Questions about planes

[machinecode]

Noob questions:

Is it worth trying to capture stuff in some of the other planes?
I controlled a cloud castle for awhile in one game and I could make some powerful ethereal units, is it like that in every plane?
How do you manage the opportunity cost of risking a big force in there to capture that stuff?
I know it's Conquest of Elysium, not Conquest of Kokytos, but the planes are cool. Is there much of a strategic benefit though? They seem low on resources.

[mergele]

Most planes don't offer recruits, and it always depends on the class, but some can offer huge resources with little contest. A witch that get's access to Atzlan will find more swamps than in all of elysium there. A Druid on the Primal plane, oh boy. etc.

[Draken]

Here is a similar question. It's about multiplayer, but the answers should be similar:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1606340/discussions/0/3183484418866094219/

In single player you might want to do a planar conquest tour to check out the other planes.
You can either beat and contain a NPC faction (dwarf or dryad queen can be contained without them suiciding) or use the observer mode.

[Janus]

As always the answer is: It depends. Some factions get easy access and its just a freebie to nab some stuff in other planes.

Everything from here on is for Singleplayer:

For many if not most factions other planes are a dream unless you dedicate some serious effort to it.

I got a Druid game going and really want to enter the primal plane, but you dont get any good access and the few acess options i know mean i would either be so late in the game i can win without it or risk everything to then be stuck in the Primal Plane.

As for Benefits, it used to be MUCH cooler in CoE 4 cause you could upgrade ANY mage at libraries and the only reliable tier libraries are all in other planes.

To this day the best use of planes is probably still Necromancer Planeshifting Into Orcus's citadel in Hades.

Edit: Of course if you want pure benefits and low risk the obvious answer is the sky. Any thug with lightning resist and flight can capture quite a few places up there. The entire sky probably "only" has 60-100 gold on the largest map setting, but its still something.

[I>U]

It's CoE, mate, as you have said. And you should make a lot predictions and predictions based on predictions to build your gameplan. Like, when you start exploring Elysium, do you go by the coast-line or to the center? Do you go to the North or the South? Do you keep 100G as Barb before your first Spirit Guide or spend everything on units?

Your questions go along that line. If you start in Fallen Empire and you are sure there is enough of agressive environment between you and an opponent, you can go to Primal\Sky\Elemental planes and Agaratha as soon as you can. Elysium is quite devastated durring that epoch as well, so in 1v1 on the smallest map you can have ~70g\turn by controlling everything on the base plane (meaning ~35G for your half of the map). Other planes (safe for Hades) aren't affected by epoch, and Agaratha or Primal plane can yield times more than that with the less level of threat (a single Foulspawn can wipe 40 humans-sized army and things like Doomhorror can't be seen without Spirit Sight).

As for other epochs.. you have to decide based on your class. If you feel comphy in Elysium and not expecting Necro\Barb's army appearing in your rear, you have no reasons to explore other planes. It would be wise to go on exploring on prolonged stalemate, though (when dispatching equivalent of 80 humans army won't leave your frontlines deserted). Also, sites in some planes are indestructible (and. reportedly, Hamlets and Farms can spawn in Primal plane, but I'm yet to witness that myself).

Now, to the planes themselves. First of all, you can't lose untill you hold forts in Agaratha, Sky plane or Elysium. You can have Agaratha flooded and permament clouds destroyed by drying up plains in Elysium, though (that WILL destroy cloud Hamlets and Villages, but everything else - including bean's sprouts - will be safe and retain some permanent clouds around; I did witness that in one recent match). So, these two planes are the most valuable after Elysium.

Next, Primal plane. If you have access, settlements here are barely guarded and wandering armies are the same Independents, meaning 1 square per turn and no "I will kill you no matter what" patterns for environmental troops. 20 humans can grab a lot of gold per turn and hold it for you here.

Elemental planes have forts that, beside troops from Minor Summon will offer champion commanders (without rituals, though). That's really great when you can buy those with gold, but, realistically, you can only capture Air apex with convient troops, And since Cloud Castles lead to the Sky plane in CoE5, it remains class-specific (Warlock) plane for the most part. Except for Nexus-rushes through the Void.

Void.. You probably know about insanity and horror-marks (which can only be casted by higher level Horrors - I have no idea why so many people are afraid of that), constant FoW and random teleportation. Well, add here the whole plane shuffling from time to time spawning new Horrors along the way in CoE5. Hence, trying to control it is out of the question. Trying to reach Primal plane\Nexus is feasible, but risky buisness. First of all, insanity only affects commanders. If you have 3 commanders in the army and your leading one went insane for the turn, you can drop him out and pray that there is another one unaffected. Multiple commanders is the key in exploring Void - better to move a single unit, unless you have Spirit Sight. But even with that, try to keep 1 AP by the end of the turn (Horrors can only move a single square; same tactic you use around confirmed wandering Manticore\Elephants early in game). With all of that, you can have 5-6 guaranteed turns to reach Nexus\Celestial plane or Forbidden Library. Nexus and Library's guards differ tremendously from game to game (77 humans and 3 commanders on 4 ships is the peek you should be risking and may or not be enough to seize these locations), while Celestial path is much safer.

Celestial and Inferno aren't the planes you would wish to control either. You can cap settlements here, but grabbing Bronze Castles\Infernal Tower would require a ton of at least T2 units. While these very sites would dispatch armies with 3 or 4 AP's to attack you with no regard for their chances of winning while you are here (which means constant attrition). Ultimately, scrolls to Inferno is the way to escape encirclement in Elysium, not capturing that plane. You can float here for some turns, undig some Sinners and turn them into lesser demons and grab some sites for income. But you will be wiped in the end. Just like in Celestial plane. Though, you can escape to a much freindlier Primal plane through the set portal in Celestial plane. Consider the coast of Celestial plane as the 2nd ring and the citadel of Archon as the center - the portal would be within the first ring between them.

Hades is a class-specific plane simply because how powerful the Hound of the Hades is. And Aztlan is a dead end of all other planes (Teotl castles are separated by the Void). Also, it has Independents spawns off-site (stronger than Elysium sites spawn, but otherwise the weakest) and only Teotl castles give access to a single special recruitment (I saw Eagle Warrior on Sky Teotl's and Jaguar Warrior on Sun Teotl's one). A lot of content was been added after the release (including that brisky "crown" icon on Bronze Castles - I'm yet to find what units it has to offer now), so something could have changed. But otherwise - no. Consider it a canva of something great to come.

To summarise, Primal\Nexus rush is a reasonable opportunity for every class. If you have Port around you capital, that is. You have to consider this opportunity on the line with others, though (rushing your opponent, taking Capital, Gold Mine or Manufactory early). Again, if you are on Fallen Empire and Capital is close to your opponent's starting location, that can only mean he will be pushing you - unlikely there would be leisure of sending your troops away, If you are exploring and see an unclaimed city without a sign of your opponent being here, you have to think what have caused that. It's all about reading patterns (and knowing them, sadly) in this game. You see a temple near this city and some savannah at the center of the map? Congrats, that will be the Desolator's trail. It's pretty much the same as having Fallen Capital in any epoch, safe for the fact that it's moving. It could be Brigands' armies as well. Yes, they can be this powerful on some generations. You can confirm that by seeing a large cluster of their lairs. You can heroically clean up this mess and lose a lot of low-tier units midgame (and not a single one after your army had grown enough). Or just board the ships.

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I know, I've written a lot, but I needed this kind of distraction, sorry. Hope it was quarter-useful, at least.

[WalrusJones]

If you conquer the fire plane and put a few fireproof generals in its castles, chances are the enemy strictly will be unable to finish you off. Not everyone can conquer the sky plane and even the underground can be problematic to beat simply because if it gets flooded not everyone is amphibious.

[mergele]

You need a stronghold on elyisum (sky/agartha count as elysium here) for it to count iirc.

[Nombrilist]

I'd disagree about Inferno not being worth controlling. There are Infernal Towers that are weakly guarded as well as those that are deathtraps, and once you grab one you can recruit Bloodsworn to replace causalties, catapults for sieging other towers, etc. If you're a Kobold (and I'd imagine also if you're a Dwarf or Bakemono, but I haven't tested) you can infest mines there as well. Like most planes, it's more someplace you'd go when playing with Bystander mod than in a competative game, but that applies to almost all the planes...

[I>U]

Originally posted by Nombrilist:

I'd disagree about Inferno not being worth controlling. There are Infernal Towers that are weakly guarded as well as those that are deathtraps, and once you grab one you can recruit Bloodsworn to replace causalties, catapults for sieging other towers, etc. If you're a Kobold (and I'd imagine also if you're a Dwarf or Bakemono, but I haven't tested) you can infest mines there as well. Like most planes, it's more someplace you'd go when playing with Bystander mod than in a competative game, but that applies to almost all the planes...

Towers are much harder to grab in CoE5. Their garissons is on par with demon lords locations now. I haven't seen anything weaker since CoE4, sadly.

But I've totally missed Kobold King and all the great mines scattered around. He should be doing great in Inferno with all those elemental resistances (not sure if Bakemono could ever make the casuality counter positive with it's recrutiables only ).

The problem with competitve games is habbits and how people are afraid of taking the risks here (at least, with my current "pool" of players which is up to 3 people). You can scare your opponent with some naval force, then retrieve to the Void. But you won't be doing that in SP, because AI won't give a penny about something threatening it in such way. Just like that, there is not too much sense in having multiple commanders in the same army in SP (because AI - safe for Voice of El and Barb - never splits), which, sadly, affects your general playstyle. All of that comes before the fact that Void has way more "outs" on smaller maps, but people seem to miss that as well (I can imagine some would be playing on bigger maps to prolong AI's suffering, but it's just me ).

[Nombrilist]

There can still be weak towers in Inferno. I can't remember exactly what was garrisoning it, but I wanna say I overran one only garrisoned w/ 1x1 units and probably fewer than 10 overall. I was using ~20 Maruts lead by a Rudra. There *might* have been a 2x2 Heliophagus, but whatever it was was a pushover. This was in Abbadon's area. Abbadon himself fell fairly cleanly once I added massed Bloodsworn with catapults and some forged demons. The Maruts and demons took heavy casualties, but hardly any Bloodsworn died - they mostly got hit with low-damage AoE they could regen through.

One thing that still disappoints me is that Black Kobolds & Dragons don't have Hades immunity. I really wanted to infest that plane with scaly vermin...

[Nombrilist]

Two other thing about the Primal plane - first, it's got a bunch of Ancient Forests if you're a class that can use those - or if you're a class that can mindcontrol any of the Primal deities so you can use them to use those.

The other thing is its forts. I'm currently in the middle of a game wandering around there, and haven't captured any of them yet, but by my count in this game there's 5 spread across the plane - one full of Firbolgs, one Bronze Castle that's not nearly as well defended as the ones on the Celestial plane, and 3 where the Akashic deities are hanging around.

[Draken]

The Elemental Plane of Earth is definitely worth it for all gem using classes. You don't even need to take any citadels if you enter it through the nexus. You just have to deal with some elemental wheels to get through.

[[Mi.Sa]Skullduggery]

Not quite on topic but you could quite easily screw an ai's day if you were to get a tunnelling unit in their territory and get them to dig too deep, then its a matter of letting hell wreck their ♥♥♥♥ especially good if your holed up in a defensive area or on an island. Holdout and let the world burn.