Mazdamundi mortal empire campaign: extremely challenging!

[Orophen]

Hi guys. I played lizardmen maybe once before (kroq gar, easy start) and yesterday I decided to start a mazdamundi campaign: to be honest, maybe the most challenging campaign I have played to date! and I liked it.

what do you think of this campaign?

Also, while playing lizardmen I don't see the point of using other lord than life slaans. even mazdamundi seems inferior to a generic second generations slaan( except for the mount).
I guess they could have given health spells to skinks priests to encourage the use of other lords.

last thing: what do you suggest to avoid a full stegadon army? I did it in my other campaign with kroq gar, it was like autowinning everything.

I think I need at least 2-3 stegadon anyway because of the range, therefore the enemie has to come to you. I like also the teradon riders with bolas, I find them very effective.

[funkmonster7]

Mazdamundi shouldn't be too difficult in my opinion. IMO Kroq-Gar has it worse now, since his starting province is no longer in a corner.

Generic lizard lords are good if you pick the blessing skill that cuts dino upkeep by 20% or something, add that with the landmark building in Mazdamundi's capital you have -45% upkeep for dinos, making dino spam your go-to army for anything.

Full stegadon army is pretty much it unfortunately. You can of course swap out a few stegadons with Feral Carnosaurs but heroes on Carnosaur mounts would be better options due to lack of rampage. Otherwise, just fit in a Dread Saurian here and there...

Mazdamundi's army can still have a few Temple Guards, infantry is really needed for fighting siege battles.

Lastly, Mazdamundi isn't really inferior to life slanns. He used to be but now he has the same traits as 2nd gen slanns. The only reason why life slanns are more powerful is you're abusing their heals on SEM armies (Single Entity Monster), heals have always been OP when synergized with SEM units.

Dread Saurians are actually quite good at monster dueling despite their anti-infantry trait.

[Ashley]

Try Morathi she's harder. He's way easier. Probably the 2nd or 3rd hardest Lizardmen start though I suppose considering 2 of the lizardmen starts are braindead easy. Not counting Tiktak since i've never touched him.

[funkmonster7]

Yup, Morathi is frickin' difficult right now. If you don't eliminate the Wood Elves early, they'll bring Treeman stacks at you soon and you don't want to fight that. I couldn't 1v1 a half-stack of Treemen with a full Shades army. Not in auto-resolve, not in manual battle. This is with the Sisters in the army, and this was in ambush battle where I was the ambusher. It's nuts...

I probably could've won it if I used checkerboard formation but honestly, I don't think I could've won that with minimal casualties if that was a full stack vs full stack.

Treemen have 20% physical resistance, that's probably why Shades were a bad matchup to them. Anyway, yeah Morathi is quite difficult compared to Mazdamundi.

Imrik though, I don't even want to try it. Fighting Snikch early on is just a nightmare, and then you have Grimgor right next to you as well.

(I have watched Legend's Imrik tutorial, but I just don't like that kind of playstyle so I'd rather not play Imrik.)

[Orophen]

Originally posted by Ugandad Commando:

Try Morathi she's harder. He's way easier. Probably the 2nd or 3rd hardest Lizardmen start though I suppose considering 2 of the lizardmen starts are braindead easy. Not counting Tiktak since i've never touched him.

I played morathi once, and I didn’t find it that hard.
You fight one enemy at the time.
Mzdamundi is surrounded, and in my campaign all my neighbours called each other to join war against me.
I also feel that the lizardmen tier one units are terrible.
You don’t have any range units (skinks are a joke) and you struggle in combat.
Even the small skaven settlement you have on the north left side of your capital is not easy to deal with.
They put up like 3 stacks in a few turns, and saurus struggle with clanrats.
You don’t have many options, you can just go in melee combat, no ranged units, no offensive magic.

Almost all the other races even at the start of the campaign can use many decent ranged units.
Lizardmen don’t.

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by Orophen:

Originally posted by Ugandad Commando:

Try Morathi she's harder. He's way easier. Probably the 2nd or 3rd hardest Lizardmen start though I suppose considering 2 of the lizardmen starts are braindead easy. Not counting Tiktak since i've never touched him.

I played morathi once, and I didn’t find it that hard.
You fight one enemy at the time.
Mzdamundi is surrounded, and in my campaign all my neighbours called each other to join war against me.
I also feel that the lizardmen tier one units are terrible.
You don’t have any range units (skinks are a joke) and you struggle in combat.
Even the small skaven settlement you have on the north left side of your capital is not easy to deal with.
They put up like 3 stacks in a few turns, and saurus struggle with clanrats.
You don’t have many options, you can just go in melee combat, no ranged units, no offensive magic.

Almost all the other races even at the start of the campaign can use many decent ranged units.
Lizardmen don’t.

You probably lucked out on that campaign. Morathi gets declared war on by all sides much, much more than Mazdamundi ever will.

If your Saurus Warriors struggle against Clanrats, I have a feeling you're playing on something like Very Hard battle difficulty. Just don't play that unless you know how to cheese the game... Enemy units have hidden bonuses to melee stats, that's why Clanrats give your Saurus Warriors a hard time.

Some difficulties will make some factions more difficult. Like Lizardmen for example, they're melee oriented by default. If you play on a difficulty that weighs melee combat against you then you just screwed yourself over. Of course Morathi would be easier because you'd be Darkshard spamming. But as Morathi, you have High Elves as your enemy and they're far more capable at archer spamming than you are, given that you'll soon be at war with Tiranoc, who can drag Caledor, Elyssia, Chrace, Eataine etc all into wars with you. And now, Wood Elves will declare war on you too, and last but not least Alith Anar. Even Mazdamundi declares war on you, and anyone of them can drag Skeggi in too even though he's an evil faction the same as Morathi is.

As Mazdamundi, you're not at war with the High Elves, that cuts down your amount of enemies by half. Granted, if you don't keep Morathi in check, she might conquer Ulthuan (as I think she has a foothold there if you start as Mazdamundi) and then turn on you, since she hates your guts too. But you're only at war with her and Skeggi (who you'll destroy soon enough to unite your province), the Savage Orcs south of you and the human colony (you should try to make peace with them at the start so you can trade with them, Lizardmen are strapped for money at the start of their campaigns).

Mazdamundi's starting army doesn't have to be a full stack. It's true that T1 skinks are trash, but they're still good for their price. You use them like you would with Beastmen - swarm the enemies and attack from all sides. They're pretty fast and can flank, even though their charge bonus is crap. But attacking enemies in the rear gives enemies penalties. Your main killing power is your starting dinos, they need to do a lot of heavy lifting and that's where Mazdamundi shines: he can heal those units, heals are more effective on SEM (single entity monsters). Once you get T2 skinks, you get the blow dart versions and they can poison enemies.

Lizardmen almost have no enemy that can match them at their strength in the early game. Sure they don't have good missiles but don't play Lizardmen if you want to play a shooty faction...

[Orophen]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Originally posted by Orophen:

I played morathi once, and I didn’t find it that hard.
You fight one enemy at the time.
Mzdamundi is surrounded, and in my campaign all my neighbours called each other to join war against me.
I also feel that the lizardmen tier one units are terrible.
You don’t have any range units (skinks are a joke) and you struggle in combat.
Even the small skaven settlement you have on the north left side of your capital is not easy to deal with.
They put up like 3 stacks in a few turns, and saurus struggle with clanrats.
You don’t have many options, you can just go in melee combat, no ranged units, no offensive magic.

Almost all the other races even at the start of the campaign can use many decent ranged units.
Lizardmen don’t.

You probably lucked out on that campaign. Morathi gets declared war on by all sides much, much more than Mazdamundi ever will.

If your Saurus Warriors struggle against Clanrats, I have a feeling you're playing on something like Very Hard battle difficulty. Just don't play that unless you know how to cheese the game... Enemy units have hidden bonuses to melee stats, that's why Clanrats give your Saurus Warriors a hard time.

Some difficulties will make some factions more difficult. Like Lizardmen for example, they're melee oriented by default. If you play on a difficulty that weighs melee combat against you then you just screwed yourself over. Of course Morathi would be easier because you'd be Darkshard spamming. But as Morathi, you have High Elves as your enemy and they're far more capable at archer spamming than you are, given that you'll soon be at war with Tiranoc, who can drag Caledor, Elyssia, Chrace, Eataine etc all into wars with you. And now, Wood Elves will declare war on you too, and last but not least Alith Anar. Even Mazdamundi declares war on you, and anyone of them can drag Skeggi in too even though he's an evil faction the same as Morathi is.

As Mazdamundi, you're not at war with the High Elves, that cuts down your amount of enemies by half. Granted, if you don't keep Morathi in check, she might conquer Ulthuan (as I think she has a foothold there if you start as Mazdamundi) and then turn on you, since she hates your guts too. But you're only at war with her and Skeggi (who you'll destroy soon enough to unite your province), the Savage Orcs south of you and the human colony (you should try to make peace with them at the start so you can trade with them, Lizardmen are strapped for money at the start of their campaigns).

Mazdamundi's starting army doesn't have to be a full stack. It's true that T1 skinks are trash, but they're still good for their price. You use them like you would with Beastmen - swarm the enemies and attack from all sides. They're pretty fast and can flank, even though their charge bonus is crap. But attacking enemies in the rear gives enemies penalties. Your main killing power is your starting dinos, they need to do a lot of heavy lifting and that's where Mazdamundi shines: he can heal those units, heals are more effective on SEM (single entity monsters). Once you get T2 skinks, you get the blow dart versions and they can poison enemies.

Lizardmen almost have no enemy that can match them at their strength in the early game. Sure they don't have good missiles but don't play Lizardmen if you want to play a shooty faction...

Maybe it is just my campaign, but morathi dragged the imperial colonies against me, so I ha the skaven, morathi, the norsca and the imperials against me at the same time, with just basic crap.
And maybe I was unlucky, but the norsca spammed two stacks of ranged cavalry, like impossible to beat with saurus and skinks. Same the imperials with infinite hordes of croosbowmen.
I managed, but it was hard! I liked it.

[funkmonster7]

Originally posted by Orophen:

Maybe it is just my campaign, but morathi dragged the imperial colonies against me, so I ha the skaven, morathi, the norsca and the imperials against me at the same time, with just basic crap.
And maybe I was unlucky, but the norsca spammed two stacks of ranged cavalry, like impossible to beat with saurus and skinks. Same the imperials with infinite hordes of croosbowmen.
I managed, but it was hard! I liked it.

Just let the Norscan ranged cavs run out of ammo, they can't shoot out your Saurii and Skinks. Don't even bother chasing them down. Bronze shield on your Saurii and Skinks still mean 35% chance to block small arms, that's better than no shield.

Hexoatl is difficult in that you can't grow your province quickly, but there is no way to improve your economy without first growing your province. Then, all your settlements are spread out in a way that anyone can attack from anywhere and take your settlements. So, what you want to do is take out as many immediate enemies around as you as possible, consolidate the province asap, then focus on building up each minor settlement one by one, all the way to getting them walled up before moving to the next minor settlement. If one of them gets taken, no problem because it's at tier 1... You can easily take it back.

Once every settlement is walled up, that's when you can expand. Macu Peaks would be my next goal. Now, if the Imperial Colony declares war on you, just take their settlement. Mass Crossbowmen is nothing once you've closed the gap with your infantry. I won't say it's an easy battle but Morathi tends to have it worse, because Alith Anar can ambush on attack, Tiranoc regularly sends troops to harass, and other HE factions also do it. And if Morathi so much as lands on Ulthuan, all of Ulthuan will swarm toward that region (almost all HE factions can see you when you go into Tiranoc's ocean region because they trade with each other - HE can 'spy' on each other via trading). In the first 50 turns, it is impossible to stop the wrath of Ulthuan from falling upon you...

And right now with the advent of the Sisters of Twilight, they can also bring Treeman doomstacks if you don't deal with them soon enough. That's why Morathi is difficult... I once played her and was at war with WE, all of Ulthuan, Mazdamundi, Skeggi, Alith Anar, Clan Rictus... Literally everyone surrounding me. Only Clan Rictus didn't send armies at me because he was fighting against WE, but it was the WE that brought them into the war with me (which was absolute BS). I never had anything like that playing as Mazdamundi. But then again, because of slave economy I could fight my way out of that, whereas if Mazdamundi got that same treatment I highly doubt I could've saved my campaign.

[Ashley]

Yeah you really can't fight your way out with just Hexoatl if you have like 5 enemies. Honestly the only threat for Mazamundi is Morathi and the Norsca faction if you let them survive to get their t3 armored warriors. Everything else there is very meh with what they have.

Skaven shouldn't be an issue at all Saurus munch through early skaven. Early skaven in ai's hands can't do a thing to Lizardmen. Same with the empire that starts near Hexoatl.

[funkmonster7]

Yeah it's very important to erase Skeggi asap at the start of Mazdamundi's campaign. Everything else is secondary. Remember that all factions have a base income, that's why a single AI faction hugging on to a single minor settlement can field 2 armies... Those armies might be chaff but while you're that early in the campaign, you can't beat 2 armies of Norscan Marauders even with a full stack of Saurii, which you don't have. Meanwhile, you can 1v2 Skaven if all they have are Skavenslaves. So after erasing Skeggi, the Skaven up north are next. And if Morathi declares war by then, just head up north and turn one of her cities into a sack city.

The higher your battle strength is, the less likely other factions will declare war on you. Meaning Morathi wouldn't be able to invite anyone to go to war with you.

Although I would imagine that it would suck if Morathi invited Tiranoc to war with you because that happened to me once, a long time ago. Tiranoc then invited the entirety of Ulthuan to war with me... That was absolute BS, all those HE factions declared war on me within 10 turns. Every single one of them, from Tiranoc to Tyrion to Alarielle to Chrace. All because of Morathi. Absolute BS.

[Ashley]

Never once seen Morathi at peace with Tiranoc and never been able to make peace. Even when i've gotten Tiranoc and gotten them down to a minor settlement when I have like 3 stacked armies + a full ark. So that might be hardcoded not sure.

But yes Skeggi is a huge threat with Marauder champions. Those guys can stand on equal ground with Saurus and can afford more units than you thanks to ai bonuses to income and melee performance. Taking down Skeggi is the biggest issue followed by dealing with Morathis Darkshards. Once you've done that there's really nothing to stand in your campaign. It's only hard if you let it get out of hand.

That's why his start is easier. You will next to 100% likely get dogpiled by Hexoatl, the whole west side of Ulthuan if you're unlucky, the sisters and the Exiles now if you play Morathi. It's manageable if you get lucky and if you know what you're doing. But it's hell if you don't.

[lumina]

I haven't been playing long and he was one of my early campaigns, and the first I did in Vortex. I didn't find him too difficult. I started Imrik after that one and it's much more difficult for me.

[Danny Z. Ninja]

ME Mazdamundi is sort of tricky if you're going all story objectives (he has "must confederate with x number of factions" bonuses). Beyond that? His starting province is decent enough; Fallen Gates serves as a good buffer from the north, you get two ports, and capital retains EotV specials and gold mine. A decent enough start, but Mazdamundi's faction boosts are limited, to say the least, to rites, Slann lords, and Temple Guards. If you want an easier start, go with Gor-Rok; he's free to download, has relatively easy start point and objectives, good buffs, and has Lord Kroak.

[Orophen]

Originally posted by funkmonster7:

Originally posted by Orophen:

I played morathi once, and I didn’t find it that hard.
You fight one enemy at the time.
Mzdamundi is surrounded, and in my campaign all my neighbours called each other to join war against me.
I also feel that the lizardmen tier one units are terrible.
You don’t have any range units (skinks are a joke) and you struggle in combat.
Even the small skaven settlement you have on the north left side of your capital is not easy to deal with.
They put up like 3 stacks in a few turns, and saurus struggle with clanrats.
You don’t have many options, you can just go in melee combat, no ranged units, no offensive magic.

Almost all the other races even at the start of the campaign can use many decent ranged units.
Lizardmen don’t.

You probably lucked out on that campaign. Morathi gets declared war on by all sides much, much more than Mazdamundi ever will.

If your Saurus Warriors struggle against Clanrats, I have a feeling you're playing on something like Very Hard battle difficulty. Just don't play that unless you know how to cheese the game... Enemy units have hidden bonuses to melee stats, that's why Clanrats give your Saurus Warriors a hard time.

Some difficulties will make some factions more difficult. Like Lizardmen for example, they're melee oriented by default. If you play on a difficulty that weighs melee combat against you then you just screwed yourself over. Of course Morathi would be easier because you'd be Darkshard spamming. But as Morathi, you have High Elves as your enemy and they're far more capable at archer spamming than you are, given that you'll soon be at war with Tiranoc, who can drag Caledor, Elyssia, Chrace, Eataine etc all into wars with you. And now, Wood Elves will declare war on you too, and last but not least Alith Anar. Even Mazdamundi declares war on you, and anyone of them can drag Skeggi in too even though he's an evil faction the same as Morathi is.

As Mazdamundi, you're not at war with the High Elves, that cuts down your amount of enemies by half. Granted, if you don't keep Morathi in check, she might conquer Ulthuan (as I think she has a foothold there if you start as Mazdamundi) and then turn on you, since she hates your guts too. But you're only at war with her and Skeggi (who you'll destroy soon enough to unite your province), the Savage Orcs south of you and the human colony (you should try to make peace with them at the start so you can trade with them, Lizardmen are strapped for money at the start of their campaigns).

Mazdamundi's starting army doesn't have to be a full stack. It's true that T1 skinks are trash, but they're still good for their price. You use them like you would with Beastmen - swarm the enemies and attack from all sides. They're pretty fast and can flank, even though their charge bonus is crap. But attacking enemies in the rear gives enemies penalties. Your main killing power is your starting dinos, they need to do a lot of heavy lifting and that's where Mazdamundi shines: he can heal those units, heals are more effective on SEM (single entity monsters). Once you get T2 skinks, you get the blow dart versions and they can poison enemies.

Lizardmen almost have no enemy that can match them at their strength in the early game. Sure they don't have good missiles but don't play Lizardmen if you want to play a shooty faction...

Maybe they tweaked clanrats in the last update, I feel they are stronger than before, I’ve never seen them that strong.

Anyway. In this campaign Morathi is a nightmare.
Just before the siege of her last settlement she confederates with another guy up in the north, impossible to reach at present time, so now she has a base from where sending south armies against me XD

[Ashley]

Clanrats get completely mulched by lizardmen. Are you facing like 3 armies of them at once or something? Because that starting skaven faction near Mazamundi isn't even close to resembling a threat to him.

But yeah AI Morathi is doing pretty good lately somehow. Despite being at war with like 10 people and having her every side be a warfront.

[Sn3z]

Originally posted by Ugandad Commando:

Clanrats get completely mulched by lizardmen. Are you facing like 3 armies of them at once or something? Because that starting skaven faction near Mazamundi isn't even close to resembling a threat to him.

But yeah AI Morathi is doing pretty good lately somehow. Despite being at war with like 10 people and having her every side be a warfront.

Its her items she gets all by lvl 6, which gives her advantage, I also think the auto resolve is skewed in her favour by the increasing stats(I have seen her crush Tirnanoc and Caldor like its easy mode.