Loremasters strategies?

[Sonny Crocket]

So anyone have any tips for loremasters? I cant get anywhere, it's turn 40 and i dont even have 2 provinces. I just keep fighting back and forth with fat toad guy but neither one of us can afford to actually conquor the other. The most I can fund is 15 units and they are only tier 1/2, and with that I have nothing left, but if I have fewer than that the toad kicks my ass. I can beat him in battle, but then it takes 3 or 4 turns to recover my casualties, and of course with AI, he has a whole new stack by that point. Any tips on how to play them or how to start out is appreciated. With other poor factions like Mors I just sent out a lord collecting treasure ships and collected like 50k doing that, but in this instance there seems to be no easy money anywhere near me at all.

[Sarissofoi]

What difficulty you playing?

[Ixal]

I only play on hard for now but I usually recruit another lord immediately and, after colonizing the Mud Island, send him east to colonize the ruins near the other HE faction before the Skaven get them and then north to make contact with Ulthuan which give easy trade treaties. If he can get some trasures (especially the 5k or 10k ones) the better.
As for the lizards, I conquer the first settlement north and then wait in ambush where the enemy has to go through to go to your settlements without going to sea. If you can win and be in relatively good shape immediately attack their main city. Dont wait for siege towers, with enough archers it should be possible to kill the garrison. After that just survive the counter attack and you have won.

[Björn Ironside]

Originally posted by Cascinova:

So anyone have any tips for loremasters? I cant get anywhere, it's turn 40 and i dont even have 2 provinces. I just keep fighting back and forth with fat toad guy but neither one of us can afford to actually conquor the other. The most I can fund is 15 units and they are only tier 1/2, and with that I have nothing left, but if I have fewer than that the toad kicks my♥♥♥♥♥ I can beat him in battle, but then it takes 3 or 4 turns to recover my casualties, and of course with AI, he has a whole new stack by that point. Any tips on how to play them or how to start out is appreciated. With other poor factions like Mors I just sent out a lord collecting treasure ships and collected like 50k doing that, but in this instance there seems to be no easy money anywhere near me at all.

u a newb

[Sonny Crocket]

I am realizing something its probably because of the SFO mod, it makes the game considerably harder.

[eldiabs]

Very hard play here. I'll never do legendary as it's just spam battles non stop. No fun. VH is a blast, however.

1st turn - Attack lizard army to the north. Wipe them same turn. Very easy fight even when outnumbered. Recruit a couple of archers and 1 spearmen into army.
Hire new lord. Junk lord is fine. This is your treasure hunter.
Make non aggression with dwarves. Make trade with the elves citadel of dark or something.

2nd turn - Send second lord down to southern settlement. Send Teclis north to take northern settlement. You can autoresolve this or play it.

3rd turn - Colonize or treasure hunt southern settlement with second lord. Do not put any soldiers in this army. Send Teclis towards Sentinels of Xeti. Recruit either two spearmen and archer, or 2 archer and spearmen. Never too many archers at the beginning.

4th turn - Colonize southern settlement if you treasure hunted last turn. If already colonized send treasure lord (We'll call TL from now on) into ocean to begin heading towards Tyrion and other elven factions to get trade going pronto. Collect island loot along the way. Hope for a skull island for the 10K gold. This will help you immensely at start.
Send Teclis at Sentinels of Xeti. Build tower or whatever, wait till next turn.

5th turn - TL should be in loot collecting mode from now on, head directly to other elves from this point forward. Avoid coastlines to avoid stupid factions declaring war and taking out your TL. Autoresolve siege battle. Casualties should be minor.

At this point you have 4 settlements, 3 in a 1 full province, dark elves to your north, lizards to your south. Lizards will attack Xeti. Wipe their army/s out. Force them into defensive agreement and peace or wipe their only settlement. They make a nice buffer for when the rats come. Dark elves will eventually attack you. Take them out at sea or wait for them to come to you. Take chamber of visions from them. There will also be a rogue army. Autoresolve and wipe as quickly as you can. Same with the rebellions that will come. Teclis will be busy for a while. Force peace on dark elves after you wipe one or two of their armies and solidify your second province with the chamber of visions. As TL makes way to elves it should be picking up loot. Hopefully you're getting influence points through the random pop ups. Keep it all for confederating with elves. Keep building up settlements. Growth first, avoid expensive army builds for now.

Eventually the rats will come for you. Hopefully not before you finished off the dark elves and took their island settlement and colonized the northern most one as well. Hopefully you've made lots of friends and have trade with other elves. Try and confederate with Tyrion. It will take a long time, but it will happen.

This should get you started. You can manage most of what I've mentioned with a single army of 19. Easily funded through two full provinces. Start building second army after dark elves are gone and their land is yours. Expand north. Wipe rats from desert, sacking and razing.

Good luck!

[Sonny Crocket]

hey thanks Eldiabls, i really appreciate the tips I will start a new game and try them.

[eldiabs]

NP. Took me a few tries to nail down that strategy. It works consistently, however. Just remember to keep your troops cheap for a while. Spearmen and archers can hold their own against just about anything any of the local enemies can throw at you for the first 40 - 50 turns. Should be enough to get control of your local area. After that, with all of the trade, and control of three full provinces, you can go wild with army comps. Or just turtle up for a while after that. Shouldn't be too difficult unless the rats get too powerful. They'll send endless armies after you if the dwarves don't keep them under control. Make friends with the lizards as well. Good trade partners and they'll help keep the rats off your back from time to time.

[Sonny Crocket]

I tried it out, it worked a lot better this time. I see the key is taking out xeti quickly, if you dont and he gets shielded saurians, your screwed. I couldnt take it once he got them, nothing I had early on could stand up to them. This time around I took it out quickly and it was much much easier.

[eldiabs]

Yup, that's the key. Move fast. Same when dealing with the dark elves. If they lose the chamber they will end up turtling their island and you'll need a full stack and some good battle strategies to take it from them. It's fun though. An actual challenge. The skaven though...they just send army after army after you. I usually just make peace with them to get them to stop spamming me after I've destroyed a few of their armies and maybe razed or sacked a settlement or two. It'll give you time to build up and really crush them when you get a better stack of higher tier units. Don't forget to make as many elf and lizard friends as possible. Don't bother using influence on a 60 point lord unless you have a huge excess and already established trade with everyone that can be convinced. Use it to make everyone like you. If you don't have influence, but have an excess gold through treasure islands, send small gifts to anyone that has 0 relationship with you. One or two gifts and they'll be willing to go non aggression. 5-10 turns later they'll trade and you'll be best buds until you start doing rituals. Then everyone you didn't confederate will hate you anyway. ;]

If you do a dark elf Malekith playthrough, treat the skaven the same way as the xeti lizards. Move fast and ruthless. Chase their units till battle end. Wipe them out. Don't stop till they are gone. Don't make peace either. They'll just betray you once they get 3-4 armies. At least the lizards are a bit more reliable once you've beat them down a bit in the loremaster campaign.