C'tis strategies?

[KissBlade]

Hi, I downloaded the demo a few days ago and have been trying to figure out how to play this game. The learning curve is rather steep but I think I've figured out some stuff. So far, I'm pretty fond of C'tis but I was curious as to what are some of their strategies? I just ebayed the game (but the guy only took checks >_<) so it'll be a bit before I get the full version shipped to me but regardless, I'd like to know. What are some good C'tis strategies? Especially with the desert tombs theme.

[Morkilus]

Welcome to the forums!

I'm not a C'tis expert, but just got my teeth kicked in by them last night. He used mages with two paths in Death, each of them casting Raise Skeletons (Enchantment 3). A group of about 5-6 should take out plenty of normal-morale troops, as long as they don't have too many priests. That should get you started!

Have fun with the game, there are so many things to try out. I've been playing heavily for a couple months and still haven't tried out all the nations yet... not to mention all the spells. And each of the nations have at least one theme that changes them completely. Ask away in the forums, we're all friendly, and there are plenty of features and strategies that are completely surprising.

[Endoperez]

Welcome to the forum, and the addiction!

As the games are only differentiated by key codes, it would be easy to cheat the receiving customer into buying a key-code the seller is still using - or after sharing it in the internet. Nonetheless, I hope you won't have any problems.

Enchantment is pretty good school. Reanimation gets you some undead rather fast, Behemoths are expensive but can really cause havoc, and later you would get Pale Riders (lots of Undead Horsemen, which are faster version of longdead) and a spell fitting Desert Tombs very well - Reanimate Archers. Also, Raise Dead/Skeletons can be used to make whole armies to fight for you. Couple of Sauromancers or their Desert Tombs brethrens, or high-Death pretender alone, can raise enough to conquer whole independent provinces.

Evocation also has some interesting spells - Shadow Bolt and Shadow Blast are quite costly, but powerful. Cloud of Death isn't bad, either, and Bane Fire causes some heavy damage. Only few nations can get D3F1 casters, but as Desert Tombs, you'll really enjoy it. 53 damage, AoE 1, Range 40 for D3 caster... And for mages with Air or Astral, Winds of Death and Nether Darts are good. Remember that Nether Darts is much better than earlier Nether Dart, shooting 15 darts per casting.

Alteration has Drain Life, which is also very powerful.

And of course, Construction offers all kinds of interesting things. Skull Staff at Constr. 4 boosts Death, and at Constr. 6 you'll get Skullface and Flaming Skull.

For a good strategy, it's nice to have a pretender who benefits from the path you'll be researching. E.g. basic high-Death Prince of Death can summon lots of Undead Horsemen(Pale Riders), and high-Earth Cyclops lots of Enlivened Statues(Enliven Statues). If you go for Evocation, Fire or Water could work (Falling Frost, Falling Fires), but also e.g. Air and Astral (especially when combined with Fire) also work well.

Alteration can get you some pretty interesting spells, and powerful combatants really benefit from the combat boosts on the first 3-4 levels. With some Earth for Iron Skin, some Water for Quickness and some Air for Mirror Images and Mistform, you have one-monster-army. Fatique is a killer, and few hits will get through so you need as many hitpoints as possible. A combatant like that can do wonders for your early game. Search for SC to find out more.
SC is short from Saber Cherry. She's a regular poster, but while she was away newbies got to thinking the term originated form Super Combatant.

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Or not. But I always liked that theory more. And you wouldn't believe what she can do with her Math skills!
Endoperez,
Janne )`'�( Joensuu

[Ironhawk]

KissBlade, Ctis is a really easy nation to use. Strategies for it are really simple, straightforward, and effective.

My starting strategy is this:
Light Infantry, supported by 2-3 Sauros casting: Eagle Eyes, Terror x4
(Terror is a base Ctis national spell, you dont need to research it)

Then, research up to enchant and switch to:
Raise Skeletons x5

Keep researching in enchant until you get to Relief. Then switch over to Const until level 4. This will allow you to build Thistle Maces. Use your 2N Sauros to build maces and then give them one so they are 3N. When you have done this you will be ready for the standard Ctis Skelly Spam Strategy.

Which is, just get like 6-8+ sauros together and have them all cast Raise Skeletons x5. Then have your 3N sauro cast Relief x5. In this way each suaro should be able to cast upwards of 10 Raise Skeletons (ie about 50 skeletons per sauro!!).

The enchantment school also has various other neat things for Ctis to diversify your forces a little. Pale Riders if you need cavalry. Banefire archers (use your F suaros) if you need some archers.

[KissBlade]

Hi, thanks for the responses. How do I make my caster cast "5x" a spell and then switch to another though...?

[Morkilus]

This is what I think he means in longhand:

There are two kinds of Sauromancers, one that has two levels of the Death path, and one that has two of Nature. The death ones can cast Raise Skeletons once you research Enchantment up to level 3. The nature ones need to equip a Thistle Mace which raises their path to "N3", which you can't forge until you research Construction up to level 4. They are the ones that cast Relief, which you can program from the Orders menu (hotkey t). Just set their orders to "cast specific spell". Program the Death mages to cast Raise Skeletons, and you're good to go. I don't think you can have them wait five turns, then start casting. If you can, I'd be thrilled to find out how... I'd rather have the nature mages do something useful for the first turn or two, then start Reliefing.

The magic system is kinda complicated since you need both research levels and path levels, and sometimes gems, to cast anything. The path jargon is the first letter of the type (n=nature, d=death) except for astral (s=astral).

Good luck! And I hope to see you on the MP field when you get your copy.

[RonD]

What he means by "5x" is that you can repeat the "cast specific spell" up to 5 times. So you can "script" the 1st 5 actions that a commander will do, but after the 1st 5 rounds they make their own choices.

[Boron]

RonD said:
What he means by "5x" is that you can repeat the "cast specific spell" up to 5 times. So you can "script" the 1st 5 actions that a commander will do, but after the 1st 5 rounds they make their own choices.

Yeah this is important. Because they will often do very weird own choices.

Example: You fight vs. an undead SC (VQ). In order to stall her you just do the skelli-spam. But you have to script wither bones or dust to dust manually in, e.g. 2x skelspam and then 3x wither bones. Because the scripting AI will never cast wither bones on your own troops, though it would be very reasonable to do so in the above mentioned special case or in general with your battlefield summons since those are battlefield summons, so not permanent and the AI should not care about them.

When you have the game you will learn how important this is. You have to learn how the AI "thinks".
Because the excellent players like QM do "abuse" this too.
So in long drawn out battles (which are very often exactly the crucial ones) those very skilled players get a huge advantage out of "exploiting" the ai .

Ctis is one of my favourite nations too, they are as Ironhawk said straighforward but powerful. Out of the 3 themes i personally find Desert Tombs is the weakest.
Miasma is in theory more powerful than base because their marshmasters are twice as effective undead spammers once you have relief researched (water for quickness) and they get extra positive effects from their miasma dominion. But because the miasma dominion is so annoying this is also their bane. Your neighbors will dislike you almost as much as ermor or pan cw.
And finally miasma doesn't get natural banefire casters while base occasionaly does (1/8 of the sauros).

P.S.: If you play vanilla consider hoarding fever fetishes. Ctis and Machaka are imho in vanilla the best fetish hoarders. When done correctly this can be very powerful.

[shovah]

if your going skele spamming as said go miamasa (in a decent sized marsh master group of around 10 id say have maybe 3 of 4 of them on quickness+relief) and another (so far unmentioned) use of miamasa are its empoisoners which are capable assassins and when equiped with a death booster can raise skele spam (or you could give skull staff+boots of quickness for double speed)

[KissBlade]

Thanks for the strats folks. It works really damn well, especially if I have a screen of useless militia to block archers.