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I really like that Wailer concept art, a unit based on The Scream is an awesome idea. They're doing a great job making unique undead units for the Necromancer. This upcoming expansion pack is looking amazing so far, I hope it sells well and they get to make more.
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Nov 22, 2014 00:55
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Ah the undead are so great.  So madmac, whats the class you got your eye on next?
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Nov 22, 2014 02:47
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Thyrork posted:Ah the undead are so great. Tossup between Sorcerer and Warlord. Sorcerer is almost too easy to bother talking about, (Use magic, win!) whereas Warlord is complicated and I'm not fantastic with them. Probably will end up being Warlord, I'm trying to fit in a bit of practice here and there.
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Nov 22, 2014 04:59
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Oh mang, the Necromancer stuff looks  . Can't wait to get my hands on them.a!n posted:Throwing around these numbers means nothing if you don't also take into account the optimal ratio of force you can absorb determined by the angle you hold the polearm at (which is further limited because you actually have to aim it properly) and the range covered. Since you also must consider where the weapon is gripped I'm not sure this is trivial. Assuming there is no meaningful loss of force on impact seems reasonable, though and should make matters easier. This is the kind of a guy who'll happily write a whole actual book of pretentious pseudo-bushido bullshit about proper stances and the like for LARP boffer swords (twat the other guy with the foam bat, have fun). Clearly some people just have nothing better to do with their lives.
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Nov 22, 2014 05:41
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Gyshall posted:+1 for sending Gerblyn & co a booze and drug care package Yes. What's the preferred poison of the team Gerblyn? Or something you want to try just to say you did, something you can't get there just by walking across the street. Tennessee Bourbon? Something truly revolting like tequila?
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Nov 22, 2014 09:22
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Carnalfex posted:Yes. What's the preferred poison of the team Gerblyn? Or something you want to try just to say you did, something you can't get there just by walking across the street. Tennessee Bourbon? Something truly revolting like tequila? If you guys want to send us strange and exotic alcohols from around the world, I'm not gonna complain! In fact, I think it would be awesome  Drake_263 posted:This is the kind of a guy who'll happily write a whole actual book of pretentious pseudo-bushido bullshit about proper stances and the like for LARP boffer swords (twat the other guy with the foam bat, have fun). Clearly some people just have nothing better to do with their lives. I actually think it's kind of cool that people care enough about the game to put this much effort into it. The beta forum does it all the time, we were talking about Musketeers and the conversation turned into an in-depth discussion about pike and shot tactics in the 17th century. The bigger issue from my point of view is that things that are realistic lore wise would likely be horrible in terms of game-play. Imagine if the dreadnaught had a class unit progression that mirrored when the weapons were developed historically: Engineer - Cannon - Musketeer - Flame Tank - Juggernaut - Spy Drone - Golem We'd have to make the Spy-Drone like a Predator drone and the Golem a Gundam that... Ok, fine it would be awesome.
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Nov 22, 2014 10:54
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Oh fine, Warlord wins just because it's more fun to talk about. Warlords: You Can't Build a Throne of Skulls in just One Day. Warlords! Warlords are pretty awesome. Also frustrating. Playing Warlord has a lot of drawbacks. Your magic is very limited and weaker then other classes. (No Damage Spells, no Summons...) Your scouting is the worst, overall strategic movement and healing is...not Dread bad, but not precisely a strength, either. All of your units do physical damage, and most of them wouldn't know how to resist a spell if they graduated with valedictorian honors from the University of Stop loving Getting Mind Controlled, rear end in a top hat. (UofSFGMCA) However, the Warlords strengths are equally immense. Sure, you're a slow starter. Got to putter around a while before Spartan Mode kicks in, but once your War Machine is in full gear you are nearly unstoppable. The Warlord has the strongest economy, the second fastest production, the strongest units. The Ultimate Warlord ability is farting out discounted units that are twice as good as their exact equivalents led by other class. Every man a Champion, and every unit an army. Sheer power, numbers, and unbreakable will brute-forcing their way through all the enemies cowardly tricks and defenses, that's the Warlord path in a nutshell. One of the really cool things about Warlords is that they have such a huge and varied roster of powerful units, and so many upgrades making even vanilla racial units ridiculous, is that you have an unmatched depth of options for army building. Every single Warlord Class Unit is powerful enough to build entire strategies around, and no other class can take advantage of the new treasure site system the way Warlords can. In particular be always looking out for Focus Chambers and Pillars of Styrites, because non-physical damage is a precious, precious, thing. Normally I jump right into class units, but more then anything else Warlord is about the Empire Upgrades. Nobody, not even Dreadnaught, gets better passive researches to make everything awesome forever. The Core 4 techs that every Warlords needs are Training Regimen, for the mind-boggling 20% gold discount on all military units as a Tier 1 research, War Effort, giving you +10 gold per city, Martial Arts Training, because why not make loving everyone an invincible Kung-fu Master in melee, and Thoroughbred Mounts for the +15 HPs to everything hitching a ride on another thing. Individually these are incredible upgrades. Combined, they're just ridiculous. These upgrades are why you play Warlord, basically. Everything else is just icing. There's a couple more situational upgrades you should only get to make space in your research book or because whatever, man. Conquerer gives all your units +50% XP gain. This is really nice but it overlaps somewhat with your Ultimate Spell and is not quite good enough to go out of your way for. Garrison Honor Buffs up the home team, with +Def if they're hiding behind walls or +Melee if they're fighting in the open. Quite nice to have, but not really a game-changer in the long run. Warrior Culture Two nice little effects in one bundle. The faster Migration Time is the more important bonus because it rewards aggressive play and lets you roll over enemy cities that much faster. In terms of Class Units, Racial Choice is more important to Warlord then any other class. Not just because the racial mods affect every single unit you build, but because your very first class unit is effectively your starting irregular. Raise Militia and You, a Warlords Story Raise Militia is a vitally important spell. You don't have any upgrades, you don't have other cool spells or class units or loving anything going for you at the start of the game except this. Pick a race with good irregular units and cast this spell on your Throne every turn until you finally have some momentum going for you. Use irregulars to scout. Use Irregulars as cannon fodder to cushion your armies or guard your city, or no seriously use them to scout. Spam Raise Militia and get a scout going in every possible direction so you have at least a vague idea what the map looks like. There is nothing worse then playing the game blind. Later in the game, Raise Militia continues to pay for itself in all kinds of situations. There's nothing quite like taking an outpost and immediately training a couple milita to guard the stupid dump instead of waiting 9 turns for the inbred hicks to figure out how to tie rocks unto sticks. Bersekers Berserkers have the best flavor text. This needs to be said. They're also cool just because they're basically a melding of the two most awesome T1 melee units in SM-The (shirtless) Dwarven Berseker two-fisting axes and the (Shirtless) Nomad Barbarian doing his best Conan impression. Never underestimate the unbridled power of an angry man who doesn't own any shirts. Now Berserkers are very good. As are Monster Hunters. Both units are Tier 2 and available around the same time so your first important choice as a Warlord is deciding which of the two you want to go with as they have completely different roles and mixing the two just slows down your start even further. The main strength of going Berserkers is that almost no other player is going to be able to stand up well against Berserkers early in the game, and you can build them almost from the start. They're tough, fast, hit like trucks, shake off mind control, and climb walls. Berserkers are an aggressive unit choice. In the long run they remain a good, cost-effective melee unit but their main strength is aggressive play and crushing Tier 1 racial units. In particular, Dwarf Berserkers with projectile resistance are crazy good. Unfortunately, Warlord Scouting is not amazing and that limits your rushing potential so I would generally advise focusing on the next unit in line... Monster Hunters Monster Hunters don't get nearly enough love. I would honestly build these guys just for style points but they're actually amazing units besides. Compared to Berserkers, they give up a little melee strength in exchange for better Def/Res, a solid ranged attack, swimming, 20% resist to three elements, and a whole raft of slayer abilities. Monster Hunters are the best scouts you have as Warlord, and they have the added benefit of absolutely crushing every other classes scouts if they run into them. Additionally, they are IMO one of the best clearing units in the entire game. Their Slayer abilities eventually encompass almost every type of neutral unit, (Elemental Slayer would be nice given system changes) and being able to freely swap between ranged and melee attacks just lets them trivialize most creeping fights in a way that isn't apparent until you've tried it. They also level up very quickly and eventually get throw net, upping their versatility even more. Also, they serve an important secondary role of being an excellent counter to early Sorcerer/Druid expansion, as their animal/summon slayer abilities make them very cost-effective in simply murdering most Tier 1 or Tier 2 summoned units. While they may not be intuitive choices, Goblin Monster Hunters are arguably the best, giving up -5 HPs for lowered cost, +4 Blight Damage on Ranged Attacks and massive Blight Resistance to go with their inherent Fire/Frost/Shock Protection. Halfling Hunters with +1 Ranged and Lucky aren't half bad either. That said, the main drawback of Monster Hunters is that they come out quite a bit later then other scouts, meaning they always start behind, and they're atrocious at taking cities. Between no Wall Climbing, a Ranged Attack that does zip damage through walls, and probably no Slayer bonuses, they're seriously garbage at taking the offensive. Let your Monster Hunters roam free and never make them set foot in a city unless they're defending it. Mounted Archer Every Warlord Class Unit is the best unit, but Mounted Archers are the Best-Best unit. They are quite simply the strongest archers in the game. Druid Hunters come closest and have some unique advantages, but late-game Mounted Archers with the full raft of Warlord techs are just absurd. Cheap, Good HPs, Good Movement, Awesome Ranged Damage, Martial Arts, Sprint, Projectile Resist at gold...You can and should be building Mounted Archers the entire game. They're such an insanely good unit that even the non-elf versions are great and worth using (Halflings Especially) though of course Longbow Mounted Archers reign supreme. Mounted Archers are so good you can even take cities with them, and what else can I say really? Phalanx The Best drat Spear Unit, Period. Phalanxes are immovable blocks of Shielded HPs that slice through any flying or mounted unit they encounter like so much mist. The Manticore Rider is a ridiculous beast of unstoppable melee carnage and even they can't do poo poo to Phalanxes. Physical Ranged Attacks largely just bounce off of them, and even infantry units specialized in killing Pike units have little hope of winning. Shock Troopers can get the job done but it's no picnic even for them, and they're walking Infantry Blenders. Phalanxes are somewhat underutilized despite being unbreakable simply because they come out late and by then City Taking is more important then field battles, and well, they aren't great at it. Can't climb walls, so they're left slowly poking gates to death. I mean it works because Phalanxes are invincible, but as a Warlord you have so much better options for that kind of thing. Also, you're a Warlord, so it's not like all those Pikes are hanging back guarding your precious glass cannon ranged units. Still, you can literally build huge blocks of Phalanxes and slowly grind everything to death like this is Fantasy Greece and why are you not doing this already? With the special building for Pikes backing them up they hit a new level of invincibility. With Spirit Damage and Projectile Resistance I'm not sure anything at all beats them for cost, really. Throw in an Enchanted Armory and you're hitting rage quitting evels of not dying ever. Warbreed Used to be lackluster, now is loving amazing. Warbreeds are Monster Units, they don't get all your fancy Martial Arts and gold discounts and what not. Doesn't matter though, because they are just huge piles of HPs crashing into your walls at Cav Speed and auto-healing damage every round and regenerating back to full after every battle. Aside from a pointed weakness to mind control effects and the like, the new Warbreeds are scary as hell. They hit like an entire Fleet of Trucks and it's difficult to apply enough sustained damage to keep them from just shrugging it off, especially when there's like 5 of the Bastards and they aren't even the most dangerous thing on the field. In particular, Orc Warbreeds have tireless, which means many things, all of them beautiful. Manticore Riders The infamous Manticore is something one never forgets after even one time facing late-game Warlord spam. With the TM tech and the Warlord Ultimate Spell going, you can pump out 150 HP Flyers cheaper then any other Tier 4. They also do you Yougottabefuckingkiddingme Melee Damage and have Martial Arts, meaning almost any unit attempting to melee a Manticore just shatters instantly while doing negligible retaliation damage. Now, infuriating as they are, Manticores are not unbeatable. The key to beating them is just understanding that Manticores have no innate resistance to anything at all. Their Defense/Res is "eh" territory for a Tier 4, and they basically take full damage from anything you can throw at them. And they're pure melee units, so they're incapable of doing anything but going straight in. They lose to pikes for cost, mostly because you can set your pikes to defend and the Manticore has no options except to eat it. They have MCI immunity but they're still vulnerable to stuns and backstabs and all sorts of other things. In small numbers they're arguably the worst Tier 4 just because they have no finesse and die easily to focus fire. If the game drags on long enough that your opponent has as many Manticores as you have anything, then well you're hosed but of course you are. From a playing Warlord perspective then, don't be too quick to hit the Manticore panic button. A lot of your other class units are frankly better in a large number of situations. Manticores are good, but not that good. Also, don't neglect racial units. Units like Gryphon Riders and Storm Troopers backed up with Warlord Upgrades might as well be class units for how powerful they are, Now, contrary to popular belief, the Warlord does have spells. Some of them are even good! Lets take a look. Combat Spells Berserk This is the Warlords claim to fame as far as battle magic goes. It's not always reliable, but it's so devastating when it lands that you'll happily throw it out 3-4 times in a row. It's particularly useful in siege battles to make the defenders wipe each other out without even coming into firing range. Bloodbath +5 Melee Damage for all friendlies. I mean, it's good but this spell is kinda overkill. It's not like the Warlord doesn't already dominate melee combat by the time this comes out, but if you have it and you can cast it, why not eh? Make them cry a little more. Killing Spree Grants Killing Momentum to one target. The Warlord likes his little targeted buffs like this. Can be situationally useful when you've got a strong unit lined up to murder everything in sight. Last Stand When you really really need that one guy to hold his ground. You know, I think the reason I'm a little down on some of these Warlord buffs is just because the Warlord is not usually the one desperately holding his ground against overwhelming odds. He's the rear end in a top hat who puts other people in that situation. Lions Courage +5 Damage, Overwhelm, Strong Will. More useful for the Strong Will then anything else, but certainly I'm not going to turn up my nose at giving one guy even more ridiculous damage output. Phoenix Warrior Grants resurgence to one unit. In my mind one of the strongest Warlord Buffs because it lets you play a little recklessly with your strongest unit, or just save a unit who looks like they're about to bite it. Relentless Army Everyone is tireless! Oh, man this spell. Between this and Bloodbath you might as well get to disjuncting because there's almost no beating a Warlord Army at that point. A late game All-Gold Warlord army with these buffs just punches through most units like paper. You have to kill them with ranged attacks and spells or it's over. Shout of Intimidation Can be useful in very specific situations, otherwise meh. I like using it during the first round on defense, if you're lucky you'll get a unit to panick and flee off the battlefield before the other player can react. Steadfast Ward Unit simply will not fall for 2 turns. This is such an evil spell. Used at the right time it can turn the course of a battle instantly. As you can see, the Warlord is very limited in terms of battle magic. Nearly all of his spells are based around leveraging the fact that his units are already stone-cold killers to get a little extra performance out of them at just the right moment. It's scary, but only because the units are already scary, vs the Theocrat going "And then you get eviscerated by a peasant because gently caress you." Global Spells Authority of the Sword A cheap but very narrowly useful city enchantment. Use this when you really need to claim a resource that's just outside your borders and no other time. Death March Double movement at the cost of half your health. Despite the massive drawback, it's a critical spell for Warlords, because between lackluster intelligence and average mobility you will probably be caught out of position more then any other class. Not easy to recover from with Warlord healing though, unless you're using Warbreed. Dread Siege The one and only. The Warlord is not exceptional at sieges until very late game, this spell gives him an effective way to level the playing field a bit. Inspire Loyalty All armies led by a hero gain the volunteer trait. Yep, that's a thing. As I said, no one has a better gold economy then the Warlord, nobody. Hero Slaying Everyone in the world suddenly gets the urge to go slaughter them some heroes. I don't know if I've ever actually used this spell...I mean, it's not bad and the Warlord is never mana constrained, it's just so specific. The Draft Global Happiness and no deserters. A good spell in general, but in particular it synergizes well with Halflings and shuts Rogues down hard, they basically have no choice but to disjunct this to get their late game working. Conquerers Feast This one is a bit complicated. Basically it amounts to giving your Men the command to commence raiding and pillaging, resulting in a doubled morale penalty for having your troops in enemy territory and reduces your upkeep by 25% at the same time to reflect them living off of other peoples property. The Warlords gold efficiency is insane, seriously. With this and Inspire Loyalty you have what, -75% upkeep for all armies in the field? Global Assault All of your units, both standing and created while this spell is running get First Strike, Charge, and instantly promoted to Elite rank. Disjuncting this spell is almost useless, because it only cuts off newly created units from getting the bonuses, which they can still gain retroactively by casting it again. In the overall hierarchy of Ultimate Spells, I would say this is probably weaker then Armageddon and Age of Magic, but only those two. With the important researches in place, a decent economy, and this spell, the Warlord becomes nearly impossible to beat in a head on fight. Even if you're winning at first you will eventually be grinded down by the hordes of vastly stronger units unless you manage to outmaneuver and cripple the Warlord in some way. Fortunately, (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) the Warlord is a purely production based class. His economy can break even if his army won't. And that's the Warlord in a nutshell. Fairly boring in terms of magic, definitely a slow starter, but rich in army based tactics on the way to eventually building an unstoppable War Machine. Unlike the Theocrat who is all about protecting your units and keeping them alive to the bitter end, the Warlord is ultimately all about the economy. If he loses units, who gives a poo poo? Every unit he builds is an Elite Champion stronger then any single unit the enemy can produce, and behind him is a legion of men ready to take his place should he fall. For specializations it's hard to go wrong with whatever you pick. The Warlord is so limited in his class spells that anything you take will open up entirely new avenues of spellcasting. Air Adept can be very nice for the Zephyr Bird, Water gives you the gimmicky instant Kraken gambit, and Warlord is the one class besides Rogue who should give serious consideration to Explorer to turn free militia and Monster Hunters into expert scouts. As a production class, Expander is also tempting. For races, there are a few standouts. Elves Possibly the best Warlords, because Longbow Mounted Archers are just that good, and the +1 res and forestry are actually really useful on a class starved for magic protection and strategic movement. Even the Racial Units are all pretty great, in particular Unicorn Cav and Gryphon Riders. Orcs Orc Warlord is like Goblin Rogue. Good, but risky. You're doubling down on things you excell at in exchange for doing nothing to cover your weaknesses. Still you get the best Warbreeds, Spearmen are one of the best Raise Militia targets, and you can always absorb another race to produce Mounted Archers. Dwarves Always a safe choice, giving you tougher (and costlier) units across the board along with a good support who can provide healing. Ironman Berserkers are also a thing. Draconian No special units or particular synergy with racial units. (Raptors? Bleh) Instead you get access to faster healing and extensive fire damage, which can easily be worth the trade-off if leveraged right. Goblins Actually really good. -30% Gold Cost and Faster City Growth is ridiculous, and Gobbo Monster Hunters are the best. Halflings Very strange, but not unworkable. The Warlord can enforce high morale and Adventurers rock early. Total lack of non-physical damage hurts a ton, though. Human Perfectly alright, but probably not better then anyone else except maybe Halflings. Priests are pretty handy, and buffed Knights are good.
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Nov 22, 2014 17:35
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Write stuff about the undead from AoW1 and AoW2. Even though I played the everliving poo poo out of those games as a kid I was basically just doing random maps or pre-made scenarios, so I have no idea about any of the "lore" behind stuff. That said, my impression is that the undead in the AoW series have always been sort of like a force of nature almost, not really a cohesive nation or anything and certainly lead by just a pure evil undead intelligence of some sort.
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Nov 22, 2014 18:23
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Wild Magic Adept is another good specialization to keep in mind as a Warlord. Three good combat spells to go with your absurd war machine, and Lesser Elemental is quite useful, especially since it combos with Global Assault to give you elite Greater elementals for cheap. Looking forward to your Sorcerer overview; they might not be the most complicated class, but they're still one of my favorites.
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Nov 22, 2014 20:15
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madmac posted:Warlords: You Can't Build a Throne of Skulls in just One Day. I love your detail posts because WOW have I been playing Warlords wrong. Maybe not wrong but unintentionally gimping myself. I definitely haven't been using Authority of the Sword, Berserk or Global Assault enough. And I was really bad about scouting too. Wild Magic was really useful for the elemental damage though.
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Nov 22, 2014 21:16
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madmac posted:Madmacs words about warlords. Every post you make about one of these classes makes me want to boot up the game with a new leader. They are immense.
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Nov 22, 2014 21:27
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mitochondritom posted:Every post you make about one of these classes makes me want to boot up the game with a new leader. They are immense. madmac posted:instant Kraken gambit You can't say this and not explain how it works.
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Nov 22, 2014 22:06
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I had to choose between  or  for the link to your post madmac, i hope your happy.  never stop 
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Nov 22, 2014 22:49
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a!n posted:You can't say this and not explain how it works. It's nothing fancy. The "hidden" benefit of Global Assault is that any unit with an evolve ability instantly transforms with the spell active. You can, for instance, use Raise Militia on an Elven City and have the Initiate instantly become a Storm Sister. Also works with Human Cav, Wild Elementals...and Krakens. It's almost impossible to evolve baby Krakens normally, making them kinda garbage, but for the Warlord an armada of Elder Krakens ruling the seas aint no thing at 80 mana a pop. (I forgot to mention Wild Magic because it's great for every Class, but yeah it's super good for Warlords.)
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Nov 23, 2014 00:00
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a!n posted:So much this. Global assault and summon baby kraken: the baby is instantly promoted to gold, evolves into a Kraken (which is unfortunately not gold, so go kill some ships). Also, when things evolve they stop costing mana and start costing money for upkeep, for some reason.
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Nov 23, 2014 00:48
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Lobsterpillar posted:Global assault and summon baby kraken: the baby is instantly promoted to gold, evolves into a Kraken (which is unfortunately not gold, so go kill some ships). Also, when things evolve they stop costing mana and start costing money for upkeep, for some reason. They actually cost both. Their evolved gold cost and their unevolved mana cost. Its one of the big tradeoffs for evolving units that the interface hides.
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Nov 23, 2014 01:28
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mitochondritom posted:Every post you make about one of these classes makes me want to boot up the game with a new leader. They are immense. This times a hundred, these writeups own bones and are helping me enjoy the game immensely. Any chance of a post on Dreads? They're easily my favorite class (slow, methodical gameplay and explosions, my two favorite strategy game things rolled into one!) but I'm sure a madmac post will help me up my game a bunch.
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Nov 23, 2014 02:56
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Guildencrantz posted:This times a hundred, these writeups own bones and are helping me enjoy the game immensely. I'll get around to all the classes eventually.
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Nov 23, 2014 11:15
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Speaking of, lets get this one out of the way. A Sorcerers Guide to Keeping it Chill Sorcerer is the simplest class by far, but that's not really an insult. Sorcerers are incredibly strong and hella fun to play. Sorcerer mode is basically playing a very simplified strategic game in exchange for unmatched versatility and depth in the magical realm. Because your most important decisions all involve spellcasting you are able to play a very chill, reactive game deploying your vast magical resources to swat down any threats as they emerge. Long term plans? Eh, just get more magic. More magic is always good. Sorcerers intentionally harken back to the God Wizard Leaders of AoW 2 and SM, squirreled away in their Wizards Towers and raining down powerful spells anywhere within their domain. A lot of their class spells are beloved classics from the older games, and like those old games your choice in Magic Spheres is vastly more important in determining your playstyle then the handful of skill researches you have available to you. You don't have a lot of Empire Techs as Sorcerer, but all of the ones you have are fantastic and something you want to grab ASAP, along with the CP upgrades. Arcane Study and Magical Structures are your gameplay defining Empire Upgrades, effectively doubling your Research and Mana Income, respectively. Playing Sorc means you get to research and use tons of cool toys because you learn faster then anyone else and really, 90% of your research is just learning new spells. You have way more spells to play around with and mana to fuel them with as Sorc then any other class. Spells Spells Spells. School of Enchantment and School of Teleportation are the other two. They both massively enhance Support Class units, giving them Projectile Resist, Phase, and Inflict Stun. It may not sound like much, but an army of ranged units all capable of stunning on every attack they land is a terrifying thing. Mostly though, the combination of these four techs lets Sorc turtle like a Mofo. The basic playstyle for Sorc is to rush the Temple/Lab chain since you're pulling double benefit from those buildings, and then mass Supports to make your cities an unholy pain in the rear end to take, especially as you're unlocking/upgrading Supports with your preferred build order anyways. Eventually as your cities expand you can afford to buy other buildings (Gotta get those Grand Palaces) and maybe even do something crazy like building actual fighting units. Maybe. I mean it's entirely optional. Before I get to the class units, let me just give a shout-out to Spellbook Sorc. See, the Sorc is a powerful enough class that you totally can get by with just your incredible class summons and class combat spells, but after the third or fourth time burying the world in Eldritch Horrors and Chain Lightning that poo poo gets boring, yo. You're a Sorcerer! You can take any Mastery you want and leverage those spells better then anyone! Not only does mixing it up a bit make Sorcerer twice as fun to play it also makes you a little less predictable. let people over-prepare for mass shock damage and stun effects and then roll over them with Fire Elementals and Hellfire. Hell, you don't even have to go all in on summoning if you don't want. A Sorc specialized in combat magic is also surprisingly potent, especially early in the game. No one anticipates the Sorc rush. All right, now we can talk about class units. Wisp Ah Wisps. Right off the bat you get something infuriating for other players. As purely scouting units, Wisps aren't great. They have poor movement and only floating, so they get the job done but are certainly not Crow or Cherub league. They compensate for it by being bastards to deal with in small engagements. A wisp will beat most other Scout summons 1 v 1 or in groups unless the other guy is willing to burn combat spells. They're also strong enough to be solid creeping units and can overpower small garrisons quite easily. Wisps are really handy to have around though I'm not one of those "Summmon 11 Million Wisps" guys, myself. Plenty of other cool stuff to burn mana on as a Sorc. Apprentice Maybe it's just me, but people seem weirdly all or nothing when it comes to these guys. I've seen people who won't touch them and people who build nothing but Apprentices. Either one is silly. Apprentices are good but they're not much stronger or weaker then any other Tier 2 support unit. Mix and match according to your needs and who you're fighting against. The main advantage of Apprentices is their Fairy Fire attack, which gives them consistent damage (and stun, which is more important) against any target, but generally lower damage then another support type hitting a unit weak to their element type. They have a powerful heal that works on summons, but not on each other or other normal units. They're also unique in having both dispel magic and steal enchantment from the start, which are incredibly potent abilities if you use them correctly. As they level up they get Summon Slayer and Invisibility which is pretty rad. I like using Apprentices as ranged back-up for my summon army, (Though grouped separately, usually, they're slower then any Sorc summon.) they are built to support Summoned units better then probably any other unit. They're good garrison troops as well, but really you don't need a Wizards Tower in every town, you just don't. For that matter never, ever, bother upgrading your Class Building as Sorc. It does nothing for you except raise your mana cap slightly. Phantasm Warrior Another underused Sorc unit. Look, Phantasm Warriors are good. They float, they go through walls, they have true sight, they do decent damage and they effectively have like 100 HPs against physical damage. They are Wisps++ without the stun gimmick. You don't want to summon so many that they can be countered but they are great cheap summons that are awesome for both running over small towns and as defenders. If you have a town that's going to be attacked soon they are probably the best and easiest thing you can plop down in one turn as added muscle. They work especially well in combination with Apprentices. Have the Phantasm warriors move up and defend while the Apprentices keep them healed up and rain down ranged damage. If you happen to get one to gold they get Tireless, making this tactic even better. Use them like little summoned Crusaders, basically. Before moving on to the next summon, I want to point out that generally as a Sorc, your class Summons do shock damage and have strong resistance to shock but are mostly weak against Blight and Fire Damage. This makes them the opposite of every other class/race where Blight/Fire damage and resistance is common and shock damage is rare and irresistible. It works well but a canny player can ruin your day with Goblin and Draconian units. All the more reason to take at least a few summons that don't fit the class paradigm. Summon Fantastic Creature Can get you a bunch of units, too many to go into individually. Mostly, you will get Gryphons and Random Color Wyverns. At 110 mana, Phantasm Warrior and Summon Node Serpent will both generally win out in combat efficiency. What this spell gets you is lots of fast, decently tough flyers you can use to scout aggressively and take out small targets, or for city battles. They're useful creatures, but squishy. Attrition and high mana cost makes this a spell you don't want to rely on too heavily. (As opposed to pre-nerf, when it was 80 mana and the only summon you needed until Eldritch Horrors.) You do want to cast it at least a couple times when you're not under too much pressure though, because you have a one in three chance of hitting the jackpot and getting the best Sor Summon, the Watcher. If you do get a totallynotabeholder keep that thing safe at all costs. Watchers are incredible. A Tier 3 Floating Shooter with a vicious range attack that can petrify, inflict spirit breaking, and daze (gotta get those medals) and a vicious triple channel melee attack that no one ever sees coming. The only thing worse then eating Watcher Eye Lazers is turning you back on them and getting bit for a gabillion damage out of nowhere. I prize Watchers more then even Eldritch Horrors. I can always summon another Horror. Watchers? Hard to say. Node Serpent The Reworked Node Serpent is a beast, but one that requires finesse. It's easy to phase these guys straight into melee, get them wrecked, and then write them off as useless. Don't be that guy. First of all, the Node Serpent is a unit worth preserving, because they get massively better with medals. Vet ups their base MP to 40, and Elite gives them inflict Stun. The Node Serpent (at vet) is one of the most mobile units in the game. With 40 MP, phase, and sprint, it's designed to be a machine built only for flanking, like a giant glowy snake assassin. They do pretty good flanking damage base with dual channel and inflict shocking, but it's worth the time to slap starblades on a unit that is guaranteed to get the flank. Also, don't fear the pikes. Node Serpents are floaters, not flyers. Eldritch Horrors Eldritch Horrors are loving terrifying units. They aren't the best at any one thing, but their versatility as a Tier 4 unit is beyond compare. Decent movement and Floating? Devastating AOE Breath Weapon? Crapload of HPs and Powerful (Tri-Channel Melee Attack? loving Dominate and Cause Fear? Yes, they have it. They have all of the things. Everything you could possibly be afraid of, they have. They also have substantial Blight and Spirit Protection, which means a lot of units that work well against every other Sorc Summon get owned by Horrors. Some days you just can't win for losing. That said, sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. I've lost a lot of Horrors to my own unwarranted overconfidence. As powerful as Horrors are, their are counters to all of their individual tricks, and units that can beat them just by being the best there is at what they do. Still, gently caress Horrors. If someone made an official list of the most aggravating units to fight, I'm pretty sure they'd be near the top, below Phoenixes and Dragons maybe. As a Sorcerer player, just remember to baby your Horrors, use all of their abilities, and don't let them get killed. Those things don't grow on trees. As long as the number of Horrors you have is a net positive number, you're winning. Ah poo poo, I still have to do spells, don't I? This is going to take a while... Combat Spells Magic Fist Easy to overlook, but one of the most efficient single target spells. Respect the Fist. StarBlades Is actually really good. I know I know I always forget to use it too but it's 5 friggen mana and it ends up being a scary amount of damage on flanking attacks. Harmonizing Energy Bam, 30 HPs. Expensive, but it's the best single target heal in the game. Perfect for bailing out heroes and powerful summons when you're in a tight spot. Sphere of Protection Makes you effectively immune to physical attacks for two rounds. Casting this spell at exactly the right time is the tricky part, but it's hard to beat for what it does. Between this spell and Harmonizing Energy it's entirely possible to have your Sorc just sit back and focus on making one unit effectively invincible while he smashes everything. Chain Lightning Is really, really good. One of the best nukes in the game. But you know? Take the Sorc challenge and try not running this spell for a game. Explore your other options. It feels good to change it up sometimes. Arcane Binding Voted most fun Sorc spell two years running. What most people don't realize is that this lets you take any summoned or magical unit, no chance of failure unless they have mind control immunity. And they pretty much won't unless it's a Druid. Sure it's only two rounds, but it's two rounds of sock-puppeting another dudes best summon, guaranteed, and it's just 20 mana. You're a loving Sorc, you can chain cast this spell the whole battle if you feel like it. Teach those amateurs not to insult you by pretending they understand anything about summoning elementals. Cosmic Spray Is a better/worse nuke then Chain Lightning depending on the enemy makeup and formation. On targets with low resist and/or no elemental protections this spell does silly high damage. Mostly though I just smile whenever I cast it because this was the classic nuke available to every Wizard in SM. Static Sphere Not terrible, but once you get the upgraded version you'll never cast this again. Double Gravity Oh you have Flyers? Nope, not anymore. The Sorc has good damage spells but it's these dickish no-save effects I love about the class. Also reason#67 why taking Sorc cities is hard. Mass Stasis Really, this is almost identical to Power of the Word and about as highly situational in it's usefulness. If you really, really, need the enemy army to not advance for one turn is the only situation you'll ever use this in. Static Electricity gently caress you melee classes. This is the second most infuriating Sorc spell, and the worst thing is that late game he can easily cast both of them in one battle. It gets incredibly hard to win fights with this spell active. Disjunct on sight unless you're waiting for him to throw out the one true spell... Mind you, the Sorc has no passive unit upgrades (Except Supports) and no real buff spells that directly boost combat effectiveness. Without throwing out massive spell support the Sorcerers units are actually really weak late game compared to what most classes can field. Chaos Rift This is the one true spell. Does a huge amount of shock damage to random enemies every turn and pops out a random AI controlled summon anywhere on the battlefield. You have two, maybe three options for dealing with Chaos Rift. Preferably you can disjunct the effect. Barring that you hopefully initiated the battle and can run the hell away now. Otherwise, you can try to take as many units with you as possible because your army is toast. Period. Supposedly this spell ends when the last friendly non-temp unit dies, but the last time I used it that was...not the case. I'm not sure if it's a glitch or just a misleading description but unless it's been patched recently this spell only ends in death, one way or another. Once the Sorc hits the point where he's chain casting Static Electricity and Chaos Rift every battle, well good luck with that. You probably died several turns ago and just didn't realize it. You will notice that the Sorc relies heavily on Shock Damage and Stun effects. Unfortunately there's not a lot of good ways of resisting either, but even if you do that's what Specializations are for. Global Spells Glyphs of Warding This is a deceptively powerful spell. The damage (16) is high enough to wreck low-tier units and makes it impossible to take your time approaching a city. They're either rushing in or staying the hell out of your domain, no exceptions. Dread Omen Pretty much Dread Siege with a (very small) added malus to pop growth. Is inherently better/worse then the Warlord version depending. In general the Sorc has better things to spend his mana on then reinforcing a spell like this compared to the Warlord but if the Sorc is serious about it for some reason, (AI loves super-reinforcing enchantments) well good luck. Lets Play Pretty Pony Princess Dressup Number one reason to play Sorc, right here. Get this spell relatively early and chain cast it until you have just the right color coordinated mounts for each of your heroes. Seriously though, an army of Heroes riding Gold Wyverns is a scary thing to see coming at you. (Mounts don't drop on death, do they?) Dome of Protection Mostly just handy in Single Player for telling the AI to gently caress off and stop spamming dread siege on your Throne every turn. It's a good way to shut down targeting a single town, but even a Sorcerer can't afford to just throw this up everywhere. I do like that the Sorc is a master of counter-magic. It's fitting. Lightning Storm You won't use this often throughout most of the game, but very late game with Age of Magic active suddenly this spell becomes amazing and you can literally remotely wipe armies with it. Summoners Aura I don't think I've ever actually cast this spell, for a couple of reasons. 1. 90% of the time it only helps for City Defense, and 2. I use support units for that. Enchanted Walls Like most wall spells, putting this up amounts to telling someone that they can either try to disjunct it or go-around, because unless they have an overwhelming force advantage it's suicide to attack a city with that level of protection. I'm the idiot who's faced every wall spell at one time or another and let me tell you, it's not worth it. It's never worth it. I've lost more Tier 4 units to bullshit wall spells then you can imagine. Spell of Return Pretty sure I've never used this either but hey Town Portal spell that's pretty cool. Age of Magic The tooltip tells you that this spell gives you +50 CP. That's a lie. It gives you +50 CP and all your spell casting costs are halved. It may not sound that good, but trust me it's utterly ridiculous. It's probably even better then Armageddon. With this spell active you can disjunct anything, one-turn Horror Summons, wipe out armies before they even reach you with Lightning Storm, open every battle with Static Elec+Chaos Rift, and win siege battles by sitting back and casting Chain Lightning 15 times. Whatever stupid silly thing pops into your head you can do and destroy whatever because you have effectively infinite CP. And that's the Sorcerer for you. Just build a bunch of labs and temples and then chillax and do whatever, because whatever you do is magical. Race Choice doesn't matter much with Sorcerer, because you're mostly just using summons and support units. Draconian is widely considered the best because they have Flying units and their Apprentices can toss out aoe stun bombs. Halflings are also pretty cool because Lucky Apprentices with minor bard skills. Really though just do whatever. Ditto for Specializations. Take a Mastery because you have a better shot then most classes at actually researching those high-level spells. Wild Magic is especially nice and you can leverage Wild Elementals so well you can actually ignore your class summons most of the game. (It's fun!) You don't need Explorer or Expander and probably not Partisan. madmac fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Nov 23, 2014 |
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Nov 23, 2014 14:25
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So what settings do you guys usually use for random maps? I've been doing medium sized land maps recently, but it often feels kind of empty with the recommended amount of four leaders. (Or maybe I have to make the switch to Emperor.  )
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Nov 23, 2014 15:46
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Randler posted:So what settings do you guys usually use for random maps? I've been doing medium sized land maps recently, but it often feels kind of empty with the recommended amount of four leaders. (Or maybe I have to make the switch to Emperor. I like to cram as many players as possible into a small or medium map with really small starting towns and armies. You get more of an early game this way because you actually have to use tier 1 units and you're going to have to knock out your neighbors to expand. And I've been turning on seal victory with really high limits because why not. It apparently makes the AI more aggressive.
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Nov 23, 2014 17:25
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I'm playing a game on a large map with 8 players in teams of 2. Its fun but not too chaotic once the borders have been hashed out. The map is a giant island too, so even though it's a large map the actual landmass is tight.madmac posted:A Sorcerers Guide to Keeping it Chill Sorcerers are definitely more my speed. Not to mention that being able to summon a unit next to an active army is a huge advantage to moving it from a city.
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Nov 23, 2014 19:19
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Sorcerors lategame are utterly infuriating. They only need to build enough upgrades to get a tower in conquered city, sit the barest of bone garrisons (say, two T1 melee units ) at the back and let chaos rift and tower attacks do the heavy lifting. The worst part is that I'm pretty sure that settlers still count as combat units for purposes of continuing combat (applies to Druid's call of the wild). Not useful for a human player but the AI likes to sit settlers in cities all the drat time. I've lost some good troops spending three turns to travel and hit a yak sitting in a corner.  Elf sorcerors are going to be more awesome with the air mastery bonus in the expansion, stack that knowledge bonus while spreading arctic terrain everywhere. 
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Nov 23, 2014 20:12
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You know, for all our emotes on something awful, we dont have anything really fitting for a spell caster imagery, so i had to go for a punny. 
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Nov 23, 2014 20:28
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Why not  ?Thanks for putting these in the OP by the way, I definitely plan on referring back to them
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Nov 23, 2014 20:29
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It's obviously  .
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Nov 23, 2014 20:32
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I coulda sworn there was a variant of  with a magic wand and wizard hat
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Nov 23, 2014 20:34
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Space Hamlet posted:Why not Perfect!
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Nov 23, 2014 20:35
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Delacroix posted:Sorcerors lategame are utterly infuriating. They only need to build enough upgrades to get a tower in conquered city, sit the barest of bone garrisons (say, two T1 melee units ) at the back and let chaos rift and tower attacks do the heavy lifting. Yeah I'm not overly fond of playing 3+ rounds of tower roulette while my troops go dig some settlers out of the furthest corner of the map. It'd be cool if there was a capture mechanic for non-combatant units a-la civ, though I suppose that might make for too big of a swing from a successful capture.
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Nov 23, 2014 20:47
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Fitzy Fitz posted:I like to cram as many players as possible into a small or medium map with really small starting towns and armies. You get more of an early game this way because you actually have to use tier 1 units and you're going to have to knock out your neighbors to expand. And I've been turning on seal victory with really high limits because why not. It apparently makes the AI more aggressive.
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Nov 23, 2014 21:38
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How does reducing the number of neutral settlements work out? It seems like it would do a lot to prolong the early game / expansion phase since you would have to work much harder for each city and would also lend more weight to your own race choice since you couldn't rely as heavily on finding settlements of other races to fill out your weaknesses. (alternatively: you wouldn't have the problem I had on my last game as a good-aligned Orcish Theocrat where every neutral city on my side of the map was Halflings that didn't fit into my face-punching Crusader army at all but I couldn't just  their civilization and replace them with proper musclebound Ubermensch so what the hell do I do with this empire?)Hey Madmac, do you have any suggestions for integrating Halfling units slapdash into different styles of armies, because it seems like they really don't perform well outside of their specific racial gimmicks. I guess a free T3 is a free T3 but man are Eagle Riders underwhelming on their own. Voyager I fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Nov 23, 2014 |
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Nov 23, 2014 21:59
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Zore posted:They actually cost both. Their evolved gold cost and their unevolved mana cost. I fixed this recently, it's just the interface showing you the wrong information. When a summoned unit evolves, it's upkeep doesn't change in any way at all, but the unit panel glitches and prints a gold cost instead of the real mana cost. Randler posted:So what settings do you guys usually use for random maps? I've been doing medium sized land maps recently, but it often feels kind of empty with the recommended amount of four leaders. (Or maybe I have to make the switch to Emperor. My favourite is Large Island Map, Few Indy Cities, Few Spawn Structures, 5/6 players, King/Emperor with Seal Victory on. You have a brief respite of 10-20 turns at the start to secure your starting island, and then it becomes a hectic rush to knock out your neighbours and secure some seals before the AIs on the opposite side of the map can pull off a seal victory. Voyager I posted:Hey Madmac, do you have any suggestions for integrating Halfling units slapdash into different styles of armies, because it seems like they really don't perform well outside of their specific racial gimmicks. I guess a free T3 is a free T3 but man are Eagle Riders underwhelming on their own. As you've found, you can't just stick Halfling units into an army and hope for them to work, you need to take steps to keep their morale up. You really want to take advantage of units that boost stack morale: Rogue - Any bard gives +300 Theocrat - Hafling evangelists give +200 Sorceror - Hafling apprentices give +200 Archdruid - Halfing shamans give +200 As well as any spells or hero skills that boost morale too (e.g. The Draft from the Warlord, or the Imperial Authority hero skill from dreadnaught). With some good rolls, high morale Halflings are more durable than dwarves, and their high morale equates to lots of crits, which balances out their lower melee strength. Of course even super happy Halflings can still die to a bad run of luck, but that's just the way the race works. Another thing is that physical weakness is a much bigger deal on low defense units, than high defense ones. Because the damage roll looks like this: Base Damage = (Attack Strength +10 -Defense) * Weaknesses Since the weakness is applied after defense is subtracted, it will often only add 1 or 2 points of damage to a high defense unit. That's why Halflings make such good warlords, Phalanxes/Manticores/Warbreeds have such high defense, the physical weakness is pretty ignorable, while Lucky scales well with their higher HP pools. The Eagle Rider is a weird unit, when we made it we already had 2 tough T3 melee fliers with the Gryphon Rider and Draconian Flier, and we didn't really want the Eagle Rider to be another one. It's not designed to really take any kind of punishment unless you've really pumped it's morale. It's more designed to land behind enemies and kill them with flanking before they can retaliate. You need to charge in with tankier units and then send in the eagle riders once the enemy is engaged to make the most of them.
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Nov 23, 2014 23:23
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Oh, I get that. It just means Halfling units make for pretty unexciting quest rewards since they rely on morale stacking and other Halfling tricks to do their jobs and stay alive, but you may not have access to those and probably aren't going to build your army around the Eagle Rider some city quest gave you or whatever so you just end up with a unit that isn't very good compared to what it could have been.
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Nov 23, 2014 23:42
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Gerblyn posted:My favourite is Large Island Map, Few Indy Cities, Few Spawn Structures, 5/6 players, King/Emperor with Seal Victory on. You have a brief respite of 10-20 turns at the start to secure your starting island, and then it becomes a hectic rush to knock out your neighbours and secure some seals before the AIs on the opposite side of the map can pull off a seal victory. Ugh thanks now I have to give up on my current game and try this one.
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Nov 23, 2014 23:44
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Oh, I getcha. In that case they are a bit underwhelming I suppose. Eagle Riders can do some pretty crazy damage with wingbeat, since it can be buffed by melee damage boosting things, like Star Blades, Sacred Arms or Backstab (which they get on elite). Jesters can be handy as well, especially while clearing, but that's about all I can come up with...
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Nov 23, 2014 23:53
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The true strength of eagle riders is in being an incredible scout. Pretty sure they are faster than even crows, and yes, you're paying a tier 3 upkeep for it but it will give you that cost back by eating everyone else's scouts, giving you huge amounts of intel every turn, and never dying because nothing can catch it on the strategic map at all. They can pull flanker backstab duty in combat but the real reason to get them is for the intel and counter intel potential.
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Nov 24, 2014 00:02
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I like eagles a lot. They're perfect for clearing tier 1 and 2 units lined up behind walls.
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Nov 24, 2014 02:22
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It's just like lotr. They don't take the ring to mordor, they just clean up the mess.
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Nov 24, 2014 04:29
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As a fan of pretty cities, have to say this game has some.    Basically the Dead Marshes.   Also it's a little unintuitive that toggle domain view is in map settings but army banners is in options.
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Nov 24, 2014 07:03
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For no real reason except because Druids are cool. A Druids Guide to Being Besties with Snakes and Spiders, but never Bears. (Seriously, why do we not have Bears?) Druids are my favorite class to play! They just hit all my buttons. Nature Hippies, Rangers, Animal Buddies, balanced Might/Magic, and going fast. The most common mistake to approaching Druid is playing them like a poor mans Sorcerer. It doesn't work, not at all. Druids are the true Hybrid Production/Summoning class. Summons are very important, but their best units are produced in cities. They don't have a single dominant unit type you can mass, instead they excel in (frequently improvised) combined arms tactics. Basically, Druids are a class built around Map Control and Aggressive Skirmishing. They have the best strategic mobility of any class paired with the ability to easily sustain armies in the field and keep the pressure on. They differ from Rogues primarily in that they are better at targeting armies then knocking over cities. They have solid stealth abilities and also the best stealth detection. If you aren't constantly working to outmaneuver your opponent, you aren't playing Druid. In terms of City Building, the Druid can get by with comparatively little. Archers and Support Units and Mana/Research are all you particularly need, so going Barracks/Shooting Gallery, Level 1 Class Building, and Temple/Research chains is a good, affordable setup to shoot for in most towns. You won't be building anything more expensive then a Shaman either so Siege Workshop is generally good enough unless you are shooting for a Grand Palace. Lets go straight to Empire Upgrades, because Druid has a ton of them and some are much more important then others. Wildlife Refuge Get this as soon as it's offered. Unlike the Sorcerer you don't have bonus mana production, and the -25% upkeep on summons is a huge boon in keeping the animal train going. Reduces the gold upkeep on any charmed animals too, which is nice. Hunters Finesse A nice little perk you can afford early, giving all of your archers the bleeding wounds ability. It's not huge, but it gives your Hunters a nice edge early and extra damage is always goods. Animistic Knowledge An early-to-mid game research that gives you a bit of a research edge from treasure sites. It's not a huge bonus but it adds up and most classes don't get bonus research at all. Beast Mastery The +2 Res compensates for most animals poo poo Resist and Mind Control Immunity is very helpful. Totally shuts down Sorc Arcane Binding nonsense and prevents other Druids from stealing your precious animal buddies. Oh, and Naga are all monster units, if you have the dwelling then Beast Mastery and Wildlife Refuge both apply and stack on your Naga units. You can cast Savage Rage on them too, and Naga Matriarchs even get the Longstrider bonus. Naga dwellings are loving amazing for Druid. Long Strider This is the most important Druid tech, right here. +8 Movement on all Archer/Support units is huge. For basically every other class, bringing ranged support slows down your map movement. Druids can mass any type of range unit they want and have them keep up with Cav, and it cranks Hunters and Shamans all the way up to 40 move. Also, it streamlines the production side of things because any ranged units you spit out are able to catch up with the main force very quickly. Combined with summoning in the field the Druid is able to keep up a relentless offense. Favored Enemy Dragon/Giant/Monster Kiiiinda not great. More Slayer bonuses are always nice, and this applies to both Archer and Support units. The problem is that Dragon/Giant Slayer almost never come into play, Monster Slayer isn't as good as it used to be, and this skill has a way of cockblocking your research book in the worst way. There's nothing like having two expensive researches blocking you from getting something important like animistic knowledge and neither of them are even the Slayer bonus you want. Would solve a lot of problems if this was just one research that let you pick your bonus after it completed. Moving on to units, Druids have not a lot and way too many class units, but I'll do my best to hit the highlights. Hunters Holy hell do I love Hunters. Technically they're just T1 archers with perks, but man if they aren't the most amazingly flexible and cost-effective units. Now of course you can add Bleeding Wounds, +8 Move and Slayer as things they get eventually, but even out the gate they have so much stuff. Every Hunter starts with 32 MP, Animal Slayer, Swimming, Everything (Except Cave) Walking, and Forest Concealment. As a hidden perk Human Hunters also get Water Concealment and Dwarf Hunters have Mountain Concealment. Oh, and they get Martial Arts at gold. Just because that's super-cool. Hunters are just crazy mobile and can be used as stealth units to boot. They make fantastic scouts while also being great clearing units and just strong in general, especially after they get a few medals and the empire upgrades start kicking in. There is pretty much no point in the game as Druid where Hunters are not super-useful. Get a town set-up to produce Hunters early and never stop building them. Use them to scout, use them to murder scouts, use them in armies, use them in roaming stealth bands to ambush units and ninja towns. Always be using Hunters. Elf Longbow Hunters are the best, unquestionably, but Human and Draconian Hunters have their advantages (Human Hunters have nets and Water Stealth, Draconian Hunters combo with Fast Elders for Flaming Arrows) and Halfling Hunters can be drat good as well. Goblin, Dwarf, and Orc Hunters can pretty much suck it but at the least the first two are useful if you need to explore underground. In general, Elf/Draconian/Halfling are the Druid races, in that order. I like starting Elf and absorbing at least one Draconian town ASAP. Summon Wild Animal It's so drat hard to talk about Druid Summons because they can give you a million random things. In general, Summon Wild Animal gives you on of a billion random Tier 1 animal units. You can use them as reasonably effective scouts (It has the same mana cost as most Scout Summons) but really Hunters are better scouts and this spell mostly gives you melee cannon fodder to protect your precious archers. This spell is also unique because about 2/3rds of the possible creatures you get can evolve into powerful Tier 3 creatures if you baby them long enough. Spiders and Snakes are the best, Dire Penguins are good tank units early but fall off, Boars and Wargs are crap at hurting anything and the worst thing you can get, but they're fast enough to be decent scouts and meaty enough to die for the greater good. Penguins and Snakes can both Swim, which is very handy. Spiders are Wall Climb and disable units with webs. Baby Reed Serpents have a decent ranged attack. My favorite summon has got to be Baby Hunter Spiders, because they have good damage, web, and Phase and evolve into awesome teleporting Queen Spiders. If you get a Hunter baby Protect that thing with your life. For the snakes, Reed Serpents are more useful early on, while Shock Snake Babies evolve into a better creature. Summon Eldritch Animal Unlike the Sorc equivalent, you can't count on getting a Flying Creature, but hell Gryphons and Wyverns are still options and it's only 70 mana. This is your baseline summon for decent combat units, once you have this you'll basically be spamming it forever until Gargantuan Animal comes online. Unlike Summon Wild Animal, these creatures can't evolve, but they're all Tier 2 units and a lot of them are very solid. Bleak Wargs and Blight Boars are solid melee hitters, Gryphons/Wyverns are good for dealing with walled cities (Walls are kinda an issue for Druids mid-game) and also you can get Elephants which are hilarious and great for knocking down wooden gates or just stomping things in general. Really weak to magic, though. Shaman Most people already know Hunters are great, but hardly anyone knows about Shamans. Shamans are loving insanely good. In a lot of ways Shamans are a natural replacement to Hunters. They're much more beefy, just as fast, and even sneakier. Shamans get Forest/Mountain/Wetlands concealment by default, True Seeing, and Free Movement. They also have a solid ranged attack, can Charm Animals in case you somehow didn't have enough animal friends already, Cure Disease and Healing on level-up, and mother-loving Entangle. Entangle got buffed in the last patch. It's 13 vs Def now (Same as Giant Spiders) and the chance of it working tend to be favorable on anything that isn't T4 level. Even if Entangle misses it drains half their MP. Two attempted Entangles on one unit and it can't hit back even if it resists. If it works well, that unit is hosed. They're completely helpless for two turns and because Entangle is not a magical effect it can't be dispelled. Also, reminder that Shamans are 40 move. Rushing up is much less of a problem then you'd think. Special Note! Physical Weakness (like Halflings have) also makes effects like Entangle more likely to land. Halflings get wrecked by Shamans (And Spiders) so hard it isn't even funny. The one big downside of Shamans is that they do Blight Damage, which is way less reliable then Hunters physical ranged attack. This is why Draconians are the second best Druid Race. Draconian Shamans can freely swap between Fire and Poison Bolts, making them able to reliably deal out damage to nearly anything. Halfling Shamans also deserve a shout-out, because those little bastards have minor bard skills and lucky and just trust me when I say it's infuriating on such an already versatile unit. Summon Gargantuan Animal Hoo boy, where to even start? Summon Gargantuan animal is your late-game replacement to Summon Eldritch Animal. It gives you a huge swathe of Tier 3 units, including all of the things your Wild Animals were able to evolve into. You get Giant Spider Queens who can Climb Walls and Net Units even better then Entangle (Queens web lasts 3 turns) You get Giant Snakes that swim and melee the poo poo out of things and can evolve into even stronger Tier 4 Snakes. You can also sometimes get those Tier 4 snakes straight-out. You also can summon the Cockatrice, which is basically the Watcher if it was re-imagined as a T3 melee bruiser that still had an awesome petrifying ranged attack. Summon Gargantuan Animal is really, really good. For 160 mana is probably overall the best summon spell in the game given the huge range of creatures you get and how powerful all of them are. In particular, King Reed Serpents are awesome Tier 4 melee units with Poison Spit/Melee Damage and cause Fear, and Shock Serpents are even more badass snakes that do massive dual-channel damage and Inflict Stun/Static Shield. Cockatrices own. Everything this spell gives you owns. Horned God My favorite unit in the whole drat game. Just look at how Badass this guy is, seriously. You can't go wrong with Horned Gods. They have superb strategic movement, probably the best defenses of any T4, good melee, and most importantly Call Lightning. Call Lightning is the defining ability of Horned Gods. As melee units they are pretty good, but not incredible T4 summon good. What makes them so powerful is being able to act as long-range AoE artillery, with stun, and no friendly-fire, and then follow up by being drat hard to remove even if you rush them. Call Lightning isn't a fast way of killing anything unless you've got a whole stack of Gods, but it sets the term of engagement and forces enemy armies to come to you...to you, the Class built around massing ranged units and melee summons and kiting and slowing/disabling effects. Gargantuan Animal is good enough that you can win the game with it, but Horned Gods are the unit the forces opponents to fight on your terms. If the game goes long enough it's well worth switching over. Horned Gods are completely protected against Shock and Spirit Damage, and resistant to Frost, which makes them really good against a lot of end-game units. Fire/Blight vulnerability can be a problem, but Horned Gods are flexible enough to deal with it. Oh man I'm running out of time. Spells... Revive Instinct I mean, like most slowing/morale hit effects there are situations where you might consider this, but it's not a good spell by any means. Root Spears Decent single target spell, the damage is ok and the hindered effect is nice when it works. It's never your first choice, though. Rust Strike Best machine disabling spell in the game. Good chunk of damage and the disabling effect is crippling even on Juggernaughts. Savage Rage Vital Druid buff. A lot of your animal summons are not actually that great in melee for a variety of reasons, but you can toss Savage Rage on literally anything and it will become an insane rear end-kicker. +5 damage, Charge, First Strike, Overwhelm, Armor Piercing, Wall Crushing, lasts the entire battle. Oh yes...I've seen this spell make Penguins into an insane berserker that destroyed a Golem and tunneled through stone walls, but try casting it on a Shock Serpent... Hornet Swarm It's a better Chain Lightning, only blight damage. A lot of targets it won't work against, but when it does it's killer. The ultimate Elf slayer spell. Twisting Vines Severely underrated. Get your Hunters into position, drop this spell, and then see how easy it is to just destroy melee defenders as they crawl towards you like the worlds slowest zombies. Works even better with Shamans, and late game Wild Hunt means you can drop this at will and it only hinders enemies. Vengeful Vines Druids are not amazing at dealing with walls. Hunters and Shamans can't wall climb or fly, and most animals can't either. Eventually it's a non-issue and there are ways to deal with it, but Vengeful Vines is pretty helpful in any case. The only problem with this spell is that waiting for the walls to grind down gives your opponent all the time in the world to disjunct. Revitalize It's like Quick Dash except it takes abilities off-cooldown instead of the small heal. Very useful tactical spell, especially in combination with Entangle and Call Lightning. Call Ancestral Spirits This is such a cool spell and I want to like it so much but it's garbage, sorry. Basically it summons a badass looking Spirit Powered Phantasmal Warrior as a combat summon. You can drop the spell anywhere on the field, so I'm pretty sure it's the only spell in the game that lets you drop a sturdy melee unit on top of an archer hiding behind a wall. All of these things are awesome. The problem is that it's a Tier 5 combat spell and by the time you can actually research and cast it the Ancestral Spirit is just a tiny speedbumb that dies instantly the round it's summoned. If this spell was even Tier 4 it would be so much better. As it is it's only useful in very slight edge cases like attacking very small garrisons that you can't just Hornet Swarm and the like. Call Beast Horde A wet fart of a T6 Combat Spell. It's kinda like Chaos Rift, minus the giant amounts of Shock Damage, Summoning useful creatures, or the uncapped duration. So it's like Chaos Rift if it was totally useless. Now obviously I'm not asking for it to be even nearly as strong as Chaos Rift, but an endgame 50 mana disjunctable battlefield spell that can summon a maximum of 7 penguins is the saddest loving thing. Never use or research this spell. Global Spells One With the Elements Reduces the penalties for disliked terrain and increases the bonus for liked terrain simultaneously. A really awesome and cost-effective spell for boosting happiness all around. Especially good for Halflings. Fertile Domain +200 Pop Growth, 20 mana upkeep. When you need a town to grow as fast as possible, there's nothing better. The upkeep can be crippling early on if you're also trying to summon though. Use this spell on only one town at a time until your mana income is stabilized, and take my advice-Don't cast this on your throne on turn one even if you start with it. Just don't. Insect Plague I don't think I've ever actually used this. -25% Production on one town for 20 mana upkeep? Uh...Ok sure. Sunburst 15 Fire Damage on the Strategic Map. Not useless, but the Druid doesn't have any way I can think of to cheese this the way Theocrats and Sorcerers can with their global nukes. Poison Domain Terrifying, not so much for the small amount of blight damage but for the unavoidable -2 Def/Res debuff. Druids are pretty good at defense already with Hunters/Shamans, adding this is like kicking a small puppy. Makes even T4 units scarily vulnerable to Entangle. Wild Growth Rapidly spamming forests everywhere is a pretty effective tactic when your primary units all have forestry and forest concealment. Thorn Hedge Walls Ahahahaha. Like most City Defense Spells, don't even bother assaulting a town with this up. Disjunct it or go around. Even worse is that it combos with Poison Domain... Natures Eyes All invisible and concealed units in your domain are revealed. An excellent spell against Rogues late game. The Wild Hunt The Druids Ultimate Spell is not as game-breakingly powerful as some, but for what it does do (All Units Gain Floating and Strong Will) it's pretty awesome. The primary effect is giving your entire empire supreme mobility. Floating on everyone allows you to completely ignore terrain and makes it a lot easier for your animal summons to keep up with your other units. Also you completely ignore walls, which is very satisfying for obvious reasons. You also are able to to freely combo it with spells that target ground units like Wild Vines and Earth Quake. Strong Will is situational but it allow you to completely shut down all mind control effects and is especially useful against Theocrats. Be warned that traveling over water is still a risk because if the spell gets disjuncted at that moment all your non-swimming units will die instantly. Try not to end turns on water if you can avoid it. It's a really fun Global to use. I think it would be cool if it gave some sort of Global Animal Buff to fit the theme a little better but that might be over the top, I dunno. For Races, Elves are the best starting race. Longbow Hunters, Fast Shock Sisters and Forestry on all racial units is just that good. Draconians and Halflings are also really good and worth absorbing or starting with. Orcs, Dwarves, and Goblins are meh, especially Orcs. Humans aren't great but have a few unique advantages at least. Support units are an important consideration because they'll be a useful back-up unit throughtout the game with your Empire Upgrades. Druids are entirely geared towards Physical and Blight Damage and anything that opens up another damage channel is useful. For specializations, you have a lot of good options. Creation adept is helpful because Druid has some healing abilities but no healing spells. Earth has a lot of helpful spells and the Earthquake/Wild Hunt gimmick but it further restricts you to physical damage. Fire can be good just purely for the added damage channel. Wild is good for everyone but none of your buffs and empire techs synergize with elementals. Water is interesting and I should try it for Druid one of these days for the AOE heal and cold damage spells. And enraged Baby Krakens, I suppose. And that's Druid in a nutshell. If you really love archers, long walks in the woods, making randomized pokemon armies or gotta go fast, you just might enjoy the class as much as I do. madmac fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Nov 24, 2014 |
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Nov 24, 2014 15:13
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