Posts from Round table

I became disillusioned with the Barbarian-Castle combo in SOD. Played today. Built 1-7 in the castle and bought up normally, but only because the respawn had 3 Dwarf Cottages, 1 max and 2 at 20. Can't break into the neighboring respawns — on one side a horde of Lizard Warriors, on the other a horde of Gogs, the third exit leads into a swamp with no road. With Barbarian warriors, ranged block-losses (or should I take Tyras?). Went into the Treasury at 124, but to maintain even a moderate pace, you need to get lucky with both gold and leveling. Building the 7th level is expensive. If you also have the Castle, it's outright evil. The swamp, for its part, still has more gold lying around at the respawn.

Shooting blocks break down with the loss of orcs or goblins, which are taken down by archers in the 1st round, and they are problematic against any Castle. In the second, the rocs fly in and clean up. The advantages of Stronghold are the presence of carts and corpses where you can get an artifact, a good chance of having a stable on respawn and Logistics on Barbarian heroes (7%), and a fast 7th level construction skipping levels 3, 4, 6

Provide an example army composition and stats that would be effective against a Lizardfolk horde. The issue is that the Barbarian has significant problems with both armor and defense stat progression. For example, if I needed to defeat a slightly leveled-up Swamp Thing hero, I know how to do it.

I've become disillusioned with the SoD Barbarian Castle. Played a game today. Built up tiers 1-7 in the Castle and bought a decent army, but only because there were 3 dwarf dwellings on the respawn, 1 max and 2 with 20 each. Can't break through to the neighboring respawns — on one side there's a horde of Lizard Warriors, on the other a horde of Gog Magogs, the third exit leads into the swamp with no road. With Barbarian warriors, the shooter stacks result in losses (or should I just take Tyras?). Went into the Treasury on day 124, but to maintain at least a medium tempo, you need luck with both gold and leveling. Upgrading to tier 7 is expensive. If you also have the Castle, it's downright evil. In the Swamp faction, at least there's more gold lying around on the respawn.

I periodically get disillusioned with it myself, but sometimes it works out fine. A plus is the variety of development — with artifacts or a native secondary skill, you can get decent stacks of birds, wolves, ogres, you can manage without bears — cheap and effective. It turned out, for example, that if the wolves are in order, the dragons in utopias aren't in a hurry to attack them, even though they're double-strikers. The poverty of the respawn can be slightly mitigated by banning the generation of tents, cartographers, and hill forts. And free artifacts sometimes help a lot.

If there is meat available, then there are no questions. Indeed, you can achieve good results without bears.

If there's meat available, then it's a no-brainer. Indeed, you can get by quite well without bears.

Are you playing Barbarian on Inferno? ;)

Provide an example army composition and stats that would be effective against a Lizardfolk horde. The issue is that the Barbarian has significant problems with both armor and defense stat progression. For example, if I needed to defeat a slightly leveled Swamp Thing, I know how to do it.

Through experimentation, it has been determined that a Lizardfolk horde will be around level 55 (1 week) on a standard difficulty.
60 Goblins, 10 Wolves, 15 Orcs, 3 Rocs, and a hero of level 3, with increased attack and ballista skills, should be sufficient.

The advantages of this castle are the presence of wagons and corpses, which can be used to obtain artifacts, a good chance of having a stable on the respawn point, and a chance of having a barbarian hero's lair (7%), as well as a fast construction of level 7, skipping levels 3, 4, and 6.

I forgot to mention the magic source, which doubles mana. It's really great! :smile20:

P.S.: Personally, I don't like this castle in any way :smile32:

I'm not saying that Barbarian is an exceptionally strong faction, but I find it interesting to play, and I often have quite good results.

I don't like it either, especially in the Conflux. There are practically no archers. Orcs have the same damage as Lizardmen, but they arrive much less frequently, especially at the beginning. To improve the wolves, you also need to improve the goblins. Cyclops are very difficult to build because they require a lot of crystals. Ogres are slow. If you can't build any monsters, then one bird dominates there. The only good thing is that the birds can be improved relatively easily, and you can defeat archers without losses if the hero has the right tactics.

I don't like it either, especially in Sylvan. There are practically no archers. Orcs have damage like Lizards, but they arrive much less frequently than Lizards, especially at the beginning. To improve wolves, you also need to improve goblins. Cyclops are very difficult to build because you need a lot of crystals. Ogres are slow. If you can't build monsters, then one bird dominates there. The only good thing is that birds can be improved relatively easily and you can defeat snipers without losses if the hero has the right tactics.

Orcs and cyclops are terrible, along with ogres (in general, these troops are not very useful). Instead of a squad of archers, Gurn with a ballista is much better, and bears should definitely be placed in the first row; after all, it's the easiest 7th-level unit to build (and it's clearly not the weakest, and it's also the cheapest to buy and upgrade). But I don't understand how to play as Inferno, especially how to defend against any decent rush on the 2nd week :)

I don't understand how to play Inferno, especially how to defend against any decent rush on the 2nd week. :)

Start with a Pyre, on day 1, buy her a book, and go as far away from the castle as possible. The second wave (demons and pits) - clear out everything near the castle that is guarded, and the third wave (ifrits) - finish off another direction, and usually on day 17, devils are placed, sometimes earlier if the ogres are standing there from the start. Devils are placed in 33% of cases on day 1... well, who can withstand Inferno's rush on the 2nd week then? ;)

Devils are used in 33% of cases on the 1st... so who can withstand Inferno on the 2nd against a rush? ;)

Judging by the reports, may God grant that they are used in 5% of cases as well:D! That's 15,000, after all, and the army is far from as easy to manage as that of a Rampart or even a Castle. And besides, it implies taking several important locations - but how can you take them if even a ballista in the treasure room is useless? :)

Well, since we mentioned the Barbarians, I'll add my two cents (I like them, and not least because they're challenging). As for the Lizardmen (the unupgraded Gogs are no match for them, so we won't even talk about them): if you need to defeat them on days 1-2 of the game, they're likely unbeatable (unless you have Gretchins or a ready-made pack of wolves for day 1 and a quick upgrade for Gurney). But after day 3, they become quite manageable – here's my recipe: 3 Rocs, level 1; a well-developed Ballista (at least); any stack of archers (whether they come with the third hero or are Orcs, it doesn't matter, as long as there are 5-7 of them); a stack of Goblins; and 2 stacks of fast units (we won't use wolves, as they're likely to be defeated by the archers). In the first round, wait; only 2 fast units move forward. The Lizardmen will either attack our archers or go straight for the fast units (sometimes they get stuck). Then, they'll attack the archers, the Goblin stack, or the lower stack of birds (this is unlikely, but it can happen). The first option is the easiest, as by the second round, the Rocs will have completely blocked the Lizardmen, and we'll have 2 surviving fast units (which the blocked Lizardmen will attack in the second round) and a stack of Goblins, which will attack the Lizardmen that attack the fast units. In the second option, the actions are the same – by the second round, the Lizardmen are blocked, but instead of attacking, our archers both run to the right in the second round; the Goblins either attack (if they can reach) or are exposed to one of the Lizardmen stacks (so that the attack isn't directed at the birds). In the third option, the actions are identical to the first, but there are simply more Goblin losses. In the fourth option, as soon as the Lizardmen finish attacking the Roc, the whole group rushes towards them, except for the wounded bird – it either retreats to defense (if it has enough health to withstand one good attack from the stack) or flies to a safe distance to be in the battle on the second round after waiting. In the second round, the Rocs and fast units block the Lizardmen from attacking. The defense of the Roc is needed when it's about to die, in case the Lizardmen, blocked by the fast unit, have their morale broken. In any case, the fast units, all (or almost all) of the archers, and some of the Goblins die (ideally, none). This doesn't affect Gurney's combat effectiveness. In the worst case, half of the Goblins are lost, but this is rare. Attached are the saves from a real game where this tactic was used to defeat 42 Magogs on day 3 (I didn't find any Lizardmen).
Now, about Ogres... I wouldn't even consider these guys to be weak units! In the absence of Bears, I always try to include Ogres in the castle so that I have a good attack stack by the second week (there were games where Ogres and birds fought against tougher enemies on the second week), so you're wrong to underestimate the green-skinned guys.

Devils are used in 33% of cases on the 1st...

Were you joking? (at least on the CM, the most popular template) :)