Need some help for Armageddon Game Mode

[Jin Shepard]

Hello, I need some help with this game mode.

My issue is I can't beat it on Normal, Challgenging and Impossible(?)

Everytime I get overwhelmed by the dremer, I can usually handle the first gate/fort that appears but together with the annoying blight across my realm ruining what little economy I got running, I just cannot keep up.

My fellow NPC find it smart to go to war with eachother, weakening themselfs to oblivion and thus get overrunned by the dremer and I am up against those annoying immune to most things enemy wizards.

Doesn't seem to matter what race I play, it ends up the same. My hero's usually die really quick even though I try to level them fast and give them all the defensive perks.

I must be doing something wrong, maybe someone has a lets play armageddon on challenging or Impossible?

[Mazey]

The most important part is ensuring you have a boarder against the Dremer. They can spawn on any tile except water, mountains and tiles you've built buildings.
So, what you need to do id build your cities vey close together, much closer than you would normally. So that you can fill up any free tiles with buildings and then use raise the land and lower the land spells to turn any remaining tiles into mountains or water. If you ensure there aren't any tiles inside your boarder than a Dremer gate can spawn on, then you only ever have to deal with them attacking from the outside.
The most important spell for you is clean the land. Research it the instant it appears and then give it for free to all the other great mages. Also check diplomacy often to see if any other mage researched it first. If they did, buy it off of them. Once you have it, use it every turn unless you've got a good reason not to.

Another thing to aim for are the population increasing spells. If you get your capital to 15 population, or even 20, it becomes almost impenetrable. And if you can't lose your capital you can't lose the game. Another way to keep your capital safe is to found a city in another realm and then use the spell to switch your capital there, as the Dremer can't spawn in the other realms.

God spells and units are very powerful too, try and get some. Every god's terraforming spell can get rid of contaminated land, but only the spells from Lunord, Dauros and Krolm can remove destroyed lands.

[Jin Shepard]

Some of your tips I have done indeed, but the building close together and raising or lowering lands I haven't, the clean the land spell I research asap, however I noticed because of RNG that I often dont get it at all... sometime I pick it asa perk because of it! I indeed know that I could populate another realm, and maybe I should, I never got that far cause I gave up when I noticed I got over run, but I guess I shouldn't have. Thanks again for the tips where thye can and cannot spawn!

[Apheirox]

I wouldn't do what Mazey suggests. It is possible to beat the Dremer without resorting to cheesy close-city strategies. You can - and should - be on offense, attacking and destroying the Dremer gates rather than defending. Building cities too close will cripple them after not too many turns since only the city originally expanding borders into a hex can ever use them.

Make sure you build recruitment facilities in all your early cities first thing and have them pump out units non-stop. No early city should not be constantly producing military units unless you settled on some extremely valuable resource like ancient ruins or gems, in case of which you might want to secure the resource before the barracks. Then, use this massive army to expand in every direction of the map, clearing monster spawns for the free land and tons and tons of goodie drops from the nests. Also complete the very easy quests ("build a farm" stuff) to keep fueling that war machine. You really want to build military first, economy second in Warlock since the military guarantees the economy in turn, anyway.

The first Dremer that appear (warriors) are weak to elemental magic. You need to use offensive spells on them. Alternatively, buff your own foot soldiers with spells to deal magical damage.

If you're playing Humans, you gain the Catapult fairly early. Siege units - at least the catapult - can destroy the Dremer spawns even as there's a Dremer unit on top defending very quickly thanks to the siege bonus and from long range safety.

When you move units close to a Dremer spawn, they will attack. Take advantage of this: Place your units on defensive terrain (hill+forest is good) and have them attack you while your units fortify. Even the powerful Dremer units can't hope to win such battles.

Later on, archers appear. These are more of a problem. Cast spells like Weakness or Ice Trap on them.

Another very important thing is to research a land transformation spell as quickly as possible so you can eliminate the contaminated terrain. Before you assault a Dremer outpost, cast a spell such as 'Desertification' or 'Lands of Life' on the ground. This removes the automatic healing from the Dremer and the damage from your own units, putting you on much more even footing.

My experience is with Armageddon mode on Challenging - perhaps Impossible is different, but trying to defend instead of attack seems like a losing strategy to me. You increase your economy the fastest by wide expansion, and this increased economy lets you keep up the arms race and continue to suppress and finally eliminate the Dremer. They haven't posed a real challenge to me yet, I was able to fight three simultaneous wars and still hold them off since I'd already destroyed most of their nests (turn ~70).

[aimson]

Here are my tips, having beat dremers dozens of times:

1.) don't overexpand in the beginning. I usually only have 4-5 cities up at turn ~25, making sure I have enough units to defend against 1-2 gates. Don't build a city unless you can defend it quickly.

2.) Archers>melee. I usually have 1 archer per city, on the spawn turn attack with all of them simultaneously to weaken them. Mages, elven bowmasters/archers, koatl warlocks, vampires all have great abilities and/or can paralyze dremers. Also, if you play elves, consider 3-4 sky units, all are siege units and can take out a gate if you attack simultaneously.

3.) Trade constantly. On impossible, computer AI are pretty strong, especially if you give them clean the land and summon spells to help fight the dremer. There is also a bug where they sometimes amass 5k+ gold or mana, allowing you to trade spells with them for incredible amounts - I think this is an exploit so don't do this. Or, just give them good spells free.

4.) Invisibility>all other buffs. If you can get this spell, put it on your biggest hitting archers and just steamroll the dremer, none of whom can see invisibility. Ice trap, +dmg, weakness, flying are also great end-game. Earlier in the game I highly suggest 1-2 spirit wolves, just to use them as fodder, plus they reduce enemy dmg if adjacent.

5.) Conquer portal worlds asap, since dremer cannot spawn in them. These will be your most valuable resources, especially with dragons, adamantine, etc.

6.) Research early in game. Spells are what win against dremer so get as much as possible.

Hope that helps. Dremer are still tough for me but can always be beaten with any race, even without invisibility.

[Jin Shepard]

At the moment iam winning against the dremer, I raised or lowered lands around my border, there are still spots open inside my own lands and I made a few entrances so to not make it to simple. I need to try it again using the above methods, however, spamming units like that, how can you do it since they cost so much? I find archers to be really REALLY weak against the dremer gates, usually only 5 dmg, will take to long to destroy. I wish there was a AOE clense lands spell though... using the forest or swamp one might work to get rid of the contamination but then I still need to clean it up.

[Ursula]

at least u are not fighting a diamond elemental- 30 damage 150 hp, immune to missile,death and element, -65% spirit and melee and -75% life.

[Jin Shepard]

Well I won, defeated it! What made the big breakthrough? The raising of my lands surrnounding my large base, I thought I made screenshots but steam didtn save it.. .. thanks again for the help ! Large map, 4 wizards standing, challenge difficulty