What's the most overpowered strategy you can think of?

I once made a custom roleplayed Amarian faction. The story concept was that they were a Magocracy of rebellious mages opposed to Queen Procipunee and the rest of the nobility. Being a splinter faction of outcast mages and no nobility = no knights, I figured I should pick the "unarmored" trait for them. Storywise I reasoned that lack of restraint, ethics and reckless use of magic should make them vulnerable to it's effects, so I picked "weakness to magic" as well. In exchange I picked all the traits that favor magic users (Decalon, channelers, enchanters)

I further handicapped them by forcing on myself the roleplayed limitation that a Magocracy of elitist mages shouldn't be able to build towns filled with common peasants or fortresses filled with non-magical brutes, and limit itself to only Seminaries. I would raze any other city type I conquered.

Yeah... that didn't turn out to be such a gimped faction as I thought! I quickly blazed through the research tree, but was declared war upon a lot due to my tiny army making me seem much weaker than I really was. However, I destroyed every stack of doom that was sent against me by the AI by continually bombarding them with strategic spells (scattering them with tornadoes, incinerating them with fire magic, etc). I had a very low gold income for the size of my empire, but that only lasted until I figured out that I could turn my huge mana surplus into as much gold as I could want through alchemy. Before long I was shaping the world itself by creating the Elemental version of the Great Wall (A huge mountain range surrounding my entire domain). A single bottleneck guarded by my heroes and my best troops gave me plenty of time to build a magical paradise where all monsters were eradicated and no faction could attack. Each hero was given path of the mage and could cripple large monsters (fire dart crits were my best friend). Before unleashing them on the world I gave each of my heroes full stacks of battlemage companies who would destroy the rank-and-file of the AI factions while my heroes killed the heroes and other high-priority targets in the tactical battles.

It was very one-sided, but still the most fun I had in any playthrough!

I should mention that this was on "normal" difficulty. Maybe on higher difficulty the AI wouldn't have given me time hoard so much mana.

I just beat the game with the above setup, on insane.  It was trivially easy.  I only tamed one beast, a cave bear, and produced no clubbers  I had my first henchman on turn 25, started the quest loop on turn 32, and by turn 60 had a stack of Doom.  On turn 85 I had enough for two stacks, and sent the stronger one against Ceresa, then Kraxis.  My guys were untouchable, with +8 to initiative, + 21 to armor, and + 75 to magic resistance. (stacked army bonuses)  What my stacked experience bonus was, I can't begin to know, but I bet it was over x4.

I started in the middle of the map, so I kept the second stack in reserve (while of course still questing)  I followed the above strategy almost to the letter, with two exceptions.  My starting champion, B-something the beggar had Earth, so I boosted production instead of mana, and I had him become a warrior because he scouted a nice throng of monsters that I made him kill and loot (They were too far away from Capital to make it worth my sovereign time to go there)

 I did not keep many saves, but I have a save on turn 1, so I could replay it and post samples, if anyone doubts the effectiveness of the strategy.  By the way, I messed up twice, and my sovereign had to rest for 10 turns. That had no effect on the strategy, because it was before turn 25.  The sovereign was quite undistinguished, really, which is not how my sovereigns usually are.

So, which one was it, Unarmored or Weakness to Magic? Can't pick two.

Can't anymore, could before.

AI usually falls to a good champion rush.

I kinda followed that tact but not with custom race, i went Altar. I had 3 heroes no henchmen yet and i was clearing the land quite easy. And then i fell to a Dark Wizard roaming the land

All we need is making AI use those henchmen effectively, and we, really, need, more heroes on the map. Or like wondering heroes or visiting heroes like in MoM (my god, a 18 years old game has better mechanics..... almost unbelievable)

Funny story.  Today some dark wizards (rating: Deadly) attacked one of my newly-acquired units (rating: Weak) and since I figured that it was doomed, I hit auto-resolve, fully expecting that my new Horsemen would get toastified.

Um, no.  Those wizards died horribly and my Horseman unit was only down to 50% hitpoints.

I think I'll have to load my game up and see if the Horsemen had Spell Resist, 'cause otherwise they should have died.

*loads* Hmm nope just the basic level-based Spell Resist.  The thing to look at is their hitpoints - over a hundred at (now) level 8.  It's the Guild Grocer 10% hitpoint bonus working in my favour I guess (twice in this case).

I don't think we need more heroes. The AI has to use them in a much better way. Not running around in my country alone trying to raze my rescources which they never reach in time. Or giving them the best weapons, armour and above all horses when sitting on a 20000 Gildar stash.

When? Definitely not upon release.

Early rush with Magnar.

Create Slave Scout and Cheap Slave in Unit Design. Cast Consume to unnecessary shards for 200 mana, if there are any, and cast Heart of Fire to your cities (+1 Fire Attack per Essence). Build Slave Scout or Cheap Slave each turn. Search for nearby factions. When meet a faction, propose Economic Treaty to create roads between your capitals. Go to their cities by roads, declare war and capture cities. In tactical battle use Wither, Blindness, Curse, Death Lash, Candlecloak, Cull the Weak depending on situation. Build one Cheap Slave per turn in captured cities (cast Consume and Heart of Fire depending on situation). When you meet several factions you can earn money by declaring war. But you don't need to declare war to more than one faction. Mana and health regeneration are almost infinite, because Cull the Weak converts Slaves to mana/health. So N cities can produce N x 20 mana per turn.

Technology order: Civics -> Trading for Economic Treaties, Training -> Drills for +Army Size.

altar are overpowered. nothing compares. end of story. 

I play backwards.  I try to find the worst combination.  Must be why I like playing as Procipinee.

I used my first custom sovereign--Kul-al-Kulan and just used the Urxen--i would say that beast lord is probably the strongest strategy that I have used.  I have not created a custom faction.

Try using Procipinee, on sparse resources, sparse magic, and dense monsters.  It is absolutely brutal.  It is so hard to even get started

I have won with Procipinee a few times on expert.  She's indeed the hardest to play with, and her troops are bad.  It's just that I do not particularly enjoy playing a side that's so obviously weaker than its neighbors. I may or may not be able to win with Procipinee on ridiculous, but if I do, I am pretty sure that I will not enjoy it.

I love playing with the weakest character, or at least the character that takes the most time to develop.  Procipinee actually can get pretty powerful by the end of the game.  It just takes a lot of time, and is a pretty misrable road for a while.  That is also why I changed the world to make it more difficult.  I do not play on the upper levels, I think Challenging is the right level for me right now.  Maybe one notch up, I have not tried it yet.  Still having fun changing the world conditions.  Played a game with Relias and change the champions to none.  That was kind of interesting.

I do not get the intended effect of this one.

Relias is the one sovereign who does not need any champions. By doing this you are hurting all the AI, and leaving yourself unaffected.

Ya that seems like an interesting choice for an Empire like Magnar because you don't want challengers to throne, but it's more of an RP decision because the AI kind of depends on them. So, ultimately it is easier.

I actually did not know I had done it.  I wanted to play a quick game, so I set up a tiny map with one competitor--I think Verga is the one that showed up).  I didn't realize until after I started I did not have any champions.  It was a pretty fun game.  I had never used the henchman before, and I didn't even research them until the game was basically over.  It was fun to have a sovereign lead an army, instead of having the Lord of the Rings fellowship.

I actually might play like that more often, I typically play with Procipinee, Magnar, or Verga.  I do not like the direction the game went and is going with champions.  Champions are way to powerful, I do not think they should have access to magic, and now their injuries are irrrelevant because of the Iru Elixir (add the elixir thats fine, have it cost double the amount and it only cures one injury 25% of the time).  Any champion in the game now could just be a Sovereign.  The original lore, and even part of the cut scene in the beginning is the "few" channelers lead nations.  People rally behind the few that have access to magic.  Hell, everybody in the game is channeler and has access to magic.

Champions should only be able to cast spells the Sovereign imbue them with.

I absolutely agree with you on this one, but we are so in the minority it's not even funny. And now that this decision has been made, it is too late to change it.

Seriously, there's at least 10 champions that are ridiculously more likely to make a better nation leader than any level 1 sovereign. Hell, when you have henchmen, your sovereign stops being the most valuable unit in your army.  By level 20, henchmen start surpassing him in levels.

The point is that your sov can be tailored over time, depending on luck, into exactly what you want.

So can Nochd, or any henchman.  And good luck getting your sovereign as powerful as some of the level 9 champions by level 9.

Why aren't THEY leading a nation?  Some of them sound very much like leadership material.

Hell, Nochd would be a better leader for Pariden than Procipinee.  I am not really exaggerating.  It may be easier developing a safe strategy with him that with her.  If he had just one level in 'Life', then there would be no 'may' about it.

I thought I read a post recently where Frogboy said he wants the champions to be more important. I cannot even imagine how that is possible. Once you get a Champion, you can pretty much just sit the Sovereign down in a chair and let them eat cake.  I do a couple of things to limit my side.  Mage Champions can only wear robes (sometimes I change this to leather--not sure when this is) and can only use staffs.  Archers can only wear leather, unless faction has special chain mail (Tarth).  Same for trained units.  Mage units are only in robes, and archers can go up to leather (exception still applies).  My Path of the Warrior sovereigns I do not let them use spells with the exception of city enchantments.

I might try playing a game as Karavox with the Kraxis and get rid of the champions.  He is the only one that is truly hurt by loss of Champions.

I go the exact opposite route.  In my last game, every henchman was a defender, and most of them were dual classed into mage or warrior. 

It's quite nice when your 'stun' ability comes with 150+ accuracy and 100+ penetration, and is performed with a hammer that does over 60 damage.

Sorry I changed the theme of your thread.

I really do like get a Path of the Warrior Sovereign that also has the option of choosing Path of the Defender or Assasin.  They are just brutal.  Level 3 shadow strike on top of adding the damage from level 3 Lethal is show stopper.  Put them on a horse with the Sword of Wrath.  It is just as bad to hit them as just stand there and get whooped.  Although I am starting to like some of those hammers.  There is one that addes cumalative damage.  With horse getting to everything in sight, you can do a lot of damage.

For my first ridiculous/ridiculous attempt I went with a modified version of this. I took enchanters instead of scouts so I could build scrying pools. My sovereign took life instead of air, with the idea of buying air, earth and fire books from my neighbor.

I got off to a slow start because there were only 3 places to build cities until I was able to take out that deep dwelling snake lord thing. However, once I started cranking out the newbies and running quests thing picked up quickly and I was able to clear that boss to open up a couple more city locations.

I must say, this strategy extremely powerful.