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Advice for Eradication Mages

Eradication (Red) mages are powerful on offense, but their defensive abilities are often relatively weak. Red dragons, in relative large numbers, are a good second stack, but they are costly and you will notice their weakness against cold attacks fairly quickly. Most other eradication units simply die in droves, which bodes ill for eradication mages defending against land grabs.

For that reason, and that the Red Dragons don't use too much mana, try some liches as supplements to your army. The current relative weakness of eradication creatures almost necessitates that eradication mages seek non-eradication units. Eradication mages also have the benefit of using spells such as Gravity Pull, a surprisingly effective strategy (many opponents, particularly ascendant mages, seem to favor flying creatures or have no choice).

The next best eradication unit, however, is perhaps the hydra. They regenerate, and when used with items that promote this ability, hydra can be successfully incorporated into an eradication mages army. The primary problem faced by eradication mages is money production. To generate a significant income, you must have lots of people. Eradication mages need lots of farms and towns. Eradication mages often run at negative in this resource, and any eradication mage who wants to be highly ranked must learn to run at a high negative in income. Beware using units that consume your population, such as Lich and Vampires or you may all too quickly find yourself with a problem you cannot easily solve. Perhaps the best defensive spell and item combination for eradication mages is Inferno and Strange Metallic Can. Inferno costs lost of magic power, but it usually wipes out your opponent's weenie creatures. Since land loss is proportional to the number of surviving units of the attacker, weenie units are used to maximize land taken. And since Inferno wipes out most or all weenie units, it really minimizes land loss. The Strange Metallic Can has been known to bring back red dragons, which never hurts. This combo minimizes land, creature, and power loss.

To maximize land gains however try using a weenie troop of your own. Zombies are the way to go here with a sideoption of Nymphs for those who like to keep the beauty levels up.

Finally to maximize gold production get yourself Alchemists and Merchants. They will help you run with even more Dragons.

A simple but in lower ranks effective strategy is using Lizardmen only and the spell Flameshiled, which will give a random stack (i.e. the Lizmen) Fireburst ability. Because you tend to have many Lizmen, it'll be a mighty fireburst. With this strategy you'll win every battle, as long as your oponent uses Zombies, Skels, Doms, Archangels, Angels, Knights, Knight Templar, Ghouls or Treants, as most people will.

This defense is easily broken by skilled players, so use it only in low ranks. It's an interesting opening to keep your heads low at rank 1,500 or so and gather about 4,500 acres with this strategy, which will not take long, before finally playing seriously for top positions.

Also, because of your defensive weakness, high forts and barriers are a must for every red mage. 2% - 2.5% of both are suggested.


Red:

Playing red is tough and most guys will tell you it's hard to make it to top ten if you play such color.  What you need is a good strategy, discipline, and patience.  Most of the time, you will not have problems facing non-lich/non-devil/non-ice elemental based stacks.  Problem arises when you have to defend against blacks with liches in the top three stacks and blues with both liches & iceEs in their stacking.  To defend against it, you must learn how to distribute your power between your stacks.  Whatever stacking you choose, be aware that your stack will always have their specific weaknesses and learning how to compensate with them will bring you success in combat.

While researching, it is advisable to recruit as few troops as possible.  A bunch of salamanders can defend you against most attacks (ifever you choose to be defensive while researching).  Finish your research at the fastest time as possible.  Use blaze for defense.

When you are playing with low lands, it is advisable to play with a simple stacking like this: red dragon/chimera/salamanders (this is an offensive stacking and vulnerable from multi-attacks; to compensate, be sure to have numbers and use stun for defense to deal damage first before the enemy deals their damage; one casting of dragons will do when restacking).  This is an economical decision if you value your resources.  For offense, use flame blade (this will give you an upgraded attack power).  Against another red, use stun (this will delay the other red's attacks and will help you deal damage first before he strikes).

If you choose to play defensive, you can play with this stack: red dragon/chimera/hydra/lizardmen.  This stacking is economically feasible and can hold multi-attacks efficiently (a casting of dragons will do the trick).  Have stun for defense and flame blade for offense (an exception is if you go against another red, use stun).  Keep high numbers of 2nd to 4th stacks to ensure safety.

If you have enough lands to support a large army (say 4k lands), you must change stacking into something like: red dragon/lich/hydra/zombies.  Keep dragons close to liches' power so that you will not loose in combat if ever your dragons soak up the damage. Liches are the best complex unit in the game so it will benefit you if you utilize their power in your ranks.  Hydras are regenerating and tough, enough to kill an enemy's fodder troops.  Zombies are tough in numbers so summon what you think is enough for you to landgrab your enemy.  I have to point it out here that using night of living dead is risky since you will be exposing your ranks to lots of possible weaknesses.  Wraiths are good in numbers and will definitely loose to a number of troops the enemy has.  Ghouls don't do much damage and you need a large number to bring back a portion of what was killed from them (plus an unjustifiable high power rank they got).  Vampires are good against complex units & phoenices but they are killed faster than you can summon them.  So, I say, if you are stacking up in high ranks, keep in mind that the enemy have good stacking.  In that case, a good way to defeat them is to ruin their stacks.  One way of doing this is to use flameshield or inferno for defense (be sure not to set it in "use always", limit its use).  Whether you are defending or attacking, you can use both spells.  When you go up against blacks & blues, it's good to use inferno or flameshield.  Try it yourself and you'll see the results:)

When you play red, be sure to have weather summoning (to maximize towns for population production) and concentration (to lessen casting off-color failures).