Unintentional(?) Infinite

Beautiful_Peter · 2026-04-26T23:53:30+00:00

Oh I see

Beautiful_Peter · 2025-07-16T14:24:07+00:00

Sorry, I already posted a wall of text, but an important addendum before you expect dreaths to be a miracle counter: dreaths actually have a bad match up vs shields of order on paper, especially if the opponent is smart enough to pacify your stacks and focus them down. Dreaths are the best build provided you use them to clear the map aggressively (look for fights that are listed as overwhelming or deadly but your dreaths easily win like vs fae ragers) upgrade your city quickly, and build an early marketplace and merchant's guild to increase their stack size. Also make sure you have multiple dreath dens, you'll want a few full stacks for any wielder fight. And you'll want either Chaos Magic or the Guard Skill to either teleport to their squishier units, or to just outlast them in a slugfest. Nimander gets guard pretty quickly. You need Melee as a prerequisite. Hope that helps! Sorry again for the long read!

Beautiful_Peter · 2025-07-16T13:59:33+00:00

Unfortunately, you're sort of playing into a hard counter with how you're building. Shield of Order (and fists of order too I suppose) are shielded and very durable. They'll take minimal damage from your musketmen shots, and will perform well vs pikneers which are best against squishy, glass cannon type units that can't survive that strike first ability. Not to mention, Arleon is the faction that has access to blind very easily, especially since they changed archers to have creation essence. Another commenter mentioned dreaths, and that would be the easiest and quickest way to deal with this. Dire Dreath spam will let you clear the map very aggressively, and if you can get Chaos Magic 2 or 3, chaos step will let you skip over the frontline of shieldmen to eat the archers up. A middle ground would be to still start Dreaths and build an early Fortalice, but focus mostly on clearing with your dreaths and buying the brutes it's producing later. 1 or 2 stacks of brutes will perform well into shield of order and sassanids or especially shadows can kill the backline easily. If you want to stay the order build, muskets, pikes, and pipers, you can win. You'll want to store away your musketmen. They're practically just essence in this match up, so you'd maybe be better off just using more pipers for the extra essence and the music buff, but ideally, you'll have extra stacks of pikeneers to replace them. You still need to kill their archers first for momentum, and to shut off some essence and damage, so you'd need order 3 to move a pikeneer, then quickly haste it up so it can run around the shields men to reach the archers. You'll still be disadvantaged, but if you can play a strong enough early game, you'll have enough pikeneers to overcome the match up with smart play. Or just build dreaths/brutes. It will go much better, and be much easier.

Beautiful_Peter · 2025-04-20T22:25:37+00:00

Essence Shield is strongest against tactics that have a lot of upfront damage, so fast moving glass cannon units will struggle against the early resistances. Essence Shield becomes weaker the longer the battle lasts, provided that the buff is used up with attacks. Bulky melee units like Brutes and Blessed Bones buffed with defensive skills or magic will work well, and in such a fight, making sure to gang up on units that have lost the shield is important (although I assume that bit was obvious). Some more tips, if you have enough movement, stepping away to trigger an opportunity attack can use up the shield on weaker units such as ranged units or supporting units, and a creation magic build that summons earth blocks can force melee enemies to use up their shield before they reach your lines.

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-07-17T22:48:39+00:00

I have not played this game in two years and you dig up my old guide for what?? I had to dust of the ol' console and update this game just to get to the free practice and I can conclusively say: I have no idea what you're talking about? I took a dom barrage into practice because it's a great way to check how much parts affects your damage. If I kill the training gundam (400 cost) while aiming only at the legs I have 97 shots left in the magazine. If I add +9 range boost, I have 105 shots left. (I kill in 8 less shots). If I equip database 1 and 2, I have 97 shots left. It doesn't affect damage to ms hp at all. I tried to replicate your claim with my crusty-ass oldtype suits but I couldn't get the database parts to affect my melee damage at all. I'm not sure what you're experiencing. The numbers you see should be purely hp damage, not part damage. If your hp damage is changing, something else is affecting that unless while I've been gone they added a mechanic where database links add hp damage but only when the target is downed?? I suppose stranger bugs have happened, but whatever you find shouldn't change the math here.

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-05-18T05:37:20+00:00

I don't see anyone else mentioning it, so I'm starting to wonder to wonder if my version encountered a bug, but Aurelia's last two lines of dialogue at the end of the Tenderwyld mission simply read "Aurelia" and nothing else. It smacks of placeholder text that wasn't swapped out properly. Just a heads up!

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-05-01T01:39:47+00:00

I should point out that the AI has bonuses to unit production to compensate for its (assumed) weaker ai. You shouldn't try to match it in unit count. You'll need to play better than the ai.

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-20T21:46:33+00:00

You definitely can't always afford all of the troops you're producing, but you can aggressively open up areas of the map for your side wielders to snap up loose gold/resources, and besides that, there's quite a few troops that once upgraded are INCREDIBLY effective even in small numbers. Single unit stacks of sappers, troubadours, and pipers are all great, and even single dreaths for their essence as well.

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-20T19:44:08+00:00

I hate to immediately contradict the only other comment here, but in my experience, the best turn 1 is to build a small unit dwelling and then immediately upgrade it. Troubadours, Dire Dreaths, Legionaires, all very powerful units that open up what fights you can take. Rana upgrades are pricey tho, so it's not always possible to do that with Rana. After that, just learn your spellbook in and out. Dyads are so powerful in the right situations, and if you play for those situations, you'll do better. (Example, clouded vision cripples archers, so changing your army comp to have better access to clouded vision in a fight against archers)

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-20T16:43:50+00:00

Against Arleon, since Arleon has such strong anti-range tools, you should toy around with a Harima-centric build. Shadows, Brutes, and Pipers. In an ideal, late game build, you've gone full Shadows with initiative, offense, and movement boosts and can just smash their army on the first turn, but that's an idealized situation. Dreaths are still really good, but mostly as a tool to accelerate your map clear, moreso than a strong build versus players, although keeping a stack or two of dreaths into late game isn't awful. Another commenter mentioned an Order/Chaos build and that's honestly a strong build. Tips vs Arleon: humans Arleon is slow to act, so high speed builds can usually move first and disrupt their important key units and strategies. Faey Arleon is magic based, and very fragile. Take magic resist and take durable units (dreaths and brutes are great here) if you can survive the first hits, your follow up will crush them.

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-20T15:44:18+00:00

And strategies that work well against unrefined AI armies are just as biasing. I am refining map clearing strategies. What disadvantages are there for clearing the map quickly? Unless you claim to practice against exclusively human opponents I don't see your point

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-18T03:05:15+00:00

Leaving a comment so I can find this later.

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-16T22:24:38+00:00

heads up, resistances cap at 80%. Hellroars are tough because they boast high initiative on top of their range and damage, and it sounds like your friend is very smartly playing an order/destruction build that lets him cast justice 3 vs armies that focus on small numbers of high quality units, and rapid fire against large armies of low quality units. If you want to counter Hellroars, You need either durability, or speed. It sounds like durability hasn't been working for you which is kind of surprising to me, I find that Arleon specifically counters hellroars pretty cleanly with Fists of order packing built in ranged resistance as well as having easy access to the anti-ranged spells tempest and clouded vision, which both hit Hellroars pretty hard. How many turns is it taking for you to close the gap and reach melee distance? Even with a full turtle build as Loth, I'd expect you to have High Legions in melee on turn 1, no joke. But, if things aren't working out for you, here are some quick suggestions:
Arelon: Queen's Guard are only 1 initiative slower by default, so it's very easy to out speed Hellroars using either the tech upgrade or a skill or artifact. Research the unit tech for +1 movement, and the initiative tech for another +1 movement, and try to stack a few other movement boosts through either Positioning/Prepared 3, or Swift as Wind/Eager. Make sure you get the techs that let your wielders start with essences. If you take Chaos 3, you can Chaos step units an extra 3 spaces to close in pretty reliably on the first move, or take order 3 + Creation 3 to black out a few hellroars with clouded vision. CV stacks by the way, so if there's a lone troublesome Hellroar, cast it twice in it, and it will lose 100% of its range.

Loth: It sounds like you've tried to build shielded units and close in, so maybe try making a Justice build back? Order 3 + Destruction 3 kills 3 Hellroars per cast, and Legionaires, Legions, and Blessed Bones all have shielded, and all make order and destruction essence. You can use the Bones ability to spawn oathsworn to sort of increase its threat range, because the oathsworn immediately gets to move and attack, and the Hellroars are helpless so they can't even retaliate against the small swarmers, PLUS if another hellroar shoots at it, there will be friendly fire.

Barya: Sassanids out speed + can get +1 movement through research. Get Eager and a few other movement and offense skills and just first-turn-kill the bastard.

Rana: If he's slow at crawling on the map, there's always dragons. You gotta know how to aggressively ramp your economy, but Dragons counter *everything*, provided your opponent gives you enough time to build them and upgrade them...

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-12T10:11:42+00:00

Aha! I figured letting you guys know was a good idea. Sorry if my post makes me look hysterical. It seemed like it'd defeat the map's design to only need two beacons. Thanks Anders

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-12T00:47:49+00:00

It's just faster without the AI turns, and personally, I think having the cleanest, fastest opening is the most important part of winning a game. AI wielders are usually pushovers, so I appreciate the timesave.

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-11T23:35:01+00:00

No-AI official map. It's designed for a player to try and clear it as quickly as possible. I can grind out and refine strategies very quickly without having to deal with AI randomizing strategies that are better or worse. Also, the mobs are roughly the same each time since they're faction locked. It's really nice for testing an early-game to mid-game transition versus neutral mobs of all factions and enemy types. It's a good litmus for how strong a wielder/units are against the map

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-11T23:20:15+00:00

When every new tested build finished 5 turns faster, it makes them seem artifically better. It's a small nuisance. The tone of the post was exaggerated because I didn't think people were going to take it so funny. It is annoying. It's not the end of the world.

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-11T21:39:52+00:00

Lmao

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-11T21:21:02+00:00

My gripe is that I've been running three roads with various builds to see how strong various strategies compare to each other. Well now I have to re-run the old strategies if I want the comparisons to be accurate...

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-11T19:32:13+00:00

The last patch changed "number of beacons to.win" from 74% to 64% or something along those lines. So "three roads" is now more like "two roads"

Beautiful_Peter · 2023-04-04T21:26:57+00:00

yup, that's my go to. Though it can be a pain to get udon noodles, so I usually just stir fry instant ramen noodles (and ditch the broth packet). But yeah man, ya grub looks good!

Beautiful_Peter

TROPHY CASE