Everybody is entitled to their opinions, but it is not advisable to lose your cool.

Cheers.

Sorry, DBear, it wasn't my intention to lecture you. Guess Disciples isn't your cup of tea.

The strategy in Disciples is in what units you carry around, how you manage your resources, and how quickly you expand. Admittedly there's not a lot of room for battle tactics. Battles are all about minimizing damage by using your setup (spells, positioning of forces, when you initiate) and some fairly simple tactics.

It wasn't my intention to truly compare Disciples to Heroes, or at least to Heroes III. You'll note that I restricted my "better than Heroes" comment to the thrown-together and generally disappointing Heroes IV. I am also a longtime Heroes player, as are several of my friends who like Disciples as much as I do. That's not to say that I like Heroes any less; it remains on my computer and I still play it occasionally. However, I've played it and analysed it so much that I can no longer play it as much as I used to. Disciples provides me with a nice break.

The Undead with paralyisis pretty much rules, all you need are 2 of them in the back row (the top level ones that paralyze everyone) and its history for just about anyone including the base comanders, (which is EXTRMELY difficult to do without some form of paralyisis). Much latter in the game you can fill in the back row (middle) with a master vampire (which is always fun).

When you start becoming bored with it then just try and enter the bases of each, (with each type of race).

Hmmmm... actually, the general consensus is that the MClans and Elves have the most difficulty with the Capital Guardians.

The Empire have the Matriach.

The UHordes have their paralysing units.

The LotDamned have the Incubus.

Their advantages lie in other areas. </font>[/QUOTE]I would respectfully disagree, at least partially. Your Disciples experience dwarfs mine, but I have to stand up for the MClans (they can't stand up any taller). :D

Just out of curiosity, whose general consensus is it? My admittedly limited gameplay has shown me something different, and the Strategy First forum also seems to like the MC for capturing capitals. This is assuming that the paralysing Soul Crystal is not being used.

I agree that Elves have big-time trouble when trying to take out capitals. Their speed advantage is negated by the max init of the guardian, and their HP weaknesses become emphasized. Their weak healer can only heal one thing at a time, so it isn't too much help- it will die before very long, unless it expends the majority of its healing powers on itself (which is not very useful).

The Empire Prophetess is the key to the Empire strategy, as are the boosting and armoring spells. Two healers might be necessary, as any other ranged units are also likely to target healers. The Empire wins any battle of attrition if they have enough armor on the Prophetesses. I'd agree that the Empire has the simplest strategy for taking capitals, and may possibly be able to do it before any other side - because less help from artifacts, etc is required, and HP can be lower. The innately armored, high init Defenders of the Faith are helpful too, as is the poison ability of Imperial Assassins.

Undead Hordes - The problem is keeping the ranged paralysers (Spectre, Shade) alive. Spectres only have 90 HP, Shades get 135. The Hordes have no self-armoring spells, unless they manage to steal/buy them from somewhere (a gamble). As the capital guardians do 300 damage, you'd better have some great artifacts/banners/potions, or some high-level paralysers. Phantom Warriors are great, but if the guardian is placed in the back row, out of reach of their paralysis, the Hordes will be in trouble.

LotDamned - same weakness as the Hordes; no armor spells to keep the weakling paralysers/polymorphers alive. The other weakness is needing to use the Incubus/Succubus upgrade line throughout the game. LotD are comparatively weak in ranged units and all-hitters if the Modeus is sacrificed for Incubus. The two-spacer Gargoyles, while durable, just don't do enough damage. The two-spacer devil line (leading ever-so-slowly up to Tiamath), is good, but slow, both to attack and to advance in level. You might have to have a Tiamath (for durability) to take the capital, unless you have amazing armor-boosting artifacts and potions.

Now let's look at the Clans. Spellwise, they have damage, init, and armor boosts (I think - it's late, and I can't remember exactly). They generally do the most damage and have the most HP. They have a few tricks up their sleeves as well. First, a Son of Ymir has a Frostbite effect that is not blocked by armor - the Frostbite does plenty of damage, as it is based on a percentage of the base damage, which is considerable. Second, the Alchemist line (if it can be kept alive against capital guardians) gives extra attacks. That means that the Clans can do more damage to a guardian in a fixed amount of time than any other side. Third, the Hermit has an initiative-lowering effect as well as their damage attack. If that hits the guardian a couple of times, the Son of Ymir can go in front of it and potentially kill it before it manages to finish off the surviving Clans army.

I would rate the Clans ahead of both the Undead Hordes and the Legions of the Damned in terms of capital-capturing prowess, if the guardian was in the back row of the defense and thus able to avoid the initial strikes of Phantom Warriors.

If you could expand on your differing viewpoint, that would be very helpful.

edit: ok, I take the point about multiple shades, but you still have to have some mighty potion power to keep them alive long enough to paralyse.

[ 08-07-2004, 04:23 AM: Message edited by: Aerich ]

I got it from Strategy Forums too. ;) If you have encountered a raving Rock Giant named Rockhard Smashalot, that would be me. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

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As for the paralysers, you did not factor in one thing.

Potions of Striking/Accuracy. With such potions, you can easily attain 100% Chance to Hit(CtH) for the Incubus, and also the Spectre (a locked Spectre to be more precise).

Both the UHordes and the LotDamned only need to survive the first round. Anything after that is icing on the cake. Unless you have been neglecting to draw out the enemy's units, his capital will only have the CGuardian and level 1 units. Level 1 units will basically only scratch you... ...

Potions of Protection/Invulnerability and Treebark Potions will go a long way in assisting your party's survival.

The following is my own cardinal rule about Disciples, but I believe it has merit.

Armor is King

So what if the CGuardian deals 250 damage? Since damage reduction is based on percentage, a 'mere' 75% armor reduces it to 63-68 damage.

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Undead Hordes:

If the map is seriously lacking in spell shops, you will need a locked Spectre to make life much, much easier for you when it comes to raiding a Capital. If however, you can find spells that boost CtH, then a Shade will serve you better, more so since it has an area of effect attack.

You may use any fighter tree, but the Phantom Warrior obviously has an edge when it comes to Capital fights. Dark Lords will have more HP though, if you level them up first, and Dark Lords level up VERY fast.

For the Mage line, Death would be the obvious choice, since you can use him to finish off potentially annoying level one units, and finish off the CGuardian faster with his poison attack.

Anything else is gravy.

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Legions of the Damned:

You will wan- nay, you will NEED the Incubus. Unless you are some sort of machoistic player that is. With the Incubus, piece of cake. Without the Incubus, pray.

The Tiamath would be a bad choice in my opinion, since this is going to be a battle of attrition. The Overlord with his healthy Blister attack would be a much better choice.

You mentioned that the Gargoyles do not deal enough damage, but... ponder for a moment. How much damage does the enemy deal to your Gargoyles (especially when they Defend)? Gargoyles are like the kings of the game when it comes to unit quality, what with their high Initiative, high Armor, Earth-sourced Damage and decent damage. Gargoyles are not CGuardian-Killers, but for everything else, they are pretty terrifying. Try fighting 2 Onyx Gargoyles defending a level 5 city using only a maxed-out party (assuming no Horn of Incubus or Soul Crystal and that the leader is level 15), but without any buffs.

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This is somewhat incorrect. The Clans can deal the most damage to the CGuardian per round, but not through Frostbite.

Remember... the UHordes and the Empire both have Poison, the Elves also have persistent elemental damage and the LotDamned rocks your booty with the Overlord's Blister Attack.

The key here is double-attacks, ergo, the Rune Master. However, the Empire has the Avenger as well, but the MClans have the Alchemist.

The problem with the MClans when it comes to CGuardians, is that they have no active means of negating or countering the CGuardians' 250dmg AoE attack. What this translate into is that they have to take the pain, round after round. If your calculations are not correct, the CGuardian will outlast you, because you got to also remember... the CGuardian has 90 armor and 900HP. It ain't going to be a walk in the park for the MClans, unless you level them up a bit and buff them till their veins burst.

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In conclusion, while the MClans are more than capable of taking out the CGuardian, the requirements to do so is quite high, as compared to the Empire, the UHordes and the LotDamned (it is not unheard of for a level one UHorde party to defeat a CGuardian. Try doing that with the MClans :eek: ).

However... they ARE my favourite race to use when it comes to battling CGuardians, because it is always a battle of whose conjones is bigger than whose conjones. ;)

As opposed to, "I have paralysed you, therefore I win."

One of my fondest memory in Disciples, is using the MClans to defeat a CGuardian in Disciples 1. No Sons of Ymir, no Alchemists that give extra attacks, no Rune Masters, no Potions of Invulnerability, a hero limited to only TWO items, etc... From a party of 6 Dwarves, 5 died. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Question, have you managed to defeat a CGuardian yet, Aerich?

[ 08-07-2004, 09:07 PM: Message edited by: Dundee Slaytern ]

yup, potions reducing damage are widely available and decent artifacts are available fairly early on to reduce damage (at least in the first two games). This allows your paralyzers (or healers) to live through a base command attack.

Order of best to least - With a decent mix of equipment use its (..don't know about elves):
Undead
Humans
Hell
Clans

Actually in the original you could get artifacts that paralyzed groups.. didn't find that to be the case in the sequal.

And Dundee Slaytern is spot on about those onynx gargoyles.. the only extra thing you need with them is a ressurection extra for the poor sods that might get waxed while the gargoyles are laughing away the damage.

My favorite is the hellspawn (for much the same reason that Dundee prefers the clans).

Yes, I've got a CGuardian to my credit. In a looong multiplayer game, with Clans. With armor banner, armor potions, and stolen spell buffs (Holy Armor from Empire). There's also a quest map with a sub-par guardian, but I don't count that one (only had 190 HP and caused about 50 dmg, so was a piece of cake for my locked Spectre).

Ok, good points about LotD and UHordes. I concede they have an easier time of it than Clans if the paralyser/polymorpher survives to do its thing. I'll keep that in mind [img]smile.gif[/img]

I do agree about the onyx gargs, btw, but the fact they take up two spaces is kind of a pain when going after guardians. Great armor, so they survive, but not really a lot of damage for the two spaces. It really makes it imperative for the Incubus/Succubus to do its job. Isn't there the chance that a polymorphed imp can throw off the spell in the same round it's cast? If so, the guardian could get first crack again in the next turn, and wipe out the polymorphers.

So what's the best setup for LotD to take out a CG? Onyx Garg, Overlord, Incubus and leader? Or would you drop the Garg for a combination of other one-spacers? An insurance Incubus and a Dark Lord?

While we're on the subject of CGs, how would you take out a guardian with the Elves? Mega armor, of course, but what units? Stingers and armored centaurs? Or would you go with the double attack of Marauders?

Um Im not sure what everyone is using to measure each race. Different situations or what not.


I would definitely say, that in killing the guardian obviously the undead is the best race. You can do it level one with a few initiave potions. I would definitely say that in killing the guardian the dwarves are the worst race.... you would have to have much more advanced army of dwarves than anyone else... so i totally disagree with a couple of you. In the scenarios where you are killing a guardian, the undead scenario is like minuts and the mountain clan scenario is a year.

That doesnt make the undead nearly as powerful as the elves in most of the battles the game can throw together. The elf units toe to toe with any of the other races units destroy them.... Somewhere on turn 1 billion the dwarf units are stronger maybe? Enough hit points to survive through round one? I never really saw that in my 100s of hours playing.

Definitely I agree that the dwarf race must have the best spells, because it has two of the more movement point spells, and thats the most powerful spell. The humans and elves each have one though... they also have the most armor spells and those are very powerfull. If u have enough armor spells u can turn crap into gold... that is the dwarven strategy...

I was thinking in terms of the units. The dwarves have fewer unit choices, just because some of their units are retarded.... and the best ones are worse than all the other races.

I guess that doesnt make it unbalanced because the map can be set up to give the dwarves strengths a better shot... just in most games it doesnt happen is what I would say.

[ 08-08-2004, 12:56 AM: Message edited by: the mighty stamar ]

Just to clarify one point.

The Incubus and the Succubus are totally different, and no one in his/her right mind will use a Succubus against a CGuardian because of one very simple reason.

CGuardians are immuned to Polymorph.

What the Incubus does is that he Petrifies his targets. This is similar to the Paralyse attack. The only difference is the source of the attack. Paralyse is Mind-Source, and Petrify is Earth-Source.

Which also means Petrify is deadlier than Paralyse.

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You keep mentioning the Onyx Gargoyle's shortcomings when it comes to CGuardian fights, but this is a pretty unfair analysis.

Very rarely is the objective for you to take out the opposing CGuardian. Think about all the other potential battles against other stacks, cities, ruins, etc... Just because the Onyx Gargoyle is not ideal for CGuardian fights, it does not mean it is not a good unit.

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If you are Hell-bent on massarcing all the CGuardians in all your games, the following will suffice.

Overlord (or Fiend)
Incubus, Leader
[Anything Else]

My personal set-up is the following,

Overlord
Incubus, Arch-Devil
Onyx Gargoyle

Some people prefer the Fiend to the Overlord, due to its' insanely fast levelling, comparable damage (XP for XP) and poison attack. I prefer the 'coolness' of the Overlord though.

Cheers.

Oh, the guardians are immune to polymorph? I wasn't aware of that; good thing you told me before I tried to get fancy with Succubi. :D

I'm not actually knocking the gargs, btw, it's just that we were on the topic of guardians. It's agreed that the Gargoyle unit is a must for all other situations involving the healer-less LotD. I've noticed that the AI goes after them a fair bit, which is a pain until you hit the first upgrade that gives 60 armor and better HP. The mere fact that they can naturally achieve 65 armor (35 more than any other unit, AFAIK) is the best reason to take them.

Edit: oh yeah, mind ward and poison immunity are great as well.

[ 08-09-2004, 01:29 AM: Message edited by: Aerich ]