How to build as a starting necromancer.

[Dr. Uncredible]

Evening!

Been away for a bit and thought I´d try out the new necromancer class.

Immediatly ran into some problems in that my starting zombles and necrokid cannot construct, from the tooltip I realize I need a morgue table to get things going, but no one seems to be able to build it!

Apologies in advance if I´ve missed something obvious, like the tutorial, I figured the tutorial was for the base Keeper.

[Adversary]

You need lumber to build the morgue. Have your zombies chop trees while digging out the initial part of your base. Keep in mind that the majority of your units - including your keeper - are vulnerable to sunlight. Notable exceptions to this include the skeleton warrior and skeleton archer - which are not vulnerable to sunlight at all - and the vampire nobles you can craft with advanced necromancy - which are sources of darkness. I say this because until you get advanced embalming for your minions and possibly a set of black dragonscale armor for your keeper, you have to manage your time religiously as to avoid being blinded to death by the hated day-star.

What's more is that you cannot have your necromancer keeper learn new spells - or alternatively the zombie magi you can make at start or the aforementioned vampire nobles learn any spells - until you unlock sorcery. You do not start with it. Either that or iron working should be your first unlock as early game can be easily dominated by an army of naught but skeleton warriors. IMO, you'll also want advanced embalming ASAP as being able to add the source of darkness trait to every single one of your photophobic minions makes micromanagement less of a hassle.

With the exception of skeleton and zombie kings that you can create with master necromancy - they're able to be upgraded with up to 199 body parts -, but to be fair considering some of the other things added in this update maybe they should be used to handle that which lies below. Seriously, don't dig too deep unless you like !!FUN!!.

As for your keeper, your only source of artifacts is being lucky enough to find a scroll which turns any unit - including your keeper - into a legendary blacksmith. Which you can find either at the black market or possibly a retired save. You also don't get access to jewelry, alchemy, or the rituals that are technically needed to heal the majority of your minions - vampire warriors, brutes and nobles can heal if they bite, but they can't bite if they're decapitated. You might find an amulet of regeneration or two if you're lucky or import a retired save or three.

Granted, the vast majority of your minions are disposable, most of your gold will go towards balsams to make them less so and a phylactery to make your keeper less so, and you don't really have any other money sinks other than carpets and candelabras. Plus the only thing you'll probably wind up with more of than corpses and gold as a necromancer is lumber so it's not like you'll run out. Course, YMMV.

Anyhow, hope this long, ramble of a post helps.

[Dr. Uncredible]

VERY helpful starting necromancer guide!

Figured out my problem as well, I had just neglected to place storage zones so my ambling carcasses got confused and refused to construct. ^^

Problem with being absent for a while, oh well, your guide will be most useful going forth!

[Adversary]

Originally posted by Dr. Uncredible:

VERY helpful starting necromancer guide!

Figured out my problem as well, I had just neglected to place storage zones so my ambling carcasses got confused and refused to construct. ^^

Problem with being absent for a while, oh well, your guide will be most useful going forth!

Hey, it's what I'm here for. Glad to be of help.

[joemama1512]

Necromancers are tricky in that you start with 20 corpses and can only build up by killing things. If you lose a bunch of minions then you can easily get into a situation where you cannot recover.

Personally I crank out another 4 workers, 3 artisans, 10 skelly warriors then get them trained and equipped with leather. Then go beat up peasants/bandits and try to get the level up needed to get ironworking and thus better training and equipment. then off to kill dwarves.

Don't forget on the way home from fighting to swap leaders a lot and pick up any random bones and corpses laying around the map. Conquer pillage will not always get them all and early on, take what you can get.

After you second level up you can decide whether to go with skelly archers for some ranged ability, or get vampires. I wouldn't get sorcery until at least one of those 2 are done.

[ohgoditburns]

Adding swarming to your minions is really good. Get enough of them and you can have skellies with like 60 att and def without any equipment.

[joemama1512]

Do you know what the radius is for the swarming effect? Like how far from a given unit that other swarming units count for? I assume it is +1/+1 each for like 5 tiles or so?