Stomping

[krpeters]

Hi All,

I have a lot of experience in single player, no experience in multiplayer, so a typical game involves me trying to survive the endless hordes the AI cheats into existence on "difficult" level. The best strategy I've found is tramplers. While two or three elephants are easily enveloped and eaten by an infantry mob, the same is not true for twenty or thirty. *squish* is the sound of the AI's army disintigrating...

...my question is, what happens to people in multiplayer who try to do this? I imagine there's an effective strategy when someone comes at you with 3,000 AU worth of elephants, but I don't know what it is. Archers/slingers maybe? (Keep in mind that LA Arcosephale elephants have high protections too -- nice!)

Also, does the AI ever come up with an effective counterattack later in the game? I tend to play small short games.

[HoneyBadger]

Trampling with elephants can be great, but don't forget Boots of the Behemoth. 30 equipped Basalt Kings (Atlantis EA) stomp even nicer than 30 elephants, when you consider how much more versatile they can be in combat, especially with a Nature 9 regenerating/berserk bless.

[Gandalf Parker]

Good tactics.

Im not sure how the ai can cheat in hordes. It only gets bonuses on god-making. But you can slow that by turning the independents higher.

[Shovah32]

Elephants can be countered by players fairly easily either with high strength(giants/bandar ect), high defence(w9 sacreds, mounted units) and magic, specifically signle target high damage/instant death spells(soul slay vrs low mr elephants is deadly)

The standard counter to pachiderms is MR targeting spells, soul slay & enslave mind are particularly devastating.

Targeting their morale can also work: missile troops backed by fear causing critters or spells (terror, panic...)

Other options: high defense troops boosted with body ethereal will be highly resistant to being trampled. A size 6 SC cannot be trampled at all, and the elephants have to fall back to their subpar combat skills.

[Taqwus]

Tramplers have difficulty trampling anything that's ethereal, and can't trample anything that's the same size or larger. It's not too hard to get etherealness.

Try, say, a Bane Lord with a Robe of Shadows, a Snake Bladder Stick, and a Lucky Coin or Luck Pendant. It's fairly cheap, hard to trample, and will be spamming the area with poison gas *and* its innate chill aura. Or running against a C'tis front line of Dispossessed Spirits (ethereal, so hard to trample; *and* a cheap bulk summon, so easily replaceable) backed by Poison Slingers.

The AI doesn't really make plans of this sort; it doesn't even have a good grasp of what different magic items do, so it distributes pretty oddly

[HoneyBadger]

Speaking of morale and fear, is there any way to mod a fear effect onto a missle weapon, so that anyone struck by say an arrow would have to perform a fear-check or run away? Sorry, it's a little OT, but I was just thinking that if such an animal existed, it would be a great thing to use against charging elephants.

[Shovah32]

I think you can since LA tien chi ancestor vessels have fear causing bows(and scorpion men from the national spell have a ranged gaze of fear attack)

[HoneyBadger]

Excellent. I can definitely use that in a mod. Thanks Shovah

[Ironhawk]

The easiest to deploy counter to elephants is: Fire Largest.

Shoot them enough times and thier morale will break, turning them into a liability for thier owner, not you. Xbows work terrificially for this if you can get them. Generally speaking tho, they are great vs AI, but I will never use breakable-morale tramplers against another human player. There is just too much danger of them backfiring.