HELP! Need guide to Tactics with Amazons (+Xenoplague?)

[The Grumpy Buddha]

So, long time 4X player, zero time X-COM, etc. player here ... looking for some help.

My first 3-4 games were with the Dvar, and by the end, between Purifiers and Tanks, it was pretty easy to walk into an ~even match (or, maybe with a minor advantage) and walk out with no lost units (as you're supposed to). Earlier on, with Trenches, Bulwarks, etc., the story was the same, esp with the awesome Purification mod.

I'm trying out Amazons now, and getting my ass handed to me even when I'm walking in with a 25% advantage in forces. I can't seem to end a battle without losing at least a unit or two.

Suggestions as to the best build/best mods early on, and then later? The Amazons seem so ... squishy!

 

[Bookthief]

So amazon's are a bit more squishy in the early game. Have to ask are you primarily focusing on amazon troops or the xenoplague side of things? Either way I recommend grabbing the xenoplague parasite mod for your units and then infecting the opposition as much as possible. Enemies who are infected take a whopping -200 morale hit, which increases the chances of fumbles greatly.

Grabbing the first or so mod of the bio tree helps burn down heavy armor units by melting it with hits. What are you fighting alot of? If possible i recommend making heavy use of the basic archer's ability to stagger and blind enemy units.

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

So amazon's are a bit more squishy in the early game. Have to ask are you primarily focusing on amazon troops or the xenoplague side of things? Either way I recommend grabbing the xenoplague parasite mod for your units and then infecting the opposition as much as possible. Enemies who are infected take a whopping -200 morale hit, which increases the chances of fumbles greatly.

Grabbing the first or so mod of the bio tree helps burn down heavy armor units by melting it with hits. What are you fighting alot of? If possible i recommend making heavy use of the basic archer's ability to stagger and blind enemy units.

Thanks -- do you know what the names of those mods are?

I'm going to have to worry about the insect-folks soon, I think, in order to expand.

For troops, what are the best Amazons to build? The guys that can cast Sleep seem awesome except that it has a pretty decent chance of not working (20% - 40% it seems). Building up Lancers and those guys right now, but I am thinking of whether to try Xenoplague stuff. Again, this is my first playthrough with units of either type so anything that accelerates the learning curve is *fantastic*. (I'm old, I don't have time to play them 50 hours just to start to get good with 'em! )

 

[Bookthief]

I'm no expert, but amazons really benefit from a combined arms setup. The mods are acidic composite and xenoplague parasite. Biomancers are great support, particularly for their scan Catalogue ability which helps you hit harder and have debuffs hit more reliably. Lancers go off the laser weapon tech of which the tier 1 mod ignition module ups damage a decent amount, the tier 2 mod is actually a defensive one which is real nice. It grants a bonus to shields and ups the stagger of attacks with that weapon.

Should have the grounding harness which helps your units avoid being stagger. The thing about fighting the Kirko is they have biochemical and psionic damage types right off, that last one is important as Psionics damage ignores armor.

TrebortheTall did a series of videos on planetfall that might help. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsRIJ5hQUGEl_pEDIj8EfWORTiaa1Jz9Q This is also what i've been using as a quick reference. https://minionsart.github.io/aowp/Pages/Units/AmazonUnits.html

 

[FerrokenFibrous]

Promethean in general is really good at keeping your units alive due to Purification Field and the Aegis operation. I've had similar experiences to your Promethean Dvar when I've played Promethean Amazon, just wrecking face with full stacks of Lancers and T-Rexes without losses.

Lancers with Grounding Harness and the Amazon detector/flanking immunity mod are your best friend and should be the bread and butter of your army, use them. A lot. They're surprisingly tanky when they have those two mods especially since they have high health for a T2 combined with having the shields up defence mode. But you can't just have a few of them in your army, you need to have a lot of them, as they work best when you have at least six Lancers and/or Lancer Heroes. Combined arms approach is optional since Lancers are just so dang good, and an all Lancer/Pustule/Destroyer army lets you keep mobility on the world map, but throwing a few Biomancers and Arborians in there doesn't hurt (Huntresses are optional, they're decent units, but I don't use them much myself).

For their third mod, either Hard Light or Xenoplague muscles work best. The former helps with survivability due to the shields bonus, but the latter is good for helping you create more Pustules and Destroyers to supplement the Lancers. Don't worry too much about the damage though, even with no damage mods, Lancers can still hurt for a lot thanks to flanker + charge, especially if you assign them to Commanders/Heroes with the Infantry Commander skill.

Also, since you're playing Xenoplague, energy sectors get higher priority regardless of whether the terrain grants bonuses to energy because you'll need it for upkeep.

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

Promethean in general is really good at keeping your units alive due to Purification Field and the Aegis operation. I've had similar experiences to your Promethean Dvar when I've played Promethean Amazon, just wrecking face with full stacks of Lancers and T-Rexes without losses.

I sooooo miss Purification Field, ugh ... so, so strong!

 

[Evil_Fishy]

The first three xenoplague mods (Xenoplague Parasite, Plague Pods, Xenografted Muscles) are pretty great for early melee units like the Lancer. It's important to remember that plague pods heal units that are xenoplague units or have xenoplague parasite, so you can really get in the thick of things and throw plague pods on a mix of enemy units and your units to brutal effect.

If you want more survivability focus, I'd potentially drop Xenografted Muscles for the Grounding Harness mod.

 

[Draxynnic]

Huntresses are, ironically, probably best against enemy ranged units. Hit'em with Flash Arrows, and if the Blind goes off (which it usually will against early-game units) you've substantially reduced their threat potential for the next couple of turns unless they have area attacks. That's usually enough to get enough of an advantage to carry you through if the battle lasts longer than the Blind. Against melee attackers, though, the Amazon starting stack is often reliant on using your hero, you're starting animal unit, and/or your starting secret tech unit to occupy the enemy's attention. Huntresses and Biomancers are both pretty squishy, and don't have Overwatch to punish a melee rush like Troopers and Indentured can. Keep them safe in a second line, though, and they'll pump out lots of damage and supporting effects, respectively. In the long run, though, Amazons are less able to rely on their core infantry unit than some other races. Flash Arrow is always useful to have, but expect Huntresses to end up falling into more of a support role rather than being the tip of your proverbial spear. Depending on how aggressive you are with getting Xenoplague units to spawn, however, this might be a problem that naturally solves itself.

And yeah, combining Plague Pods with xenoplague melee units (whether they're Xenoplague units naturally or through a mod) is pretty strong. It works particularly well with Pustules since Pustules don't naturally have a ranged attack.

 

[FerrokenFibrous]

Honestly, Lancer spam is much more potent overall than Huntress spam since they can be tough af with Grounding and Primal Awareness and they can pin down enemies with melee overwatch, not to mention they do serious damage with just Flanker + Charge + Infantry Commander (or even just Flanker + Infantry Commander, they can still di). They're a bread-and-butter unit against both melee and ranged and can do reasonably well even against fliers. Also, like you said, Huntresses eventually end up falling off and being more of a support unit in the mid-late game, in which case, I think Lancers, Tyrannodons and Xenoplague units with Dazzling Systems are gonna end up doing their blinding schtick a lot better.

People assume Huntresses are the backbone of the Amazon army, when in truth, it's the Lancers. Kinda like how people initially assume you should spam Frenzied as Kir'ko when you should be amassing Hidden instead. Though in comparison, at least Huntresses are generally more useable in most cases than Frenzied.

 

[Aargh]

People assume Huntresses are the backbone of the Amazon army, when in truth, it's the Lancers. Kinda like how people initially assume you should spam Frenzied as Kir'ko when you should be amassing Hidden instead. Though in comparison, at least Huntresses are generally more useable in most cases than Frenzied.

I agree with this. Some factions can rely a lot more on their T1 units than others. Vanguard Troopers, Syndicate Indentured and Dvar Trenchers can last well into midgame and even lategame with the right mods/support, but other factions like Amazons or Kir'Ko tend to do a lot better if they skip straight to T2 as much as possible.

 

[mbuh]

As amazon xenoplague, basically you should familiarize yourself with some mods that only affect xenoplague units.

This may come as quite a shock because the game doesn't specifically mention it. But other units which is made xenoplague through mods are also considered xenoplauge. This is the key.

So early on, the easier way is to use lancer with the xeno parasite (and plague bomb if you can afford the cosmite). The reason is your lancer can self heal themselves with those bomb if they are made xenoplague, and if they are close to enemy units also stagger them (if they are not immune) and often infect them with parasite.

Support from arborian sentinel is very nice too, as it can give shield to your lancer.

Pustules can also be used in the same way as lancers, they just need to carry plague bomb, and if you can affort it xenograft.

Basically there is a one mod and two mod variant of this units, the main force of yours in very early game should be around this. 1 mod variant, non xeno close range units should have xeno parasite, the xeno one carries the plague bomb. 2 Mod variant, for non xeno add the bomb or xenograft (up to you), for xeno units add xenograft.

The reason why there are 1 and 2 mod variant is because of the cosmite cost. If you are lucky with the cosmite rift near your starting locations, 2 mod variant is good. The 3rd mod is flexible, for example if your lancer need the grounding mod, then use it if not you can grab xenograft.

Biomancer is a must, at least 1 per stack is a good number. For their mods, you can put whatever you think best.

If you tech rush to plague lord, preferably the latest is at turn 25, so try to get it before turn 20. Leave independent or marauder stack with 6 units in it when you haven't have the plague lord tech, the reason is you want to save this to sling shot few to several destroyers to plague lord as fast as possible. If i recall correctly there is a strategic op that debuff entire stack with parasite infection, this is very good for that.

It's quite possible to have 4-8 plague lords by turn 20, if you are lucky. Which at this point, there is little in the game that can counter it, the AI especially can't do anything.

For late game, you may want to create two type of stacks. The 1st type is comprised of all inherently xenoplague units, the other is non inherently xenoplague or rather artificial xenoplague. The hyper aggresion mod is crucial at this point. In the 1st type, any xeno unit can carry it because the 1st type just consist of plague lords (or lesser evolved xeno units which will evolve to the lord anyway), just need one unit per stack to have this mod, more is a waste. For the 2nd type, biomancer is arguably the best candidate, because you don't need many of these, they are just there mainly to provide scans, and rarely backup heals and sleep. The 2nd type will consist of bombardons, tyranodons (either the unit version or hero mount version is fine), arborian queens, and 1 biomancer. Against the AI, all units from both type of stacks can just put blood fury inducers, xeno parasite (or its upgraded version), xeno proliferation, then just auto battle everything at this point (watch out for the oathbound though, somehow the AI is very good with it in autobattles).

 

[The Grumpy Buddha]

As amazon xenoplague, basically you should familiarize yourself with some mods that only affect xenoplague units.

...

It's quite possible to have 4-8 plague lords by turn 20, if you are lucky. Which at this point, there is little in the game that can counter it, the AI especially can't do anything.

Is there a guide to exactly how often/the mechanics for Xenoplague units ascension? I don't have a good sense of that *at all*.

 

[mbuh]

They are based on accumulated xenoplague points, if you infect a unit that unit give point. I think the wiki has info for it. It's been a while since i played amazon xenoplague. If i recall correctly, T1 is 1 point ... T4 is 4 point.

A early game xenoplague doctrine, boost the points gained when there are heroes involved in the battle, i think it's 30% per hero. You may want to put your heroes together, not always in the same stacks, but in the same battlefield, especially when enemy stacks consist of higher tier units, like T2 or higher, preferable T3 or higher.

Which is why it's better to save those juicy enemy independent stacks, to get your plague lords.

 

[trihero1]

just some tips I have

- try skipping to the arborean creature (tier 2 "specialist" unit) that has repeating laser and roots. It feels much more like units you're accustomed to with its 7 range and repeating laser attack means you can mod it in a straightforward damage fashion with the laser mods. It's tanky too with a free action +3 shield move and base 60 hp 2 shields.

(you may ask wait a minute...how am I going to spread the plague with those? You don't, you use other methods like heroes, ops, and xenoplague spawned units to spread the infection.)

- before you skip to the arborean, learn to use biomancer "scan" and huntress "flash arrows." These are *paramount* to success. Scan is amazing because it improves the chances of inflicting status effect, namely flash arrows blind, and xenoplague parasitic infection. Scan also improves the chances of you sleeping a unit. You may want to bring 2 biomancers in a stack to quickly scan different types of units before inflicting them with status effects. Oh did I also mention scan just outright boosts all damage output too? -2 resists is amazing. It's not merely status resists, it's the entire weapon channel resists.

- learn to use your hero as a jebaiter, and learn that enemy AI *loves* to focus down weak units even putting itself into suicidal positions. So namely, learn to adjust where you position your huntresses and other squishy stuff a bit farther back until you find the right spot where they have a hard time getting or there "waste" time hitting your hero. Keep reloading the battle to help you learn faster until you can do it without losing a unit. Remember your hero comes back after a battle if it dies, so it's preferable that it dies compared to other units. Not saying you want it to die to begin with mind you but it may not be helped if you are fighting tough units with not so tough units.

- you may even use your hero as a melee, especially with xenoplague. A pestilence melee weapon, grounding harness, and optional grafted muscles if you can afford the research and you're doing pretty well

- absolutely 100% put acidic compound on all your repeating poison attackers, I don't care if it's turn 10 or turn 200 whether you're a t1 huntres or a t3 bombardon. It's just amazing, since armor is so prevalent. Grounding harness probably should go on just about everything too as stagger resists is super important in general, but I don't generally put it on stuff that already has baseline stagger resist (like arborean sentry).

 

[Bookthief]

So you earn xenoplague points for each enemy infected unit that dies, with tier 1 units being 1 point and it goes up by one for each tier. This is without modification by doctrines or hero skills. These points carry over between battles, so if something doesn't spawn or evolve after one battle progress is kept for the next one. Unless this has changed in patches point thresholds are 10, 12, and 14. Based on research for spawning pustules, then evolving into destroyers and Plague lords.

There is apparently a file you can open in the resource editor called Xenoplague_Definitions_Techgroups which has the exact numbers.

 

[trihero1]

I'm confused by these posts explaining how the xenoplague works.

If i have a pustule and a destroyer in my group on victory, and earned 20 xenoplague points, what will happen?

Will 2 new pustules spawn? Will a pustule evolve into a destroyer? Will the destroyer evolve into a plaguelord?

How are the points in the pool used?

 

[Draxynnic]

So you earn xenoplague points for each enemy infected unit that dies, with tier 1 units being 1 point and it goes up by one for each tier. This is without modification by doctrines or hero skills. These points carry over between battles, so if something doesn't spawn or evolve after one battle progress is kept for the next one. Unless this has changed in patches point thresholds are 10, 12, and 14. Based on research for spawning pustules, then evolving into destroyers and Plague lords.

There is apparently a file you can open in the resource editor called Xenoplague_Definitions_Techgroups which has the exact numbers.

I vaguely recall that there was a patch where Plague Lords were set to 12 as well to make them a little easier to get, but I may be misremembering.

 

[Bookthief]

I'm confused by these posts explaining how the xenoplague works.

If i have a pustule and a destroyer in my group on victory, and earned 20 xenoplague points, what will happen?

Will 2 new pustules spawn? Will a pustule evolve into a destroyer? Will the destroyer evolve into a plaguelord?

How are the points in the pool used?

I think evolutions take priority over new spawnings. If you have plague lord researched it'll probably upgrade the destroyer. Points remaining after that will only be used if it can either upgrade or spawn something new in that order. The big challenge here is that points are used automatically as soon as there is enough to do something.

 

[mbuh]

I agree. Although if i remember correctly, between three possibilities which is spawning new pustules or evolving current pustules to destroyer or evolving destroyer to plague lord, all that was decided by rng not equal if recall correctly, i mean it prioritize substracting xeno points pools with the highest value which is evolving destroyer to plague lord if possible.

In practice i always try to bring only destroyers when i'm about to engage juicy stacks. Which always result in at least one evolves to plague lord if i have enough points which i almost always have, i don't keep track nor calculate though my current points before engaging, i just calculate the points i can get from those enemy stack.

In short words, from what i often experience, it prioritize evolving the highest evolutions most of the time, if not always

 

[The Founder]

But Amazons themself are a hard faction to play. The units:

Amazons generally:
Debuff are among the Amazons biggest strenghts.
Blind. Analyzed. Sleeped. All those debuffs under Biochem. You got options. Laser is the only thing without a lot of (usefull) debuffs.

Xenoplague generally:
Your option is to either go for mostly Xenoplague units (Pustules, Destroyers) or keep on racial units and use heavy modding. You do need units tagged as "Xenoplague", just so stuff like the Plague Pods stop affecting your units and you get the full buffs.
Personally I advise the modding route for Amazons.

The combination:
Xenoplague Amazons is a easy combination, because all your units are Biological. So everything can be modded and benefit from Xenoplague operations/skills.
You should propably avoid Laser armed units, as they synergize poorly with the Biochem attacks and debuffs of the Xenoplague. But you get all the more debuffs on the Biochem Angle.
You do have one big weakness - psionic debuffs. Unless it is full on mind control (countered by feriocious determination), it is the one weakness in healing and resistance alike.

Regeneration route:
If you got issues winning, the best adivise is usually: Get Regeneration mods! Regeneration might be one of the most broken abilities right now.
While not quite as early as the Kirko, Amazons do still get a easy Regeneration. "Regenerative Bio Resonance" has the Amazon mod for it on TL 5. "Oragnism Stimulus" could be even better, if you got sacrificeable unit to trigger it. And amazons can summon disposeable Animals later with stuff like the Animal Lure. But I would propably prefer the reliability of basic Regeneration.
Xenoplague also has a mod for it, but "Symbiotic Superiority" is really late to the party. It is a replacement for the XP Parasite + Regen mod, to have more overall modding space - not a priority target worth going for.

Get Range 9:
One of the worst things that can happen to you, is that you have to charge into enemy overwatch. While Amazons got more options here, ideally you want to force the enemy to come to you.
One unit with range 9 often does that. You may have to shoot one enemy oncebefore they come charging, but generally it is nice if the enemy has to come to you.

Amazon Hunters:
They lack range, unless you use visual acuity. With that you can at least manage range 6.
All bows do skip "cover and unit in the way penalties". So once you are in range, the enemies cover is pointless.
The Flash Arrow is basically a long range (5/6) flashbang grenade. Ideal to stagger enemies out of defense mode and hit them with Blindness. Meaning it can even break overwatch on stagger resisting units.

Amazon Biomancer:
A healer with a lot of debuff options:
Analyzed should be cast on the most numerous foe (or the most important traget), whenever it is of cooldown. -2 damage resistance on the unit type combat wide is a huge modifier. A bit less usefull on the mixed marrauder stacks then on proper AI, but always usefull. Try to use it from behind high cover after having used 2 AP to move. Often you can use it on your 1st attacker or 2nd defender turn.
Sleep can take out enemies for 2 turns, as long as you avoid hitting them with damage.
And a heal is a heal.

Amazon Lancer:
This unit is a melee unit that is good at flanking, but also rather vulnerable to being flanked. My usual modding priority for Melee units is:
- Stagger Resistance. Melee overwatch is one of their biggest strenghts and being staggered out of it makes them mostly useless
- Flanking Immunity. Melee units like no others tend to show most enemies their back after having attacked
However given their laser weapon and general weaknesses and your Secret Tech, the Pustule and the Destroyer might be your better melee option.

Arborean Sentinel & Harrier:
I never use them.
Sentinel got some self-healing in the defense mode, overwatch, tagged as plant (usefull for NPC Growth mods), a Laser.
Harrier is a flier.
Would not use because of Laser.
Howeve the units after the two could be worth it, as they get back to Biochem.

Pustule:
Skitter, Small Target and Flank Immunity make it really hard to hurt the unit after it has just jump/charged in.
But in the following turns it tends to be vulnerable. Make sure the 3 repeating attacks are spent well, or consider running away.

Destroyer:
A melee unit with token Ranged attack. needs the Flanking Immunity and Stagger immunity mods, but otherwise a pretty good unit right of the bat.