Core shards stalemate

[FighterJet27]

I've played this game for many hours, and I find the balance in the new campaign to be terrible and kind of boring. The enemy wont attack, and they have far too many traps and minions for me to be able to attack them. This keeps happening to me, I can't finish any of them because they take too long and get boring. After 2 hours of failed attacks, I just thought "this is stupid".

So, any tips for actually breaking/preventing a stalemate? Both side have loads of minions and traps and wont play offensively, so I always have to attack otherwise nothing happens.

[♥♥♥♥ Goblin]

Hey,

Hope these help.

1. Build large rooms with many props to attract more units. Each room has a max amount of units to attract (mouse over to see info on room). I recommend getting a large sanctuary or many libraries to attract a ton of cultists as these units will heal others in battle.

2. Beast den is very powerful if you keep expanding it. I prefer only flying beasts (occultus, bafu, screecher) as they are high ranged dps, they can cross all terrain and are fast. Pair them with some melee units to keep them alive (ie. gnarling, chunder, etc).

3. Free up mana from workers before a large attack by dropping them on your dungeon heart or the heart icon on the ui in the top-right. This allows more heal spells. Also prepare an overload ritual at the sanctuary before a fight and use it when you have no mana left, then spam heal and/or enrage.

4. Use prisons + torture chambers to increase your army size. A simple idea is to build a defense with a prison/torture nearby to quickly collect units to convert. Build some lairs/slaughterpen/tavern/vault nearby and put your succubus in the lairs so they are always nearby. Consider adding succubuses to your peaceband to keep them constantly converting units.

5. Use ember rifts as an continous assault. Set the ember rally flag on the enemy defenses and build some defenses near the rifts to prevent the enemy from destroying them.

6. Use your titan to soak up the turret/defense damage while your other units attack from range. Bafus are really good at killing defenses since they are ranged and also won't die to bladevortex.

7. Possess a ranged unit (ie. bafu) or a titan and go in and destroy the defenses before sending your army. Possession gives you 25% increased stats. Archon is a great titan to control because its hits heal it (imo, it is the best titan).

8. Look for alternative routes. If the enemy has fortified walls preventing a flank attack, use underminers (usually 3 will do) to make a hole.

9. Save your artefacts for mid/end game. Save your level artefacts until you have a ton of units so you can get the most use of it. Save your defense artefact for when you capture an objective and want to build a huge defense quickly. Save your ritual artefacts to help complete overload rituals when your entire army is attacking.

10. Zoom out! (Mouse wheel) You can set the max zoom in the settings. I find having max zoom helps a lot in battle. I also change the camera angle/position from time to time to help me see the battle.

11. Set game speed to 50% (ctrl+pageup/down by default, or game settings). THIS HELPS A LOT.

12. Pick up units and drop them close to your rally flag instead of waiting for them to walk there. This is useful for slower units like chunder and aurge. Hold ctrl and click a unit icon on the ui to pick up 10 of them! Then hold shift and left click while dragging your mouse across some tiles to quickly drop them.

13. Use obey spell on workers to speed up mining/capturing tiles. Use it on cultists to speed up research / rituals.

14. Use enrage on ranged dps (ie. bafus). It can help a lot.

15. Use shackles if you have this spell available (disables enemy defenses for 10 seconds).

16. If you can, play more aggressively and try to secure objectives before the enemy, then defend them and win. Use annex spell to quickly expand towards an objective (faster than letting your workers make a path).

[FighterJet27]

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

Hey,

Hope these help.

1. Build large rooms with many props to attract more units. Each room has a max amount of units to attract (mouse over to see info on room). I recommend getting a large sanctuary or many libraries to attract a ton of cultists as these units will heal others in battle.

2. Beast den is very powerful if you keep expanding it. I prefer only flying beasts (occultus, bafu, screecher) as they are high ranged dps, they can cross all terrain and are fast. Pair them with some melee units to keep them alive (ie. gnarling, chunder, etc).

3. Free up mana from workers before a large attack by dropping them on your dungeon heart or the heart icon on the ui in the top-right. This allows more heal spells. Also prepare an overload ritual at the sanctuary before a fight and use it when you have no mana left, then spam heal and/or enrage.

4. Use prisons + torture chambers to increase your army size. A simple idea is to build a defense with a prison/torture nearby to quickly collect units to convert. Build some lairs/slaughterpen/tavern/vault nearby and put your succubus in the lairs so they are always nearby. Consider adding succubuses to your peaceband to keep them constantly converting units.

5. Use ember rifts as an continous assault. Set the ember rally flag on the enemy defenses and build some defenses near the rifts to prevent the enemy from destroying them.

6. Use your titan to soak up the turret/defense damage while your other units attack from range. Bafus are really good at killing defenses since they are ranged and also won't die to bladevortex.

7. Possess a ranged unit (ie. bafu) or a titan and go in and destroy the defenses before sending your army. Possession gives you 25% increased stats. Archon is a great titan to control because its hits heal it (imo, it is the best titan).

8. Look for alternative routes. If the enemy has fortified walls preventing a flank attack, use underminers (usually 3 will do) to make a hole.

9. Save your artefacts for mid/end game. Save your level artefacts until you have a ton of units so you can get the most use of it. Save your defense artefact for when you capture an objective and want to build a huge defense quickly. Save your ritual artefacts to help complete overload rituals when your entire army is attacking.

10. Zoom out! (Mouse wheel) You can set the max zoom in the settings. I find having max zoom helps a lot in battle. I also change the camera angle/position from time to time to help me see the battle.

11. Set game speed to 50% (ctrl+pageup/down by default, or game settings). THIS HELPS A LOT.

12. Pick up units and drop them close to your rally flag instead of waiting for them to walk there. This is useful for slower units like chunder and aurge. Hold ctrl and click a unit icon on the ui to pick up 10 of them! Then hold shift and left click while dragging your mouse across some tiles to quickly drop them.

13. Use obey spell on workers to speed up mining/capturing tiles. Use it on cultists to speed up research / rituals.

14. Use enrage on ranged dps (ie. bafus). It can help a lot.

15. Use shackles if you have this spell available (disables enemy defenses for 10 seconds).

16. If you can, play more aggressively and try to secure objectives before the enemy, then defend them and win. Use annex spell to quickly expand towards an objective (faster than letting your workers make a path).

In the new campaign levels you cant access everything, but I didnt think of shackles and possesing a titan. Will give that a go

[FighterJet27]

Originally posted by FighterJet27:

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

Hey,

Hope these help.

1. Build large rooms with many props to attract more units. Each room has a max amount of units to attract (mouse over to see info on room). I recommend getting a large sanctuary or many libraries to attract a ton of cultists as these units will heal others in battle.

2. Beast den is very powerful if you keep expanding it. I prefer only flying beasts (occultus, bafu, screecher) as they are high ranged dps, they can cross all terrain and are fast. Pair them with some melee units to keep them alive (ie. gnarling, chunder, etc).

3. Free up mana from workers before a large attack by dropping them on your dungeon heart or the heart icon on the ui in the top-right. This allows more heal spells. Also prepare an overload ritual at the sanctuary before a fight and use it when you have no mana left, then spam heal and/or enrage.

4. Use prisons + torture chambers to increase your army size. A simple idea is to build a defense with a prison/torture nearby to quickly collect units to convert. Build some lairs/slaughterpen/tavern/vault nearby and put your succubus in the lairs so they are always nearby. Consider adding succubuses to your peaceband to keep them constantly converting units.

5. Use ember rifts as an continous assault. Set the ember rally flag on the enemy defenses and build some defenses near the rifts to prevent the enemy from destroying them.

6. Use your titan to soak up the turret/defense damage while your other units attack from range. Bafus are really good at killing defenses since they are ranged and also won't die to bladevortex.

7. Possess a ranged unit (ie. bafu) or a titan and go in and destroy the defenses before sending your army. Possession gives you 25% increased stats. Archon is a great titan to control because its hits heal it (imo, it is the best titan).

8. Look for alternative routes. If the enemy has fortified walls preventing a flank attack, use underminers (usually 3 will do) to make a hole.

9. Save your artefacts for mid/end game. Save your level artefacts until you have a ton of units so you can get the most use of it. Save your defense artefact for when you capture an objective and want to build a huge defense quickly. Save your ritual artefacts to help complete overload rituals when your entire army is attacking.

10. Zoom out! (Mouse wheel) You can set the max zoom in the settings. I find having max zoom helps a lot in battle. I also change the camera angle/position from time to time to help me see the battle.

11. Set game speed to 50% (ctrl+pageup/down by default, or game settings). THIS HELPS A LOT.

12. Pick up units and drop them close to your rally flag instead of waiting for them to walk there. This is useful for slower units like chunder and aurge. Hold ctrl and click a unit icon on the ui to pick up 10 of them! Then hold shift and left click while dragging your mouse across some tiles to quickly drop them.

13. Use obey spell on workers to speed up mining/capturing tiles. Use it on cultists to speed up research / rituals.

14. Use enrage on ranged dps (ie. bafus). It can help a lot.

15. Use shackles if you have this spell available (disables enemy defenses for 10 seconds).

16. If you can, play more aggressively and try to secure objectives before the enemy, then defend them and win. Use annex spell to quickly expand towards an objective (faster than letting your workers make a path).

In the new campaign levels you cant access everything, but I didnt think of shackles and possesing a titan. Will give that a go.

[Humpbacked Angel]

I have opposite experience. I have like 10 minutes, then enemy connects with me and its fighting all the time till one dies.

[Biervampir [AUT]]

@FighterJet27
You can also lower the difficulty setting, if the it's just frustrating.

Funny enoght, as I played against Kasita as Lamash in UG2 (or was it UG3?), I weren't able to hold the 2nd shrine and couldn't get near 3rd Shrine and she got near my Main Dungeon. So I weren't able to protect Shrine 2 nor was I able to get near Shrine 2.
What I did was, I shifted the battle at a Incarnation Shrine (to have 2 of them, and become OP), placed defences there to get more dps, and she attacked there, because 2 Incarnation shrines allows me to claim and hold Shrine 2.
After a While I saw 2 Alpha Democorns and yea, easy win at this point (I also got some Vampires at the time)

What I wanted to say is, the direct way might be a deathtrap, so force a battle where you have the deathtrap and retake.
Yea, overall, Cockgoblin gave you some pretty good tips, which get explained in this Video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lhVpFiPCpM&t=1s
[Early Game Rule got cut of WFTO since 2.0]

[Korvek]

It is true that some of the campaign levels can turn into stalemates because the AI either uses plenty of defences or it lacks the initiative to launch an attack of its own. The only thing I can suggest really is to prepare an all-out attack or just focus on placing bombards to gradually creep closer to the target shard. The alternative is to use spirit workers and outpost.

[FighterJet27]

Originally posted by Biervampir AUT:

@FighterJet27
You can also lower the difficulty setting, if the it's just frustrating.

Funny enoght, as I played against Kasita as Lamash in UG2 (or was it UG3?), I weren't able to hold the 2nd shrine and couldn't get near 3rd Shrine and she got near my Main Dungeon. So I weren't able to protect Shrine 2 nor was I able to get near Shrine 2.
What I did was, I shifted the battle at a Incarnation Shrine (to have 2 of them, and become OP), placed defences there to get more dps, and she attacked there, because 2 Incarnation shrines allows me to claim and hold Shrine 2.
After a While I saw 2 Alpha Democorns and yea, easy win at this point (I also got some Vampires at the time)

What I wanted to say is, the direct way might be a deathtrap, so force a battle where you have the deathtrap and retake.
Yea, overall, Cockgoblin gave you some pretty good tips, which get explained in this Video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lhVpFiPCpM&t=1s
[Early Game Rule got cut of WFTO since 2.0]

I have finished it on master now, but I just had to restart. I was not possible because of the number of defenses and their high lvl minions. A different starting stretegy fixed it.

[♥♥♥♥ Goblin]

I've played around with each new Underlord as well as Kasita on Master. I played with a few starting strategies. It varies between underlords, but it usually starts out something like:

1. Carve out and build a 7x7 library. Carve out and build a 7x7 foundry. Build no lairs or slaughterpens. Have a few workers fortify walls for efficiency boost. Slap workers when you can. Build a large beastden if you have it and rally the beasts to protect your workers/objective. Don't build a barracks or your cultists/chunders will slack off and go train, those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
2. Build 2-3 mana vaults, make more workers.
3. Focus digging on forward gold / objectives. Don't mine local gold until forward gold is gone.
4. Manually build storm vortex near objectives (or cannons + freeze if no storm vortex).
5. Get use to using multiple warbands. Break them up and have a warband on each objective or near workers claiming enemy tiles. Use annex to quickly claim tiles to and around an objective.
6. Build a large prison near your frontline ("win the game" mode). Either convert prisoners, use blood gold, drop in crypt or make vampires depending on underlord. I usually convert level 3+ units and kill/vampire/bloodgold the rest.
7. Eventually build barracks, potion, other buildings, but I've won many games with just a 7x7 library and 7x7 foundry, lolwut.
8. Don't let enemy claim tiles behind your frontline as they love to drop units there and make it hard to retake.
9. Use worker rally flags to focus the stupid workers. Use for fortifying rooms and taking enemy territory.

[FighterJet27]

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

I've played around with each new Underlord as well as Kasita on Master. I played with a few starting strategies. It varies between underlords, but it usually starts out something like:

1. Carve out and build a 7x7 library. Carve out and build a 7x7 foundry. Build no lairs or slaughterpens. Have a few workers fortify walls for efficiency boost. Slap workers when you can. Build a large beastden if you have it and rally the beasts to protect your workers/objective. Don't build a barracks or your cultists/chunders will slack off and go train, those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
2. Build 2-3 mana vaults, make more workers.
3. Focus digging on forward gold / objectives. Don't mine local gold until forward gold is gone.
4. Manually build storm vortex near objectives (or cannons + freeze if no storm vortex).
5. Get use to using multiple warbands. Break them up and have a warband on each objective or near workers claiming enemy tiles. Use annex to quickly claim tiles to and around an objective.
6. Build a large prison near your frontline ("win the game" mode). Either convert prisoners, use blood gold, drop in crypt or make vampires depending on underlord. I usually convert level 3+ units and kill/vampire/bloodgold the rest.
7. Eventually build barracks, potion, other buildings, but I've won many games with just a 7x7 library and 7x7 foundry, lolwut.
8. Don't let enemy claim tiles behind your frontline as they love to drop units there and make it hard to retake.
9. Use worker rally flags to focus the stupid workers. Use for fortifying rooms and taking enemy territory.

My strategy is quite similar, I found kasita on master quite easy because of the large amount of gold you can get. I leave mana vaults until later though, I prefer to invest the money in defenses, beacuse the ai on mater can be quite relentless with it's attacks, and it's pretty damn fast! 1 more mission for volta, and a few for shale and I've completed all of them.

[♥♥♥♥ Goblin]

Here is a fun volta strategy. Only tried it on map2 but I imagine it'll work elsewhere. Basically you either head straight for an objective on the opponents side (ie. the gateway in the image), or you use outposts + ritual/artefact to complete it (this is what I was testing). Then I built some defenses and a prison. Ended up with ~6 level 3 units in the prison and a bunch of dead enemy bodies, lol. An after thought is to tell your workers not to capture the gate and then when an enemy spawns, it dies and is taken to your prison, thus hindering your opponent since they would have to wait another spawn cycle/timer.

PS: the outpost+ritual isn't worth it for this strategy as I dug to it before the ritual was even complete. But it was useful to steal some artefacts from the enemy before they claimed areas/shrines.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1371234380