Need help with "Grexolis"

[Aio]

The 8th play fails. One more time I need a long rest.

Got hit with 3 full stack armies just 20+- turns every single game (mostly higher tier that can one-shot my backline) I don't understand how the AI managed to do that so early.

And the magic win... the freaking magic win got me 4 times. When it happens it is already too late, how do I suppose to walk that far in 15 turns, not including the obstacles I face?

This is truly demoralizing. I try to search for a walk-through on the internet but the situation is so different. All of them do not get hit by any single magic win, and they don't get harassed as much as I do. How do they manage to do that?

Really need help guys, thank you.

[Terox]

Well I can share how I beat it on my second try. Hopefully it helps you - it is not the most exciting of strategies but it worked for me :

I rolled an industrious culture with resilient/defensive tactics traits.
- runesmith / fabled hunters
- Pick the materium and nature tomes that give unit enhancements to defenses / health with a splash of the chaos tome of revelry . Get blight damage as the Archon enemy is weak to it .
- Rush tier 3 bastion unit and roll stacks with 4+ of them plus a hero - at the end they were practically unkillable with 15+ to all defences and 180 health at legend .
- Hero development - get the army support traits first , personal damage next . Get Summon Elemental/Animal if offered at level 5.
Early game I got a second hero turn 1 and mostly turtled around my throne city until I had enough bastions to smash the independent city to the west and take it.
Just pick your battles so that you don't lose bastion units - the AI often splits their armies while trying to pillage so that they don't reinforce each other .
By the time the AI starts going for a magic victory I could field 4 armies that could not be defeated 1 on 1 - I was lucky that atleast 1 of the enemy victory locations were always close enough - you only need to demolish 1 out of the 3 locations and your allies can also do it .
Afterward I got magic victory as soon as I had the tier 5 tome - it is faster than conquest.

- Extra tips :
- it may be worth it to create a city in direction of the Archon and then release it as a vassal in order to create a backstop for the enemy - in my game my ally did it , it got captured by the Archon and I vassalised from him then .
- Build roads in friendly terrain if needed ,
- Sell the corpses of enemy heroes for extra cash .
- use teleporters /recall spells to reposition once you have access to them.

[Raelic]

Put it on easy. Take the underground trait. Park a scout on the cavern entrance. Make two outpost cities in the same cave as your main city. Grind out turns/tomes and go for a magic victory. When you first start the spell you'll have to fight off about a 2000 point army every 3 rounds.

And that's it.

Just hope your allies don't die so you get the 2ndary achieve. Mine didn't, but you could get unlucky.

[Safir]

It feels really cheap and ruins the story, but I’ve heard that most players have beaten it with an underground start and magic victory.

I really hope the story gets a massive rebalance because mission 4 is barely playable even on easy difficulty.

[sandman25dcsss]

I disable all victory conditions. If AI wants to win, it should kill my leader and capture my capital first.

[Wrathful Contender]

I got a military victory.
I made a kinda basic barbaric horde build to get a lot of free units and rushed to Tureals city and captured it, then i hunted Tureal down and beat him, you do need to be careful because he will run and consolidate and try to ambush you with 4 or 5 stacks if you take too long, I had gotten tier 3 tomes when i finally got him and had a one or two stacks of warbreeds, witch btw is not very cheap. I recommend choosing your fights if the ai has a stack of one close to the their other stack attack that one Sometimes the chaff stacks can be used to batter them down so that you dont get to many casualties with your strong stack when you attack with them.
The ai gets a lot of cheats like recruiting and building when you are sieging their cities.
After taking Tureal out the other three will be quite neutered, but they will swarm you if you get close, but they seek shelter in their cities when you enter their lands with force.
Had to spam a lot of tier 3, 4 units and some tier 5 when i got them.
The map is so large you might need to do some teleporting. Magic was always a problem for me but in the end it stopped being a problem especially when i got my tier 5 tome.

[Mors Avis]

If you're not keeping pace with the A.I., you're probably not doing something important, like:

- Dropping outposts down early, and laying out your future expansion zones. When it comes to your "economy", expansion is everything in this game since cities are always a net positive. The more cities you have, the better off you are.

- Always produce units in your cities (if you can). Focusing on production/buildings can work, but only if you know your immediate neighbors are on friendly terms. If not, prepare for battle early.

- Clear out reasonably difficult resource nodes, infestations, etc., and then keep the momentum going. In the early game, your Ruler needs to keep 'popping' nodes as much as possible, for the reward resources as well as XP and the potential to get new gear, units, etc. Keep the momentum going, and watch those AutoResolve battles. Typically, you'll want to fight everything manually, to minimize damage/casualties.

- Manage Imperium accordingly. If you need to expand your cities fast, use imperium to do so. If you need to get that nearby Free City on the payroll, use Imperium. If you need to get a new city online ASAP, use Imperium. Remember, Imperium can be used for a lot of things. Make sure you're using every last bit of it to push your momentum early. A lot of the empire management "perks" don't even come into play until later in the game, so you don't need to spend Imperium on those things. Get the "foundation" of your Empire in order first (and start on your Wizard Tower.)

- Use Rally of Lieges. This is a very easy way to bring new units to your Throne City without having to wait for long production. For a bit of gold, you can easily get a unit or two in a couple of turns. In the late game, depending on what units you have access to (and how much gold/rally points you have), Rally of the Lieges can also net you a small army of decent Tier2/Tier3 units when needed.

- Use summons. Early game summoned units tend to be fairly weak, but they're a "warm body" you can throw at the enemy while your stronger units do the real work. Even a spider hatchling item can be helpful.

- When all else fails, "hurry" your unit production with gold. What's the point of putting all those gold buildings and mines in place, if you're not gonna use it, right?

[† Dead Anarchist †]

This is a timed scenario. Angelic AI start with towns and big cash. So if you give him a time he easy swarm map with winged army. So get your ass, get army and push him from this realm.

Or be low man - go to underground and get free magic victory)

[A.J]

Magic Win works on every map as the AI rarely try anything against it. If you do it underground then you're likely no never be touched by the AI since it's pretty bad.

[M0rgi]

Funnel experience to main commander and use him to murder their troops as AI will pretty much never attack single commander with 3 full marches but rather one full march thinking they will win

[Heron]

I did it first try without much prior knowledge (luckily went in with a defense built race) and without the underground cheese. Magic win is definitely easiest.

First priority: Found 2 cities in close proximity. Having the 1st nature perk prior to founding helps to get them rolling. Nature is really nice to get blight damage too, angels are weak against that. I went with materium on top for more defense and economy boosts.

Once you have established your cities and an economy that supports enough armies to defend yourself, go all out on research. The 1st shadow affinity perks can help immensely as you'll kill lots of heroes while defending your territory. Rush a Tier V tome, build your nodes near each other, defend 15 turns, win.

[Safir]

Originally posted by Denam Pavel:

Funnel experience to main commander and use him to murder their troops as AI will pretty much never attack single commander with 3 full marches but rather one full march thinking they will win

Or they will always move with 6 stacks so even if you beat the first wave you will get mowed down with the second.

[Azunai]

The main opponent on the map is the godir with the angelized high culture stuff. The Angel transformation comes with a weakness to blight and cold damage.

So it may be a good idea to pick tome of cryomancy and tome of roots as the first 2 tomes and get the blight and cold damage bonus enchantments on all your units.

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Azunai:

The main opponent on the map is the godir with the angelized high culture stuff. The Angel transformation comes with a weakness to blight and cold damage.

So it may be a good idea to pick tome of cryomancy and tome of roots as the first 2 tomes and get the blight and cold damage bonus enchantments on all your units.

This is what I looked at first, knowing that some major transformations have "transform weaknesses" with them and what I would need to counter the First Godir and his 6ish cities that spam units.

One of my biggest suggestions for the map is If you can get get some affinity gain in Shadow affinity early JUST for Knowledge Extraction (first affinity trait) DO IT!!!!

Almost every enemy army has like 1-2+ level 5+ heroes in them. Almost everytime you win a battle you will gain like 250ish-1000 knowledge. This will get you through your planned tomes fast and allow you to spread your tome affinity and research ride rather than tall mid game.

I did the mission easily with a Wizard King Mystic for mana buildings, Soothers (combat spells 20% cheaper when in army) and the starting Spellbreaker (You get one at the start being a T3 Battlemage with a cooldown ability that adds 10 combat cast points to a battle. Useful early on), Keen Senses/Elusive, Gifted Caster/Mana Addicts build.

I started with Tome of Warding because I always get everything in it and it's spells are really useful combined with life leech early. You get good bolstering stacking with Soothers and some nice defensive stuff. As I progressed and my support spells got better and more AoE in nature, I was stacking tons of resist. As a side note I make all my leaders support so they can abuse this along with all the passive unit army buffs and upkeep reductions they provide. Which I REALLY NEEDED by the end lol. Anyways by about turn 10-11 (when the mission truly begins), my astral affinity was to the point that I had unlocked all mid affinity astral casting/research perks just about. I didn't really need Shadow affinity until turn 15ish, which by that point, I had enough for Knowledge Extraction from second tome selection.

Lastly on Tome of Warding: Phantasmal Warriors were the GOAT destroyer of worlds and everything in them by the last turn. Cheap as chips even with almost every enchantment on them. A tier one summon, Magical Unit I could spam place anywhere benefiting from all racial transformations + ethereal subtype. ONE Phantasm had a power level of 562 with a base 8 armour, 6 resist, 100ish health, self heal, and tons of ele resist. Mythical units were doing like, 3 damage to them with 1 damage being reflected back. :D Anyone who even tried to start a Magic Victory I just summoned 5-6 of these per turn and a Nymph or two for a 2-3K army strength that obliterated seeds/roots/hearts.

Due to weakness to blight and cold, I went with Tome of Cryomancy instead of Roots second because A) I have life leech for every unit whenever any ruler in battle casts and B) I wanted the upkeep discount in Shadow Affinity for Summons. Didn't know the star would be the first trait + other casting related traits there, and C) Freezing/Slow has a lot less immunity towards it compared to poison DoTs.

Then I went with Tome of Doomherald asap for Joy Siphoners as first research from it. A pure counter to the downsides of not casting from Mana Addicts (You lose morale when you don't cast, Joy Siphoners allows you to steal morale on hits. Perfect). Not to mention that Celestials have Mind Effect Immunity, so you want to stop here when it comes to mind effecting Shadow Magic Tomes since Morale is not Mind-Effecting. Use higher tier tomes for more useful stuff.

With Mana Addicts rectified and my units causing routs half of the time, I moved onto Tome of Amplification for Astral Blood and Frenzy. Now along with defensive/sustain stuff our mages are now stacking offensive crit chance and strengthened on spell casts. Not just by me, but by the enemy as well.

Then I went into Tome Teleportation for early Chrono Gates and setting up unit supply routes. Strategically placed my 3 first cities for this while vassalizing others for the income in between. Vassals also act as soft barriers/buffers between you and the enemy. We also get the phase ability for casters which allows them to alpha strike a lot easier.

Tome of Transmutation for Transmuters that can paralyze and buff nearby units with defence bolstering. More stacking of defences + racial transformation. Siege Magic.

Tomes of Astral Reflection, Convergence and Arch Mage picking up the two racial transformations there. We will need need +1 to mana and food from major transformation.

Once that's all done you just keep doing whatever you can to reduce upkeep and get as many enchantments/transformations running on your units as possible. Then make super parties of about 3000 strength stacks with 1 support leader, 1 soother, 2 transmuters and two Phantasmal Warriors. Warriors will really shine doing about 30-40 damage per swing and blowing up stuff for like 40 AoE damage + 3-4 DoTs.

For the global plot enchantments upon start and by defeating a Godir I started with reflection. This will give you more summon units than you can handle and also keeps your allies alive. Then Nimue's free armies every 5 turns some similar reasons. Then the destroy enemy improvements. Then Yaka's burning (which I found the least useful).