Who here has killed acheron lately?

Inkling

Warlord
Joined
Oct 17, 2007
Messages
182
about turn 220, i just killed the sheaim and rested up my army, i knew the dragon horde was nearby cause several of my new conquests were completely enveloped by barbarian culture, i thought i would take my veterans and go wipe out acheron since the bulk of my army was sitting right there. Should have been more than enough to deal with the beast.

Bam, eight fire elementals show up, fortunately just out of reach of attacking any of my cities or armies. I look around and locate the dragon sitting on 8 sons of bit... wait, thats not right, sons of something anyway. all spawning heavily promoted very powerful fire elementals with 30 percent collaterial damage. They were going to get atleast 2 turns worth of pain on any army i sent after them, who would then be faced with the task of felling the sons, and mundane defenders, plus the wee little dragon.

My first thought was maelstrom, since i knew everyone had fire resistence so the fireballs would be a waste. 3 mages did a whoppin 14 percent combined damage max to one guy(most guys were hit for around 6-8 tops) so they appear to be sporting some serious magic resistence, so that didn't look like it was going to work, they'd be rested by the next turn while fire elementals slammed into me

I hurled a couple of fireballs for fun. basically accomplished nothing.

I thought about catapults, but at one move, that gauranteed 2 turns of pain would be more like 5.

I didn't have any good summons.(and no summoner trait), or the free promotions to get them, that might have done some good.

I was at a loss. anything i sent was going to be slaughtered before it ever reached acherons front porch to fight. And it was going to be so bad that sending in a hero or heavily promoted guy would practically gaurantee his loss. It was looking like overwhelming numbers of throw-away green recruits was my only real option.

Thankfully for me, the amurites hadn't used their world spell yet, and cast it right then, i was able to rush about a half dozen catapults into production with the few existing i had, and use the 20 turns to station a massive army one tile away without worrying about the elementals, taking him and his whole family out just before the world spell ended, still with heavy losses, but no where near the massacre i was looking at.

This is not about whether acheron is too powerful now, rather i'm looking for hints and tips on how to deal with him. As i got lucky. It would have taken a long time to build up a sufficient throw-away army or raise some descent summoners, and i'm still not sure that would have worked too well.

Anybody got a tactic or two i overlooked, something that worked for you.
 
I don't know for sure, but I suspect that Disciples of Acheron may be upgrading to Sons of the Inferno too soon. I would have expected the upgrade to take place around the time Sorcery is being researched (perhaps when the barbarians get that tech, for example), but instead the upgrade is happening before I even get to Bronze Working. That certainly keeps me away from Acheron's city, but makes me wonder why Acheron isn't taking over the world.
 
The Luchiurp, they can kill him before SoI appear. I do suspect that disciples are upgrading too soon, they seem to appear really early. Even when I killed him with golemns it was only because he only had one disciple.

I'm humming and hawing about how to get in to kill him with 8 fire elements being thrown every turn myself. I was thinking cavalry archer rush, but that would take quite a lot of :hammers:

He sure is more interesting now, I've got to give him that.
 
Shadows (as they are invisible) and assassins with mobility (as they are out of reach of the fire elementals) should be a good way to go. After you have slaughtered through his shocktroops at some point you should be able to kill the sons of inferno.
The absolute best possibility should be chanters as they can attack the shocktroops and then retreat to their capital and thus are out of reach of fire elementals.
 
Shadows (as they are invisible) and assassins with mobility (as they are out of reach of the fire elementals) should be a good way to go.

In one game recently I had four shadows with 50-90 xp, so I had a look at the dragon's city after fireballing down the defences. The best of the shadows, with sheut stone, with othus' axe, with an extra +item from a Buboes or Stephanos, still only had an 90% or chance of winning against the weakest one. That doesn't sound so bad but there were a stack of those inferno guys in the city and I didn't feel like throwing away those irreplacable (in xp terms) units just to get a shot at the dragon.

I'm not sure why those Inferno guys are there really. Nice idea but I can't see how they improve the game. The dragon is meant to be more fearsome than his henchmen.
 
I shamelessly WBed him and his hoard out of existence when he spawned three tiles from my second city on turn 120, but I don't think that counts.
 
The inferno guys are there because as it was before, Acheron being near you merely meant that you couldn't settle nearby (because of his culture). Other than that though, he was little more than a minor roadblock. You could still move through his territory with ease, etc. Now however, there is true area denial for the area that acheron's city is - if acheron appears, you don't go there, or else.

-Colin
 
The inferno guys are there because as it was before, Acheron being near you merely meant that you couldn't settle nearby (because of his culture). Other than that though, he was little more than a minor roadblock. You could still move through his territory with ease, etc

I actually liked that aspect. Couldn't the dragon have just done a pillar of flame each turn? The land becomes dangerous but at least you can travel through.

Now however, there is true area denial for the area that acheron's city is - if acheron appears, you don't go there, or else.

So how does that improve gameplay? You might as well put mountains over all those city squares. If all you do is stay out of the dragon's lands then that's not interesting as there's no interraction.
 
I actually liked that aspect. Couldn't the dragon have just done a pillar of flame each turn? The land becomes dangerous but at least you can travel through.

He used to have a ranged fire breath attack. I assume it was taken away back when the AI sucked at spellcasting.

So how does that improve gameplay? You might as well put mountains over all those city squares. If all you do is stay out of the dragon's lands then that's not interesting as there's no interraction.

Did you seriously just suggest that a large impassible mountain range is just as fun as a dangerous, burning region infested with orcs and ruled over by an ancient red dragon who presides over a cult of fire mages who protect their master's land from interlopers with mighty fire elemental servants? Do you even like sword & sorcery fantasy? Why are you playing this mod?

The Sons of Acheron are fine, they just need a much higher cap on when they are allowed to upgrade. When the barbarians acquire sorcery sounds good. Do they get a tech when 2/3 of the civs have it, or is it half? Either way, they don't need to be able to cast fire elemental until potential conquerors have access to at least mages. A unit cap on them might be appropriate as well. Max 6? Are the barbarians even effected by national unit caps? And since the AI can be trusted with spells now, howz about we give Acheron himself the ability to cast fireball?
 
The question remains: How does one efficiently kill Acheron?

The Elves are no good at it; believe me. The last army I sent east to the burning lands never returned - they were good fighters too. For Elves anyway.

I've killed the Red Dragon from time to time. Of course, probably everyone eventually kills him given enough troops. I haven't done it except with all sorts of magicks and stacks o' troops.

But mostly I leave Big Red alone.
 
I haven't found a way to kill him after he gets Sons of the Inferno. It's somewhat ironic that those SoI are more dangerous than the dragon they worship himself. Can't take them out with area damage(they're insanely resistant to spells like Malstrom and especially Ring of Fire), can't use summons against them (You have a unit cap of Most civs will only have 4 Archmages. Some civ/religions combos can get 10, while I've seen 12 Sons of the Inferno in a simple stack.) Can't assassin them(Combat V, Drill II?!?!?)
 
He used to have a ranged fire breath attack. I assume it was taken away back when the AI sucked at spellcasting.

I believe he still does, actually... The problem is Held units are not allowed to cast spells, and Acheron is held.

In RifE, we don't have Sons of the Inferno (though I like the idea and will likely add them); Instead, Acheron himself is able to move and attack. He's leashed to his city; Unable to move more than 2 plots away from it. In the team version, I've moved that mechanic from python (well, being turned ON in python; actual leash and checking if it can move is in the DLL) to Promotions. As well as a lot of tweaks to make it work better (Get stranded outside the leash range? You're allowed to move back towards it, or to a plot of the same distance; Can't get farther away), we can now change leash range easily. Acheron will have a base range of 2, but actual range will vary.... Not a good place to be. ;)
 
On the massable summoning front you have....

Law 2: Host of ein-blah-blah 3 + 2 Holy, fire resistence(20)

Entropy 2: Pit Beasts 4 + 1 unholy, has fire resistence(20)

Death 1: skeletons, 2 + 1 Death

Death 2: Spectre 3 + 1 Death Affinity.


Against
Sons of the Inferno 5 + 3 Fire + fortified in city + promotions
Fire Elementals 6 + 3 Fire + 1 Fire Affinity + caster empowerments

if you followed the massable summons up with archmages/liches/heroes, went all in on death mana... but the real problem is you have to cut through the dragon first before you can take out the sons, he is stoneskin + magic immune + lots a strength + fortified in a city + promotions + massive experience from killing all this crap you are hurling at him when you don't succeed in killing him.... By my reckoning thats an awful lot of mages even with summoner for an 8-12 stack of SoI + mundanes and the wee little dragon. strikes me like brigit, one of the those "you already won/boredom" things.
 
Use an Archmage with Domination to Dominate them, then a recon unit with Sudbue Besat to capture Archeron.
 
You might need more than one Archmage, or lots of expendable defenders. The number of SoIs quickly becomes too many to fit in the units list (something like 20+). Thats a lot of turns to sit next to a city raining Fire Elementals (20+ at a time, initially) on your head.
 
Did you seriously just suggest that a large impassible mountain range is just as fun as a dangerous, burning region infested with orcs and ruled over by an ancient red dragon who presides over a cult of fire mages who protect their master's land from interlopers with mighty fire elemental servants? Do you even like sword & sorcery fantasy? Why are you playing this mod?

There could be Marilyn Monroe in that city singing boo boop be doop but if you never go there and never interact with the place then it might as well be a mountain range.
 
There could be Marilyn Monroe in that city singing boo boop be doop but if you never go there and never interact with the place then it might as well be a mountain range.

If Marilyn Monroe were there, I think many of us would want to 'interact'. :)

Best wishes,

Breunor
 
Okay. Twenty Sons of Inferno that's overkill. It really should be limited to a certain amount of units.
 
I had thought that sons of the inferno were limited to like 6-8. More than that is however rather ridiculous, and that shouldn't be there. Admittedly, had I wanted to, playing as the khazid I can be marching with a stack of 100+ champions not too long after I have iron working, and even with 20 fire elementals I could probably take the city, but it would cost me most of my army and not really get me anything special.

Therefore, there are two ways this could be balanced. First, you can reduce the number of sons of the inferno (not a bad idea), or Second, you can increase the rewards of taking it. This could be done through giving the dragons horde also provide +1 enchantment mana, +1-2 happiness to all cities and possibly other bonuses as well. Make it worth it for me to waste my massive stack of doom that will take 20+ turns to rebuild if I focus on just that to remove his fiery holiness from existence.

-Colin
 
This brings up a game I had. Was the Illians, who I got three cities out before acheron spawned and blocked me from anymore. Was on deity diff, so there was about 20 SOA at turn 150!. I met the next civ around turn 300, By Alexis, who had vassaled every other civ in the game but me. I had to beeline Omniscience and get AA out just to kill about 80 SOA by then. (Lucky there was a mountain near by.) Of coarse, I was at war with Alexis and her vassals, Whose SOD of about 500 units was killed by AA snowfall.
And I won that.
 
Top Bottom