I have had little time to play lately. I've been focusing on Gnolls with the following setup:
4x Life (Heavenly Light, Heroism, Endurance)
2x Death (Wraithform)
1x Chaos
1x Nature
Omniscient
Cult Leader
Spellweaver
The big 3 for power works extremely well. Each city I acquire runs at an obscene profit, I'm currently at 200 gold income and 200 mana in year 1404.
The strategy is all about picking up neutral cities before the AI does, with luck and skill you can reliably get 5-6 neutrals with just 2 buffed wolf riders very early on. That will give you the economy to push settlers everywhere.
Don't neglect defenses, but don't overdo them either. With Heavenly Light and high casting skill you'll be able to do well with mediocre troops against most imaging parties.
Once you've consolidated your territory and your economy, mass spam a mixture of strong units (stick with wolf riders, don't go for jackal riders yet) and go after the weakest AI. Pick off his weakest cities one at a time, unless an easy fortress strike is available.
Your economy and power base will improve drastically as you expand, shuffle through common spells and see if you get something great to cast. If not, buffing more units with common spells is an excellent use of your mana. I got Raise Volcano and Change Terrain in my current game, I'm tempted to see if I can effectively halt strong opponents with Volcanoes. Each will be +3 power, not a bad way to continue expanding my power base.
Gnolls are a hospitable race with fairly profitable cities, so you should have a lot of flexibility in the mid game. I currently have lizardmen, nomads, orcs and Halflings. I think I'll incorporate horsebowmen in my wolf rider stacks as I need something to counter sprites, I can put Resist Elements on them. Lizard shamans might be worth it, but they would reduce me to speed 3. If I go for slow stacks I may as well use slingers instead of horsebowmen.
This strategy is incredibly potent and reliable, and plays much like the now obsolete sprite strategy: Use early wins to boost your economy and power, then expand and dominate. It's much better than sprites for taking neutral cities, any targets without an alchemists guild rolls over and dies against Wraithform. Wraithform is less useful against the AI and you should get boats for transportation instead, but it works well as a situational combat spell. Building super stacks by 1506 is easy, and then you steamroll everybody.
4x Life (Heavenly Light, Heroism, Endurance)
2x Death (Wraithform)
1x Chaos
1x Nature
Omniscient
Cult Leader
Spellweaver
The big 3 for power works extremely well. Each city I acquire runs at an obscene profit, I'm currently at 200 gold income and 200 mana in year 1404.
The strategy is all about picking up neutral cities before the AI does, with luck and skill you can reliably get 5-6 neutrals with just 2 buffed wolf riders very early on. That will give you the economy to push settlers everywhere.
Don't neglect defenses, but don't overdo them either. With Heavenly Light and high casting skill you'll be able to do well with mediocre troops against most imaging parties.
Once you've consolidated your territory and your economy, mass spam a mixture of strong units (stick with wolf riders, don't go for jackal riders yet) and go after the weakest AI. Pick off his weakest cities one at a time, unless an easy fortress strike is available.
Your economy and power base will improve drastically as you expand, shuffle through common spells and see if you get something great to cast. If not, buffing more units with common spells is an excellent use of your mana. I got Raise Volcano and Change Terrain in my current game, I'm tempted to see if I can effectively halt strong opponents with Volcanoes. Each will be +3 power, not a bad way to continue expanding my power base.
Gnolls are a hospitable race with fairly profitable cities, so you should have a lot of flexibility in the mid game. I currently have lizardmen, nomads, orcs and Halflings. I think I'll incorporate horsebowmen in my wolf rider stacks as I need something to counter sprites, I can put Resist Elements on them. Lizard shamans might be worth it, but they would reduce me to speed 3. If I go for slow stacks I may as well use slingers instead of horsebowmen.
This strategy is incredibly potent and reliable, and plays much like the now obsolete sprite strategy: Use early wins to boost your economy and power, then expand and dominate. It's much better than sprites for taking neutral cities, any targets without an alchemists guild rolls over and dies against Wraithform. Wraithform is less useful against the AI and you should get boats for transportation instead, but it works well as a situational combat spell. Building super stacks by 1506 is easy, and then you steamroll everybody.