Hoburgs and Devils

[UberPenguin]

I was playing as Arco (Arcosophrodale or however you spell it, I just call it arco) and I came upon a province in my conquest of the level 9 indies. Citala, 70 units, "made up of about 70 units, mainly hoburg gaurds, hoburg crossbows and devils." When I sent my elite corps there, 75 hoplites with 50+ archers for support, my god, and about 6 mystics, priestesses and astrologers... it turns out that there were three hoburgs, and 67 devils apparently. I'd really like to know if this is common, because it was a real bummer when a walk-over victory turns into a massacre.

[HJ]

So much for the scrying dominion, eh?

There are some nasty surprises in the indie provinces from time to time, but I have so far not encountered anything of this magnitude. It mostly boils down to a few unexpected summons that some mage commanders have as bodyguards, such as dark vines or Jotun giants. Orania has some nasty indies, but I think those are scripted (e.g. victory point provinces, and some other with winter wolves etc.)

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by UberPenguin:
it turns out that there were three hoburgs, and 67 devils apparently. I'd really like to know if this is common,

Hoburgs leaders are known to be fond of magic items, and yes, it's common for a Soul Contract to generate 67 Devils after 67 game turns.

[Yossar]

Were there really so few Horburgs? On Indys 9, having three would only make sense if they were all commanders and the rest of the Horburgs had routed in a previous battle. But don't they also list units present in decreasing amount? Ie, since devils were listed Last they should be the fewest.

[UberPenguin]

I had sent maybe six armies that got utterly destroyed before I actually realized where all my troops were going, I figured it out around turn 40, and sent my elite corps there around turn 45, after gathering for awhile. I think it was a devil leader, rather than the hoburgs, since they didn't apparently have any magical stuff on them. I didn't sift through all the devils but I will now. Does anyone know how to pause? When they are all moving its a tad hard. PS: I never figured out how to use Scry.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by UberPenguin:
Does anyone know how to pause? When they are all moving its a tad hard. PS: I never figured out how to use Scry.

Hit space during a battle replay to pause.

Scry is a passive ability, when you view a province in your dominion, it automatically uses scry. However, *ANY* number of devils is generally a BAD sign in a province, as I don't think I've ever seen a province of naturally-occurring devils. And the longer you procrastinate, the more untenably devil-infested the province becomes.....and there really isn't a good, clean answer to devils, other than "be really buff".

[HotNifeThruButr]

It's kind of off topic, but it's spelled "Arcosephale" I pronounce it
Ar-coh-sef-ali

[Sheap]

I usually say "Arcosnuffleupagus."

[Taqwus]

Aye, normally when you see devils in an indy province it indicates one or more Soul Contracts. It could however have been set by the .map file, however.

If you're dealing with a mess of indy devils -- well, they're not going anywhere, and if it's a Soul Contract they'll gain one per turn. That's slow enough that with the right equipment you may be able to attrit them -- a lightning-immune air mage providing storms, wrathful skies, perhaps tossing some orb lightning or summons briefly then fleeing for instance. Storms will ground the devils (bring a staff, don't wait to cast this!), so they'll stick around the ground-pounders burning them up for longer and won't be able to insta-kill you.

More generally applicable, perhaps, is that (unless set by the map file...) these devils are units, not commanders. Kill all the leaders first with assassins or spells (and indies never have protective domes, and most types aren't astrally proficient) and the devils will rout instantly since indies won't have province-defense commanders to help.

[JJ_Colorado]

Hi,

I completely agree w/ Taqwus. In a game that just started I had a devil+hoburg province very close (2 away) to my capitol. I sent in 2 assassins and in my Last turn I assassinated 2 hoburg commanders. One of them had a soul contract. Unfortunately he killed my assassin and then died from my poison dagger so I didn't get to "find" the soul contract...but I'm not sure whether it's possible to find a soul contract anyway since it's a non-removable item. I think he had 1 or 2 other magic items too. He was a bad-*ss Hoburg. LOL

Anyway, my other assassin can hopefully finish off any other commanders and then assault the devil army and defeat it single-handedly.

John