Those blasted paladins

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rayrox222
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:24 pm

Those blasted paladins

Post by rayrox222 »

I could use some tactical advice here. While I'm trouncing the AI (nothing to brag about, I know) in this game I'm finishing up, one great difficulty are any units with even just a few paladins. Magic and range damage never seems to even phase them. SOMETIMES berserkers will open up a can of whoopass on them and other times not so much. Berserkers are the only half decent counter to paladins I can figure out, but is there anything more you can do to fight them? Any tactical advice would be appreciated :)
Iluvalar
Posts: 46
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:57 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by Iluvalar »

Ranged units should do a great job. But low level ranged units are not that good, they need to have a good experience if you want them to be efficient. Also magic weapons are useful for this (alchemist guild or Alchemy). Of course, races that have specialised ranged troops are best. (long bowmen,rangers,slingers)

Also one of the major advantage of the paladins is their first strike ability. Some halbardiers and pikemen have a "negate first strike" ability that can help a lot.

Last thing, you can summon single figure beasts. Since the great strenght of paladins is their first strike that kill half the figures in a unit before they can counter, having those beast that can survive the first blow give them the maximum strenght to counter attack :D .

Let's talk magic ! Paladin are immune to direct magic fire, but are still affected by enchantement. So if you can buff your troops or cast global enchantement it won't hurt.

DO NOT attack paladins if you're not sure you can kill some of them. You certainly don't want them to gain a other level :lol: .

You talk about berseker. Does this mean you have barbarian as main race ? If so, I'd like to say : Too bad man, you had to rush before someone get those nasty paladins :twisted: .

Last of all, Paladins being one of the strongest troops in the game your ennemy might get another trick in his hand making him barely undefeatable. Look if he is Warlord or if he have some dead-end spells that get fine with paladins (invisibility,lion heart,flame strike,iron skin,...) or both. If so, the only way you can win is to personnaly have some of these strongest (slingers,hammerhands maybe as last resort griffins or some others) and one or both of those advantages.

Maybe it's just too late...
Virm
Posts: 63
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 3:54 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by Virm »

Actually, so long as there aren't a lot of paladins (less than 5 groups), running in with a full stack of warlocks works marvelously. Just Doom Bolt them to death.

Even if there are a lot, it can still be worth it to attack them, doom bolt a few to death, then flee. Worst case is you lose the stack of warlocks while running, best case is that the warlocks all escape and live to doom bolt the other half next turn (or the enemy's turn, if the paladins counter attack). Either way, the enemy is now down 3-4 groups of paladins.

Other things that work well are Crack's Call if you've got any nature books, or using Mind Storm if you're heavy on the sorcery.
rayrox222
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:24 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by rayrox222 »

wow some great tips :) I had no idea doom bolt could hit them

I had given up on ranged but my mistake was working with ranged units doing magic damage like priest/shaman/magician and these wouldn't phase them--will have to work on bowmen/slinger types although barbarian bowmen are quite bad

hehe I did rush in the beginning Iluv, and took out Merlin (I play as Lo Pan this game). On an adjacent continent the other wizards developed and one has gotten paladins by the time I sailed over to conquer the other lands. I wouldn't say hope is lost . . . he doesn't have TOO many paladins right now but they definitely put some hurt on my barbarian troops

Virm, I'm not sure what crack's call and mind storm do exactly . . . does anyone know a website where it lists and explains what all of the available spells in game do?

Thanks for the input guys :)
elliott20
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:56 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by elliott20 »

I personally feel that the paladins are something we definitely need to fix somehow. As of right now, they are simply too good of a unique. I'm not saying we should nerf them to kingdom come, but c'mon here, something here has to give. Maybe instead of the nifty +50 magical resistance, they could just be endowed with unnaturally high resistance score. (Say, starting at 15 or something)
Korenn
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 8:07 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by Korenn »

perhaps splitting magic immunity into magic spell immunity and magic missile immunity, and giving the paladins only one of the two?
Iluvalar
Posts: 46
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:57 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by Iluvalar »

elliott20 wrote:I personally feel that the paladins are something we definitely need to fix somehow. As of right now, they are simply too good of a unique. I'm not saying we should nerf them to kingdom come, but c'mon here, something here has to give. Maybe instead of the nifty +50 magical resistance, they could just be endowed with unnaturally high resistance score. (Say, starting at 15 or something)
I do not aknowledge to this. High-men do not have other special troops nor ability that realy give them a punch. When you sum all the building cost (production) of all the building you need to get those paladins you realise that it's much longer to train the first paladin then anything else. In fact, except maybe for the wizard guild, the mechanician guild and the oracle, you have to build barely every thing you can before it's possible to train paladin. So you need to defend your cities with somewhat average troops for a long time. Facing at the end the best troops of every other race. Also, thos state of the art building are quite easily collapsed when battle take place in the city. And yes, it's slow down quite a bit the expension of the realm (focusing on big buildings instead on armies and settlers).

Finally, i would say that if we are so succesful with the "rush trough paladin" strategy in the game, it's not a misbalance in the game. It's just a result of the poor AI of the game. On overland : If I was in front of an ennemi player that play high-men, you can be sure I would put pressure on him a long time before he manage to build that cathedral. In battle : As I said, there IS some tricks to deal with does paladin, but AI players don't seem to be bright enough to find them.

So, playing high-men is THAT bet straigh at the beginning of the game that you'll be able to rush buildings a long way and survive until you get those "basted paladins". So yes, paladins are a pretty strong units but there's others (slingers,hammerhands,warlocks...) that are quite easier to get so it not bother me that much. We might as well try to boost a little bit the weaker races instead to try to level down paladins.
elliott20
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:56 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by elliott20 »

Hmm... actually, that would make a lot more sense, boosting everyone else as well as AI capability to handle military units with obvious combative edges. (The same can be said of other super units like Torin the chosen, etc) it would be beneficial to instead have other races just have more tricks up there sleeves.
Iluvalar
Posts: 46
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:57 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by Iluvalar »

Not quite everyone else :wink: . I realy think for exemple that darves with their gold bonus, production bonus and hammerhands are combative, if not completly better. So don't mess with my precioussss dwarves.

I realy think that boost should come from special abilities that fit with the mentality of the races and their actual bonus. So every races would be played differently and all players would enjoy some particular races because they really fit with their gameplay.

For exemple, Instead of trying deseperatly to give klackons more buildings, we might come up with a new troops with a new special ability that increase the defense of every troops in the battle and maybe even a healing area of effect. Some sort of "armor spray". Since they already have a good defense, it might be enought for them to be hard as hell to kill. Giving them in the process unique battle manoeuvre.

Or give every gnoll a 25% healing after battle. After all, it's the lunch time for them. In fact, that bonus could even get better at a point where gnoll player would be willing to attack any units crossing their path just for fun. The possibility of a bonus level at 240XP ? Maybe...
elliott20
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:56 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by elliott20 »

or maybe klackons can get a special unit that can cast protection based spells or some such?

I always imagine gnolls to have a special unit that specifically exists for war party support. Someone whose role is not really combative but really to take care of the carcasses and such. I'm never sure how implementation on that would work though.

Just out of curiosity, how hard would it be to implement a rule that certain heroes can only be recruited if you have at least one city under your control of that hero's race? i.e. a gnoll war leader that can only be recruited if you have at least ONE gnoll city under your control. This can be a simple way to make certain races more powerful and more unique, I think.
nyarlathotep
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2008 2:43 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by nyarlathotep »

I play high men almost exclusively, so here are the things I hate:

Slingers. (lucky makes elite slingers kill paladins like crazy)

Longbowmen, Rangers, Bowmen, Horsebowmen, Pegasi. (Ranged attacks kill paladins nicely.)

Anything that flies. Paladins don't have breath weapons or thrown weapons, so can't attack fliers, only defend.

Phantom Warriors & Phantom Beasts (but only if they attack, they don't defend well at all)

Any of the Drakes, although paladins can usually outnumber them.

Cracks Call. Will kill paladin units outright 1/4th of the time.

Large catapult stacks, or draconian airships (flying stoning attacks! We hates them!)

Collosus, Fire Giant, Stone Giants, & Hydras

Time Stop. (although I think everyone hates this spell.)
Aureus
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Nov 23, 2008 9:06 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by Aureus »

I play high men almost exclusively, so here are the things I hate:

Slingers. (lucky makes elite slingers kill paladins like crazy)

Longbowmen, Rangers, Bowmen, Horsebowmen, Pegasi. (Ranged attacks kill paladins nicely.)

Anything that flies. Paladins don't have breath weapons or thrown weapons, so can't attack fliers, only defend.

Phantom Warriors & Phantom Beasts (but only if they attack, they don't defend well at all)

Any of the Drakes, although paladins can usually outnumber them.

Cracks Call. Will kill paladin units outright 1/4th of the time.

Large catapult stacks, or draconian airships (flying stoning attacks! We hates them!)

Collosus, Fire Giant, Stone Giants, & Hydras

Time Stop. (although I think everyone hates this spell.)
I agree. Every race has a big unit (or two) that match up well versus paladins, or the AI in general. Not to mention the big summons. Even in the original 1.31 version (which I don't play; only my own version) there is a counter to everything, even if it means the dreaded web, cracks call combination.

As another mentioned, it takes forever to build up to paladins. If you can get established that long with any race you've pretty much won the game. It's good there are uber units like paladins out there because it speeds up the inevitable finish.

As I see it, the major challenge in the game is overcoming the AI early on, particularly on a large land mass. It's been very rarely that I've won on a large landmass with 3 other wizards present (ignoring 11 book strategies). 1 or 2 are manageable. With unusual spell rank/ability startups (and using my version), on a large landmass, I only win maybe 25 % of the time and I consider myself an expert MOM player.
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Lucern
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:13 am

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by Lucern »

Aureus, can you tell us a bit about your version of the game? Did you do some hex-editing and save the results or something to ramp up the difficulty?
Aureus
Posts: 54
Joined: Sun Nov 23, 2008 9:06 pm

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by Aureus »

Well I don't know how much harder it makes the game. I think I just play harder settings ;) With that said, some things in my version that might make the AI harder:

1. The units are far more balanced. That will make the AI better, if only because it's stupid strategies are rewarded. In this sense: Human players can specialize in the most cost-effective units; the AI does not. By making more units useful, and encouraging combined arms in battle, the AI's play becomes more effective indirectly because their resources end up being better spent. Likewise, the "best" units that human players feast on are better tempered by other elements in the game.

2. Summoned units are less costly and more powerful, playing into the hands of the AI given it's power advantage.

3. Settlers have swimming movement so maps don't trip up the AI as much. Also settlers are 33% less expensive (base cost of 40, not 60), rewarding the AI disproportionately. The reason is that AI's cities grow faster (both from outposts and as cities). Again, humans can best choose how best to expand (nodes, neutrals, outposts). The AI cannot. Modifying the settlers will penalize the AI less for its myopic strategies.

In a nutshell, units, races, heroes, spells are more balanced (at least to my eyes), so the AI is likely better served because it often does not know better.

I stress that I've modified the game to make it more enjoyable, not harder. It's been an ongoing project for a few years and I've played countless hours with it. For all I know the game may well be a lot harder now (or even easier!); but I wouldn't notice because that's all I play. In my version I've changed abilities/costs of units, modified others into race specific units (burning hands, tallfellows, dervishes, marauders, striders, shades, witch doctors), heroes, spells, items, costs of spells, modified the effects of two spells (star fires, black channels), and even created six new spells (zombies, demon, hail storm, contagion, destruction, acid fog). You get the point.

Anyways, there are a lot less bugs in the game because I've simply edited them out or around them (there are no chaos channels-related spells in the game anymore, for example). I've made a 70 page document, which I should be able to post in a week or two if people here want to take a look at it and give me feedback. On the one hand it's exactly the same game; on the other hand, there is a lot that is different.
Coyote
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:09 pm
Location: Austin, TX

Re: Those blasted paladins

Post by Coyote »

I would be interested in seeing your version, Aureus, and giving feedback - maybe even playing it while we're waiting for Implode to finish his own highly anticipated version. :D
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