attempt for a mid-lategame strategic protection guide(domes). info needed :)

[Boron]

ok here what this guide should be about :
first methods to attack lategame without having a distance of only 3 or less provinces difference between you and your opponents capitol ( this difference you could fly ) .

lategame powerful overland spells become available . you need to protect somehow against this . if you spread your mages over several provinces , ok . but this way they are still vulnerable against e.g. seeking arrows .


i list possible forms of overland attacks , if i missed an important one plz name it and describe why . here we go :

early game :
- seeking arrows (very good RoI against pythium and other physical fragile but expensive mages , while almost worthless against jotunheim , pangenea and the like )
- call of the winds/wilds ( easy to protect against , most pd's of 5 defeat already call of the winds , most pd's of 15-20 call of the wilds ; a castle in the target province will give you enough time until moving in reinforcements normally )

midgame ( i only list additional methods , you still can attack with seeking arrow etc ) :

- fires from afar ( can be cast early game already but because it targets 10+ targets and needs 10 fire gems i think you get the best RoI out of that spell midgame )
- wind ride ( because of 10 air gems needed and 5A needed to cast and large beings + powerful earthmages have good odds that this spell does no damage to them very limited use . with good scouting in special circumstances though it should be devastating : from sunrays spell info :

Wind Ride : commanders with earth magic of 4 or more, size 6 or ethereal are not affected.

.
so catching an enemy rainbow pretender with this spell are probably your best invested 10 air gems ever
- teleporting spells : i list all because they are similiar :
cloud trapeze , teleport , astral travel (lategame) , faery trod (only forests) .
iirc you can get teleport via a unique artifact too .

they are very scary but as long as you still control all 5-6 provinces sourrounding you at least for the watchful ermor player it should be easy to defend midgame , for everyone else lategame : as ermor just send some hundred freespawns midgame and some legions freespawns lategame on patrol province . this way you should always reach the 50 turn battle limit . because of nowhere to retreat after 50 turns even the strongest sc will be dead hehe

- blood spells : send lesser horror / horde from hell . if i understand send lesser horror correct (have never used it myself) it should work like ghost riders . so a castle will do .
horde from hell though is like call of wild , if you win the battle , the remaining troops are under you control . per horde from hell you get 1 devil + 25 imps iirc .
given the imps poor morale even against 2-3 simultaneous hordes from hell when you are owner of a stronger pd ( jotun , ulm , abysia ) because of morale routing imps you have good odds to defend with something like 25 pd .

lategame :
-ghost riders
ghost riders are the king of this kind of spells with the highest RoI in this class .
33 longdead horsemen + 1 riding wraithlord are already enough to win against most pd's .
lategame they are very easy to masscast for everyone . ctis + ermor have a natural advantage here they should excel at this spell most .
-send horror
look at my description for send lesser horror in midgame section . simply replaces the lesser horror by a horror .
-earth attack
like an assasination attempt . by the time available it should be pretty unscary for sc's + pretenders . only weaker mages will still be in trouble . so some will still be in trouble but many will give the elemental a good fight , especially these with the ability to summon lots of fodder garbage like death mages . d4 mages can kill earth elementals pretty easy according to a post from norfleet by life drain .
-manifestation
an ashen angel makes an assasination attempt on an enemy leader chosen by himself . horror marked leaders are more likely to be chosen .
there is a chance that the ashen angel doesn't chose an enemy leader than the caster will be the assasination target ( never tried the spell myself , spell description vague , my description is what i think is done . if this is wrong please post and i will fix it then ).
like with the earth attack the ashen angel is no match for an enemy sc . if your caster of manifestation is horror marked he will be the target of the ashen angel very likely .
-phantasmal attack ( have never tested this spell myself)
but according to description it should work like ghost riders .
i assume that the 25+ phantasmal warriors have the same stats as those gained through the combat spell . so against pd with magical weapons ( abysia + caelum come to my mind ) they will surely do poor . a castle let's run the spell into the void .
-flames from the sky
i think this is the scariest overland spell of all . hard to defend against .

i think this are all strategic war spells .
perhaps i missed 1-2 .
in the next post i will try to cover protection strategies against the strategic war spells in general .

edit : included manifestation spell

[ July 31, 2004, 17:42: Message edited by: Boron ]