Welcome back guys! While we're discussing Blesses, I'm going to be implementing that new "set" of videos where we craft blesses/pretenders for a random nation, and rush through a quick vs AI play session to see how they perform! Let me know any nations you'd find hilarious/fun to see on this, and let me know your favorite blesses and bless attempts in the comments!
@@RHort1337 You got it bud! I've already got my Late Age Pyrene video up, so check that out if you happened to mean late age, but if not, I'll be jumping right on the early age train for you with these guys. I'm currently in the middle of finishing up my beginner's guide to Mekone, trying to get a few more multiplayer matches finished so I can get some better "realistic" battles (whatever that means haha) to put in there, but its tough, so I might jump on this in the meantime. Thanks for the comment and feedback!
Hahahahaha, oh of course! The problem for me is figuring out how to format it. If I make it all one video - it'll take me ten years to make, and only be one video of content. If I make them EACH a video, it'll be too small for a full video. Unless.... ...unless I start an "expansion" playlist, and do that ALONGSIDE my nation guides. Ooh, I like that idea!
Ooh ok, I'll be sure to check that out! You're not kidding about some of them - I swear shark tribe and Amber clan are the bane of my existence, but I've figured out sort of a decent method to "size them up" ahead of time (spoiler: I abuse my scout early), but I'd be happy to put out the expansion guide, with a small emphasis on underwater for you!
The comment around 45:00 regarding an Ind defensive bless really sparked my curiosity. Ind's wide range of sacred troops always leaves me wondering how best to field a bless. I'm curious how Reaper and the rest of you build them. (And I've never done an Ind game and felt like I had the "right" bless...)
With Ind, I tend to hyper focus on 2 things: 1. The mages (very solid AND Versatile with communion setups) 2. The "other" troops. Cycocephalians are INSANELY effective, as well as the Orionde, and the infinite free lion chaff you can get help pad your HP numbers a TON. If you fielded a super defensive bless for Ind, I could banter here with you back and forth and help you figure it out, if you'd like. Difficult with their low HP, but you can easily supplement that.
@@AOReaper I had just found and subscribed to your channel when I commented, but since then I've been looking through your other videos and seen you've already put out tons of content for Ind. I'm trying out something similar to your earth snake now, and the rapid expansion fits the foreign recruitment needs beautifully while giving the humans a tidy niche. The build I failed seemed good in theory: an imprisoned rainbow built around defenses and a poison weapons bless. Got stomped, gave up, I think due to going too hard on elemental resistances amid the larger indie armies between Doms 5 and 6.
i won a SP-thug Arcocephale, using squads of Pegasus leader and 5 pegasus rider body guards to attack rear/attack archers, as my main force. For the Bless i had an imprisoned rainbow with Stygian Skin, Larger, Blood Surge, True sight and +3 strength... You are right, that the sacred unit itself has too many flaws to patch up (no magic weapons, weak mounts etc), but they can drop ontop of the enemy instantly and deal a fair amount of charge damage, so i managed to compensate for it by equipping my thugs (and their mounts) with full armor and appropriate weapons. Basically once you hit around 6-10 thugs + bodyguards, it kind of becomes an unstoppable steam roller, as i managed to just brute-force kill Muspelheim who controlled around half the map with vineshield/storm pike thugs and cavalry. Also castle sieges are very easy, as you can just drop in on-top of their archers and mages almost immediately.
What I would've love to see is a battleplan for nations that is so stupidly simple, it's just barely can win against easy ai. Sort of a starting point, a core strategy to iterate upon later when you learn what spells do. A lot of guides focus on high end play with magic path diversity and countering meta strategies and it's pretty overwhelming for a new player who doesn't even know how to get gems.
Ok! Well, since I've switched my "Nation guides" from "Overall" to 2 separate "Beginner" and "Advanced" guides, I'll be sure to do that, but would you like this with particular nations (aka "easy to understand" ones) or would you like me to dive into the tougher more intricate ones, and try to "dumb them down" so you can at least start off with them, but then have great potential if you keep at it? MA Ulm, for example, is deceptively complex, but there is DEFINITELY a ceiling there, whereas MA Shinuyama has virtually no ceiling to its capabilities, but its brutally hard to understand and to play at the lower levels.
@@AOReaper Introduction to less friendly nations will probably be better. There are *some* advices for simpler nations, like said Ulm, floating around. Though all nations can benefit from a clear strategy for dummies if you up for the task.
@@Propietario283 Sounds like a plan. I'll try to do one for Mekone tonight and tomorrow. That's a nation a few people have requested so far, and brutally difficult to find anything online for people to follow. I think I can simplify it down and make it playable. Make sure to check back in and let me know if its what you were thinking of.
Thanks for the comment! I haven't played them extensively yet, but ooooh boy, they have one of THE most powerful unit rosters I've ever seen, and one of the best late age mage lineups as well. I almost feel like a guide for them would be too easy, as it would essentially boil down to "Take order, take growth, and do literally anything and you win". I'll have to put some serious time into them when I get a chance. Mekone first (already working on them), then I have a few other nations I'm working on, but I'm also trying to simultaneously do expansion videos, pretender creation videos, and THEN my nation videos. I'll see when I can fit the super dogs in, but UNTIL I can get to them: check out my "Ind" national video... a lot of information about the cyncocephalians in there, and it might not be a direct comparison, but you can see many of the similar strengths!
Well, unfortunately off the top of my head, if I remember correctly - Lichcraft doesn't work on undead, so tartarian gate would be out of the question. They changed a lot of that stuff switching over to Dom 6, with the spiritform (and in this case: undead) changes. I might be misunderstanding which spells you're talking about, however. Thanks again for stopping by!
And also: to answer more specifically, when it comes to recruitables, there are a few versions I like better. The Vaetti hag (spelling?) I think has a powerful setup with the stealth she comes with. That's a good one, but the low HP makes me nervous without an appropriate undying bless or something similar (even with invuln). I also like the one you can get from LA Atlantis too: comes with sailing, for a little bit of flexibility, but for the most part I tend to prefer the higher HP versions, just because if I'm going to spend 25D on a spell/unit, it had better pay off BIG time, and I'm usually expecting myself to have taken a bless undead regen setup or something similar for it. Hope that helps! What units were you considering for it, if you don't mind me asking? Any favorites?
@@AOReaper Well I'm in a mod multiplayer game the war hammer one. I'm playing the undead nation. and I have d3 + Random recruit every here. My bless is larger + heroism. I also have cap only undead d4 F1 S2 W1 they make disgusting thug whit vortex+inv+eth body+ fire and astral shield. I'm in leading position can be argue to be second. and I also have d2 recruit everywhere that have corps healer and whit them I could make super titan factory
only the d3 and d2 can be eligible for the lich spell because the rest of the roster is already undead. Maybe only the air random are the good option whit the wind of dead for cheap. And there fore the titan may be the better option but I don't have a good n income I can achemy them my astral income is superb +32 turn 40
@@skoub3466 Eesh, it sounds like you're already in a strong position, so it might not be as relevant, but that sounds like a tough situation specifically for lichcraft. Titans are tough if you don't have another way to get a bunch besides Tartar gate, and through Tartar gate (obviously) they're going to be undead. Winds of Death is always a powerful addition... if you have a way to score that, and then use my little blitz trick (from the Fomoria video I think) you'd be causing a lot of problems. Just make sure you don't do TOO much and get coalitioned!
You got the burning ones thing wrong, bad formation fight just stacks, it works as "that square loses that many size points" so two burning ones cant both fit into the same square. Similarly, lave warriors are size 3 with bad formation fighter -2. Nothing else can fit into a square with two lava warriors, i did a bunch of testing.
Incorrect my friend, although I totally understand how you could make that mistake. Let's test the scenarios one at a time, and get to the bottom of it: Formation fighter 2 (Arcosephale cardaces) you can fit 4 into a square, because 10 is normal 10+2 = 12, but you cannot fit 5 into a square, so formation fighter does NOT stack, confirmed. Now let's test Bad formation fighter (BFF from now on): Burning ones BFF -2, size 4. Square size 10 - 2 = 8, can fit two into a square confirmed, so your theory doesn't track. I have a screenshot of two burning ones in a single square I'll link here: i.ibb.co/FDJbTSH/answers.png Now let's test your theory that nothing else can fit into a square with lava warriors. I shrunk a lava warrior with "Army of Rats" down to size 2. Now you'll have the ability to have Size 3 + 3 + 2 = 8. According to your theory, they won't fit. Here is a picture of all THREE of them fitting into a square: i.ibb.co/q9bbyCc/answers2.png So your mistake comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of how BFF or FF works: you're missing the FIRST part of the statement "can't fit into tight formations" so ANY unit that forms "normal formations" won't be able to pair with BFF, which might cause your misunderstanding. But if you find a 2 size BFF, the numbers will track and add up. Totally understand how you can make the mistake, and I love when new players banter about these things! Its always fun for a veteran like myself to banter back and forth with newer players with new ideas, and this is where greatness is found! Even though you were mistaken on this one, keep at it! This hunger for information will make you great eventually at this game!
Also please note that I would normally heart and upvote every viewer comment I see, but I'm afraid to do it with this one, so that another new player doesn't come along, read your message, and incorrectly think its true, but the love is still here for your comment and feedback! Just don't want to mislead anybody! :)
@AOReaper go test it. Burning ones will start a battle in the same tile but won't be able to share one. Similarly if you take a larger bless on lava warriors they won't be 2 to a tile anymore, same with the therodos sacreds. I think I posted the results in the MA Aby or EA aby chat on lucids seever. Edit: I haven't tested with army of rats but the way I did my tests was using nest of salamanders, are you on any of the discords? Immersion, lucids, reddit? I could link you pictures. I'm shocked by the army of rats one though, clearly I have something wrong but I can assure you, you can't have multiple burning ones to a tile. This got reported as a bug on the steam forums a bunch too
@AOReaper I pinged you on lucids discord server with some more details about bad formation fighter. I'm not sure how the mechanics works but I can confirm burning ones are 1 to a tile, there is just a bug that they're 2 to a square at battle start
@@juliang8676 I just gave you a screenshot of both in one tile, not sure what more I can offer you. Perhaps when they're moving, they PREFER to separate or something similar, but I was in a battle with that screenshot, with them both in one tile. If this changes during their BEHAVIOR after that fact, then it could be an AI bug (or a visual misrepresentation, depending on how the wonky battle system works), but its clear from the fact that you CAN get them into one square, that the intent is that it doesn't stack (as that would make a very weird exponential setup). If its a bug: report it, and I'm sure Illwinter will get to it eventually.
Welcome back guys!
While we're discussing Blesses, I'm going to be implementing that new "set" of videos where we craft blesses/pretenders for a random nation, and rush through a quick vs AI play session to see how they perform! Let me know any nations you'd find hilarious/fun to see on this, and let me know your favorite blesses and bless attempts in the comments!
I would love to see a bless/pretender that could work with Pyrene, it seems like a complicated nation to make work. Love the vids, thanks AO!
@@RHort1337 You got it bud! I've already got my Late Age Pyrene video up, so check that out if you happened to mean late age, but if not, I'll be jumping right on the early age train for you with these guys. I'm currently in the middle of finishing up my beginner's guide to Mekone, trying to get a few more multiplayer matches finished so I can get some better "realistic" battles (whatever that means haha) to put in there, but its tough, so I might jump on this in the meantime.
Thanks for the comment and feedback!
1:34 - Why yes, I _would_ like an expansion how-to for every nation. : )
Hahahahaha, oh of course! The problem for me is figuring out how to format it. If I make it all one video - it'll take me ten years to make, and only be one video of content. If I make them EACH a video, it'll be too small for a full video. Unless....
...unless I start an "expansion" playlist, and do that ALONGSIDE my nation guides. Ooh, I like that idea!
And I would LOVE the expansion guide you mentioned. I usually play UW or underground and the indies are a little harder than above ground IMO.
Ooh ok, I'll be sure to check that out! You're not kidding about some of them - I swear shark tribe and Amber clan are the bane of my existence, but I've figured out sort of a decent method to "size them up" ahead of time (spoiler: I abuse my scout early), but I'd be happy to put out the expansion guide, with a small emphasis on underwater for you!
The comment around 45:00 regarding an Ind defensive bless really sparked my curiosity. Ind's wide range of sacred troops always leaves me wondering how best to field a bless. I'm curious how Reaper and the rest of you build them.
(And I've never done an Ind game and felt like I had the "right" bless...)
With Ind, I tend to hyper focus on 2 things:
1. The mages (very solid AND Versatile with communion setups)
2. The "other" troops. Cycocephalians are INSANELY effective, as well as the Orionde, and the infinite free lion chaff you can get help pad your HP numbers a TON.
If you fielded a super defensive bless for Ind, I could banter here with you back and forth and help you figure it out, if you'd like. Difficult with their low HP, but you can easily supplement that.
@@AOReaper I had just found and subscribed to your channel when I commented, but since then I've been looking through your other videos and seen you've already put out tons of content for Ind. I'm trying out something similar to your earth snake now, and the rapid expansion fits the foreign recruitment needs beautifully while giving the humans a tidy niche.
The build I failed seemed good in theory: an imprisoned rainbow built around defenses and a poison weapons bless. Got stomped, gave up, I think due to going too hard on elemental resistances amid the larger indie armies between Doms 5 and 6.
i won a SP-thug Arcocephale, using squads of Pegasus leader and 5 pegasus rider body guards to attack rear/attack archers, as my main force. For the Bless i had an imprisoned rainbow with Stygian Skin, Larger, Blood Surge, True sight and +3 strength...
You are right, that the sacred unit itself has too many flaws to patch up (no magic weapons, weak mounts etc), but they can drop ontop of the enemy instantly and deal a fair amount of charge damage, so i managed to compensate for it by equipping my thugs (and their mounts) with full armor and appropriate weapons. Basically once you hit around 6-10 thugs + bodyguards, it kind of becomes an unstoppable steam roller, as i managed to just brute-force kill Muspelheim who controlled around half the map with vineshield/storm pike thugs and cavalry. Also castle sieges are very easy, as you can just drop in on-top of their archers and mages almost immediately.
What I would've love to see is a battleplan for nations that is so stupidly simple, it's just barely can win against easy ai. Sort of a starting point, a core strategy to iterate upon later when you learn what spells do.
A lot of guides focus on high end play with magic path diversity and countering meta strategies and it's pretty overwhelming for a new player who doesn't even know how to get gems.
Ok! Well, since I've switched my "Nation guides" from "Overall" to 2 separate "Beginner" and "Advanced" guides, I'll be sure to do that, but would you like this with particular nations (aka "easy to understand" ones) or would you like me to dive into the tougher more intricate ones, and try to "dumb them down" so you can at least start off with them, but then have great potential if you keep at it? MA Ulm, for example, is deceptively complex, but there is DEFINITELY a ceiling there, whereas MA Shinuyama has virtually no ceiling to its capabilities, but its brutally hard to understand and to play at the lower levels.
@@AOReaper Introduction to less friendly nations will probably be better. There are *some* advices for simpler nations, like said Ulm, floating around. Though all nations can benefit from a clear strategy for dummies if you up for the task.
@@Propietario283 Sounds like a plan. I'll try to do one for Mekone tonight and tomorrow. That's a nation a few people have requested so far, and brutally difficult to find anything online for people to follow. I think I can simplify it down and make it playable. Make sure to check back in and let me know if its what you were thinking of.
Thanks for the video, I am looking forward to your next videos. Maybe Andomania ?
Thanks for the comment!
I haven't played them extensively yet, but ooooh boy, they have one of THE most powerful unit rosters I've ever seen, and one of the best late age mage lineups as well. I almost feel like a guide for them would be too easy, as it would essentially boil down to "Take order, take growth, and do literally anything and you win".
I'll have to put some serious time into them when I get a chance. Mekone first (already working on them), then I have a few other nations I'm working on, but I'm also trying to simultaneously do expansion videos, pretender creation videos, and THEN my nation videos. I'll see when I can fit the super dogs in, but UNTIL I can get to them: check out my "Ind" national video... a lot of information about the cyncocephalians in there, and it might not be a direct comparison, but you can see many of the similar strengths!
Half listened to the video but now i know why i lose a lot
Still probably going to have shitty blessings but now i know why i am wrong now
Aww, ain't no shame my friend! Chat here, and I'll help you figure out how to win more, or at least have more fun trying!
Question what would you prefer lich craft on summonable/recruit unit or titan gate?
Well, unfortunately off the top of my head, if I remember correctly - Lichcraft doesn't work on undead, so tartarian gate would be out of the question. They changed a lot of that stuff switching over to Dom 6, with the spiritform (and in this case: undead) changes.
I might be misunderstanding which spells you're talking about, however.
Thanks again for stopping by!
And also: to answer more specifically, when it comes to recruitables, there are a few versions I like better. The Vaetti hag (spelling?) I think has a powerful setup with the stealth she comes with. That's a good one, but the low HP makes me nervous without an appropriate undying bless or something similar (even with invuln). I also like the one you can get from LA Atlantis too: comes with sailing, for a little bit of flexibility, but for the most part I tend to prefer the higher HP versions, just because if I'm going to spend 25D on a spell/unit, it had better pay off BIG time, and I'm usually expecting myself to have taken a bless undead regen setup or something similar for it. Hope that helps!
What units were you considering for it, if you don't mind me asking? Any favorites?
@@AOReaper Well I'm in a mod multiplayer game the war hammer one. I'm playing the undead nation. and I have d3 + Random recruit every here. My bless is larger + heroism. I also have cap only undead d4 F1 S2 W1 they make disgusting thug whit vortex+inv+eth body+ fire and astral shield. I'm in leading position can be argue to be second. and I also have d2 recruit everywhere that have corps healer and whit them I could make super titan factory
only the d3 and d2 can be eligible for the lich spell because the rest of the roster is already undead. Maybe only the air random are the good option whit the wind of dead for cheap. And there fore the titan may be the better option but I don't have a good n income I can achemy them my astral income is superb +32 turn 40
@@skoub3466 Eesh, it sounds like you're already in a strong position, so it might not be as relevant, but that sounds like a tough situation specifically for lichcraft. Titans are tough if you don't have another way to get a bunch besides Tartar gate, and through Tartar gate (obviously) they're going to be undead. Winds of Death is always a powerful addition... if you have a way to score that, and then use my little blitz trick (from the Fomoria video I think) you'd be causing a lot of problems. Just make sure you don't do TOO much and get coalitioned!
You got the burning ones thing wrong, bad formation fight just stacks, it works as "that square loses that many size points" so two burning ones cant both fit into the same square. Similarly, lave warriors are size 3 with bad formation fighter -2. Nothing else can fit into a square with two lava warriors, i did a bunch of testing.
Incorrect my friend, although I totally understand how you could make that mistake. Let's test the scenarios one at a time, and get to the bottom of it:
Formation fighter 2 (Arcosephale cardaces) you can fit 4 into a square, because 10 is normal 10+2 = 12, but you cannot fit 5 into a square, so formation fighter does NOT stack, confirmed.
Now let's test Bad formation fighter (BFF from now on): Burning ones BFF -2, size 4. Square size 10 - 2 = 8, can fit two into a square confirmed, so your theory doesn't track. I have a screenshot of two burning ones in a single square I'll link here: i.ibb.co/FDJbTSH/answers.png
Now let's test your theory that nothing else can fit into a square with lava warriors. I shrunk a lava warrior with "Army of Rats" down to size 2. Now you'll have the ability to have Size 3 + 3 + 2 = 8. According to your theory, they won't fit. Here is a picture of all THREE of them fitting into a square: i.ibb.co/q9bbyCc/answers2.png
So your mistake comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of how BFF or FF works: you're missing the FIRST part of the statement "can't fit into tight formations" so ANY unit that forms "normal formations" won't be able to pair with BFF, which might cause your misunderstanding. But if you find a 2 size BFF, the numbers will track and add up.
Totally understand how you can make the mistake, and I love when new players banter about these things! Its always fun for a veteran like myself to banter back and forth with newer players with new ideas, and this is where greatness is found! Even though you were mistaken on this one, keep at it! This hunger for information will make you great eventually at this game!
Also please note that I would normally heart and upvote every viewer comment I see, but I'm afraid to do it with this one, so that another new player doesn't come along, read your message, and incorrectly think its true, but the love is still here for your comment and feedback! Just don't want to mislead anybody! :)
@AOReaper go test it. Burning ones will start a battle in the same tile but won't be able to share one. Similarly if you take a larger bless on lava warriors they won't be 2 to a tile anymore, same with the therodos sacreds. I think I posted the results in the MA Aby or EA aby chat on lucids seever.
Edit: I haven't tested with army of rats but the way I did my tests was using nest of salamanders, are you on any of the discords? Immersion, lucids, reddit? I could link you pictures. I'm shocked by the army of rats one though, clearly I have something wrong but I can assure you, you can't have multiple burning ones to a tile. This got reported as a bug on the steam forums a bunch too
@AOReaper I pinged you on lucids discord server with some more details about bad formation fighter. I'm not sure how the mechanics works but I can confirm burning ones are 1 to a tile, there is just a bug that they're 2 to a square at battle start
@@juliang8676 I just gave you a screenshot of both in one tile, not sure what more I can offer you. Perhaps when they're moving, they PREFER to separate or something similar, but I was in a battle with that screenshot, with them both in one tile.
If this changes during their BEHAVIOR after that fact, then it could be an AI bug (or a visual misrepresentation, depending on how the wonky battle system works), but its clear from the fact that you CAN get them into one square, that the intent is that it doesn't stack (as that would make a very weird exponential setup).
If its a bug: report it, and I'm sure Illwinter will get to it eventually.