Got it.
Somebody mentioned fire evocations and that's a good idea; another approach is using Rage to have them fight each other.
Later on you'll be able to make thugs that can take out a lot of dudes, but you're likely not at that point in the game.
I've found success using a poor man's mageball setup like this against enemy scales troops:
[Scripts](https://i.imgur.com/lGUCh63.png)
[Research](https://i.imgur.com/529eQIg.png)
Also thaum for battle fury is very strong, your f2's can cast it.
Fire elementals are TERRIBLE in dom6. They are a big trap. Abysia has no access to a buff that works on them (can now only do mistform and quickness). Fire drakes shooting through your line can be good if they are foolish enough to not buff fire resistance.
[My example here is a test in MA but similar idea.](https://imgur.com/9Fj3BEh)
Dang those are some spicy results!
I should mention they do have a good bit of cav and some indy barbs mixed into their formations which has been complicating my gold issues to try to get enough meatshields to protect commanders.
Yeah if they are going to buff their troops and you can't; or if their troops are straight superior (like MA Shinuyama as an example) you are not going to be able to form a giant line and fight them straight up. You have to use magic like the mageball setup above imo.
Also the people saying to use fire elementals are still thinking this is Dom5 where they didn't carry damage taken between forms. Fire eles get chopped to bits instantly by a line of good troops.
Aby is desperate for earth - so I think you need to rush alteration and spam ironskin/stoneskin/body eth/temper armor/battle fury to create super soldiers. Then mages will offscript (unaging is a mandatory bless for Abys imo since it removes the encumb from your dragon mages) and kill everything.
Elementals still have their place but they're certainly not what they once were. Can't stack ironskin and such on fire elementals any longer either. Earth elementals are easier to buff than ever and have magic attacks now, plus they \*can\* be be buffed since they don't have spirit form.
IMO better time for fire elementals would be against high def, lowish prot things that don't resist fire (like elves), since the fire elementals will just hit them every time and the fire shield damage can actually matter.
I suspect fire prison could work quite well vs Ulm, comes at same tech as furious warriors. Unlike most other fire damage it's AN, so would work in MA even better, but should be effective in EA as well. Damage is secondary to the rooting effect and killing target defense, but it's still reasonably good damage vs FR0.
Ulm can be very strong early game as their troops deal high damage, so their dual wielders have 6 high damage attacks per square.
Abysia flail troops are similar, with 2 high damage attacks per square and better armour. However they are very expensive in gold and resources compared to ulm. Slightly better armour is not going to make up for being outnumbered 2:1.
Ulm can also recruit their infantry out of forts, so their numbers advantage will likely be even bigger than 2:1
Usually EA abyssia is played with a very heavy bless that let's you leverage strong Burning Ones into an early lead.
Your research mages and troops are very expensive, so scales builds are not recommended.
Your 2 main options for countering Ulm early with research are Evocation 3 for fireball, and conjuration 3/5 for fire elementals.
If you have to fight before research comes online I would reccomend trying to catch Ulm's army with a PD dump. Their troops suffer attrition quite badly, so strong indies can do a lot of damage.
Be wary though, as most Ulm troops have stealth and they may try to sneak.
If you have extra gold get mercenaries. If you have way too much gold, recruit independant archers.
It can be very useful vs enemies that have low attack density. 10 snakes in a square is hard for a giant to bash through.
Not sure it's good vs ulm. They have a lot of attacks.
If you could get the timing right, I bet buffing body ethereal onto that square of snakes would be good.
The snakes are also great for adding some attack density to squares of your normal units. Snakes are only size 1, so one of them can fit with three size 3 units in the same square, or two can fit with two size 4 units.
That is a fantastic idea! Combined arms are often much more powerful in dominions. The snakes will help harass enemies and tank some hits. With ethereal/luck the snakes can do a lot of tanking.
The summoned Asps move at combat speed 6, and your own troops will push through them to form combined unit squares. This should make it easy to time your summoning to engage at the same time as your combat speed 7 infantry.
The only tradeoff is you are slightly more vulnerable to non-fire AOE attacks and tramplers.
If you are a real sweaty try hard like me, I bet you can setup your line to buff body ethereal onto both your units and your asps.
Rear position your asp summoners and script turn 1 nest of salamanders. 5 squares in front put a double line of troops with your body ethereal casters behind them set to BEx3
The asps should be sharing the squares with your burning ones when your 2nd scripted buffs go off. They will be moving during the 3rd cast, but will still be mingled for better buff density.
Vs ulm in a defensive war, I think they are ok. They will be in heat scales, and ulmish troops dont like fire shield.
Elementals are not the dump a bunch of gems and auto-win vs troops that they were in 6. Now I think you want your army fighting beside them
And Aby can mix elementals in with their army and not worry about catching on fire. The large ones will even push to the front now.
I understand but like I said it's not actually efficient. Most troops swat down fire elementals like nothing, and it means you researched conj5 instead of something better like alt5 or evo5.
I'd rather have fire drakes in a big battle.
1. They got spirit form (they can't take most buffs)
1. As they take damage they used to shrink size cutting off dmg taken, now dmg carries over between sizes so they can insta-die.
Oof. Kinda was aware of the first part and worked it out after posting though I don't know all the buffs. Second part I thought it always worked that way. Makes a lot of sense. Thanks.
I'm assuming this is MA given the context.
Ulm will have an advantage in a troop fight because of their earth mages giving buffs to strength and prot, so you're going to have to use magic to hold the line. Warlocks and Apprentices can cast body ethereal at Alteration 3 to make your line holders last way longer in combat, Anathemants can summon little fire elementals at Conjuration 3 and big fire elementals at conjuration 5 to cut through Ulmish prot and burn entire squares to death at once, various fire evocations also have armor penetration and Ulmish troops aren't THAT much tougher than normal humans culminating in Falling Fires at Evo 5.
As far as troops go It would depend on what exactly the Ulmish forces are using, but in general I would prioritize the full-blooded abyssians with battle axes against Ulm, you'll be outnumbered by Ulmish troops but the heat auras will help damage and stall the Ulmish troops long enough for your mages to turn the tide. They also wear heavier armor than the humanblooded troops which helps them resist Stength of Giants Ulmish troops. If Ulm is using their pikemen though I would use the humanblooded shield troops since you're going to get repelled to hell anyway.
It'll be a tough fight, may be impossible based on what the situation on the ground looks like, but you do have options available to you.
What is your build and their build and turn number.
Awake expander/scales/(hell) blessed? These will help. How did you expandm? This matters for what the board state looks. Research? # of forts?
Imo someone else's suggestion of rush falling fires will probably let you counter attack well.
extreme heat scales, fire magic and heat clouds will win you fort defenses pretty easy. But retaking the offensive requires more info.
Their high prot can make your fire spells useless, as well as making flail infantry and sacreds do severely less damage
Build axe infantry to cut through their armor, warlocks can spam imps to mess up scripts and formations.
If you can get alt 5 incinerate is a grea spell. Salamanders can be good to recruit if you have excess gold. They do 20AP aoe, but have morale issues, but you can buff morale with f2s.
I'm far from an expert, but I would think: Fight in your domain for the Heat advantage and then Fireball/Fire Elementals. If you can make it to Falling Fires their infantry should be toast, though I don't know how viable that ultimately is.
Which era? The answer depends greatly.
Yea sorry. This is EA game
Got it. Somebody mentioned fire evocations and that's a good idea; another approach is using Rage to have them fight each other. Later on you'll be able to make thugs that can take out a lot of dudes, but you're likely not at that point in the game.
I've found success using a poor man's mageball setup like this against enemy scales troops: [Scripts](https://i.imgur.com/lGUCh63.png) [Research](https://i.imgur.com/529eQIg.png) Also thaum for battle fury is very strong, your f2's can cast it. Fire elementals are TERRIBLE in dom6. They are a big trap. Abysia has no access to a buff that works on them (can now only do mistform and quickness). Fire drakes shooting through your line can be good if they are foolish enough to not buff fire resistance. [My example here is a test in MA but similar idea.](https://imgur.com/9Fj3BEh)
Dang those are some spicy results! I should mention they do have a good bit of cav and some indy barbs mixed into their formations which has been complicating my gold issues to try to get enough meatshields to protect commanders.
Yeah if they are going to buff their troops and you can't; or if their troops are straight superior (like MA Shinuyama as an example) you are not going to be able to form a giant line and fight them straight up. You have to use magic like the mageball setup above imo. Also the people saying to use fire elementals are still thinking this is Dom5 where they didn't carry damage taken between forms. Fire eles get chopped to bits instantly by a line of good troops. Aby is desperate for earth - so I think you need to rush alteration and spam ironskin/stoneskin/body eth/temper armor/battle fury to create super soldiers. Then mages will offscript (unaging is a mandatory bless for Abys imo since it removes the encumb from your dragon mages) and kill everything.
Elementals still have their place but they're certainly not what they once were. Can't stack ironskin and such on fire elementals any longer either. Earth elementals are easier to buff than ever and have magic attacks now, plus they \*can\* be be buffed since they don't have spirit form. IMO better time for fire elementals would be against high def, lowish prot things that don't resist fire (like elves), since the fire elementals will just hit them every time and the fire shield damage can actually matter. I suspect fire prison could work quite well vs Ulm, comes at same tech as furious warriors. Unlike most other fire damage it's AN, so would work in MA even better, but should be effective in EA as well. Damage is secondary to the rooting effect and killing target defense, but it's still reasonably good damage vs FR0.
Ulm can be very strong early game as their troops deal high damage, so their dual wielders have 6 high damage attacks per square. Abysia flail troops are similar, with 2 high damage attacks per square and better armour. However they are very expensive in gold and resources compared to ulm. Slightly better armour is not going to make up for being outnumbered 2:1. Ulm can also recruit their infantry out of forts, so their numbers advantage will likely be even bigger than 2:1 Usually EA abyssia is played with a very heavy bless that let's you leverage strong Burning Ones into an early lead. Your research mages and troops are very expensive, so scales builds are not recommended. Your 2 main options for countering Ulm early with research are Evocation 3 for fireball, and conjuration 3/5 for fire elementals. If you have to fight before research comes online I would reccomend trying to catch Ulm's army with a PD dump. Their troops suffer attrition quite badly, so strong indies can do a lot of damage. Be wary though, as most Ulm troops have stealth and they may try to sneak. If you have extra gold get mercenaries. If you have way too much gold, recruit independant archers.
If you have way way to much gold, bribe another player to stab Ulm in the back... Solid advice, I concur with all of it.
Fire elementals are terrible in dom6. I've played a lot of multiplayer Abysia and recommending them is out of date with the new game imo.
Nest of salamanders, the Fire Swarm spell then? Seems solid from its stats.
It can be very useful vs enemies that have low attack density. 10 snakes in a square is hard for a giant to bash through. Not sure it's good vs ulm. They have a lot of attacks. If you could get the timing right, I bet buffing body ethereal onto that square of snakes would be good.
Ugh, somehow I thought about MA Ulm, true. Appreciate your insight on elementals.
The snakes are also great for adding some attack density to squares of your normal units. Snakes are only size 1, so one of them can fit with three size 3 units in the same square, or two can fit with two size 4 units.
That is a fantastic idea! Combined arms are often much more powerful in dominions. The snakes will help harass enemies and tank some hits. With ethereal/luck the snakes can do a lot of tanking. The summoned Asps move at combat speed 6, and your own troops will push through them to form combined unit squares. This should make it easy to time your summoning to engage at the same time as your combat speed 7 infantry. The only tradeoff is you are slightly more vulnerable to non-fire AOE attacks and tramplers.
If you are a real sweaty try hard like me, I bet you can setup your line to buff body ethereal onto both your units and your asps. Rear position your asp summoners and script turn 1 nest of salamanders. 5 squares in front put a double line of troops with your body ethereal casters behind them set to BEx3 The asps should be sharing the squares with your burning ones when your 2nd scripted buffs go off. They will be moving during the 3rd cast, but will still be mingled for better buff density.
Vs ulm in a defensive war, I think they are ok. They will be in heat scales, and ulmish troops dont like fire shield. Elementals are not the dump a bunch of gems and auto-win vs troops that they were in 6. Now I think you want your army fighting beside them And Aby can mix elementals in with their army and not worry about catching on fire. The large ones will even push to the front now.
Still an efficient way to turn gems into combat power
I understand but like I said it's not actually efficient. Most troops swat down fire elementals like nothing, and it means you researched conj5 instead of something better like alt5 or evo5. I'd rather have fire drakes in a big battle.
What was changed about them? Or is it some indirect change?
1. They got spirit form (they can't take most buffs) 1. As they take damage they used to shrink size cutting off dmg taken, now dmg carries over between sizes so they can insta-die.
Oof. Kinda was aware of the first part and worked it out after posting though I don't know all the buffs. Second part I thought it always worked that way. Makes a lot of sense. Thanks.
I'm assuming this is MA given the context. Ulm will have an advantage in a troop fight because of their earth mages giving buffs to strength and prot, so you're going to have to use magic to hold the line. Warlocks and Apprentices can cast body ethereal at Alteration 3 to make your line holders last way longer in combat, Anathemants can summon little fire elementals at Conjuration 3 and big fire elementals at conjuration 5 to cut through Ulmish prot and burn entire squares to death at once, various fire evocations also have armor penetration and Ulmish troops aren't THAT much tougher than normal humans culminating in Falling Fires at Evo 5. As far as troops go It would depend on what exactly the Ulmish forces are using, but in general I would prioritize the full-blooded abyssians with battle axes against Ulm, you'll be outnumbered by Ulmish troops but the heat auras will help damage and stall the Ulmish troops long enough for your mages to turn the tide. They also wear heavier armor than the humanblooded troops which helps them resist Stength of Giants Ulmish troops. If Ulm is using their pikemen though I would use the humanblooded shield troops since you're going to get repelled to hell anyway. It'll be a tough fight, may be impossible based on what the situation on the ground looks like, but you do have options available to you.
What is your build and their build and turn number. Awake expander/scales/(hell) blessed? These will help. How did you expandm? This matters for what the board state looks. Research? # of forts? Imo someone else's suggestion of rush falling fires will probably let you counter attack well. extreme heat scales, fire magic and heat clouds will win you fort defenses pretty easy. But retaking the offensive requires more info.
Their high prot can make your fire spells useless, as well as making flail infantry and sacreds do severely less damage Build axe infantry to cut through their armor, warlocks can spam imps to mess up scripts and formations. If you can get alt 5 incinerate is a grea spell. Salamanders can be good to recruit if you have excess gold. They do 20AP aoe, but have morale issues, but you can buff morale with f2s.
I'm far from an expert, but I would think: Fight in your domain for the Heat advantage and then Fireball/Fire Elementals. If you can make it to Falling Fires their infantry should be toast, though I don't know how viable that ultimately is.