Pyre Zombie Strategy

[Sarisin]

OK, guys, I am stumped as to how to deal with the Sheaim early on when they start spamming stacks of 8-10 Pyre Zombies.

It doesn't help when you are playing Liuchuirp and have Wood Golems, that, well, seem to burn very nicely thank you.

I know in the later game you can get units with the ability to Destroy (actually damage) Undead, but now I have my hands full.

What is happening is when enough of them explode, and there always seems to be enough, all my defenders are killed. I am just frantically building Chariots because they have a decent chance of killing them (both have bronze weapons) and then moving away from the next explosion.

Catapults damage, but are destroyed by the explosions. Barnaxus wouldn't survive the explosions.

I did manage to build the Baron and gave him Fire Resistance and that helps a little, but this was later and the Zombies are still coming.

What is your strategy in dealing with this early menace?

One more thing. Wouldn't you think a spell like Spring would douse/damage those flaming bad guys? Shouldn't it? Would a Water Elemental wipe them out? Not that I can build Mages, mind you, but it would seem you need water magic to fight fire dudes.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

...
I did manage to build the Baron and gave him Fire Resistance and that helps a little, but this was later and the Zombies are still coming.
...
Not that I can build Mages, mind you, but it would seem you need water magic to fight fire dudes.

So, you beelined feral bond instead of sorcery as the Luchuirp?

...

Well, that's your problem. Rather than getting the tech that allows you to open up a can of whoop ass on all of your enemies, you went for the cheap thrills of werewolves as one of the civs that benefits the most from sorcery. In the same time it takes to research feral bond and build the Baron, you could have researched sorcery and fielded a huge army of fire II golems and be on the quick path to victory. Even with resist fire on the pyre zombies, the sheer number of fireballs you would be able to summon would overcome any stack Tebryn or Os-Gabella would be able to throw against you. Also, as a side benefit you would have access to mages.

In general, units that have a movement of two or greater should be more than sufficient to counter stacks of 8-10 pyre zombies. Move the unit (not the entire stack) adjacent to the pyre zombie. Kill Zombie (chariots with bronze should be able to do this with ease). Move back to original position. Repeat with other units. Accumulate xp. The important thing is to have the units go in one at a time instead of parking your stack next to the pyre zombie stack. Withdrawal units to soften the zombie up work wonders too, as injured zombies do less explosive damage.

 

[Sarisin]

Thank you for your very helpful hints. I should have mentioned that it has been a long time since I played the Luchuirp. I had no idea about their Sorcery. In fact, my last game I played Khazad, also dwarves, and thought the Luchuirp would be as week as the Khazad when it comes to magic/sorcery. So, yes, I made Sorcery a low priority.

I didn't really beeline Feral Bond...although, I had FOL religion and it is a good tech because you can build the Baron and Kythra Kyriel.

The funny, well, not so funny thing was that Kythra who was pretty powerful was killed by a Pyre Zombie explosion that dealt him a huge amount of damage.

I did start to use the Chariot strategy exactly as you described.

Also, I was lucky and got a Ritualist with his Ring of Flame. I built Nox Noctis and things settled down then as I knew where the one-movement pt. stacks of Pyre Zombies were heading and could be there with the Ritualist and Chariots waiting for them.

I have Sorcery (but no Fire mana) so I haven't seen anyway to get Fire flinging golems. How do you get those? I just researched Iron Working and can build Iron Golems, but what am I missing here.

It is an interesting civ, but I clearly made many early mistakes because I wasn't up-to-date on how they work.

Regardless, I think those Pyre Zombies can be a royal pain early in the game.

Thanks again for the tips.

 

[Jet]

You need the PDF manual. The in-game documentation isn't good enough.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Any golem built in a city with a blasting workshop can cast fireball. Blasting workshops are a dirt cheap building that requires fire mana + sorcery.

You seemed to have hit on one of the best counters without quite realizing it: Chariots. They require trade and construction, the former of which is very important for everyone and the latter of which is very important for the luchuirp. Simply by pursuing 2 high priority techs, you get a great pyre zombie counter through coincidence. You just need to either get those techs faster, or build more chariots than you were building when you unlock them.

You said you were FoL? You also could have gone for priesthood and massed priests of leaves, and set on the pyre zombies with hordes of expendable, replaceable-in-a-turn tigers. Not as effective as fireballs because tigers don't do collateral, but easier to set up because the trip to priesthood is a lot shorter than the trip to sorcery.

Nox is horrible against pyre zombies. See, what you can do without it is, put a couple fodder units (like tigers) in the enemy stack's way, and let the pyre zombies kill them. That costs the winning zombies their move. The rest of the zombies then move forward a square. You then go around the main stack and attack the stragglers who were left behind from killing your units. They blow up. The explosion weakens the entire main stack. With nox, they just move right through your fodder units.

 

[Sarisin]

Thanks for the advice on the Blasting Workshop, but without Fire Mana (it happens to be one of those games when I have ZERO mana nodes in my civ), it seems like no can do with the Fireballing Golems.

Yes, I did try that strategy with spamming FOL Priests and summoning Tigers. It worked great even with Nox Noctis. All I had to do is set one or more Tigers on a tile just outside my borders and have a number of Chariots two tiles away from the impending explosions. The Tigers sacrificed themselves, but the Chariots were able to clean up the rest of the now weakened stack.

The funny thing about this game is that the Sheaim seems to be building ONLY Pyre Zombies. Every 10 turns or so, here comes another stack of 10-15 of them. This has been going on for at least 200 turns. I asked for a cease fire several times (without sweetening the deal as I am enjoying the XP for my guys), but the Sheaim have said no.

I guess it's finally time to go after Tebryn and put an end to this stuff. I don't think I have ever built more Chariots in a game than this one.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I know in the later game you can get units with the ability to Destroy (actually damage) Undead, but now I have my hands full.

As of Patch k, Destroy Undead is the only spell an arcane unit can learn that can actually kill an enemy. It used to do an average damage of 20 with a cap of 50, but that patch changed it to do an average damage of 30 with no cap whatsoever. It can't kill a full strength Pyre Zombie in one shot, but using it on weakened Zombies or using it repeatedly will kill them. Also, when killed by the spell Pyre Zombies do not explode.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

As of Patch k, Destroy Undead is the only spell an arcane unit can learn that can actually kill an enemy. It used to do an average damage of 20 with a cap of 50, but that patch changed it to do an average damage of 30 with no cap whatsoever. It can't kill a full strength Pyre Zombie in one shot, but using it on weakened Zombies or using it repeatedly will kill them. Also, when killed by the spell Pyre Zombies do not explode.

Fireballs have always been able to kill enemies and summons can kill and are technically spells too so...

Patch K does seem to make the life line more useful though, which is a good thing.

 

[Sarisin]

As of Patch k, Destroy Undead is the only spell an arcane unit can learn that can actually kill an enemy. It used to do an average damage of 20 with a cap of 50, but that patch changed it to do an average damage of 30 with no cap whatsoever. It can't kill a full strength Pyre Zombie in one shot, but using it on weakened Zombies or using it repeatedly will kill them. Also, when killed by the spell Pyre Zombies do not explode.

Ack, so my game missed this by one patch.

I do like that 'not exploding' part, though, as then you can move your whole staff with the Undead Destroyer in it and not risk the damage caused by exploding zombies.

I'm still a little amazed I lost Kythra to an exploding zombie. He had over 120XP with many promotions and a Great Commander attached. He was damaged, of course, when he killed the zombie, but the resulting explosion killed the hero. So that was one big explosion.

BTW that game ended with an Altar Victory for the Luichiurp.

Guess who I am playing in my new game? Sheaim, and now their zombies have been nerfed a bit, although I don't recall the AI using Destroy Undead.

 

[Snarks]

I've faced Pyre Zombie spam on a multiplayer game. It's extremely annoying to play against and with the turn timer ticking, it's really difficult to micro one unit at a time to kill the zombies. With simultanious turns on, your opponent can wait for you to make the first move.

I'm going to try out the Life 2 Destroy Undead spell with Tiger summion spam next time I play.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I only recommended the tiger spam because Sarisin was already FoL. It's one of the best ways to go vs. Pyre Zombies if you have that religion, but there's a better option. Better to go Empyrean and simply blind the bastards. You'll miss some of them, but what then? Will your opponent split his stack? And risk the split off zombies getting blown up, weakening or taking out the other, blinded stack?

If you try the tiger spam against a human he'll go around the tigers. Whoops. You can still attack with them but the odds won't be as in your favor, especially if there are forested hills about that he's getting the defensive bonuses from instead if you.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

I've faced Pyre Zombie spam on a multiplayer game. It's extremely annoying to play against and with the turn timer ticking, it's really difficult to micro one unit at a time to kill the zombies. With simultanious turns on, your opponent can wait for you to make the first move.

I'm going to try out the Life 2 Destroy Undead spell with Tiger summion spam next time I play.

Simultaneous turns is a broken feature period. It is so ridiculously easy to abuse, in fact iirc the term "fast move" originated in normal civ IV multiplayer. Fast move is when you save your units move until seconds before the clock ends, move, the turn immediately ends, and move again, effectively doubling your overall move (due to the opponents inability to react instantly) allowing for some really unbalanced attacks. This was compounded with mounted units and the mobility promotion and can be exploited even worse in FFH were units can easily achieve 4, 5, and even 6 moves naturally. Imagine a stack being able to cover 12 tiles (more with the raider trait) over the course of a second with simultaneous turns. Ugh. If your using simultaneous turns as a basis for balance discussions, then you're really discussing an entirely different beast imo (and pyre zombies should be the least of your balance problems).

 

[Snarks]

My favorite civ are the Svartalfar and my usual strat goes with Archer for initial defense + Hunters for exploring goodie huts and dungeons. I immediately buy FoL.

Hm, let me go over the settings we usually play with first. We play on advance start from anywhere with 4500 points to 7000 depending on which one of us is hosting. Simultanous turns, quick speed, and Last Days.

Gradually, I replace my Hunters with Nyxkin spam which can tear apart anykind of formation with their awesome retreat rate. If I come across a city that's heavily defended, I'll bring Alazkan and a few assassins to deal with the defenders. Usually I can pick up my economy to the stage where I can 1-3 turn Nyxkins. I bring Priests of the Leaves for extra healing and Adepts->Mages->Archmages for support. Usually I aim for Domination and Life as the focus of my casters with Nature, Shadow, and Enchantment as secondary spells for their buffs.

When the game hits late game, I convert over to Champion spam with Mithril +4 Str, and add in the late game national units. Though I find Nyxkins can still be very powerful lategame if heavily promoted. (Killed Hyborem with a stack of 15 Nyxkins (Only 2 died; the rest managed to retreat, 2 Priest of Leaves, a Mage, and Alazkan.)

Anyways, when I was mopping up the Hippus with my Sheam allies, he declared war on me and sent forth hordes of Pyre zombies. I think he was 1 turning them. I didn't exactly have a good start and the war evolved from mass Pyre Zombies versus Nyxkins to mass Pyre Zombies, Tar Demons with Cultists and Mobius Witches versus Nyxkins, Longbowmen, Assassins, Mages, Priests of Leaves, and Champions.

Over the course of that war, he razed three cities, 2 of former Hippus that I took, and one of my outer lying city. I finally won the war when Stephanos razed 3 of my opponent's cities when he spawned. Stephanos resisted fire damage so the Pyre Zombie spam didn't work as well. My opponent left an opening in his lines and I killed his 6 Mobius Witches support stack with Assassins and it sealed the fate of the game.

Now, I probably would have lost to the massive amounts of Pyre Zombies because I couldn't for the life of me hold any large stack near the front lines without waves of suicidal Pyre Zombie blowing up on my stack. I didn't have Life 3 that game due to my horsehockey starting position, half of it in the sea and me being cutted off in the north by the Luchirp and Basium with my only way to expand in the Hippus territory.

I found putting Longbowmen in pairs could effectively cut down the Pyre Zombies and the logistics of my opponent having to move all of his troops up north gave me the upper hand as he pushed further into my territory. Luckily, between the sea and the mountain, was a thin pass where I could hold off the hordes of Pyre Zombie with fake Alazkans, Longbowmen, and Assassin raids that could move up quickly kill something and run back.

Anyways, the whole point is, even on the defense I was having trouble. Yet, I need to be able to beat Pyre Zombie spam while being on the offense. Are there any other stratergies other than Destroy Undead spam? I can see spamming Mages with Life 2 to destroy the blobs of Pyre Zombies.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You know, the Svartalfar may have an advantage against pyre zombies in that they can use their illusionary summons against them to bring them down to a level where 1 use of Destroy Undead will surely kill them, without any risk of actually killing one prematurely and triggering an explosion.



Pyre Zombies's explosions can deal lethal amounts of damage, but it is all fire damage. That means that the Magic Resistance and Fire Resistance promotions could reduce the amount to non-lethal levels and Fire Immunity (which is included in Magic Immunity, which the Four Horsemen, Dragons, and the Luonnatar have) would completely negate it.

 

[lordrune]

Pyre Zombies's explosions can deal lethal amounts of damage, but it is all fire damage. That means that the Magic Resistance and Fire Resistance promotions could reduce the amount to non-lethal levels and Fire Immunity (which is included in Magic Immunity, which the Four Horsemen, Dragons, and the Luonnatar have) would completely negate it.

I've used fire resistance myself. It's probably not the optimal way to deal with pyre zombies, but it's effective. The units more or less shrug off the damage from the explosions. Biggest issue is needing combat 3 IIRC to access the resistances, and having to spend two promotions on something that's situational.

 

[phoulishwan]

I believe Stygian guards get a +50% innate fire resistance, couple this with the fact they are immune to death damage and they're about the most effective unit to counter Pyre-Zombies, although considering you don't get them until fanaticism you still need something to hold you over until you can get to them...and Drown get an innate fire penalty ;(

 

[Grey Fox]

Using mages with Stoneskin and magic resistance or fire resistance could be good.

 

[Sarisin]

I never play them, but wouldn't the Clan be unaffected by the fire explosions too with their units?

Yeah, one thing I learned the hard way playing the Sheaim is that the Pyre Zombies have zero effect on Acheron or the Four Horsemen.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

They would have 20% resistance to the explosion, which might mean it is never lethal but still damaging. Angels and Demons have the same level of resistance.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Played a game where Os-gaballa must have hutted bronze working. My Warrior rush ran into Pyre Zombies. I still took two cities, but later on she counter attacked and took them back, because, really, what the heck are warriors gonna do against PZ's?