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| Countering Air Elementals; Advice Sought | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 7 2016, 09:18 PM (2,340 Views) | |
| Cael Immortalis | Dec 7 2016, 09:18 PM Post #1 |
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Markata
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Hello all, I'm hoping someone can provide me with a little guidance- I've had a random event strike in which my Throne-Fort has been overwhelmed by a host of 18 air elementals. I'm playing T'ien C'hi in the Early Age and I've about ten turns until the fort falls but I'd like to find a way to save the fort before then, as I had a small garrison inside, including a research division made up of Masters of the Dead. The game is in relatively early stages with regards to research and so on, but I think my Research speed is pretty good. My first thought was to simply Mind-Burn the two mages leading them with an S2 Celestial Master, but they have MR 15 and I'm not sure I can send a mage in to do that without his being either trampled or routing because the chaff I send in to distract the Elementals got wiped out by Flying, Trampling, Ethereal Size 6 monsters, who dealt with about 12PD of T'ien's PD in a single turn. Are there any good, affordable summons that are size 6 I could use as blockers and can be summoned by T'ien C'hi? I thought maybe summoning Water Elementals mid battle, but I doubt the mages would live long enough to summon them. Then I looked at researching towards Giant Eagles, but they are 3 and I can only get to A2. I have the standard T'ien C'hi spread across my mages: A2, W3, F2, E2, D1, S2, N2, B0 Alternatively, are there any items that are fairly low Construction rating that would allow my mage to survive a couple of turns of being trampled? Or, if the above strategy is given up as a non-starter, is there an alternative cunning plan available to me that I've missed or a weakness of Air Elementals that I can exploit? |
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| GlointheDark | Dec 7 2016, 09:35 PM Post #2 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Assassins. |
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| Cael Immortalis | Dec 7 2016, 09:40 PM Post #3 |
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Markata
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I don't think those are in EA T'ien C'hi's playbook, unfortunately. I'll keep an eye out for a Mercenary assassin though. I could try Seeking Arrow barrages, but those are expensive in terms of gems. Might do it as a last resort, but air-income isn't great. Do assassins have a chance to get items from those they kill? There's a lovely bag of winds on one of those mages. |
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| amuys | Dec 7 2016, 10:17 PM Post #4 |
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Diviner of Football
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Frozen heart, albeit research high does work against the mage controlling them. |
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| Sarfus | Dec 7 2016, 10:19 PM Post #5 |
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Tartarian
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You can search for summons by size in the Dom 4 Mod Inspector if you check the Advanced tickbox. Unfortunately with size 6 you have pretty limited options though. If you can get an A2 mage into the fight then by summoning your own Air Elemental is probably going to be your best option to block them on the battlefield. You are correct that your mages would get trampled on the first round though. You would need a sacrificial squad out in front to give you a round or two while your own air elemental is summoned. Then whatever you can get setup to kill the mages. The air elementals should pretty much just faceplant into one another for eternity I think, you should only need 1 or 2 to tie up all of theirs. Alternately water or fire elementals should be able to win in a straight up fight I believe. My guess is you would need equal numbers of water, possibly more if you summoned them sequentially instead of in one or two rounds. Fire elementals should clean them up fairly easily though I think (AOE magic attacks + flame shield). Again a sacrificial squad of chumps up front is going to be necessary. Unfortunately there aren't many clean answers to Size 6 flying tramplers when they get the first round. Magic damage can chew through them of course if you can hold them up. As Glo says, dealing with them off the battle field might well be your best bet. |
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| GlointheDark | Dec 7 2016, 11:36 PM Post #6 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Additionally, that event chain, iirc only happens on the misty mounts. And iirc one of the event chain requires your voluntary search. You might want to consider that when you build a fort on misty; when you search there, if you have -Order, and/or -Luck. ie: sometimes an oz of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Really well placement with medallions of vengeance with cheap body guards; doubled up for each clump ought to do it. But thats a lot of Medallions. OH: I remember how I dealt with this before. Bane venom charms. Of course it nukes the hell out of the province. Other than that - earth attack, disease demon.. etc |
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| LDiCesare | Dec 8 2016, 02:03 AM Post #7 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Since it's a random event and I've never seen indies storm a fort, why don't you just forget about it? If the throne is claimed, that's a nice PD you got for free. |
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| KoboldLord | Dec 8 2016, 02:14 AM Post #8 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Unless you are mid- to late-game, you might consider writing off the province. Sneak some summoned wolves in to prop up the walls until you can deal with the problem more safely, which may not be for quite a long time if you have human opponents that more urgently require your attention. Call of the winds will work, too, although it requires a gem type that is generally more desirable to stockpile; if you target the fort under siege the black hawks will spawn inside rather than attacking. You still get the gems from the province even while the siege drags on forever. Eventually you can snipe the mages or just overwhelm the province with high-quality troops, but if you lose a bunch of mages and troops very early you could be ruined if any of your neighbors are paying attention. You've already taken a huge gold loss, no sense throwing even more away taking it back if you're not ready to do so. |
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| Hegemony | Dec 8 2016, 02:39 AM Post #9 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Indies don't storm forts. You can just leave the elementals. Alternately, if you are in a multi-player game, trade a blood nation for a Black Heart and assassinate the leader if you really want them gone. Do not use Great Eagles as blockers or for any combat duty at all. They are awful at it. They are great for sieges and patrolling, but horrible fighters. The only other summon you might look at is Hill Giants. You should be able to get them with Earth Boots (which you should get anyway) and they are fairly cheap, though not all that good. You'll need something to actually kill the elementals or their leader because Hill Giants won't get the job done. |
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| Rejakor | Dec 8 2016, 05:41 AM Post #10 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Some chaff to die in the first turn of being trampled (THERE MUST BE ENOUGH SO THERE'S NO TRAMPLE OVERFLOW). Some chaff to provide a 'HP anchor' in the rear so you don't HP rout. Some mages that can summon air elementals, the size 6 ones, to permanently hold up the enemy air elementals. You must have at least 3. This is so no matter how they stack up the enemy will have no 'free' air elementals once they are all 'locked in' fighting your summoned ones. Something to kill the enemy mages at the rear. Not troops, as those might 'free up' the air elementals to trample your mages. Mind Burn seems the safest option, as it will only target the mages, has enough range, and will eventually get through their MR. |
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| Morsigil | Dec 8 2016, 04:54 PM Post #11 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Seeking arrow seems to be the cheapest, safest option IMO. Start site searching and save up enough for 4 or 5 seeking arrows. You said you only had A2 mages though, OP. Does your god have air high enough for it? Do you have a titan pretender? Because a brand, copper plate, maybe flight boots (in case you hit the turn limit) and ring of lightning resist is all you'd need to deal with this. |
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| Sai | Dec 8 2016, 09:58 PM Post #12 |
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Trust me, I'm a doctor
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Not even that much for a size 6, actually. 6 LR is sufficient to ignore air elementals, so the ring alone would suffice. To answer OP though - Fire Elementals are some of the best answers to air elementals. They have a magic attack, so they ignore the ethereal bit, they're size 6, and they both take less damage from the air elementals than they dish back at them and burn the air elementals in the process of being hit. They also never miss on their attack, so they ignore the air ele's good defense. Each fire elemental can easily handle 2-3 air elementals of the same size (potentially more - it's a very lopsided matchup). You will still need some sort of sacrificial front line to hold the elementals for the first 2 rounds so that you can summon the fire elementals to handle them. An F random Master can Phoenix Power -> Summon Fire Elemental for 1 gem, or summon them round 1 for 2 gems. Any mage with F can summon a size 6 air elemental for 3 gems, by first burning a gem to cast Phoenix Power and then burning another 2 to summon them. |
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| Itwastuesday | Dec 9 2016, 08:02 AM Post #13 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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I recommend killing them in battle for the chance of picking up the bag of winds. |
| Eagles may soar high, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. | |
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| Cael Immortalis | Dec 9 2016, 10:47 AM Post #14 |
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Markata
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Wow, a lot more and useful advice than I was expecting! Thanks to everyone for their contributions. Frozen Heart is on my to-research list already, to give my W1 Masters of the Way something to do in a fight. It's a ways off, but I set up a test vs a Tir Na Nog force that did nothing but summon Air Elementals and handily ignored the elementals to kill the casters. I might have been imagining it or missing a leader somewhere, but it looked like the Elementals didn't disappear when all the casters were dead/routed though, is that because they are summoned and won't happen with the 'Permanent' Elementals? Sarfus: Good idea! Going by mod inspector and basic testing, Air Elementals do seem basically immune to Air Elementals until one of them gets knocked down a size by something else and becomes vulnerable to Trample. And even then, Trample takes a while to step on Ethereal creatures from what I can tell. I had less luck with Fire Elementals, mostly due to difficulties getting large enough numbers of them on the field (F2s are a 1 in 4 cap-only for T'ien C'hi and I can't forge fire boosters yet) but that is an problem that time can solve. Hegemony, LDiCesare, KoboldLord: I didn't realize Indies don't storm forts- I generally operate Luck scales so I'm not used to having Indies take my provinces and when they do I tend to respond immediately and in force. That makes dealing with the problem a lot less urgent, especially if I still get the gems from the Throne and other sites. It stings a bit to be able to recruit one less mage per turn, but I could do with setting up some more temples anyway. I was wondering whether summoning troops via call of winds would put them on the inside or the outside, as it's inside, one Call of Winds plus the forces I already have in there can basically hold the fort indefinitely. Might need to give them a bag of wine for supply purposes. Only in Dominions can you have an army of drunken birds standing vigil forever against a host of animate storm clouds and it be a valid strategic decision in-game. GlointheDark: I've not yet reached the stage where I have memorized the event paths (getting there) and usually play with Story Events = Off, so I've never seen this particular event chain before. It's certainly something I'll remember for next time though. Rejakor: Overall, I think this is the best tactic to use to get rid of them when the time comes for me to do so. I hadn't thought of using a large mob at the back as an anchor to prevent an HP rout. That seems like a tactic that will be useful in a large variety of situations, especially if they are flyers or something that can get out quickly if a rout does become necessary or a Guarded Commander leaves. Thanks for the tip. Morsigil: Sadly I don't have a titan and I miscalculated my air magic. I thought that Seeking Arrow was A2 for some reason, not A3. On the bright side, if I can take the province and get the lucky bag drop, I'll have access to A3 once the problem is solved. I'd have to try to trade for an Air Booster or similar to use Seeking Arrows. I guess the alternative with what I have would be Mind Hunt, using a Starshine Skullcap and a Crystal Coin (forgeable with boosters) to get an S2 random Celestial Master up to an S4. MR Might be a problem with that plan though. Sai: Yes, having tested it Fire Elementals seem very effective. Seem to need a lot of them though, they beat air elementals even if outnumbered 2 to 1, maybe 3 to 1 if luck is on your side, but that's still 27 fire gems for a single fight , plus 9 cap-only casters at risk, most of whom will be unconscious after summoning the elementals. Although the idea of a size 6 taking them out easily does give me an idea to summon one. Maybe once my pretender wakes up he can summon a Harvester of Sorrows and I can put a storm spool I have lying around on him. Any size 6 with Lightning Resistance should be able to clean them up easily, right? Alternatively, with the right boosters and now I'm no longer in a hurry, I may eventually be able to get a shot at summoning one of the size-6 elemental royalty. Itwastuesday: Definitely, seems like an awesome item. In terms of chaff, I've also noticed during my testing VS TNN air elemental summoners that Ethereal units are resistant, (if not entirely immune) to the Air Elementals trample attack and they don't ever use their Lightning magic-attack against smaller units. Therefore eventual summonings of Ethereal creatures with Magic Attacks (Ghosts, Wraith Lord thugs or Manifest Vitrol, probably others, although Spring Hawks are obviously out due to Lightning Attacks) might make for slightly less 'chaffy' chaff that will be able to survive getting stepped on and do some damage back in return. I think drop a Call of Winds then I'll hold off taking them on for now- if the fort and the mages inside are not at risk, there's no hurry and I'll be able to summon things that can defeat the air elementals much more easily later on. |
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| shonuf | Dec 12 2016, 11:50 AM Post #15 |
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Tartarian
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A risky but high-reward move would be a celestial chastisement communion. 18 permanent size 6 air elementals would be quite the asset I reckon. |
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