So What is Meta?

[yuzhonglu]

Most powerful empire combo?

EDIT: Most powerful empire combo for hardest difficulty setting with max AIs.

[Pierre117]

ok

[Fuinril]

1vs1, small map, anything. Just find your opponent, declare war on it and immediately propose to become vassal. Then you have won. On turn one. At the hardest difficulty. You're now a god among men !

[Zarquon]

a couple of broken mechanics are listed here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWdd2xPnZOI

I've only tried a few combos but this is the best single stack i've found (for single player).

Body Trait: Strong. +10% melee damage
Mind Trait: Overwhelming Tactics. +20% crit when grouped
Culture: Fundal. + 20% damage when grouped
Society: Gifted Casters (combat spell casting) + Adept Settlers (city cap)
Wizard King.

Focus on Astral to pump research, get every minor unit transformation possible. Specifically;
rank 2. Amplification: Astral Blood. +10% crit for every spell cast in combat up to 50.
rank 3. Devastaton. Flameburst weapons. +20% crit

Also throw in some morale buffs
rank 2. Doomherald. Joy siphoners. steal 3 morale per hit
rank 3. Subjugation. Intimidation aura. -5 morale to adjacent enemies

I went for 4 melee heroes with sword and board and 2 magic ranged. no mounts. Everyone buffs with mass rejuvenation and rallying blessing first turn. group up and wait for them to advance. Spells every turn for crit chance. then get as many crits as possible, get your morale up and in a couple of turns the enemies morale should break.

The stack is strength 1700 atm, around level 10-15 and has taken on 3 full enemy stacks before. Record single stack strength is 4776.

Later follow the melee heroes with a backline of evokers. It's probably not as good as others have, but i like hero stacks.

[Pinstar]

High Culture, Imperial trait and Champion ruler give you a natural +40 stability in your cities. If you pair that with a trait that lowers alignment (I went with cannibal) you start the game as true neutral. That activates High culture's "Alignment Agenda" bonus, giving your cities +20 food and +20 production for free along with all the natural bonuses that tier-2 stability gives you.

The natural gold bonus from Imperial synergizing with the champion's gold % bonus is just gravy. I have a YouTube series using this combo.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrmmPKYXqaFZgunBqvHGfcajQTHZ-RhoF

[yuzhonglu]

Does stand together from feudal work with pack tactics from wolf mounts?

[Flushing]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Most powerful empire combo?

1v1 vs AI set to easy.

[Roderick]

No motivation to find out yourself?

[yuzhonglu]

Originally posted by Roderick:

No motivation to find out yourself?

I can only play so much. I'm trying.

Currently doing the Skaven build. Curious about other people's builds.

[crabsmack]

Too early to know, but late game astral summoning is pretty dumb. Can drop 4+ high tier units per turn anywhere on the map with the only cost being mana. In general I've found mana isn't much of a constraint in this game, I end up with a huge surplus despite running every single enchantment I unlock.

[BigJ]

Turn 14 barb rush on any map, sooner on shorter maps. You just send a stack of units and go into barely any income, raid and pillige all enemy expansions and keep them "crippled" if at a stalemate or finish them off.

With the right traits and advancements, the imperium negative from unjust war ain't that bad.

[yuzhonglu]

What about larger maps?

[BigJ]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

What about larger maps?

Currently unless you are playing with 4-5 players, the far map has players 5-7 turns away unless you got sea or mountains. Which is why the rush is good from turn 10-18. At that point most players will have a single army at most and barely any defendes, with high and dark cultures having slower starts.

[shadowclasper]

I'm currently fooling around with a buff-wizards build and seeing where that goes >.>

[aqvamare]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Most powerful empire combo?

EDIT: Most powerful empire combo for hardest difficulty setting with max AIs.

Champion, with max out imperial gain.

Found outpost, update to city, release as vassal, rince and repeat. every vassal gives your 2-3 hero with units, and they scare AI and keep random monster den under control.

And the money you save in building up the city, goes directly into "found outpost, create city, release as vassal".

Do not forget, your tomb city spells work on vassals, and you get on max out vassal 50% of the income bonus you create this way.

If you expand slower, you can relase a city on level 9 as vassal, and they are a vassal with no expansion (they do not get city tiles) in the middle of your empire, which still have a level 9 city with tier 3 units (you builded the city).

[Zarco]

All praise the min-maxing gods!!!