Unit Spam by the Clan

[rvarnell]

I'm in the late game with a large map & only have one opponent left - Jonas Endain. This was an increasing difficulty game & we've been in deity level for hundreds of turns.

On my side I'm the Kazad. My vassals are Decius of the Calabim (3 cities left); Cassiel (2 cities left - the Clan owns the rest); Minister Koun (~8 cities left - they are an offshoot of the Bannor); and Captain Ostanes (ruler of a 3 city island that I colonized). I'd estimate that collectively we have 200 to 300 units total & about half of the available landmass.

I can only see about 5% of Jonas Endain's territory. In that territory I count 2136 land units and 5 ships in multiple stacks. Most of them appear to be highly promoted. Lord only knows how many more units he's got wandering around his territory. Each turn takes 5 to 10 minutes for the computer to process his moves. The game has also crashed a couple times (WOC error). I have no idea how I'm going to beat this civ but will enjoy trying. If I can it will be because of Crush (awesome Dwarven Druid spell for the uninitiated) & because most of the units are not ogres. If anyone is still reading the breakdown of the Clan's units is:

Assassin - 466
Beastmaster - 4
Lizardman - 1
Ranger - 57
Shadow - 4
Archer - 2
Longbowman - 761
Marksman - 1
Chariot - 310
Wolf Rider - 3
Axman - 2
Berserker - 3
Ogre - 136
Diseased Corpses - 151
Stoneskin Ogre - 4
Skeleton - 19
Warrior - 1
Catapult - 150
Shaman - 3
Eidolon - 3
Profane - 1
Mardero - 1
Ritualist - 49
Beast of Agares - 4

 

[Jarrema]

wow, what an amount of assassins! and of course, of units in general
Your machine should feel lucky that Jonas is not follower of Fellowship of Leaves and do not spam priests

 

[Pickly]

That's pretty typical of the clan. (Assuming you're new to fighting the clan like this. Or, any time, really. )

If you're looking for advice, a unit with some sort of cannibalize like ability is really useful. (I forget whether any other heal after combat units exist in base FfH), plus some AoE to knock them down a bit. Otherwise, the usual lots of summons, blinding flash like spells, stack damage spells, etc. are always useful. Either way, good luck with whatever you do.

 

[JonathanStrange]

I wish I could offer specific useful advice - not that you're asking - but I've no particular tips anyway. It's fortunate that our AI challengers generally don't think about the wrath that's about to set down on them: they often just employ their "Let's invite all our Assassins to the City and hang out" strategy while we slowly grind 'em down. Most of the time...

Funny they don't have more Ritualists though; at one time the Clan loved Ritualists.

Guess I've been playing the game too long.

 

[rvarnell]

JS - I assume that they have more Ritualists, but the game keeps crashing. I'll attack a giant stack - almost 900 longbows along with another ~1000 to ~1200 units and the game freezes. When I hit it with 4 crush spells and Arthendain's "Kill Undead" spell (whatever its real name is) I can kill almost 200 units. But the game freezes immediately thereafter. So now I'm trying to delete some units so I can kill the rest. Wish me luck.

 

[Pickly]

I wish I could offer specific useful advice - not that you're asking - but I've no particular tips anyway. It's fortunate that our AI challengers generally don't think about the wrath that's about to set down on them: they often just employ their "Let's invite all our Assassins to the City and hang out" strategy while we slowly grind 'em down. Most of the time...

Funny they don't have more Ritualists though; at one time the Clan loved Ritualists.

Guess I've been playing the game too long.

Mentioning Assassins and Ritualists threw me a bit, thought of Guild Wars for a second.


So, how did the stack fight go with some units deleted?

 

[rvarnell]

I ended up with a domination victory. Destroyed his front line troops, then sped in to take cities as quickly as possible. Also settled a large island to put me over the top. Ended up killing 100+ ogres, 400+ assassins, 200+ diseased corpses, 1000+ Clan longbows, and a large hodge podge of other units. Accomplished that by crushing stacks with dwarven druids, then freezing them with myconid dust. And then attacking those crippled, frozen stacks with lots and lots of blitz promoted chariots, hornguard, and melee units. Sometimes with a haste spell on. After a few turns of that the game sped up from turns taking over an hour to turns taking a minute or two.

 

[Rhymes]

I ended up with a domination victory. Destroyed his front line troops, then sped in to take cities as quickly as possible. Also settled a large island to put me over the top. Ended up killing 100+ ogres, 400+ assassins, 200+ diseased corpses, 1000+ Clan longbows, and a large hodge podge of other units. Accomplished that by crushing stacks with dwarven druids, then freezing them with myconid dust. And then attacking those crippled, frozen stacks with lots and lots of blitz promoted chariots, hornguard, and melee units. Sometimes with a haste spell on. After a few turns of that the game sped up from turns taking over an hour to turns taking a minute or two.

Holy *** how many hours did it take?

 

[rvarnell]

A while. The biggest thing was the turn speed. I'd do a turn and then go do something & then come back an hour to two (or five) later.

But whittling his front line troops down was quicker than you'd think. I had 35 to 40 chariots with blitz. Each chariot with blitz can kill 3 crippled enemy units - so 105 to 120 each turn. If the chariot has been promoted to mobility 2 & with a haste spell, each one can kill 6 enemy units each turn (210 to 240 each turn). That doesn't count all the other blitz promoted heros, melee units, & other units that I was using to take out his guys.

Blitz is the most important promotion in the game in my opinion. Its the great equalizer. Second most important is march.

 

[Tasunke]

Yep, best promo is blitz. and then March, and then cannibalize.

In smaller incursions though, March dominates.

 

[rvarnell]

I like cannibalize, but the only way to get it on a non-Lich unit is with a mutate (chaos 2) spell, on Aeron's chosen (slightly different form), or just randomly if you have chaos mana or are the clowns (w/ freaks). As the Kazad, I didn't have access to chaos 2 b/c they don't get mages. So no cannibalize.

As a side note, with the Balseraths I build lots of Freaks in the hopes that I'll get good mutations. With other races I'll build two or three mages & have them cast mutate on units created by my main military production cities. The ones with good mutations end up in my blitz production queue - they get promoted up the drill line (assuming they survive with just drill 1/2) to blitz, then the combat line. Some of them may eventually be added to flesh golems, which will also get early to mid game religious heroes (great way to retain those promotions when you are religion hopping).

The ones with OK to bad mutations get promoted up the march line (combat 3, then march, then whatever) until they die, get used to spread religion/temples (disciple units), get used in freak or animal shows, or get city garrison promotions.

Promotions I consider good include blitz, march, cannibalize, strong, light, and heroic attack/defense.

OK promotions are everything else that doesn’t detract from a unit.

Bad promotions are those like Weak, that detract & don’t offer any good counterbalance (like Light does).

 

[Tasunke]

yea, building Freaks + Casting Arena (on the ones without good promotions) is a nice gig. Takes time though ... and not always possible in an MP game.

I especially like Cannibalize on Horsemen + Horse Archers ^_^

 

[DaveGold]

I would have warned you about the war weariness, but it seems like it wasn't a probably for you.

 

[cypher132]

If I was in your position, I'd likely have been run over due to the sheer size of their army. It is something to be expected from the Clan, though.

 

[xalien]

1. adopt AV
2. build diseased corpses, promote them with cannibalism
3. upgrade them to eidolons, add fear
4. profit

 

[rvarnell]

I had no idea that diseased corpses could be upgraded into anything. I typically don't stay in AV or pursue that religious path often. I'll have to check that out in the future.

 

[xalien]

Alternatively, you could also mutate warriors to get them cannibalism (and other cool promotions if you get a good dice roll) and follow the typical warrior->axe->champion->eidolon/paladin upgrade path. Don't forget to add a guardsman as either additional unit or as a promotion before the upgrade.

 

[Annex]

Damn man, how do you play with turns that take that long? If i get turns up to 20 seconds I start to get antsy.