General Zhon Strategy

By PeterC

Start by making a Beast Handler, obviously. He should be placed somewhere a little closer to the enemy than your starting position. Set him in between two sacred sites. Get him to make two Lodestones, a Beast Tamer and then infinite Hunters.

Thirsha should go off to another part of the map and make a Beast Handler in between two sacred sites, who will repeat the process, while leaving out the Beast Tamer usually. By now your mana will be low, so send Thirsha off building Lodestones all over the place, supplementing your income. Use her to make Beast Handlers in spots where they cannot get there easily. Build a Death Totem in a few good places, but do so sparingly. Zhon's defence may be one of the best, but it cannot be walled in (without an enemy builder captured). In OTAK they are almost never useful, except in places where they can fire down from on high.

As soon as the Beast Tamer mentioned above is done, get him to make infinite Handlers, who can grab mana. If you run low, this is the first unit you should stop from building. Obviously, as your income starts to increase you will want more of these units to build, so do so when it seems sensible. I build roughly three Hunters per Troll, or at least set three quarters of my handlers on the Hunters and a quarter on Trolls.

Attack rapidly and constantly, remembering that if both of you expand peacefully, you will lose, as your builders are so much more expensive.

Goblins are good on small maps for killing builders, so try making a few at the start and sending them straight at the enemy.

In between making early Lodestones, send Thirsha safely at the enemy to "level three" the area and then get out of there. She will hopefully take many attackers and builders with her. This is very important to slow down the inevitably better expansion of your enemy. Once the game progresses a bit, do not risk her, but use her well - she has the best attack of any monarch, and easiest escape of course, but she is very fragile.

Capturing enemy builders is not essential, but it helps tremendously. Try to do it if you can. A decent player will self-destruct a builder at the first sign of any Harpies, so you need to try to use them in squads of three to five. They can fly over together, and five shots should convert any builder without difficulty. Aiming for where the enemy is expanding to is a good thing first because you get some idea of how far they are expanding, second because you get to reduce their expansion ever so slightly with each converted builder, third because your Harpies will be safer, and fourth because your builder, once converted, is much less likely to be struck down by the enemy.

Once it seems prudent, make a Beast Lord. He should make a Shaman, who can slowly replace your Lodestones. Then he can focus on Jungle Orcs and Rocs, at a ratio of five to one. Every time you get five, use the Roc to pick them up, and drop them all off near enemy factories, and get them to destroy them. Ignore the defending units and/or structures. This will slowly degrade their base.

Lodestone smashing is the role of Gryphons, which you should use in swarms. Ten at a time should travel around the map, attacking Lodestones. Click furiously to make them form a cool circle as they fire and fire at the Lodestone. Keep adding to your flock, and get ready for a monarch assassination with them should such a rare situation where it might work arise (ie. Elsin is on red after just surviving a separate attack).

Spirit Wolves are overrated, and rarely do many other level two units come in handy. Obviously the Kraken is a blessing on a sea map, as is the Swamp Beast.

To win, just keep using Orc drops to destroy the enemy factories, and slowly advance with a force made up mainly of Hunters and a few Trolls, and maybe even the odd Stone Giant to soak up damage. The Hunters are very useful at monarch killing, and this is your eventual aim.

The Gryphons should keep smashing Lodestones, and you really need to ensure that you are causing the enemy some harm all the way through the game. Long periods with no combat mean he will get the chance to plan to kill your builders and once this occurs, you lose.

The above all assumes you are against a non-Zhon player, of course. Briefly, if you are not, then the Orc drops are pointless, as they have no structures to smash. Use your Gryphon swarms much more; to get their builders and their lodestones, of course. Try to have a big squad of them ready, but watch out for Thirsha. Her level three spell can get rid of many Gryphons. If they are doing this, the secret is to use maybe five as normal, and wait for the level three to come. After she does that, get a squad of about fifteen, and send them right after her. They will be able to kill her fairly easily under most circumstances.

Peter.



The article was taken from this thread.