i'm not a seasoned player of this game by any stretch, but i've played through all of AoW 1, and i'm now having a crack at 2, but i've run into a very frustrating problem in the second Air mission (Tempest):

I'm sitting in four secure towns, i've started cranking out Ice Dragons every 8-10 turns, and i've got Tempest pinned down to a single wizard tower town, with a Red Dragon, and assorted Crushers, Flamers, etc. that come and go depending. i've destroyed all his nearby nodes (not strong enough to hold them in the open), BUT his domain continues to stretch all the way up to the relatively distant city where Merlin sits waiting to launch his attack, meaning that nearly every turn i get hit with an assortment of Lightning and/or Divine Storms. i've built a Sanctuary, which keeps most of my team alive, but with the right combination Tempest can kill several of my priests in one or two turns. in addition, when i head toward his stronghold (3-4 turns away), these Storms have got me so crippled by the time i get there an attack is out of the question.

as i say, based on what i've seen in this forum, i'm a relative amateur at this game, and i think i'm lacking some fundamental understanding of what constitues and supports a "domain" -- any suggestions? thanks.

Petrus:

thanks much for the response.

in an odd fluke, i won this mission last night: opened a random save file at turn 68, where Merlin sat in a nearby Wizard Tower city with (heroine) Ecklo, two Ice Dragons, an Air Elemental, and three Monks. just for the hell of it, made a charge (again) from 4 turns away, but this time i had a nearby Ice Dragon scout who was drawing all the Storm spells (plus Tempest seemed to be preoccupied with building an ice shield around his city). Merlin's party took only one Divine Storm spell (as opposed to one every turn) and they took the city (and the Wizard) with two Monks to spare (RIP Ecklo).

and what i found was: Tempest had a node underground! very confusing, don't think i've come across that before, and it explained how he could still have a large domain.

so your advice on scattering troops proved to (accidentally) be the decisive factor. not familiar with building a force field around a city -- thanks, i'll look into that. and you were right about his diminished casting ability -- in the actual attack, i got hit with surprisingly few spells.

cheers.

Hmm sounds like a bit of an annoying situation. Maybe what you could do is send out lots of small units, space them out well and make him use up all his mana reserves on killing them. If you can manage to capture the power nodes on the site he should eventually run out of mana to cast the storms with. When that happens, charge!

Davespice:

thanks for the response.

situation resolved (see above), using (by sheer luck) the identical advice given by you and Petrus. definitely something to keep in mind for similar situations. a node underground? is that fair? :O

how do i get my friend to play on my IP address to play AoWSM on my computer in the same game. we both downloaded the same version from online at gog and we cant seem to find each other with the others IP address. can anyone explain?