The Commander...

[Gabriel]

The Commander hero is awful. He takes ages to level, his troops take a pounding every battle and it is a struggle to keep them alive, he isn't good at magic, and he is poor in comparison to the warrior in melee - until you level him.

Looking around the forum, most people seem to feel the same, and very little Commander discussion takes place. I thought it was long overdue that he got some air time.

The Commander is usually the fourth hero I recruit, namely for the reasons above, but once he is levelled he becomes something else.

I've just finished a shard where the last AI opponent had a Clan of Cyclops guard at his castle. For anyone who hasn't come across these guys - There are seven of them, they have 100+ hit points each, and can one shot even a levelled tier 4 unit.

I took this opportunity to put my heros through their paces.. Re-loading the encounter and testing the limits of my heroes.

First up was my Level 30 Scout with Unicorn armour. He managed to take down a couple of Cyclops, but in the end, his army decimated in a few moves, he died - badly.

Up next, my Level 30 Mage with Illusion Armour. He mananged no better than my scout. My high level spells soon draining his stamina, having done about 50% damage to each Cyclops before his army was left in pieces and he took a single crushing blow, and died.

So in went my warrior. Level 25. Valor Armor. Two handed sword with Bloodsucker 40 (this gives 40% of damage done as healing to the hero). He took three down, but the crushing blows were too much and he was wiped out just like the rest.

So I sent in Bob (My name for my Commander - I wish you could rename heroes). Level 17. Mis-matched armor. Mediocre banner. What hope did he have you cry? Well it should be noted he has a bigger army, 2 more tier two, one more tier three & four. And given the time difference between my first heroes and him, he had level 5 units versus the level 24 units my other heros had. So against an enemy that can one shot, what hope did he have?

So the two tier 4 paladins took down the first cyclops with ease, my commander even holding his ground one on one with a Cyclops. Then disaster - three Cyclops making a bee line for my back row units. Up one strolls to a level 5 swordsman, the only thing between him and a crossbowman (who is dealing out 10+ dmaage against the brutes). WHACK! CRUSHING BLOW! - The swordsman, unlike his level 24 counterparts is still standing after one blow. And more than that he lost only 20% of his health.

The Cyclops, busy trying in vain to one shot my back lines, are taken to pieces by my tier 3 & 4 units and my Commander. At the end of the battle, I had lost 3 swordsman, 1 horse archer, 2 paladins and 2 knights, and my Commander was down to 10 hit points - BUT he was alive.

He had done what my other heros could not in one go - he took on a Clan of Cyclops and won.

The most fun I have had in this game, is taking a Commander to level 25+, getting him fully kitted out in awesome equipment, and then fighting battles on auto-combat, just to watch the enemy break on the ranks of his men like ocean waves on an immovable rock!

[Winter Wolf]

Yeah my last shard I started with Commander and lowly grunts and did fairly well. I only started leveling a scout when I needed better exploration.

[Free Luigi M.]

Of course when you have to face armies with large numbers, the increased army size of the Commander and his bonuses help a lot. Still, if you properly use a lvl 30 Mage (crazy powerful and with two spells per turn), maybe blinding enemies, tangling them, enslaving their minds etc. it is fairly easy. Hell, you could turn those cyclops one against the other and watch them kill themselves.

[Mörkö]

Commander is funniest to play imo too and also very useful if you have economic crisis.
Also clan of cyclops just runs away from a solo lvl 30 berserker with bloodsucker and 40+ stamina :S

[Gabriel]

Originally posted by Joe Chip:

Of course when you have to face armies with large numbers, the increased army size of the Commander and his bonuses help a lot. Still, if you properly use a lvl 30 Mage (crazy powerful and with two spells per turn), maybe blinding enemies, tangling them, enslaving their minds etc. it is fairly easy. Hell, you could turn those cyclops one against the other and watch them kill themselves.

The problem with the Mage is that when you have 700 hit points to burn through and high resistance, he doesn't have the stamina to do it. Within two turns three Cyclops were bearing down on him.

Even using Incineration, twice, on the same Cyclops, it was still alive, and the Mage was low on Stamina. Using enslave mind, you can tie up a few of them for a turn but then you have no high level spells left, and you are out of Stamina.

It is not an easy fight for a Mage to win. My Commander did it much easier, and 13 levels lower. ;)

[Free Luigi M.]

Well I found no particular problem beating them on my lvl30 wizard. Of course he had a lvl12+ army with him, providing a good meatshield. Also stamina wasn't really an issue. I usually equip my mage with every item that adds stamina and, being lvl30, he has max recuperation. Rest for a turn and full stamina again.

[watcherzero]

Always stick +stamina rings and items on your mage, his base stamina is horrible but when you equip him with a decent amount of stamina gear and with regeneration he can go a long time and then rest for one turn and get a lot of stamina back.

[fractguy]

???

Cyclops are realy easy to defeat with a mage. Need only one spellpower boosted terror to rout them. So, 3 cyclops cost you 3 stam point in 2 rounds. Well, not a high price i think^^

[Gabriel]

Originally posted by Joe Chip:

Well I found no particular problem beating them on my lvl30 wizard. Of course he had a lvl12+ army with him, providing a good meatshield. Also stamina wasn't really an issue. I usually equip my mage with every item that adds stamina and, being lvl30, he has max recuperation. Rest for a turn and full stamina again.

Level 24 units were being killed in one hit. I don't see why level 12 units would do any better.

At level 30, and well equipped, a Mage has around 25-30 stamina. Tier 4 spells cost 7-9 Stamina. So after 3 high level spells a mage is all but out of Stamina.

At level 30, and having maxed out the skill that gives recuperation, resting for a turn only restores 7 Stamina.

So I have no idea how resting for one turn is giving you full stamina again. There is no equipment in the game that boosts recuperation that much.

[Gabriel]

Originally posted by fractguy:

???

Cyclops are realy easy to defeat with a mage. Need only one spellpower boosted terror to rout them. So, 3 cyclops cost you 3 stam point in 2 rounds. Well, not a high price i think^^

Given the spells available to the Mage, are dependent on building choices made 250 turns before the fight, it's not all that helpful.

And how do you propose to deal with the other 4 Cyclops and the 100+ hit points they each have?

[Free Luigi M.]

Actually you were talking about paladins in your commander army. So... yeah, about those building choices and time...

[Winter Wolf]

Joe I think you missed the point about that advice not helping his particular case. And I expect many people get into this kind of situation where something totally out of the blue stymies them because they didn't know to prepare for it. Information is knowledge. Knowledge is power. And power gets results.

[Free Luigi M.]

Uh, yeah... not sure what your first sentence is all about, but I am merely saying that an high level wizard, if used properly, can deal with that situation just fine. As you said, information is knowledge.

[fractguy]

Originally posted by alastairh100:

And how do you propose to deal with the other 4 Cyclops and the 100+ hit points they each have?

Cloud of terror. A single T4 spell. Or 4 blind. Or Mass sleep. So, instead of burn all your stamina in damage spell, you can reduce the enemy dmg to 0 with one single spell, and let your army make all the dirty work. Cost far less spells and stamina point, especialy in overlord.

Originally posted by alastairh100:

Given the spells available to the Mage, are dependent on building choices made 250 turns before the fight, it's not all that helpful.

Terror, or web, or blind, are useful low-level spell turn 1 till 250. Against a lot of troops. Only high res/immune magic foes gives you some hard pain.

For exemple, I actualy crushing some Armada Gards in overlord without any scratchs for my mage and his troops..

But no misunderstanding, I like to play commander. My favorite one, in fact. And in late game, he can chain-wipe all this damn cults too^^

[Esty6]

I'm still 'young' in this game, haven't had a hero lvl 20 yet. I've conquered a Master's world and a bunch of small shards. So far I've always used warrior or scout, but there was this shard that as characteristic it had that units leveled faster, so I decided to try a commander for that one. It was a major roflstomp (and there were 2 other masters going for that shard, they didn't see it coming).