How to deal with Darkness?

[DonCorazon]

Just curious if you are playing a nation like Eriu with no death magic how you deal with the BF spell Darkness?
I am guessing the normal way is to summon undead or other creatures that are not impacted by it (is that true?)but are there any other effective counters?

Thanks.

[Amhazair]

Solar brilliance negates darkness, but you'll need a high astral mage to cast it.

Other than that, undead and demons are indeed unaffected and can help you out. Some other summons like trolls have at least partial darkvision. Otherwise any chaff (or any type of unit really) preferably buffed with army of gold/lead that can survive for long enough without relying on it's defense, while your mages cast battlefield-damage spells, or just large area evocation where their precision isn't that important, can do the trick.

[Baalz]

FYI Tuatha/Sidhe lords have partial darkvision as well.

[Aezeal]

IF the opponent has strong high level battlefield spells you will loose if you don't have any.

[Tuidjy]

Doesn't Solar Brilliance also blind your own troops?

I know that the one cast by the Forbidden Light will ruin an army in less than
ten turns. If the regular Solar Brilliance does the same, the cure is worse
than the disease.

We could REALLY use a battlefield Dispell, or a spell that makes battlefield
enchantments twice as hard to cast.

[Renojustin]

Battlefield Dispel would do something Very Bad:

It would make Astral magic even more powerful than it is. Worse, it would give an effective counter to nearly any strategy that you could develop with battlefield enchantments. It would be a lot better if there were situational counters.

If Death mages can cast Darkness, maybe Fire or Air or Astral mages should be able to cast Light, that can affect Darkvision and/or undead units, or 'dispel' darkness. Have a light/darkness level on the battlefield, the same as temperature. Maybe tied in with Death/Growth scales?

[Amhazair]

Tuidjy said:
Doesn't Solar Brilliance also blind your own troops?

I'm not 100% sure I remember correctly, but I seem to recall that darkness and solar brilliance cancel each other out, leaving no ill effects of any kind.

[Sombre]

I think basically every nation gets access to units which work fine in darkness, one way or another. Constructs, undead, blind units, plant units, those with aoe attacks etc. Then there are the spells and items.

Now in a lot of cases the counters are way more costly than the darkness + associated troops being used against you. But then no-one said darkness isn't an awesome spell.

[Meglobob]

Solar Brilliance is an excellent counter to darkness for any nations with good healing abilities, recuperation, the chalice or gift of health.

Any of your troops that are blind, just withdraw to a fort until they are good to go again.

In such circumstances you can deploy solar brilliance just for its blindness effect, in big battles even when facing living troops and not just undead.

[vfb]

No. It will blind commanders/mages too (though they usually have higher MR than troops).