take a permanent offensive strategy. Find a fortified position and strike from it.