I get the feeling you’re still experimenting with the AI. Suffice it to say the MP experience definitely favors flaming crossbows. Indeed, the spell Flaming Arrows is so good that archer heavy nations often put Fire magic on their pretender just to have access to that spell. I’ll grant you KotC with that kind of bless are going to be very formidable, but they are nearly impossible to produce quickly enough even with Production-3. Hence the pursuit of other strategies such as flaggellants and crossbowman (both of which are recruitable outside the capital).
Take a Baphoment pretender, imprisoned, A9F9 (for fire weapons & twist fate),
Let me just quickly point out that you meant S9, not A9. When talking about Astral magic, the convention is to use “S” as an abreviation and reserve “A” for Air magic. See the need?
then maybe some positive scales for order/production in order to help you out in the early game.
I just checked on the validity of this build. Assuming an imprisoned Baphomet, you’ll only have 132 points left after buying those magic paths. Thats not a lot to buy “postive scales” with when you still have to put points into dominion.
When the game starts, buy some Grand Masters (& get used to that – they die quickly) to get your research going. Pump research into convocation to get your angels as quickly as possible; full research with 12-15 Grand Masters gets you Heavenly Choir at year 4 or so.
By year 4, a well played Ermor could field an army of over 1,000 undead horsemen. Ulm could spam Magma Bolts and Bladewind. Man could have Longbowmen in the several hundreds. Almost any nation is going to have basic anti-SC spells like Paralyze, Lightning Bolt, and Frozen Heart researched. Admittedly, the AI is very inefficient at research and just likes to build large armie. To do well at MP, the player has to utilize magic well before year four.
Meanwhile, buy Knights of the Chalice and send them off with a paladin or friar.
Or perhaps a high inquisitor who can bless all sacreds with a single spell.
The other lower-priced knights are good for when you’re expanding your kingdom (can be bought at other castles), but the KotC, being blessed troops with fire weapons & no damage on the first hit, will basically mow down anything you point them towards.
Until a handful of S2 mages fatigue them to death with Stellar Casscades. Remember, advanced players have to thing beyond the frontline troops to the mages supporting them. No matter what the difference in troop quality is.
So long as your nation’s strategy revolves around pumping out KotC as quickly as possible
In larger games, this will quickly become untenable. KotC are capital only and very resource intensive. When other players are building large forces from three, four, five, or more fortresses, its impossible to keep up.
(build temples everywhere, preach to increase dominion in lands surrounding your capital), you should be able to pump out five or six per turn plus a paladin/friar/other mage by the time your pretender escapes from prison.
Temples “everywhere?” Thats a lot of money for what will surely be a cash strapped nation due to less than ideal scales. Also, in MP temples outside of fortresses have a giant X on them for players to raid.
Then it’s mop-up time.
What am I missing? This seems like a fool-proof strategy against everything that’s been thrown against me: vast legions of undead, Man/Pythium armor attacks, and so on. Why would I bother with xbows – or any other unit that Marignon offers?
I hope I started to expand your thinking. But consider this a skill building exercise: Place yourself in the shoes of an opposing nation, be Ermor or Man or Pythium, and ask yourself how you would deal with a KotC dual bless. In practice, most players can handle the Knights easier once some research is done then they can handle Crossbows+Flaming Arrows.
As for just playing the AI, its pretty stupid (meaning easy) and everyone knows it.
