Help me out Enchanter bros

[cam]

CoE5 is my first game in the series, got the ropes down and love playing Enchanter. Was wondering if any Enchanter bros out there who know their stuff wanted to share neat strats to help improve my game play. Here's what I do so far:

I usually start off keeping my apprentice in base to auto-create bows/spears/swords (whatever I can get through rolling the dice with the 20gp you start out with) and I'll explore with my main enchanter with all the human units you start with. I used to use animate tools on ALL valid tiles as well as put guardian statues on all tiles, but I found that to be a waste of time come late game so now I only put animate tools and guardian statues on iron tiles since it's such a critical resource for Enchanter, And I'll usually stop caring about iron and start converting new iron tiles I get into golems once I'm sitting at about 20 iron per turn since I don't really struggle to crank out golems at that rate since you need to wait about two turns each golem anyways. I suppose if you had multiple enchanters on the field making multiple high level golems it'd still be too low but I haven't really encountered many problems yet with that rate.

I've definitely met with more success going that route compared to other things I've tried, I think the main thing for me is not knowing what rituals are really good and what aren't. For example I find flesh golems pretty good early since they don't require iron which you're always lacking early, but their upgrade enchant to kit them out in armor I find pretty useless since by that point I'd already have eaten several forests and gotten more than enough wood golems. I also have always found it super awkward to use the enchant armor ritual since your have to be in the fortified structure that usually means that it's a task to be relegated to my designated slave apprentice that does nothing but pump out animated units at my capital, but 10 iron per turn to do that is A LOT. I think next play through I'll try going for +30 iron per turn instead of the usual +20 and experiment with having an apprentice crank out those animated armors because their stats look solid and having that be the bulk of your army instead of spears, swords, and bows would be nuts. Albeit a pretty mid to late game strat.

Definitely more of scuffed strategy and less of an efficient strategy, but it makes do for now. Hit me up with advice! I really wanna take enchanter to that next level and push the limits of the class.

[Drithyl]

Enchanter's my favourite class as well. You seem to have a good general strat going, though. I like clay golems a lot because they are some of the few summons that actually heal, and their regeneration makes them a nice frontline. Wood golems are great at the beginning. I love animated armours, but you are right in that 10 iron per armour (and with the usual citadel requirement) makes them practically unuseable.

Besides that, one of the biggest issues with the Enchanter at the moment is that it has a huge pool of rituals, and most of them are very very situational, so it's common to end up sinking a ton of gold into just finding a ritual that you want. If you start with Terracotta Warriors, or get it early, that's a good use of an apprentice or two, to keep them roaming through nearby swamps to build a frontline of pikemen for free.

[geepope]

Enchanter is pretty rough in general and it sounds like you've got a decent grasp. The only thing missing is that I don't see any mention of necrotods; it's a gamble to get them early on due to how many rituals are in the enchanter's pool, and they're pretty micro-heavy, but having a super spammable charm attack is a big edge and the enchanter needs all the help he can get.

[KPJFormat]

My favourite enchanter run in CoE4- Necrotod got me a troll king :)
And it's not so hard to do, he has low magic resistance and takes forever to die

[cam]

Originally posted by geepope:

Enchanter is pretty rough in general and it sounds like you've got a decent grasp. The only thing missing is that I don't see any mention of necrotods; it's a gamble to get them early on due to how many rituals are in the enchanter's pool, and they're pretty micro-heavy, but having a super spammable charm attack is a big edge and the enchanter needs all the help he can get.

I've only ever summoned a necrotod once! I'll be sure to try that out I honestly have never played with units that had charm yet and didn't really know what it did. I'll be sure to play around with those thank you!

[Anxarcule]

Can you share how you get +20 iron per turn? is that by flagging 10 or so mines? Also a newbie here :)

[cam]

Originally posted by Drithyl:

Enchanter's my favourite class as well. You seem to have a good general strat going, though. I like clay golems a lot because they are some of the few summons that actually heal, and their regeneration makes them a nice frontline. Wood golems are great at the beginning. I love animated armours, but you are right in that 10 iron per armour (and with the usual citadel requirement) makes them practically unuseable.

Besides that, one of the biggest issues with the Enchanter at the moment is that it has a huge pool of rituals, and most of them are very very situational, so it's common to end up sinking a ton of gold into just finding a ritual that you want. If you start with Terracotta Warriors, or get it early, that's a good use of an apprentice or two, to keep them roaming through nearby swamps to build a frontline of pikemen for free.

I love clay golems too! I'll always prioritize them whenever I see a swamp because you're right the regeneration on them is amazing. Our only units that can heal after battle lol. I'm curious about what you think with terracotta soldiers because I like using them too, but I always debate in my head if they're worth making in my early game, or if I should just wait and make another clay golem because they're so useful as a front line unit. I think it really depends on what you were talking about that being the situation. Sometimes the extra early soldiers are necessary and sometimes you can get away with saving the swamp for later. What I would love to know is how many terracotta soldiers can you make in a swamp without depleting it so I can min max getting soldiers and then making a clay golem to delete the swamp, that'd be a huge game changer imo. honestly both a blessing and a curse how versatile the class is. Thanks for the input!

[Zymeth]

I agree with OP and Dirtryl.
I do the same with guardians and tools (except I also make tools on the main citadel).

Crystal golems are my favourite, as they make immobile, shooting crystals from killed units in melee or ranged (don't remember which attack has this effect).

@cam - in CoE 4, creating terracota soldier or a statue (in the temple) had 8% chance to deplete the swamp / destroy the temple. Luckily, this should be moddable if you want to change this chance.

[cam]

Originally posted by Anxarcule:

Can you share how you get +20 iron per turn? is that by flagging 10 or so mines? Also a newbie here :)

Yep! I'll go out and explore as much of the map I can and prioritize taking mines. At the end of the day we're all at the mercy of the map. We start with two coal mines and with animated tools that gets us guranteed +4, but everything else is left up to exploring the map and RNG. There's 100% times where I'll never get that much because no mines spawned near me and it sucks. Once I capture all the tiles near me and gold isn't a problem I'll almost always buy every enchatner apprentice I can and just save them in my capital until my animated weapon slaves generate enough units to give to them, and I'll use them to help explore the map looking for more mines, creating wood golems as they travel for extra protection while making more expensive higher quality golems on my main guy. I make sure to get both the animated tools ritual and guardian statue ritual on all my exploring enchanters so when I travel super far from my main holdings and find a mine I can take it, animate tools it for the extra iron, and slap a couple guardian statues on it so it can protect itself from the wild spawns. Usually by mind game with decent RNG I'll have around 20 iron per turn. Also capturing towns/trade posts and trading for iron is obviously the power move too

[Drithyl]

Originally posted by cam:

I love clay golems too! I'll always prioritize them whenever I see a swamp because you're right the regeneration on them is amazing. Our only units that can heal after battle lol. I'm curious about what you think with terracotta soldiers because I like using them too, but I always debate in my head if they're worth making in my early game, or if I should just wait and make another clay golem because they're so useful as a front line unit. I think it really depends on what you were talking about that being the situation. Sometimes the extra early soldiers are necessary and sometimes you can get away with saving the swamp for later. What I would love to know is how many terracotta soldiers can you make in a swamp without depleting it so I can min max getting soldiers and then making a clay golem to delete the swamp, that'd be a huge game changer imo. honestly both a blessing and a curse how versatile the class is. Thanks for the input!

As Zymeth just said, the chance to deplete a swamp with a terracotta casting is random each turn, so sometimes you'll get 20 soldiers off a single swamp, and sometimes you'll just get 1. No way to minmax it. I'll usually put in the time to summon them if I've got a few swamps to go around. That way I'm saving all my iron for bigger summons like the golems, and can get a couple clay golems from the other swamps.

[Mr W]

I am going to say do not ignore the tool makers - the extra gold and iron makes a bit of a difference. You can use the cash to buy some iron.

[Primagen]

I barely play enchanter. From what I remember though: Necrotod, Enchanted ballista, Clay golem. Only cast the mine destroying golems on mines near enemy base.

[I>U]

Originally posted by KPJFormat:

My favourite enchanter run in CoE4- Necrotod got me a troll king :)
And it's not so hard to do, he has low magic resistance and takes forever to die

Let me double that, my mate.

I got myself an indie Wyrm with MR 6 and an army of 1 Sword, Enchanter and 6 Necrotods in CoE5 without losing anyone.

Had no luck with 10 MR Hound of Hades, though. At all (lost 120+ army).


OP, Necrotods is a good way to get you free roamers, like Fire Ants and Bears, and if you just happen to kill them, they will simply add to the pool of the corpses which one turn will be ready to summon more rods.

And when it comes to golems\armour, it's not just a quantity that matters. Enchanters look like the least useful casters on the field, and, it actually is, when you try to evenly spray their buffs on a sparse force. As soon as you get 2 Wooden golems, you can go and punch Trolls\Dwarves (not in their cities, of course) into face with Fire Shield\Luck on a single caster or scale that with multiple casters and some additional units. 2 Wooden golems create 10-wide ZoC, so only flyers\a wider frontline can get to your casters in melee, then.

Also, don't forget about the new summons, Juggernaut and Mimic. Jugg can grow into tremendous force and brings you human sttlements as gifts from time to time, while Mimic is the best booby trap this game has.

Otherwise, you are on the right track. Tier 1 have 8 rituals, currently, with 10G cost and Tier 2 have 11 with 4 guaranteed ones and 30G cost per new one. To be honest, it's not a big deal, since High Priestess has 20-60 per same Tiers, and that's the cost in Sacrifices, which would futher double the amount if converted via Trade.

The real problem starts with Tier 3. Ritual disparity hits hard on this one (180G when you need a very specific one isn't a joke). It's really hard to balance Apretinces' offers and promoting your veteran workforce at this point (which might be the reason why Enchanter comes to me weaker than other classes).

Oh, by the way! Infights between indies and Kingdom\Empire makes corpses, so you may consider to leave some of their sites alone. Also, Library points boost Aprentices' offers, so go for cities\libraries early, when you can.

[sad shred of human]

Hey I need help on this topic too! I play completely elysium5 as multiplayer game. I noticed that encahnters front line are huge so multiple enemies can hit them simultaneusly. This would be ok if they had sweep but they dont. So where I get damage as enchanter? Bows are guishy so in sieges and mage battles they take hits easily. Enchanters dont do much damage so should I dedicate part of my iron income for crossbows? anyone any idea how big of a part is fine?

[Gilmoy]

It's an older thread (3+ years), so probably the OP already found his answers.
Anyways, your damage question remains relevant.

• Enchanter will always have blah damage. It's a permanent weakness.
  
• Your human troops do human-standard damage, and have no upgrade path.
  
• You have 0 spells for damage. Sleep is your best debuff, but for 0 damage.
  
• Your golems are melee-only, with almost no AoE attacks.

My usual mix is ranged (Archers + Crossbows) + Animated Ballista + mage Commanders.
Basically, just bring enough guys, and win on quantity.

Here's a typical late-game army to siege an AI's fortified site.
Call this approach #A, the skinny army of exactly 8 columns (or less).
The idea is that your spellcasters shall immediately use their best range-8 attack spells.
Then you must carefully edit your army composition before you attack,
and leave excess guys behind.

• 8 columns of guys, max. You want your range-8 spellcasters to start in range.
  Each 1 column = 20 size-1s, or 10 size-2s, or 6 size-3s.
  
• 3-4 columns of melee beef:
  
  • 0-3 size-3s: L2 Ice Golem, L3 Oak Golem, L3 Brass Bull, any heavy golems
    
  • some L2 Clay Golem, L2 Wood Golem if they still live
    
  • enough L1/L2 Iron-Grafted (Flesh) Golem to fill out 3 columns
    
• 3-4 columns of ranged:
  
  • Archer
    
  • Crossbowmen
    
  • L1 Living Bow
    
  • L2 Animated Ballista
    
• 1 column of spellcasters:
  
  • L1 Apprentice Enchanter, L2 Enchanter, L3 Great Enchanter
    
  • any L1/L2 mage Commanders you randomly recruit over many turns
    
  • anybody with magic items that give ranged spell attacks
    

This works with all factions. Adjust your unit mix according to what your class has.

~~~~

Finally, I play the Enchanter Guardian Creep strategy, usually vs. Huge 7 King.
(It works, you can win. Sometimes you can win a Huge 7 Emperor.)
Search these forums for "Guardian Creep" for more details.

It's based on Pwnyboy-Curtis' legendary reply #33 in this thread:
Enchanter was bad before, now it's pathetic

I adapted his (CoE4) ideas to CoE5.
CoE5 Gargoyles are stationary, so they're no longer an offensive weapon.
But we now have L1 Animate Spear, L2 Dogs of Gold and Silver, and L3 Brass Bull.

Also, L3 Create Artifact gives your L3 Great Enchanter a useful way to use 20 turns.
Sit anywhere (with an army present, to hold magic items), and create 30 random items.
You'll get 1-2 items of Flying, 1-2 of Regeneration, and many armors, weapons, scrolls.
Keep spamming it until your 1st item of Regeneration, then cure all humans' afflictions.

The key Big Idea I kept from Pwnyboy-Curtis is: No Heavy Golems.
I can win a Huge 7 King with 0 of Stone, Iron, Silver, Gold, Onyx, or Crystal Golems.
(Ice and Oak aren't heavy.) Most heavy golems, and Brass Bull, have the size-3 flaw
that they take 2-4 melee hits + many ranged hits, but have only 1 attack.
So they actually take heavy attrition, and last for only a few fights each.
I'd rather keep the Iron Mine than watch an Iron Golem die in 4 fights.

Hence the bulk of my #A armies (of exactly 8 columns width)
are Clay Golem and Iron-Grafted Golem, and just enough to fill 3-4 columns.
It suffices because I never need to fight an enemy A-army head-on.
I avoid them all game, and go straight for the AIs' citadels.

[Hebrux]

Originally posted by Drithyl:

Enchanter's my favourite class as well. You seem to have a good general strat going, though. I like clay golems a lot because they are some of the few summons that actually heal, and their regeneration makes them a nice frontline. Wood golems are great at the beginning. I love animated armours, but you are right in that 10 iron per armour (and with the usual citadel requirement) makes them practically unuseable.

Besides that, one of the biggest issues with the Enchanter at the moment is that it has a huge pool of rituals, and most of them are very very situational, so it's common to end up sinking a ton of gold into just finding a ritual that you want. If you start with Terracotta Warriors, or get it early, that's a good use of an apprentice or two, to keep them roaming through nearby swamps to build a frontline of pikemen for free.

hmm I'll have to try out the enchanter class. I usually stick with Necromancer and Witch classes lol I need to branch out