Most of the time you have the Shaman sitting idly by the base, but often when your out raiding, she won’t be there by the base. And of course, the enemy has to attack with a horde of soldiers right while you’re out trying to ethnically cleanse the land. It becomes necessary after the beginning levels to have a self-sufficient defense so that eventually when your Shaman’s not there to defend the base, you won’t get your ass handed to you on a sword. Of course, it is also nice so that if she is there, you won’t have to drag her across your base. Remember: the less dependent you are on your Shaman you are, the better. There’s a few tactics and strategies to help you make a better defense:
Towers of Terror
If you’ve played this game, you know that towers are the best defense. However, don’t just place them at the entrances of the base. Place them all over. A good tactic is to place one directly in the middle of the base for your Shaman. When she’s there, you can probably get a good view of your town, making it easier to fire spells to attack enemies. Firewarriors can shoot farther, preachers can preach farther (more on that later), and spies can see farther to detect enemy spies. Besides that, you have an alarm system that will alert you when the people come near. But of course, you probably already know this.
Patrolmen
A good steady stream of patrolmen is always nice. If you put these guys at your base that pretty much takes care of everything, so long as they are efficient. Make sure its always a mix, especially with plenty of preachers. Warriors and Firewarriors are excellent, but make no difference when bowing down to the missionary of the enemy. But don’t forget that you don’t have to put these guys at the entrance, try and get them to patrol your streets. That way if the enemy breaches your outer defense, they still have to deal with the onslaught from the inside. Try to get them to go over a wide area. It will take them longer to notice the enemy, but it’s better than never noticing at all.
To patrol, you need to set down camp fire beacons down on the route you want your units to follow. Select the units, then hold [Ctrl] and click the beacons you want them to patrol between. The units will run in between the two beacons. You can actually make them patrol between more than two beacons, so complex patrol routes with over 6 beacons are possible.
The Inquisition
Who needs brute force when you’ve got…religion! If there ever was a more determined force to assimilate other cultures from the Earth, then it’s this force. So as long as you have LOTS of preachers, you’re good. This tactic actually works like a charm. Instead of filling your towers with Firewarriors, fill them with preachers. The stupid enemy will bumble right into your traps. Since they’ll probably send some missionaries of their own, so make sure you have lots of preachers patrolling nearby each watchtower. Half the priests will be taking out the prophets of the enemy, while the rest of yours go to work on the soldiers. One preacher isn’t deadly, but pack them in a group and they can hold their weight against other preachers. And of course, all others will simply be converted. I have seen entire armies be converted by a preacher in a tower. Don’t underestimate their power!
This tactic will earn you lots of spare soldiers, but keep them on the back lines as back up and so they won’t kill attackers before the preachers have time to convert them. Just watch out for the enemy Shaman and hot air balloons. For emergencies it would probably be best to keep soldiers in the city patrolling for these just two things.
No Yoda, but…
This tactic is great for last minute defenses. If you spot an army coming to your base, but you don’t have time to train followers nor build towers, then just plant a few swamps at the entrance to your base. The dumb enemy AI will walk right into them. Trust me; this one is definitely a life saver. For one, it can level an entire invading force without a casualty of your own. As well, it is one of the few spells that actually stops the shield spell dead in its tracks.
The downside to this is that your own armies can’t march through it. If you create a tiny passage, your Shaman can get through, but an army will get killed. Just remember, if you need to get rid of them, hold [Shift] and right-click the swamp.
Moving Mountains
Terraforming is a great way to keep out enemies. If your base is surrounded by high mountains, you can usually seal of entrances by using land bridge between them. This also works for erode and water, but is much more risky. If your base up on high land, it’s much easier to keep out invaders.
It’s a bit hard to do though when there’s lot of entrances to your base, and just remember that they have land spells too, so you aren’t completely safe if you try and seal off all of your entrances.
A Helping Hand
One of the funniest ways to end a battle is to just cast one of my favorite spells: hypnotize. Have a few of these at your arsenal can really turn the battle in your favor. Besides cutting their attack force down, it adds to your defense. It also has the added advantage of being able to dispel those pesky shield spells off the enemy. What you do with the remaining hypnotized soldiers is up to you; I usually send them into a swamp or simply send them back to their base.
The only thing is that this is the only tactic mentioned here that the Shaman needs to be at hand for during the attack, so it may not be useful in setting up a self-sufficient defense. |
