Orcs on the March thread

[atlatea]

I think it's somewhat random, sometimes tekron is the hardest, especially the dragon hero.

And 2x cast is mage greatest weapon, there are several option to deal with shamans.

Without very high int, i usually get a fast and high initiative unit (like green dragon or red dragon or horsemen or unicorn or orc veteran), stone skin lv 3 and target lv 3. Archmage is also needed in some cases, you can also add divine armor, but stone skin 3 + magic shield usually suffice.

Just cast stone skin lv 3 + target lv 3 on the dragons or horsemen, then charge them off to those shamans, then archmage cast magic shield. They won't even have a chance to do their magic axe or anything that is astral attack.

[jake21]

Not sure in previous plays Dersu hasn't been quite so bad but since I just picked up the map I think I will head there soon. This is one slow game (in game days) but we shall see what happens. At level 27 my int is only 21

Originally Posted by Metathron

Wouldn't Dersu be the most difficult of the three with all those shaman?

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by atlatea

I think it's somewhat random, sometimes tekron is the hardest, especially the dragon hero.

And 2x cast is mage greatest weapon, there are several option to deal with shamans.

Without very high int, i usually get a fast and high initiative unit (like green dragon or red dragon or horsemen or unicorn or orc veteran), stone skin lv 3 and target lv 3. Archmage is also needed in some cases, you can also add divine armor, but stone skin 3 + magic shield usually suffice.

Just cast stone skin lv 3 + target lv 3 on the dragons or horsemen, then charge them off to those shamans, then archmage cast magic shield. They won't even have a chance to do their magic axe or anything that is astral attack.

Or, summon something near them (Call of Nature, Demonologists, etc...) and cast Target on it.

Or, use Mass Magic Shackle. (I know, this doesn't work in Impossible games).

Or just blind/Sheep them. Not sure whether you can cast two Blind spells in one round with High Magic, though.

Shaman/Blood Shaman's greatest vulnerability is that they have absolutely no resistances or immunities. Heck, Hypnotizing them would work too, after you dwindle their numbers down.

[atlatea]

Yup those also work, though it depends on the difficulty. Yes, there is something that must be considered further.

It will certainly work in normal, i don't know about hard, and to my knowledge it won't work in impossible i mean it is not 100% guaranteed to work, except the blind/sheep (this one work 100% on any difficulty).

Because all form of summons won't last more than 1 round (even ancient phoenix with 70 int, and note that you can't cast target on phoenix) forcing your mage to summon and cast target again, this means that your only option to win is 100% by your units which is not mage greatest strengh and it leave you to waste your mana and 2x cast every turn to do just summon and target.

No mage can win with that kind of situation.

Also don't forget that by using unit's summon abilities you must consider your summoner unit initiative vs shaman initiative, which usually almost the same, and this means after your summoner unit summon a unit your unit will be slaughtered by those shamans (astral attack, power of horde or dancing axe, etc).

And if you succeed casting target on that summon before those shamans act, you must remember that mage leadership is the lowest, thus this means that the unit summoned by mage's summoner unit (demonologist, druid, etc) will be the lower in number than warrior and paladin, this means that it won't last more than 2 rounds againts all the assault from enemy army, heck i even doubt if it can last more than 1 round without more back up like archmage magic shield, stone skin or things like that.

Because unit summoned by summoner unit usually has less than half the staying power of the summoner itself (compare the leadership and do the math), means that if the summoner won't last more than 2 rounds againts all the assault then the summoned unit won't last than 1 round. And some summoned unit will appear at random location (like the one summoned by demonologist).

However it can work if you have very good resistance artifacts, depends on the enemy units. So that your summoned unit can last much longer than 1 round.

It just depends on the difficulty, some method will not work on all difficulty and all kind of situation, yet some will.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by atlatea

Yup those also work, though it depends on the difficulty. Yes, there is something that must be considered further.

It will certainly work in normal, i don't know about hard, and to my knowledge it won't work in impossible i mean it is not 100% guaranteed to work, except the blind/sheep (this one work 100% on any difficulty).

Because all form of summons won't last more than 1 round (even ancient phoenix with 70 int, and note that you can't cast target on phoenix) forcing your mage to summon and cast target again, this means that your only option to win is 100% by your units which is not mage greatest strengh and it leave you to waste your mana and 2x cast every turn to do just summon and target.

No mage can win with that kind of situation.

Also don't forget that by using unit's summon abilities you must consider your summoner unit initiative vs shaman initiative, which usually almost the same, and this means after your summoner unit summon a unit your unit will be slaughtered by those shamans (astral attack, power of horde or dancing axe, etc).

And if you succeed casting target on that summon before those shamans act, you must remember that mage leadership is the lowest, thus this means that the unit summoned by mage's summoner unit (demonologist, druid, etc) will be the lower in number than warrior and paladin, this means that it won't last more than 2 rounds againts all the assault from enemy army, heck i even doubt if it can last more than 1 round without more back up like archmage magic shield, stone skin or things like that.

Because unit summoned by summoner unit usually has less than half the staying power of the summoner itself (compare the leadership and do the math), means that if the summoner won't last more than 2 rounds againts all the assault then the summoned unit won't last than 1 round. And some summoned unit will appear at random location (like the one summoned by demonologist).

However it can work if you have very good resistance artifacts, depends on the enemy units. So that your summoned unit can last much longer than 1 round.

It just depends on the difficulty, some method will not work on all difficulty and all kind of situation, yet some will.

As someone who has specifically worked with leadership style mages with summons, it is sort of a mixed bag against orcs.

You are absolutely correct in that your summons will not last long, and this is usually somewhat OK for non-orc armies.

The danger with orc is due to the way adrenaline works, you end up feeding the enemy with MORE adrenaline.

I would normally move a fast moving unit nearby, then do Pygmy + Ancient Phoenix.

If your Phoenix dies in the first round, you just ended up feeding them a lot of adrenaline. After reviving, the Phoenix will probably die again fairly soon unless you do significant damage with the first hit and counter hit (if it survives).

I suppose not so bad if you got dryads or something, but then you are thrown between re-summoning, disabling deadly orc units, or de-buffing orc units to kill (Pygmy).

Call of Nature is particularly weak especially for the mana. I might have to look into it again though.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

See, this is what totally, pisses me off about Goblin Sharmans. A stack of 17 of them dished out 3 lots of 478 damage in one turn = over 1200 damage Absolute joke!

Oh and hi guys

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

lvl 18 doing a no loss run with mage. I've been playing this game for years but i'm totally stuck here. I get annoyed with myself really. The resources just AREN'T THERE

I suck at using a Mage maybe. My intellect is 32 and fire arrow does 1000 dmg and as I only have 55 mana it's all I can do early doors. Obviously enemy armies are far too vast so i'm just...

ugh i'm boring myself now.

stupid game

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Kings Bounty Hunter

lvl 18 doing a no loss run with mage. I've been playing this game for years but i'm totally stuck here. I get annoyed with myself really. The resources just AREN'T THERE

I suck at using a Mage maybe. My intellect is 32 and fire arrow does 1000 dmg and as I only have 55 mana it's all I can do early doors. Obviously enemy armies are far too vast so i'm just...

ugh i'm boring myself now.

stupid game

After the new Crossworlds 1.31 patch, I had a relatively smooth time as a Summoner mage.

I go for Ancient Phoenix LVL3 asap, get enough transmute stuffs and mana so I can also cast Dragon of Chaos LVL3. I also use rune mages and dragons.

I have been using them together to steam roll a lot. Up to around level 49 now. Mostly no-loss (lost some dryads against shenobi), and wanted to go for a faster time, so I couldn't really avoid it. (If I went solo black knights, maybe I could have done it).

I don't suggest going for damage mages unless you have a clear way in winning initiative and hiding your unit (ala invisibility) and have methods to restore the mana (that's why some go emerald green dragons).

I probably have casted flame arrow like 5 times. Haha.

[Mandea]

The new patch has a very nice feature, albeit they don't tell it officially. Now you can find complet sets of items relatively easy. I've already found 7-8 sets and I have 3-4 about to be completed. I guess they did something with the random generator tweaked it to have more chance to complet sets. wonderful

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Mandea

The new patch has a very nice feature, albeit they don't tell it officially. Now you can find complet sets of items relatively easy. I've already found 7-8 sets and I have 3-4 about to be completed. I guess they did something with the random generator tweaked it to have more chance to complet sets. wonderful

Hm, I just tried it (albeit only one round) and didn't seem to find anything too out of the ordinary.

You might have just been really lucky.

As of yet, I have never been able to complete the Madman Set, Knight Set, and Scale Set.

The other sets are either really common, or too junky for me to mention. I really wanted to see if I could pull off like 2 Belts of the Victors or something.

I'm really interested in pulling off the Madman Set, although perhaps one could argue it is sort of junky anyway. Haha.