Theocrat: weak?

[lucaluca]

so I’ve recently got back to this game that already had my most play hours ever, and trying as theocrat it looks a bit weak. Especially against dreadnought, nothing much I can do. I mean I still win against the ai but with losses.

Thoughts?

 

[Jolly Joker]

It's pretty normal that Theo is a bit weaker against Dread than against other classes, due to the spirit immunity of machines.

 

[Rodmar18]

Try to focus on machines' weaknesses and on resisting their damage. Easier to say than to do, but the game offers solutions.

 

[Fluksen]

Just a question: How do you play? manual combat or autocombat.
- If you play manual combat Theocrat heroes and evangelists can convert units, can be complete imba and broken just convert your way to victory
- if you play autocombat try exalted stacks and clear (nearly) every single site on the map without any losses whatsoever because of their resurgence.

Resurgence and convert are among the strongest mechanics in the game, dreadnought doesn't have access to any of those, instead he has slow troops that don't heal...
What I'm trying to say is that as Theocrat you can outplay pretty much every other class when it comes to exploiting exploring the strategic map and clearing indies, try to use this to your advantage.
In the very lategame armageddon gives spirit weakness (80% iirc) to every enemy so the machines 100% spirit protection is only 20% all of a sudden and that is not so bad anymore.

 

[lucaluca]

Before Armageddon, yes I can use exalted but they take 2 turns to build.

I play all the battles and my convert rate is pretty low, maybe35-40 percent . Failing to convert can be a death sentence for the evangelist

Exalted are fast but everything else is slow... so early and mid games seems pretty bad.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Do you play the vanilla game?

 

[lucaluca]

Yes

 

[Jolly Joker]

Ok, you have a lot of options in vanilla game, like settler spamming and XP gain maximizing, but you can do that with all classes. With Theo your best bet is to research exalted martyrs asap and then use a bit of XP gain maximizing to produce martyrs and make them exalted asap.

 

[lucaluca]

Right now I find exalted and human knights to be the best I have. Human knights hit hard and exalted are fast and resurrect despite having low attack. Everything else against machine seems trash, but I don’t have Armageddon yet nor shrines of smithing

 

[Rodmar18]

Even if you play a Human Theocrat, you can recruit Fire Drakes and/or Elven Longbows and Storm Sisters, depending on the map. That's what I meant when I said that the game offers solutions. True, this depends on your neighbourhood, but you could find other interresting allies.

 

[lucaluca]

I exploited the weak ai position of armies and attacking their 3 huge stacks piecemeal .

I also had an archdruid hero and used his rust strike, very good spell. Some of the machines overload, and Some need one turn reload. But when they hit, their brutal.

The dreadnought fleets are especially strong because they get the buffs from the great mobilization

 

[Zalanthis]

Craft shock bolt staffs with your forge and distribute them to all heroes. Look for shock serpents, storm sisters, other units that use shock.