FORO THE LORD ARCHMAGE

It's rather simple to block treants with RA.  Simply use either Spider's Web or Carpet of Flying for defense (web is actually better).  For offense you'd have to get lucky for your item to go through the green's barriers.  There's few units in the entire game that can block treants + RA.  You just need to get around the problem.

OK, so now that I've explained how to defend, it's time to grab some land

I play primarily in the Mega Blitz server and find that there are a ton of red and green mages there.  So I will focus on how to attack these 2 first.

Like I said earlier, Leviathon is pretty awful in terms of offense.  So before your attack run, disband all of them.  

If you want to attack red or green, you shouldn't be putting AA at the top.  AA's have a weak breath resistance and thus die to red dragons in masses and they will die also to phoenix due to fireburst.

A good unit to soak the damage from red dragon is actually zombies.  They are cheap to summon and have a very good Hit point/Net power ratio thus losing a lot of them won't matter much to the outcome of the battle. So here's the stacking I would use to attack red:

zombie
Mind Ripper
AA
unicorn
Lich
Vampire
Horned Demon
Salamander
Nymph
IE

Mind rippers beats all red units except for red dragons.  It would be extremely difficult for a red mage to not have red dragon as their top stack.  Therefore placing mind rippers second is usually safe.  The damage done by your MR and IE should win the battle for you easily.

To attack greens, the best units to be place at top stack is actually lich.  They have great melee and magic resistances and should block phoenix and/or treant's attack well.  However since they are ranged it is rather difficult to summon so many of them to be first stack.  So again I would place zombies top, and my stacking would look like this:

zombie
Djinni
unicorn
MR
Lich
Vampire
Salamander
Hellhound
Nymph
IE/WE (both deal the same amount of damage to phoenix)

The reason why I replaced AA with Djinni here is because AA attacking Phoenix would trigger fireburst whereas Djinni's attack wouldn't.  Placing MR 4th should be safe enough for them not to meet treants.  Your salamander and hellhounds can deal some nice fire damage to their treants.  Lich and vampire will kill a lot of enemy fodders as well.

To attack whites, you must have Water Elementals and be lucky to have them attack enemy AA instead of dominions.  AA's have no poison resistance and will die horribly to WE.  If the white mage is lame enough to run pure dominion, it will be hard for you to deal enough damage unless Blood Curse (stops enemy units from resurrecting) can go through.

You can also attack fellow blue mages.  But since there are many varieties of stackings blues can have, it will hard to guess what they might have.  So really you can just try to siege them and hope for the best

I recommend not to attack black mages.  They have a lot of powerful units that can totally screw you over.  Plus usually black mages are in protection anyways from the constant attacks they get everyday from white mages.

That's about it for now.  I hope this helps and will be glad to answer any questions.

I just checked the spell description for the Holy Light, and it says it only kills a random number of undead units....wow that really blows.  I remember in the old Archmage as well as in The Reincarnation that the Holy Light gives a big AP boost, which makes white one of the most powerful colors in the game.  No wonder black and red mages dominate in the Mega Blitz server here.....

Blue is tough....but it shouldn't be SO tough that only a very small percentage of people use it.

I'm not sure why DarkLord says blues having all complex spells in the game is a bad thing.  Blue has the highest spell level of all colors.  The direct result is that the chance of spell failure is greatly reduced.  This is good because blues will reply on a lot of off-color units.

Do NOT use opposite color (red and green) complex units.  They are way too expensive to summon.  If you really need a good unit such as efreeti, buy them from the black market.  However I would suggest you not use them at all as blues have a LOT of choices to choose from.

Konvikt posted an OK blue stacking consisting of AA/uni/mr/vamp/djinni/fodder.  The weakness of this stacking is vampires.  At the 4th stack, vampires alone will lose you the battle.  I guess it probably is ok in Apprentice Server, but on any other servers where there are ultimate units vampires cannot be stacked this high.

The strength of a blue mage is the ability to deep stack.  That is, having 10 stacks of roughly equal net power.

Here is a very good defensive stacking:

AA
Unicorn
Leviathon
Mind Ripper
Djinni
Lich
Vampire
Salamandar
Nymph
Ice Elemental

Always keep full barriers.  I cannot stress this enough.  Battle spells and items really make a huge difference on the outcome of a battle.  For example, a red mage can use the combo of Stun/Oil Flask and burn everything you got; a green mage can use Rust Armor/Ash of Invisibility and his trees will totally destroy everything as well.  One might say "but man....the upkeep for barriers are so huge".  Well you know what, live with it.  Learn to run huge mana deficits.  Full barriers (2.5% of total land) is well worth it.

Let me now discuss the purpose of each stack in this stacking.  

AA:  Not much to talk about here.  They are simply the best defensive units in this entire game.  Their ability Beauty reduces enemy accuracy and Healing means less AA will die.  Very nice overall resistances as well.

Unicorns:  Obtained from the spell Gate along with AA.  The best possible top ground unit blues have (in terms of defense that is).  Ability Beauty reduces enemy accuracy; Charm reduces the damage dealt to unicorns as well.  Nice resistances.

Leviathon:  These guys cannot do much damage due to bad attack types.  However they are pretty tough to kill due to high HP as well as ability Scales which reduces damage dealt to them.

Mind Ripper:  The most powerful units blues got.  They do amazing amounts of damage and can be further enhanced using a cheap item Monkey brains.  They are not that great defensively (die badly to treants).  But being the 4th stack, they are well protected and can deal serious damage to your enemy.  

Djinni:  Relatively cheap to summon; nice HP, above average resistances; used primarily as defense, but can do some damage as well (attack type lightning is nice)

Lich:  Probably the best units in the entire game.  Other than their weakness to holy, their resistances can match most of the ultimate units.  They also have very powerful attacks.  A smart white can sneak in a unit with holy attack low in the stacking to catch you by surprise.  To avoid this, never stack liches in the top 3 stacks.  Anywhere between 4th to 6th is fine.  Since I'm discussing a defensive stacking here,   I put liches at 6th stack.  They would dismantle emeny fodders easily at this position.

Vampires:  Similar to liches, they have weakness to holy but otherwise have good resistances.  Nice attack types, relatively low HP, but compensated with Ability Swift, Charm, and Steal Life which reduce casualty numbers.  Also does wonderfully against enemy fodder.

Salamander:  Huge Attack Power/Net Power ratio.  Downside is they have initiative 1 so they always attack last.  If a green mage attacks you and he is not deep stacked, your salamanders will most likely hit their top ground units (most often treants) and burn the crap out of them.

Nymph:  Good attack type (psychic).  Mainly used to fatigue enemy top stack.

Ice Elemental:  Nice attack type (cold).  If red mages attack you, IE's will kill a lot of their red dragons.  Must be placed 10th so that if enemy is not deep stacked, IE's will hit enemy top stack.   Also IE's have bad resistances especially with weakness to fire so they must be protected extremely well.  

Other good choices for blues include: horned demons, hell hounds, and water elementals (all should be placed down low).  

There are many defensive assignments possible for blues depending on which color attacks you the most.  If reds attack you a lot, then use Scroll of Protection from Fire (increase fire resistance).  If greens attack you a lot, use either Brooch of protection (increase melee resistance) or Carpet of Flying (make all your units fly so ground units like treants can't attack you) or Spider Web (decrease all enemy stacks' initiative by 1 thus stopping treants from attacking completely).  If all colors attack you, then use either Carpet or Web.   For magic assignment, Slow and Paralyze are popular choices.

For enchantments, Mind Bars are optional if you have full barrier already.  But some people still like the added insurance.  Hallucination is pretty useless since most people would just keep attacking you until they finally find your kingdom.  

That's about it for now.  I will post the stacking for offense later.  Blue stackings are generally very mana intensive since blues rely on so many off-color units.  Keeping the stacks in their proper places is also a great challenge.  But once you master deep stacking, you will rarely lose land, if at all.  

This place is pretty dead indeed.....

I havn't used whites at all here so I don't know if The Holy Light is working properly or not.  Are you running Love and Peace at the same time? Coz that spell would cancel out the AP boost from The Holy Light.  If The Holy Light truly doesn't work, then that would explain why there's no white mages in the top 10 in Mega Blitz server..... Or maybe it's just that nobody knows how to use white properly here

There is such a rule? I apologize because I didn't know about it.  I don't quite understand the rule though.  If I just give my account to someone I know in real life, how would anyone else know about it?  Anyways, if that's really the case, I will just delete my account.  Oh well.      

I'm simply giving it away and I won't ask for it back.

I have an account on Mega Blitz server currently in the top 15.  I'm getting really busy right now and can no longer spend an hour or so everyday playing TL.  I'd be happy to give my account to anyone who's interested (preferably a veteran player).  In addition I will tell all of my strategies and secrets so that s/he can continue to strive for top 10.  Thanks.  

Oh and, if you already have an account on Mega Blitz I will have to ask you to delete that account so that you don't multi-mage.  

Can anyone tell me what this means?

Oracle Error ORA-113


It seems that they explained this in the "report errors" section but I don't speak any Spanish at all.  Would someone please tell what's going on? Thanks very much.

Try this one, I RARELY lose on defense, if at all:

Archangel
Dominion
Knight Templar
Titan
Unicorn
Mind Ripper
Astral Magician
Sirene
Nymph
Dryad

Use Brooch of Protection and Platinum hand of healing as defensive assignments. Spider web is better than Brooch but is a lot more expensive.  If you don't have brooch either, satchel of mist and bubble wine are good alternatives on defence.  Always keep full barrier.  Without full barrier there's too many item/spell combo that can murder you.  After powering up for defense, you should be at
-12,000 mana per turn (at 3500 acres of land).  If you still want more insurance, cast Love and Peace.  It reduces your AP by 30% and increases your HP by 30%.  

Yes AA's do die to mass wraith or mass mind rippers or whatever, but overall AA's are still the best defensive unit.  The trick is to have all your 10 stacks roughly equal in total net power.  Basically you want each stack to be 10% of your total army.  This way even if your top stack is wiped out you may still win the battle by dealing more damage to your enemy.  

Finally, EVERYTHING in low position is God in order to kill skeletons and zombies.  It is the black mage's fault to have these in his/her army in the first place.  Angels are indeed horrible horrible units.  

This is a more detailed description on the pure Faerie Dragon stacking.

I just tried the pure faerie dragon stacking.  It worked decently well....although there are many different areas well I could improve on.

Advantages:

1.  Simple and easy to maintain.  Just mass recruit them.  Also, the amount that you lose in battle can usually be compensated by recruiting during the 2 turns in battle, as well as the turns you can use to build after capturing land.

2.  They have attack initiative 5, which means they always attack first.

3.  They are wonderful against red dragons.  Yes, red dragons.  Red dragons have their weakness against cold, but what people often overlook is their weakness against breath (relative to other resistances).  Thus all the dragons races creatures are all good against them, namely the red dragons themselves, chimeras, and faerie dragons.  Having around only 100K faerie dragons, which is very easy and fast to recruit, I defeat a red mage EVERY single time around the 200-100 ranking range (the range could be slightly different, but basically it's the range where having 100K FD will get you, so you can figure it out yourself).    

Disadvantages:

1.  Huge burden on town size and population, which in turn affecting income greatly.  

2.  Very weak against some other mono-stacking, such as pure treants or pure wraith.  I lost over 100K FD in a single battle once to a pure wraith stacking, could only kill 5000 of them in return.  Full barrier is a must, as pure treants stack will not be able to touch you.  There's nothing much you can do about the pure wraith stacking though.  But then again there aren't many that can do to these bastards anyways...
 
Things to watch out for: your income and full barrier, plus always have weather summoning and sunray

The pure FD stacking is very good early on in the beginning of a reset as one needs not to research at all and go directly to attack mode.  But once you have reached a certain point where you are sure not many people will dare to attack you, switch your farmland and barracks to Guild to complete the research.  Then just lore your way to the top .  I know it's cheap....but everyone does it....so....

White, green and colorless heros can help the FD's.  All their valors should boost FD quite a bit.  Unfortunately Dragon Riders don't work.... What a pity.  

Be sure to use it only in the beginning.  During the middle and latter portions of the reset pure FD's effectiveness is greatly reduced.  When I was trying this stacking out in the second half of last reset, I often captured 2000 per day only to lose all of them (and maybe even more) back.... So it's not worth it.

I hope people try it out and give me results, advice, and CONSTRUCTIVE criticisms.  Phrases such as "it sucks", "it'll screw" and "it won't work" without anything to back them up are just pointless.  

Citamen you will die by this stacks... tried it and true... you'll screw....

and lastly, there is no units named anything! lol!

maybe lord frank can add one... hahahaha

Very informative......... I'd like to know why it will screw? You tried it? Then tell me what it is weak against and maybe be a little more constructive and give some advice?  And Maybe then I will tell you your stacking is tried, tested, and false

Well most people will tell you that treants are better, much better.  Their original HP, AP and Power seem close, but the fact that the spell "Plant Growth" almost quadruples all treefolks status make treants a much better unit.  Just make sure your treants are not in first stack as they will be murdered by red dragons.  That's all.

I don't see any threads as such exist here so I will start it here. (I'm new here, maybe I just didn't look hard enough?)  

Green stacking:  

Objective: to block red attacks

Approach:  There are two ways one can do it.  

1.  First is the most common and obvious:  get units that are resistant to fire.  Units accessible by green are: Archangel, Unicorn.  To get these two units, the most efficient way is Gate.  Direct summoning hardly gives any units per cast.  The Problem: May get useless angels from gate; still takes too much time to get enough archangel and unicorns to be in the first two stacks.

2.  A second approach is to try to kill more red fodders than the red dragons killing your treants so that even tho the red mage dealt enough damage, s/he loses more than you do.  Also, suppose they still did more damage, since most of their fodders are wiped out, s/he grabs little land from you.

Here's how I did it:

1.  Phoenix
2.  Treants
3.  Werebears
4.  Salamanders
5.  Hellhounds
6.  Elvan Magician
7.  Nymphs
8.  Elvan Archer
9.  anything
10.  anthing

Now one would say "come on, surely a red mage can kill the first two stacks easily".  True.  But with the combo

1.  "Scroll of Protection from Fire"/"Rust Armor"
2.  "Oil Flasks" (harder to get since they are so expensive)/ "Flame Blade"
3.  no item/"Flame Blade"
4.  no item/"Rust Armor"

and the helps of 5 high level heros:

1.  Amazon for the Wearbears and hellhounds
2.  Shamon for the treants
3.  Priestess for healing
4.  Berserker to bump up AP
5.   Shiedmaidan for the rally, healing and tactics

I clean out whatever the red has on the ground, thus winning the battle.  Now the heros are optional, but are nice to have.    Expect to lose a fair amount of nix and trees, but you do win the battle nevertheless.

One cool fast and easy but hard to master stacking:  Pure Faerie Dragons

Now since they are 400% resistant to all magic types but green and white, heros like , Priestess(very nice), Shieldmaiden, White Knight, Amazon and Veteran are really helpful for their Valor and healing and such.  Dragon Riders unfortunately won't help these babies  What a pity eh?  Since they have Attack Initiative 5, they will always attack first (unless against other AI 5 units), dealing a tremondous amount of damage (you will be amazed how these teeny tiny flies can kill the red dragons ).  Winning can be easy but defending would be tricky.  I have yet to master defense with faerie dragons, so can't tell you much there.  The key is to have tons and tons of faerie dragons.  Thousands of them just won't do.

Offensively greens can attack whites, fellow greens, and blues.  For white, cast "Call Hurricane" to bring down the flyers.  For green and blue, cast "Flame Blade" and watch your enemy treants or mind rippers burn to hell.   Of course if you use the pure faerie dragon stacking then these don't apply.

Pure treants is commonly seen but it's not good at all.  "Web of Spider Woman" will completely shut the treants down, and the treants will have to take the hit from red dragons, a big no-no.  

Green has the second best set of recuits, so USE them.  Elvan magicians, elvan archors, and faerie dragons are all great.

Now I made the start.  Please keep the thread going.    

I used this stacking in the original Mari magewars.  During one stretch I blocked 48 out of 49 white attacks.  So I think it's pretty good.  Basically I hunted whites solely, hoping that greens don't attack me.  The stacking is as follows:

1. Zombies
2. Efreeti (second best holy absorber after zombie)
3. Lich (no need to mention these two)
4. Mind Rippers
5. Vampires (these blood suckers are safe here)
6. Sirenes (can kill a couple of dominions)
7. Dark Elvan Magician (very underrated)
8. Nymphs (can kill one dominion)
9. salamanders
10.  hellhounds (these two to clean up some opponent fodders)

10 stacks is highly recommended as would many other players.  When attacking or defending, always cast Blood Curse to stop resurrection.  Vial of Venom is good against white but here my stacking doesn't have many melee units, so it's not efficient.  I usually didn't use any items at all coz the constant white attacks will exhaust them really fast anyways.  

Like I said this is stacking is very vulnerable to greens as treants would demolish the zombies and phoenix slaughtering the efreeti.  But there is never a perfect stacking anyways and considering the frequency of the white and green attacks then this stacking is still preferable.  

This stacking is OK against blues, but you have to make a couple of changes.  First efreeti will be eaten up by mind rippers so you should move your own Lich, Mind Rippers, and Vampires up, moving efreeti to fifth.  Against the ice elementals one would think increasing the # of salamanders and hellhounds would be a good idea.  But the fact that they are weak against cold makes it really uncertain.  If they hit the ices first, u win.  If the ices hit your salamanders, you opponent wins.  
Anyhow the following stacking is above average against blue:

1. Zombie
2. Lich
3. Mind Rippers
4. Vampires (these two can switch with each other, but vampires have the flying modifier, so probably Vampires in 3rd)
5. Efreeti
6. Sirene
7. Salamanders
8. Hellhounds
9. Dark Elvan Magician
10. Nymphs

Make sure you don't use chimeras against blue.  Sure they kill ice like flies but mind rippers can easily kill your whole stack of chimeras.  You can't take the chance.  

Last but not least, from my personal experience, demon knights do not absorb holy attacks as well as expected.  So I used efreeti instead of them.  But I guess you could try demon knights yourself if you want.

Different opinions are welcome as this stacking by no means is even close to perfect.  Please give me your thoughts or even the result using this stacking.

thx

Hi.  I just came from the original Archmage and found this great site.  Everything is almost the same and I just love it.   :lol: Anyhow, what's up with these new super strong Blue/Black/Gold/Green/White Dragons?   :queeee:  I havn't done researching yet so do u have spells summoning them?  Or do you get them some other way?  Thanks in advance for clarifying this.