Help with Necromancer

[Turin Turambar]

God he is weak as hell. Weak human leaders who needs escort to move around, high insanity in exchange of raising a dozen of cannon fodder units, special resource not as common as others (weed or fungi or herbs or mines are imo more common), graveyards and old battlefield where you can raise big groups of undead are pretty rare in most ages except one. His start is so slow and weak he can't play in small or medium sized maps, or with many opponents.

I like how the description mentions the need of the Dark Knoweledge spell but after 6 tries I never started with it.


So, is there any secret strategy to play Necromancer or am I missing something here?

[Turin Turambar]

Oh, they have been nerfed in more ways than I thought.

This is the Necro in CoE3
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/f2gccRV.png[/img]

CoE4
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/gy6yASW.png[/img]

In CoE3 they always had Dark Knowledge for free, as Raise Dead, in addition of the two summoning and two transformation spells. In CoE4 DK isn't free anymore, and you only have 1 more level 1 spell and a level 2 spell at the start. Given that he depends a lot of the summonings, the new unlock system for rituals affects him more than other races who can handle themselves with the recruitment on forts.

[Steelpoint]

I have not played much of the Necro yet but I think the main plan is to use other Cultists/Necromancers for raising the dead while keeping your main Necromancer alive to eventually turn them into a Vampire or other undead being.

Why do the dangrous raising dead work when you can get some other chump to do it for you?

[knowthyself2]

The Necromancer is a lot like the Demonologist, but he can become more powerful more quickly.
Use your apprentice to raise the dead, and make minor summons until you get a Mound King to lead your troops (unless your apprentice is sane enough to do so). Make sure to recruit some ordinary troops too.
If you need troops fast, hire a goblin chieftain and get lots of goblins.
Capture villages, towns, cities, and graveyards until you get enough hands of glory to make some major summons. Use your armies to secure an old castle or a temple, and then ascend your necromancer (you'll likely need to learn some new rituals). Do more major summons.
I haven't gotten this far yet, but you may want to make some explorations into Hades. I hear it'll be worth your while.
Also, one of the Major Summons, the Tartarian Spirit, is basically a Dominions-style SC. Send him in to take mines and villages on his own, and to ward off attacking animals. Maybe even have him go downwards for some Agarthan riches (although that's time-consuming).

[Turin Turambar]

Yes, I konw the basics, like using your apprentice for the raise dead instead of your main hero. And yes, -eventually- you have good summons with him. But his early game is so weak and slow you can die from 100 different things in the first six years, and I find that he basically reaches the mid game (where you finally have a steady income and can recruit a 50g unit every turn) a pair of years later than other classes. In the time I get three mid-sized armied going on with him the other players have five.

He can do well... if you play the correct map size with the correct age setting with the correct number of opponent and have a bit of luck with the random map. But the fact you need all these factors to meet it's a clue he is a bit UP.

[DasaKamov]

The key to early-game Necromancer play is the "Minor Summoning" ritual that costs 10 Hands. With your basic human troops/zombie fodder you should be able to conquer enough villages for to be able to cast that spell 1/turn or 1/every 2 turns, and you'll often summon Spectral units or Shade Beasts, which are Ethereal. With their 75% chance to ignore ANY non-magical damage and their ability to completely ignore walls and gates, these units give you the punch you need to take larger, walled settlements and Guard Towers. From the larger settlements, you can amass larger amounts of Hands, which gives you the ability to cast more powerful Rituals.

While Dark Knowledge is nerfed, it has only been changed in the most minor of ways (A cost of 3 Hands of Glory is little worse than 0, and prevents players from spamming the spell). I'll be honest in that I've found little use for hordes of basic Souless, as CoE 4 lacks the "Fatigue" mechanic which makes chaff-spam effective in Dominions.

HOWEVER, keep in mind that you can upgrade your Soulless to Armored Soulless in your Dark Citadel, and your Longdead into Armored Longdead, Banefire Warriors, and Banefire Archers. (The Banefire Archers, in particular, have been more than worth their upgrade cost for me time and time again.)

Necromancers are not at all Underpowered in my playthroughs, but they ARE a "Snowball" class -- they are weak in the Early Game, but as they gain momentum they can grow in power until they're a nigh-unstoppable, immortal (Vampire or Lich) with legions of undead sweeping over the world. :)

[Turin Turambar]

Going hard for minor summoning (doing the master ritual until you unlock it) and using the goblin chieftain (I didn't notice him before) helped, thanks.

[juulius ebola]

Necromancer is my strongest class actually. I have the easiest time expanding.

Use apprentice to raise dead on gallows and pick up starting units with necromancer, but leave two archers for defense at home. Pick up all of the skellingtons with the necromancer from the gallows on the same turn but leave the soulless for the apprentice to bring back to the citadel for extra defense.

Take a city or a port with your mages and death stack asap. You'll lose lots of units, but you can raise them with apprentice right after.

Use necromancer to expand. If they get low on chaff then refill with minor summoning.

Buy spear men at cap and take them with apprentice then have him scout around in a different direction and take poorly defended hamlets and such.

Don't raise dead until you get a lich or a vampire unless you see a graveyard or something similarly juicy.

Use crow spies (L1 ritual) instead of dark knowledge to scout the map. Crows are by far the strongest scouting method in the game.

Trade for hands and save them to upgrade to lich or vampire depending on what site you find. Both are really strong. I prefer the vampire because they're cheaper, but a lich can really pour out the hurt with two spells per turn. Don't get greater lich until you're swimming in liches.

Explore hades and find citadel of the dead. Position a lich on the corresponding elysium square and cast "planar shift" to simultaneously capture a level 3 library and release the prince of death on the world.

You're welcome.

[Turin Turambar]

Damn, what's the increase of insanity for one ritual now? I just ganied 20 points.

[Althaea]

Originally posted by knowthyself2:

Also, one of the Major Summons, the Tartarian Spirit, is basically a Dominions-style SC. Send him in to take mines and villages on his own, and to ward off attacking animals. Maybe even have him go downwards for some Agarthan riches (although that's time-consuming).

As a handy tip: the villages of sin found in Inferno, to which Tartarians (and all units with passwall and/or tunneling) can also move, can provide a significant amount of Hands. For Necromancers, it can be a very worthwhile investment.

Very dangerous, though. You'll probably want these Tartarians to travel in pairs, at least.

[gazomierz]

Also there's a trick for handling insane units. As long as you put them under command of another hero it doesn't matter how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crazy they are. You can buy some cheap hero and gather your madmen as long as they have a moment of clarity instead of eating their own feet. Just thought I'd mention it.

[Turin Turambar]

Originally posted by gazomierz:

Also there's a trick for handling insane units. As long as you put them under command of another hero it doesn't matter how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crazy they are. You can buy some cheap hero and gather your madmen as long as they have a moment of clarity instead of eating their own feet. Just thought I'd mention it.

That's a nice trick, thanks. Like herding sheep then XD.

[Aquillion]

The Necromancer's high-level summons are very powerful and always loyal, so you should focus on reaching that as fast as possible (you really only need one or two additional hand of glory sources to crank out one a year.) To get there, have your apprentice raise the dead for you. Spend your gold on archers or crossbowmen, and perhaps spend a few hands to produce Bane Fire Archers.

Your necromancer himself is a powerful caster, so you should be able to capture moderately defended towns without much difficulty. From there you just have to tank and defend them until you have enough hands to summon something like a Dracolich or Tartarian. Use those to conquer more hand sites as well as libraries and sources of gold (so you can recruit more apprentices and crossbowmen.)

Necromancer is still one of the more powerful classes. The changes have slowed it down a bit (it seems to get more insanity, raising the dead takes three turns, and you have to pay to learn all your rituals), but it's still top-tier.

[PengoPaddy]

Originally posted by Turin Turambar:

Damn, what's the increase of insanity for one ritual now? I just ganied 20 points.

Apparently its directly the number of undead raised.

[Turin Turambar]

Originally posted by PengoPaddy:

Originally posted by Turin Turambar:

Damn, what's the increase of insanity for one ritual now? I just ganied 20 points.

Apparently its directly the number of undead raised.

It was one of my hypothesis, as that would coincide with the numbers I've seen.

[Devin]

What I always do for my early game fix is twiceborn someone asap.
Then I have someone who I can use to raise dead without too much trouble.