Posted July 28, 2010
This has been one of my favorite games since it came out, and I'm eager to see how Ironclad does with 'Elemental', the supposed spiritual descendant of this game.
Favorite number one: all nature pics; make sure you get the spells Gorgons, earth lore, web, and cracks call.
Earth lore around your continent for intelligence, then summon the Gorgons ASAP (all mana into the bank, none to research or skill just yet) and send them to the first nature node you see. They fly and they're fairly strong. Cracks call will kill almost anything 1/4 of the time (save before battles of course), and web makes sure it's on the ground to be vulnerable to it. The patch I found on this site makes great wyrms immune, but you can kill anything else in a nature node that way. Don't forget to buff your gorgons with resistance magic against ranged attacks like the sprites throw, or the attacks of cockatrices or other gorgons. Stoneskin and giant strength help too, and have only a 1 mana upkeep (all nature assures you will have these spells).
All death picks: I usually choose the Rjak pic and call myself Sauron and my first city Mordor. Zombie mastery for your very rare, but don't use it yet. That many picks in death and it's relatively cheap, but not that cheap. You don't have to pay upkeep on the zombies it makes! Choose shadow demons, and start casting on the first turn. They regenerate, fly, and can be easily enhanced with a darkness spell. When they run out of ranged attack ammo, melee what you can fight a bit, stay back and regenerate, fight some more...works great unless they fly or have gaze or breath attacks. Easily conquers neutral cities with a single shadow demon unit. Plus they plane shift at will! Just hit the plane button every turn you move them and you can explore both planes at once, and easily start conquering the other one.
A cheezy favorite: 2+ in nature, 2+ in sorcery, 1+ in chaos and whatever else you feel like. Pick node mastery. 2 nature books guarantees you can pick sprites--they're weak but they can fly. 2 in sorcery guarantees confusion. This way you can enter any node, cast confusion without worry about the node overcoming it, and make at least one unit (at starting skill you can only cast it once) fight the others to death. Avoid the enemy until combat is over, rinse and repeat. This depends on a bit of luck not to encounter too many things that can take down a flying creature. Combine this with earth lore and a few other cheezy poof things and I've taken out all the AIs REALLY quickly with this, before they have time to build armies.
What are your favorites?
Favorite number one: all nature pics; make sure you get the spells Gorgons, earth lore, web, and cracks call.
Earth lore around your continent for intelligence, then summon the Gorgons ASAP (all mana into the bank, none to research or skill just yet) and send them to the first nature node you see. They fly and they're fairly strong. Cracks call will kill almost anything 1/4 of the time (save before battles of course), and web makes sure it's on the ground to be vulnerable to it. The patch I found on this site makes great wyrms immune, but you can kill anything else in a nature node that way. Don't forget to buff your gorgons with resistance magic against ranged attacks like the sprites throw, or the attacks of cockatrices or other gorgons. Stoneskin and giant strength help too, and have only a 1 mana upkeep (all nature assures you will have these spells).
All death picks: I usually choose the Rjak pic and call myself Sauron and my first city Mordor. Zombie mastery for your very rare, but don't use it yet. That many picks in death and it's relatively cheap, but not that cheap. You don't have to pay upkeep on the zombies it makes! Choose shadow demons, and start casting on the first turn. They regenerate, fly, and can be easily enhanced with a darkness spell. When they run out of ranged attack ammo, melee what you can fight a bit, stay back and regenerate, fight some more...works great unless they fly or have gaze or breath attacks. Easily conquers neutral cities with a single shadow demon unit. Plus they plane shift at will! Just hit the plane button every turn you move them and you can explore both planes at once, and easily start conquering the other one.
A cheezy favorite: 2+ in nature, 2+ in sorcery, 1+ in chaos and whatever else you feel like. Pick node mastery. 2 nature books guarantees you can pick sprites--they're weak but they can fly. 2 in sorcery guarantees confusion. This way you can enter any node, cast confusion without worry about the node overcoming it, and make at least one unit (at starting skill you can only cast it once) fight the others to death. Avoid the enemy until combat is over, rinse and repeat. This depends on a bit of luck not to encounter too many things that can take down a flying creature. Combine this with earth lore and a few other cheezy poof things and I've taken out all the AIs REALLY quickly with this, before they have time to build armies.
What are your favorites?