How to fight EA Abysia?

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

Il Magno--you're right, I put it inside of angle brackets instead of square brackets, so the forum software thought it was an HTML tag and omitted it. [Summon Earthpower, Iron Bane] is what I wrote.

-Max

You don't need no stinking Ironbane. Nor rusting mist... nothing. Androphags is all you need.

If you *really* feel compelled to get fancy:

Androphags + earthmeld.
Androphags + quagmire.
Androphags + curse of stones.


And if by chance you have progresses to W4: Wolven Winter.

[MaxWilson]

Androphag archers are quite impressive--easily-massed and quite deadly. However, poison arrows take a while to kill, in my experience. Iron Bane or Destruction may be helpful for finishing off enemy formations, weakened and thinned out by poison arrows, BEFORE they hit your lines like a ton of bricks.

-Max

[Il Magno]

Well I have many-many androphags and Oriopatas.......

[Dragar]

In a current MP game as EA Abysia I recently fought Sauro and androphags, and they were very troublesome, and that was against my E9W9 burning ones, who didn't feel much of the normal damage and could close into combat much faster than normal. Basically it was a question of how much damage he could do before my troops closed in, as once they were in melee it was over very quickly. Even when I won the battles I often lost more than he did in cost terms, and abysian troops are very slow to reinforce. You need to have enough firepower in each battle relative to his army to do heavy damage before he arrives. If you can only kill a small portion of his force before he closes you are in trouble.

I've often considered playing EA abysia with E9A9 to handle range threats and lightning spam, but it doesn't give you enough benefit against other opponents for the cost, which is why I went with water - useful for closing quickly and for dishing out melee damage faster.

I ended up prevailing but that was largely due to an ally who was very effective against the sauromatian armies, I don't think I would have gotten there alone.

The abysian will be trying to get into close combat before his top troops are decimated by the androphags, so be wary of chaff screens and the like. If he has a means of casting storm or arrow fend start to be worried, otherwise just make sure you have some kind of decent physical barrier to protect your androphags for long enough if the infantry manage to close in. Skelly spam could potentially do the job nicely.

Also if you happen to be approaching high research be wary of fire storm, it’s the kind of spell that will take out your archers very quickly.


Oh, and obviously look for fire resistance wherever possible, it really takes the heat out of EA abysia in particular. I forget if its Alt or Ench that has the good nature magic area effect elemental resistance spells?

[Jarkko]

Quagmire + Rain + Androphag Archers.

All sorts of snares (you have access to a ton of cheap N mages to cast tangle vines) are your friends.

Send in waves of imps, they are immune to the heat, and they will delay the heavy Abysian infantry (and the heavy infantry will get more and more exhausted).

If you can, summon some earth elementals for the battle. They'll trample the Abysian infantry. Yeah, the elementals will faint from exhaustion too, but they will still take some beating even when unconcious, during which time your Androphag Archers keep on peppering.

Ie anything that will make your androphag archers shoot for as long as possible is good for you.

[Baalz]

Don't forget to leverage your nice PD as well. Androphags firing from behind moderate PD means he has to close, then kill you PD, then close, *then* kill your Androphags, taking poison damage the whole time. Add in some skellispam, which has a chance to build up critical mass while he's chewing through your PD, and he'll take very heavy casualties before he can inflict a single one to you. Don't want to repeat what others have said, but the name of the game is delaying him, and you've got tons of options.

[Il Magno]

Thx guys

just an additional question, what is better: skellyspam, nether darts bombing or a good mix?

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Il Magno

just an additional question, what is better: skellyspam, nether darts bombing or a good mix?

Depends on paths--D1 skelly spamming with "Raise Skeleton" isn't nearly as good, so D1S1 should do Nether Darts or Ghost Grip--but I would usually take skelly spamming.

In practice, though, I'd test both before trusting the "gut feel" of someone from the forums. Shift + U during the battle replay may be useful.

-Max

[Baalz]

Yeah, also keep in mind that both those strategies really need critical mass to be effective, and benefit greatly from a communion. A reverse communion is pretty safe and will immensely increase the effectiveness of either of those tactics. Check my guide for more details, but here's the cliff's notes:

Assuming you've got several S1 D1 mages together for critical mass, script all but one to communtion slave then a mix of raise skeletons and nether darts. The last one (the one most bottom of the commander list when you're giving orders) script to communion master, power of the spheres. Now, for double extra super bonus points add a blood mage in also towards the bottom of the commander list, and script sabbath master, reinvigoration, hold, hold, reinvigoration, retreat.

Result - all your slaves will be S2 D2 and able to cast the D2 summon skeletons as well as getting the penetration boost to nether darts. They will reinvigorated by the master and able to raise 2-3 times as many skeletons as a regular D2 mage (probably 20 times as many as a regular D1 mage) *and* you've got a communion master who can drop big spells like rigormortis, or will of the fates, or darkness, or doom, etc. It's very unlikely a single master can over fatigue several slaves with the same paths, it should be next to impossible to kill off your own slaves doing a maneuver like this. If you wanted to be fancy (a bit more risky, but do-able if you script reinvigoration cleverly) you could even use one of the witch kings as your sabaath master and drop everything from grip of winter to foul vapors - which makes fighting through that skellispam *so* much more fun.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Assuming you've got several S1 D1 mages together for critical mass

It's Sauromatia, so he'll be using S1/D2/N1 Enaries. Boosting them to D3 makes them fairly capable skelly spammers en mass, even without the Reinvig.