Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - General Oh the warlocks!

So I'm in one of the RTS battles, things are going well and I have my nice relatively diverse army holding onto an area (5 deployed devastators etc.) while I'm in dragon form off doing dragony stuff and picking off a small group of enemy trying to pilfer one of my points. I notice a few blips heading towards my army and figure that no big deal my artillery will squidge them up nicely. I finish off what I'm barbecuing with my dragon, drop form and pop back to my army to move them up just in time to see that those blips turned out to be 3 warlocks who had cloaked, and started doing their rain of "KILL ALL THE THING" move, which proceeded to turn my nice force into around 6 guys crying and holding each other.

I understand that casters are generally seen as a force multiplier type unit, but something that can go invisible and launch an attack that absolutely devastates your forces? They don't even need to be invisible, I've seen 2 of them come up to my forces escorted by 5 or so shamans. All I could see was little blue bubbles and then my force got torn up again. I've also had battles that I swear at least half the enemy force was warlocks, and it was nigh on impossible to even take a force out of my main base without them being shredded by these evil things. Oh and not to mention this is on the EASY difficulty no less (Does the hard AI use ONLY warlocks? ).

What's the best way to deal with these bastards? Do I just need to keep a throwaway group of troopers out front to bait them into wasting their rain of death? I've tried to put hunters (with the cloak detect ability) out in front of my line but they seem to love charging off and getting absolutely murdered instead of staying put and protecting my devvies and providing stealth detect. I've taken to just using my own force multiplier (my big dragon arse) to do the majority of the work when warlocks start hitting the field but cripes I shouldn't have to fight the entire war myself cause of one unit ability, even though jetting around roasting things is quite enjoyable.

Strategies would be like split your force up into smaller groups if possible and escort your units with your dragon and have heal abilities ready to save them. (The one that makes your regular dragon attacks heal is a good counter as well as the pillar of resto)

Though I have to agree the degree to which the computer can use spellcasters in this game is really annoying when you compare to how horrible the controls are when trying to control them yourself is. Target 1 unit at a time? really? Yea... about that... While the computer on the other hand can insta-polymorph 20 of your units and has their shaman's spamming shields on everything lol.

Also there doesn't even seem to be a "move" only command while in dragon form. You can tell your forces to attack move while in dragon form but you can't tell them to not attack and move lol, so getting them to retreat is pretty hard in dragon form.

Right now I've got my dragon loaded up mostly with passive abilities to turn him into a flying fortress of death. Splitting up my forces against the warlocks doesn't really seem that viable as most of the time I'm locking up a chokepoint. Maybe I'll make a second group of quick to build forces as bait and keep my expensive heavy hitters further back. Still doesn't strike me as an optimal solution when the AI can sometimes spam the bejesus out of them.

A lack of autocast really does make my army seem to be significantly weaker than the AI forces. A force of AI troops coming in with 10 shamans will be able to have 10 shields popped up on their troops pretty much at the same time while I might be able to get a couple off before combat engages, and I'm either doing that or I'm being a dragon and murdering troops. Plus that spell that turns your units into a bug is OBSCENELY annoying and lasts forever.

I can get by with only having an attack move while in dragon form, but one thing that really gets my troops in trouble is the lack of a "stance" button that controls how they engage, ie Aggressive/Defensive/Stand Ground/Give them Hugs etc. I've lost many hunters to them wandering off on their own to pretend their rambo and getting annihilated.

Hunters. Not only can they see through the cloak but they can fire on the move so you don't have to worry about staying in the warlock area (it takes a sec before the damage kicks in, you'll lose some health but if you keep them moving they wont usually die). They also eat warlocks for breakfast. Combine with purifying flames and you can devastate hordes of warlocks. Or a good pillar of restoration can usually offset the damage a fair bit.

I agree on the shaman shield though. It is impossible to do that as a player unless the game gives us pauses that you can issue orders during or some form of autocast. As a result it gives the AI a HUGE advantage as that is one of the better abilities and shamans tend to be plentiful.

I think I should definitely use more hunters, they just seem to have issues with not being able to stick with the group and getting themselves obliterated. Maybe I should just give up with slowly advancing a line with big gun support and go more for assaulting and taking things out, and having less fun roasting things as my dragon lol

There is a 'hold ground' stance in the unit control menu.

.......okay now I feel like a bloody moron, thanks!