How do you deal with Age of Deception?

[lucibuis]

Do you try to disjunct it right away? It's just so bad, let's say you lose a city, you lose a hero and you're on -600 happiness and everyone fumbles, cities halve their production, etc.... i don't know what to do, I guess the disjunct war is the only option?

[MrNo]

Or kill the casting rogue. Fast. Whole empire preferably (Cancels all strategic spells), but even if you can catch the leader (on lower level AIs) the mana hit from their death might be enough to bring it down (while your leader is dead, you pay double maintenance on all spells. Difficult AI economic bonuses tend to overwhelm that, however).

It's an endgame spell. It's hard to disjunct it, and it wrecks you, largely because that's what it was meant to do. Its purpose is to end the game. So, as with many of the empire endgame spells, the best thing to do is not to let it go up in the first place. That's not always an option, of course...

But yes, your assessment is correct. The morale hit will destroy most empires (I believe it even affects undead... could be wrong on that point though), just like a massive version of incite revolt. If it stays up too long, your enemy gets an overwhelming economoic advantage. It's bad and should be stopped as soon as possible.

[Obnoxio]

By the time this spell arrives hopefully your racial happiness is cheerful or very happy. You get +100 happiness for keeping 1000 gold in your coffers for wealthy empire. Spells like Empire of the Sun and Empire of Winter can neutralize the happiness penalties of Age of Deception, if Warlord cast the Draft to keep troops from ever deserting. Build the happiness structures in cities for +300 happiness. I usually try to hunt down the leader who cast the spell.

[lucibuis]

my starting race has no problem... everyone else does though, especially dwellings. i do have the wealthy empire and vanquished a player but they're not enough to offset the -600 from age of deception, lost a city, lost a hero+civil unrest.

Which class is least affected by age of deception? I think necromancers don't care about it, nor other rogues with iron grip.

[Lacho]

I march against a rogue upon sight with an army of pikes and fire. You don´t actually get a malus bonus until the minus 300 happines i think, so i try to build race happiness asap and use morale modifiers from heroes or other units. For example i play the most a draconian theocrat. Chaplain + Bless and Draconian ancestry help me a lot but i rather not have to deal with it.
Bolster helps a lot but i rather have other specialization.

Of the ultimate spell, age of deception is the one i fear the most. Treat rogues like spiders and squash those buggers upon sight.

[MrNo]

Especially given their early game weakness. Most rogues, especially AIs, will fall over if you hit them before succubi. The economic boosts tend to still leave them weak in the early game. And murderous in the late game.

Obnoxio's advice about ways to boost happiness is good. And you are correct, necromancers seem to just ignore it... Unlike Incite Revolt, it doesn't seem to take undead population instead. I'm guessing this is because it directly hits Base Happiness, which doesn't get passed on to undead units.

But when it comes down to it, te best way to deal with Age of Deception is to end it as quickly as possible. Kill a leader and take a few mana-producing cities, knock the leader out of the game entirely, or disjunct it (probably not going to happen vs the harder AIs).

[lucibuis]

i could not, i declared war on shemeth the tigran theocrat who declared war on rowlar who was already being destroyed by the rogue voraditius. i'm archdruid halfling karl, but i have mostly human cities.

i made the mistake of accepting rowlar's offer of alliance, so voraditus also declared war on me.

voraditus is very far from me and shemet was very close (extra large map with subterranean, emperor AI) so I can't do anything to voraditus for a long time... i had to fight them both suffering age of deception and armageddon with my pathetic army of animals, it's pretty nasty lol. now shemet is destroyed at least

[Gloweye]

In general, if you build your empire up well in the rest of the game -which you seem to have done- the happiness debuff won't trigger rebellions and deserting units. Make sure you keep it that way, and you'll have a good fighting chance.

As for how to get it away....unless you're a Sorc with Age of Magic, my opinion is generally that it's easier to go for the player than go for disjunct wars. He's bound to have good economy and a couple of palaces, so unless you're lucky, the disjunct war's not a good idea and probably hurt you more than him.

[lucibuis]

so i was lucky, he had it reinforced to 200, so the first time i failed but it decreased to 100, second time disjunct success. I still have the civil unrest malus of -50, will it ever go away?

It took me in total 4 turns to disjunct it, 2 + 2, and this is like the ultimate boss on an extra-large map with caves, so not too bad. After that he never tried to cast it again yet.

Fraust aura shadow stalkers are so nasty though, the best thing I have are yetis and animals with savage rage and horned Gods but all with multiple metals.

Last battle he attacked me in a city where I had a hero stack + 3 units with 3 stacks of shadow stalkers and succubi, several had gold medals, such a nasty fight. However I placed my units as an hex on the wall, so the stalkers could attack only the ones in the front line and the hero and the horned god could attack in range safely. I also cast call beast horde, 2 true resurrect on shadow stalkers and 2 savage rages on a feathered serpent and a dire bear. Hero was theocrat with divine justicars. I lost two units replaced by the shadow stalkers.

But so annoying that the beasts of call beast horde do not benefit from strong will!!!! They totally should tbh. Those stupid succubi were able to charm a couple of them. It's crazy how the AI has no clue how to deal with Call Beast Horde: they will scatter everywhere to chase those useless T1 animals.

[Gloweye]

Originally posted by lucibuis:

I still have the civil unrest malus of -50, will it ever go away?

Should be when your cities become happy again.

You must have a lot of CP then, to disjunct in two turns. It takes 500 CP to, IIRC.

For the rest, sounds like you're more than good enough to beat an AI regardless of Age of Deception. Good luck in the rest of the game.

[lucibuis]

yes by that time I had >200 CP. The rogue (his name was Oscar Van halen Voraditius is theocrat) is now defeated, he never tried to cast it again even with lots of cities and I guess casting points, he was using spells in battle a lot, once even cast mass battlefield panic but my units were only shaken for 2 turns, is it because of the strong will?

[MrNo]

Strong will should resist the panic, yes. It's interesting that it let the spell target them at all, I'm pretty sure the single target version simply refuses to let you cast on units with strong will.

If you scroll over the spell, it'll say (verbatim) that units must resist a spirit check (strong will auto resists, 100% spirit protection) or become panicked for 2 turns. If they resist, they are instead shaken for 2 turns.

[lucibuis]

With the wild hunt and strong will I noticed invoke death doesn't work on my units, but I'm not sure about curse, despair, panic, fear and all of the spirit debuffs, do they also not work on unit with strong will? I guess dispair does work?

I think the horned god has 100% spirit protection by himself, does it become 200% with strong will? Does that mean he can't basically be ghouled?

[Gloweye]

Originally posted by lucibuis:

With the wild hunt and strong will I noticed invoke death doesn't work on my units, but I'm not sure about curse, despair, panic, fear and all of the spirit debuffs, do they also not work on unit with strong will? I guess dispair does work?

Curse is a blight debuff, so that should work still. You should be immune to the others tho, unless Voraditius cast Armageddon - that class ultimate gives 80% spirit weakness to all enemy players.

[lucibuis]

sorry yes curse is blight... what about dispair and inflict ghoul curse?

[Gloweye]

Immune if you have 100% spirit protection.