Champion vs Wizard King

[Noobatron1111]

Hi folks. I want to understand why i should use an Wizard King. it feels so much weaker than a champion. All boni I receive as a Wizard King I could easily outgrow with the population grow of the Champion. Am I missing something? With a Champion I can cast the same, ok not that often BUT I always lack the ressources with a WK. I´ve played serveral games and always have won with Champion now moving on to hard mode. But with the WK I struggle hard on normal. I´m always overrun.

Has anyone here good Tipps for an approach with WK?

Greetz!

[Flushing]

The issue seems to be that the OP was playing a Wizard King like a Champion.

Wizard Kings really shine when you pick society traits that reduce the costs of summons by 50% and or Global Enchantments.

You should go heavy in mana and research generating structures.

Make sure you have good summons available at most tiers.

It's no joke when you summon powerful stacks out of thin air.

[M0rgi]

Originally posted by Flushing:

The issue seems to be that the OP was playing a Wizard King like a Champion.

Wizard Kings really shine when you pick society traits that reduce the costs of summons by 50% and or Global Enchantments.

You should go heavy in mana and research generating structures.

Make sure you have good summons available at most tiers.

It's no joke when you summon powerful stacks out of thin air.

i personally prefer to run my Wizard King with mana addicts and talented spellcasters and make him a one man army. mana addicts really makes your units and hero tough to kill. with good fire evocation or forest fire you can heal north of 50 hp on your hero with mana addicts

[Noobatron1111]

Originally posted by Flushing:

The issue seems to be that the OP was playing a Wizard King like a Champion.

Wizard Kings really shine when you pick society traits that reduce the costs of summons by 50% and or Global Enchantments.

You should go heavy in mana and research generating structures.

Make sure you have good summons available at most tiers.

It's no joke when you summon powerful stacks out of thin air.

Yes indeed, I think I played the WK wrong. Are you specializing cities? Like Mana and Reserach only?

Thx for the many answers, you are great!

[ayrtep]

Champions are better for the economy and wizard kings for tactical fights.

10% mana vs 10% gold. As you can buy units with either you should be able to balance these two together. So I would cancel these out, but feel free to argue the toss.

+20 Stability for Challenges this is going to give you +5% food, build and draft most of the time. This is big IMHO.

Better free cities relations for Challengers. Well if you are just going to conquer every free city you meet with might then this is useless. But otherwise assimilating free cities quicker can only help your economy; as you get their stuff quicker.

Casting points and over-channel. Wizard kings can win tougher tactical fights than champions with fewer losses. Of course champions can argue that they can take larger losses and field bigger armies due to their better economy. Still wizard kings do not have to wait so long to take out those tough ancient wonder guards and such stuff.

So maybe choose champions if you intend a peaceful game, and wizard kings for a aggressive game. Or alternately decide which you would rather roll play or which has better looking gear or what not.

[Noobatron1111]

Originally posted by ayrtep:

Champions are better for the economy and wizard kings for tactical fights.

10% mana vs 10% gold. As you can buy units with either you should be able to balance these two together. So I would cancel these out, but feel free to argue the toss.

+20 Stability for Challenges this is going to give you +5% food, build and draft most of the time. This is big IMHO.

Better free cities relations for Challengers. Well if you are just going to conquer every free city you meet with might then this is useless. But otherwise assimilating free cities quicker can only help your economy; as you get their stuff quicker.

Casting points and over-channel. Wizard kings can win tougher tactical fights than champions with fewer losses. Of course champions can argue that they can take larger losses and field bigger armies due to their better economy. Still wizard kings do not have to wait so long to take out those tough ancient wonder guards and such stuff.

So maybe choose champions if you intend a peaceful game, and wizard kings for a aggressive game. Or alternately decide which you would rather roll play or have better look gear or what not.

When I play with my Champions I normally go feudal or high. If feudal I go for Imperial plus Runesmith. The first Free City will be assimilated. Most of the Time another Free City declares war on me, I think it is related to my Game settings. This City will be conquered. When the Map has still free space I settle or when not I go for my first real war. Normally I´ve 4 Cities quite early. Then I´m free for different Victory Types.

When I go with high, then ofcourse you can take chosen uniter and banner lord. then you defend most of the time

[Gargoyle]

Originally posted by Noobatron1111:

Hi folks. I want to understand why i should use an Wizard King. it feels so much weaker than a champion. All boni I receive as a Wizard King I could easily outgrow with the population grow of the Champion. Am I missing something? With a Champion I can cast the same, ok not that often BUT I always lack the ressources with a WK. I´ve played serveral games and always have won with Champion now moving on to hard mode. But with the WK I struggle hard on normal. I´m always overrun.

Has anyone here good Tipps for an approach with WK?

Greetz!

One difference is cosmetic/roleplay....Say for example.. i made "The Everloving Mother" (WK with a human form). She adopted a faction of Halflings and plant her seeds love of into them (chaos/nature). Then these little love-able shorties are now rampaging around the map killing, eating and enjoy their desires. xD Beastkin, Revel blood and im planning to get the racial transformation that looks like it gives tentacle arm/arms?

[darkholyPL]

Depends what 'faction' setup your going for. With some tomes WK can be broken as hell. The ability to cast twice per turn is game breaking given you have the right spells and unit combos.

To give you an example if you have spells that apply multiple debuffs in 1-hex aoe, then you can use those twice, and send in a Chaos Eater to one shot everything around it. EZ PZ.

[Noobatron1111]

Originally posted by Gargoyle:

Originally posted by Noobatron1111:

Hi folks. I want to understand why i should use an Wizard King. it feels so much weaker than a champion. All boni I receive as a Wizard King I could easily outgrow with the population grow of the Champion. Am I missing something? With a Champion I can cast the same, ok not that often BUT I always lack the ressources with a WK. I´ve played serveral games and always have won with Champion now moving on to hard mode. But with the WK I struggle hard on normal. I´m always overrun.

Has anyone here good Tipps for an approach with WK?

Greetz!

One difference is cosmetic/roleplay....Say for example.. i made "The Everloving Mother" (WK with a human form). She adopted a faction of Halflings and plant her seeds love of into them (chaos/nature). Then these little love-able shorties are now rampaging around the map killing, eating and enjoy their desires. xD Beastkin, Revel blood and im planning to get the racial transformation that looks like it gives tentacle arm/arms?

This lovely :) - yeah roleplaywise you can do a lot and I love it. I don´t know why are so many people complain about a lack of varity. I mean I´ve created Wolf-Riding Halflings as Ruthless raiders...come on

[sandman25dcsss]

I dislike wk too. I disable victory conditions and diplomacy so powerful army is a must and then upkeep is the most limiting factor (champion gives extra income). As pure astral mystic I had all cities have negative stability despite I intentionaly avoided food buildings and province improvements (champion gives stability). I almost didn't use racial units because of cheap summons (I took -50% mana discount for summons trait) and it was boring.

[Noobatron1111]

Originally posted by darkholyPL:

Depends what 'faction' setup your going for. With some tomes WK can be broken as hell. The ability to cast twice per turn is game breaking given you have the right spells and unit combos.

To give you an example if you have spells that apply multiple debuffs in 1-hex aoe, then you can use those twice, and send in a Chaos Eater to one shot everything around it. EZ PZ.

This sounds really mighty, i think I need tu study those spells a lot more

[M0rgi]

here is an example of how broken WK can be early https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2975693633 that is turn 13 WK on brutal

[tiamats4esgares]

I play like a mystic and very mana-heavy, caster-heavy, magicy mage sort of playthrough.

And yeah, champion is still way better. It makes no sense to chose it but I have to because it's just strictly better. :(

[Noobatron1111]

Originally posted by Denam Pavel:

here is an example of how broken WK can be early https://steamcommunity.com/app/1669000/screenshots/?p=1&browsefilter=mostrecent that is turn 13 WK on brutal

Wow, I see. Are you willing to share the build?

[M0rgi]

Originally posted by Noobatron1111:

Originally posted by Denam Pavel:

here is an example of how broken WK can be early https://steamcommunity.com/app/1669000/screenshots/?p=1&browsefilter=mostrecent that is turn 13 WK on brutal

Wow, I see. Are you willing to share the build?

its mana addict and talented spellcasters WK with summon animal and summon undead you go for astral blades and distant evocation on level 3 sometimes you take heal depending on what troops you start with after that you go for fire evocation and try to get weaver as soon as possible after you get that he can smash solo a most of stuff

[titanopteryx]

There's an aspect to champions that hasn't been mentioned. They have a much easier time vassalizing free cities because they get a 100 boost to relations with free cities and they get a bonus to gold income. This results in an alternative method of getting exotic units than summoning that uses gold. When you have vassal free cities you get points to use in this recruitment screen accessed up top. If you control special sites you unlock exotic units in that screen. You can buy tier 4 fire giants for example. Or drunk ogres. The more free city vassals you have the more points you have to spend on that screen. The more special sites you control, the more unit types are on that screen.

There's a aspect of wizard kings that hasn't been mentioned. If the opponent built a spell jammer, the wizard king's spell casting gets shut down. With a wizard king's double casting you'll likely go all in on spell casting so spell jammers are really annoying for a wizard king. Champions though, since they don't get double casting there's no reason to not equip him with a crossbow, a spider mount, and a phase cloak. Teleporting every other turn, shooting webs and bolts. You have to get lucky with the event that rewards it or if you have a dead hero equipped with one in your crypt you can sell the body and get its stuff.