Demon Princes

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Post your advice for playing this kingdom in this thread.

Thank you for contributing to the collective wisdom on how to best play this kingdom in Alamaze!

[Maximus Dominus]

Three very powerful characters, the three Demon Prince characters, and I really don't know how to use them to achieve the most out of them.

So, what I'm thinking is, use Order #351 - Demonic Gate to portal them into population centers, and then what? Do I send all three to the same population center?

And then what, if I do go that route? Have one to stir unrest (Order #315), one to rebel population center Order #320), and the other one to usurp the population center Order #330)?

Or would I be better of off having one of the Demon Princes to do the Demonic Enamor (Order #283), instead of stir unrest (Order #315)? Which is better to do? Stir unrest, or enamor the region that the pop center is in? Which helps the rebel population center and usurp population center orders to succeed the most?

[Jon Deaux]

Three very powerful characters, the three Demon Prince characters, and I really don't know how to use them to achieve the most out of them.

So, what I'm thinking is, use Order #351 - Demonic Gate to portal them into population centers, and then what? Do I send all three to the same population center?

And then what, if I do go that route? Have one to stir unrest (Order #315), one to rebel population center Order #320), and the other one to usurp the population center Order #330)?

Or would I be better of off having one of the Demon Princes to do the Demonic Enamor (Order #283), instead of stir unrest (Order #315)? Which is better to do? Stir unrest, or enamor the region that the pop center is in? Which helps the rebel population center and usurp population center orders to succeed the most?

In my opinion, the real power of the Princes is their unlimited range, and immunity to sleep.  And now with their immortality, they have free reign.  They also cost 1/3 the amount to move as a normal Prince.  Gate used to be undetected about 50% of the time, now its 100%.  My strategy would be to use your King and Wizards to maintain good regional reaction while jumping around with the princes to capture PCs.

My opinion again is the demonic denigration and demonic enamor is very situational, and not usually the best use of an order.

Whether or not you can take a PC with a political depends on your influence, type of PC, regional reaction, and emissary rank.  A Prince whose king has 12 influence in a friendly region can usually take a neutral city, so two could take a controlled city (baring other influences, such as fortification, natural defense like the ruthless trait, and maintain status quo.) 

One other cool thing to remember, if the rules are the same since the last time I read them, the Princes never act at less than halfway between suspicious and tolerant regional reaction... which means you can probably go into a hostile region and take controlled villages and maybe even towns without enamoring.  Working together, the princes could possibly take hostile cities.  If you get your ESO, you can have a 4th Prince, definitely worth going for.

The best strategy, in my opinion, however, is one that employs dynamic tactics using multiple assets in harmony.  Sending three princes into your neighbors region by themselves is just dicking around, which could be fun, but not particularly effective.

[Pine Needle]

One the one hand, immortal porting demons x 4 seems unbeatable. On the other, later in the game, politics is not that important with bigger pcs. On the third hand, maybe I'm wrong. Seems like a perfect test case for Jon Dough.

P.S. Above average wizards plus decent recruiting and undead... profit?

[Maximus Dominus]

The best strategy, in my opinion, however, is one that employs dynamic tactics using multiple assets in harmony.

I don't know what, exactly, you mean by that, but your choice of phraseology, I like.

Currently, I am playing the Demon Princes kingdom in game 5703. It is currently the most fun that I have had in Alamaze, and that includes being in two games as the Underworld (two very different experiences with them), a game as the Dwarves, and game as the Warlock.

Sending three princes into your neighbors region by themselves is just dicking around, which could be fun, but not particularly effective.

Well, having done just exactly that two turns ago, and having wrested control of a Minor City from the Giants, I can speak from very recent first-hand experience that it is quite a lot of fun to just send in three Demon Princes via Demonic Gate (#351 – Gate (Demon Princes, Onyx Artifact) from the rulebook but #351 – Demonic Gate from the game interface) just to "dick around." It's way too early, yet, to see whether it will prove to be effective or not, but the Giants aren't actually my neighbor. I'm in Darkover, and the Giants started out in Mythgar.

My approach is geared towards using the Demon Princes in a supporting role - in support of my kingdom's ally, the Atlanteans. Additionally, I have started sending gold and food (and a little bit of Mithril) to the Atlanteans, in a bid to bolster that kingdom economically, as my Demon Princes seek to sow a little instability in the Giants' homeland of Mythgar, even as Giant military groups are shamelessly seizing Atlanteans population centers in Pellinor. In further support of these initiatives, I used a High Priestess to divine the location of Giant population centers in Mythgar.

The Atlanteans are under attack from both the Giants and the Red Dragon. By boosting the Atlanteans economy with gifts of food and gold, I seek to ensure that the Atlanteans' options, as far as which orders they can issue, remain more robust than they otherwise would be without my help.

I am also incorporating some information warfare tactics. For example, I create and modify maps to provide better (I like to think it's better, anyway) situational awareness. Just a few tricks that I learned playing Hyborian War, which I am now applying in a modified version here, in Alamaze. The diving of population centers by the High Priestess provides a better eye in the sky view, which facilitates better (and up-to-date) targeting schemes. Where the Giant-Atlantean conflict is concerned, I don't have to defeat the Giants. Rather, I simply have to affect the margin of difference sufficiently to (hopefully) prevent and preclude a Giant victory there in the Atlanteans' region of Pellinor.

Game 5703 isn't a game of Alamaze that I'm worried or preoccupied with trying to win. Rather, for me, it (along with several other games of Alamaze that I am currently playing in) is a learning game. What is a typical alliance like in Alamaze? Honestly, I don't know the answer to that question. However, I am trying to put into effect certain practices that I think make for a good ally and a more solid alliance.

From what I have gathered over time, the Giants and the Red Dragon are both formidable military powers, even at game start. So, positing myself in opposition to the Giants, in this particular game of Alamaze, should facilitate me learning more about how to deal with militarily-powerful kingdoms.

Timely communication with my Atlantean ally allows me to know where the Giants' active military groups are currently located. This is the essence of situational awareness.

   

In order to better facilitate rapid visual identification of targets, I modify maps different ways, such as in the example, below, from Game 5703. It allows me to visually "consume" more data faster than having to look up each individual population center, one at a time, whenever I am trying to strategize and ponder the proverbial big picture.

   

There's more that I could say, but it would probably endanger operational security.

[Maximus Dominus]

One the one hand, immortal porting demons x 4 seems unbeatable.

I don't know about 4 Demon Princes, but I do have some small experience with 3 Demon Princes, now. Being fairly new to it all, sure, I had 3 Demon Prince characters at my disposal, but I didn't really know what to do with them, nor how to use them effectively. With 10 turns now behind me, my eyes are beginning to open to some of the possibilities that this kingdom offers those who play it.

Demonic Gates imbue the Demon Princes player with unlimited range combined with instantaneous appearance in any population center in the game, whether there's a military group there or not. In layman's terms, what this translates into are options and flexibility for the Demon Princes' player. The repertoire of capabilities that the Demon Princes possess combine to make possible what I would characterize as a prime disruptive force.

[unclemike]

The Demon Princes is one of my personal favorites and fun to play!

Maximus, you may get a 4th demon prince by achieving your Early Strategic Objective (ESO). One of the rewards is another demon prince so be sure to grab that one. Granting rewards for ESO are turns 10-15.

Also, you may want to hire more princes (human) to protect your demon princes. The reason why is that if your king/queen is ever kidnapped or assassinated, one of your demon princes becomes regent. So, to prevent that hire a bunch of normal princes for them to be inline to be regent, while leaving your demon princes alone.

Keep in mind that there are other uses for those valuable demon princes than just political purposes.

For example, you can summon skeletons as one of their special abilities. No other figure in the game can do that, only your demon princes which is pretty cool. And those skeletons really add up. In one game noted below, I summoned a crapload of skeletons starting on turn 1 and raised my wizards to pwr-5 for an unbeatable combo.

That unusual tactic of primarily using your demon princes to summon skeletons early on to develop a military force rather than using them solely as political purposes, ended up being rather fun to play. Having 3 demons summoning skeletons for 10 turns (30 skeleton brigades) plus 3 pwr-5 wizards casting Shield spell (stacks for 22.5 wizard levels total), meant that I had an unbeatable group by turn 10 that took very little damage due to all of that wizard shielding. This very game was the one that caused Rick to change the rules about not allowing skeletons until turn 4, and not allowing combat spells to stack (only one combat spell of each type per battle). Can't have a political kingdom like the Demon Princes have a stronger group than the military kingdoms at that stage of the game. My mistake for bragging about it on the forum...

In game 103 (July 2013) when Alamaze Resurgence made a comeback, I played the Demon Princes kingdom with that particular tactic (attaching one of my turns). Though I'm kind of surprised that I didn't convert all of my pwr-5 wizards into undead wraiths. That was one of my standard tactics to be able to cast 3 earthquake spells without worry of dying, and being more effective in battle than casting guarded attack or self-invisible spells. I think it was probably due to the kingdom receiving that spell at 6th level or something back then.

Anyway, as you can see those skeletons can really add up. That was back in 2nd Cycle, now with 4th Cycle Maelstrom, you can improve your skeletons that much more with experience (up to Elite status) and equip with improved armor/weapons, etc.

So, when you play the Demon Princes kingdom, you may want to consider to not only use them as political powerhouses, but also think about developing a cheap, and perhaps, unbeatable military group that costs very little in food/gold for the combat value that you're getting in return.

[PTRILEY]

Only Evil kingdoms may summon undead if in spell lists. Undead brigades cannot become Elite. But like Mike said, still very formidable.