Green guide
From The Five Pillars
Starlord's quick guide to green v1.1
(slightly edited by Maeczik) (edited by Mettuh for links, spelling, etc, not content)
Contents |
introduction
Nature is the color of peace, contemplation and life. But just as in the real world mother nature have another, rather fearsome face to show if she is angered.
T5P's green alignment derives its power from the mighty forests. Green is the color of life and nature, but beware of nature's wrath. The main strength of green is its unrivalled brute force and its intimate band with mother nature. Green may call the mighty treemen to its aid when going to war, a unit that along with its smaller cousin the Poison Ivys are an amazing attacking weapon. In more peaceful times green can resort to begging mother nature for more lands that she willingly will provide for her good children as they go muld their acres in peace. The main trade-off for green is its units' inherent weakness to fire. A spark is enough to burn down an entire forest. Also, nature is by nature rather slow which gives green units rather low initiatives.
Important things to remember:
- Never use Treemen or Poison Ivys without having Forestking's Strength (FKS).
- Mountain strength (MS) is very useful for green.
- Keep good barriers and avoid stacking an obvious topstack of treemen. Red will burn you to the ground!
unit review
A brief review of each of green's non-barracks units follows:
Fireflies - a simple flying unit with good attackpower. Has its uses as flying fodder. Fireflies are insects now, so they don't benefit from FKS, stampede or animal taming.
Treetop monkies - with it's treetop ability treetop monkeys are sometimes called "greens second simple flyer". In opposite to flies they benefit from FKS, stampede and animal taming. Unfortunately treetop doesn't work reliable, so they don't fly everytime.
Grizzlybears - an allright attack unit low in the stack say 7th or lower. they have their use in an all animal stack.
Rox - greens better flier. A unit that is somewhat hard to stack because of it being the only decent flier green has. Stacked with other green units it will most of the time jump to high in the stack because of the 2.25 flying multiplier. However, along with Cockatrices and a deep stack it can be stacked as a top stack to kill red, although it is a rather risky strategy.
Lesser Jabberwock - greens best medium unit. Has the Disease ability which is good against white. Try matching them with a white guy's Lightbringers sometime and you'll see what I mean. Also has the treetop ability, so lesser Jabberwocks often fly. Don't use them too low as many mages have ice hexes low - cold kills the lesser jab. Good to have around in the middle of your stack to protect your fodder. Has a good amount of Attack Power (AP) and Hit Points (HP) for its power.
Treemen - a lethal weapon. Looking at the initial stats of the treemen it might seem weak. It does have two major weaknesses, the low init of the first attack (and only 2 in init for the second attack) and a -50 in fire resistance. However, when the treemen are induced with the Forest King's Strength (FKS) and the Mountain Strength (MS) from natures ally the mountain king the treemen take on a totally different shape with an AP of around 9k (a nice multiplying compared to their base AP of 3k). You can get it even higher with heroes, spells and an increase spellevel as well. This game has seen treemen with silly APs above 30k a few times. Old legends from before havoc tells of treemen with an AP over 40k. Treemen is undoubtedly greens major attack weapon and a must in most green mages' stacks.
Wendigos - another good complex unit, with a heavy melee attack and an interesting Magic Poison for seconds. It usually has to stand back for the treemens heavier melee attacks, but the wendingos have a 65% fire resistance and good inits. It is rather common in green stacks as a damage absorber and a mid-stack damage dealer. The fire resistance makes them a good choice on defence against reds. Beware of their minor weakness against magic attacks.
Behemoths - these ultimate beast are really though and have a good ranged attack. Being one of greens few ranged units it is very common to battle reds Nidhoggs and other flying units. Often stacked high to absorb damage with its good resistances. A weakness is that it has doesn't have the best AP/power rating, meaning that it will end up higher in your stack with less attackpower. But it is a limited weakness on an otherwise good green unit.
Jabberwocks - greens second ultimate, with strong attacks and decent initiatives. Sometimes I see it stacked as a green top unit to absorb damage, also I've been told it is decent against blue when attacking. Another good use for the Jabberwock is as a mid-stack killer. There it will kill the complex creatures of other mages and at the same time protect the fodder you are stacking below it. Jabberwock have the treetop ability which means they can fly in a densely wooded environment - this is mostly a bless but sometimes also a curse when the Jabberwocks fly and thus a enemy melee unit can't reach them, therefore attacking a lower unit. Always keep this in mind.
Green also has a number of recruitable units:
Woldean Rangers - looking at the stacks it is a good unit, but considering the low resistances and the fact that is is yet another melee unit it is very uncommon in green stacks.
Woldean Mindweavers - a somewhat expensive ranged recruitable with psychic and magic as attacks. The second attack has an initiative of 3 which is a definite plus.
Woldean Archers - yet another group from the Woldean people. One of greens better recruitables with a ini 3 ranged melee attack. A good fodder unit to keep at stack 8th or below. Usually does considerable damage to your enemy's topstack or to the fodder stack it encounters if you meet a deep-stacked enemy. Fairly low upkeeps.
Faeries - another green flying unit. Has the worst AP/power and HP/power ratings of all green units. The good news is that it has ini 4 and great ranged resistance.
Poison Ivys - the smaller cousin of the treemen. A splendid recruitable that benefits from FKS and MS the same way Treemen does. Perhaps the only recruit unit in the game that is a possible top-stack. More commonly though they are stacked as a damage dealer lower down in the stack. For some reason they seem to like to kill Sandworms. Just as treemen they are a bit slow and rather sensitive to fire.
Off-color units to consider:
Magmademons and Lightbringers provide two good ranged complex units for green to consider. They add fire and flash damage to your arsenal and gives you more ranged attacks which is good to deal with the pesky reds that are usually flying in. They are also really good to have around when attacking other greens. Other units to consider are Technomancers vs. black and Salamanders vs. green. Acid Beasts are a good ranged simple unit suitable for 8th or lower that benefit somewhat from FKS and will help to slay Sandworms when you battle vs. white.
Another off-colour unit that I use since some weeks and which are really really good are the blue Winged Serpents. It is true that you do not get many of them per cast but because of the fact that they are animals they are boosted by Animal Taming and FKS and get a very good Attack-power. With them you can even think about a pure flying stack. (Grimwood)
basic stacking
Similarly to the guides for white, blue and red the format used to represent the stack is:1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th/...and so on. It's simple enough to read, the first unit is the unit at the top, the second one is, well, the second unit in the stack.
!! It is important to understand that there is no perfect stack. Every stacking has a weakness, it all depends on your opponent if he exploits it or not. The same goes for you when you are trying to make an attack. The better knowledge you have of your opponents stack the better are your chances of winning. Also the following examples are basic green stacks that are fairly allround. They are supposed to be modified by you to fit your specific situation.
Treemen (and Poison Ivys) are greens main attack weapon. With FKS and MS they have among the highest boosts of attack power (AP) in the game. Thus the basic question of green stacking is where to stick your treemen. Well, you say, why not just stack a huge pile of trees at top and then whatever behind? The answer is simple, just have a A few nidhoggs pass by and see the fun they will have when burning your forest to the ground. Also why bother hitting units like Phantom Beasts or Death Knights that are often seen top and that are almost immune to melee, with your best melee unit. Better slay those units stacked lower that have low resistance against melee.
A first basic stack, considering what we know about the units from above could be: Behemoths/Wendigos/Treemen/Magmademons/Lightbringers/Jabberwocks/Lesser Jabberwocks/Poison Ivys/Woldean Archers
It's a good stack where units can trade places with each other to suit the situation at hand. Stacks 2,3,4,5 can all take any of those spots.
Another stack that is seen at times, that I haven't actually tried myself is the: Jabberwock/Behemoth/Treemen/Wendingo+fodder stack. Putting two ultimates on top is somewhat expensive, but with a good item and spell combination they take alot of damage before letting anyone pass.
When hitting blues and whites, watch out for their Lightbringers that are usually stacked around 3rd or 4th. Preferrably your treemen should not match up with them.
Also worth considering is, that despite their weakness to fire it is possible to win against red mages with nidhoggs using treemen on top as long as they have ground units that your treemen can kill. Using Kazi's Armour and a Waterkeg, your treemen do allright. Balrogs are surprisinlgy vulnerable to green units.
alternative stacking ideas
green has two spells that are often ignored - Stampede and Animal Taming. While stampede helps animals, reptiles and birds, Animal Taming only affects animals but is much cheaper. A stack designed around these spells often works surprisingly well. Just don't forget that you still need a tough top stack - usually Jabberwocks or Behemoths, Wendigos are also possible as it is easier to tune their numbers. Behemoths/Lesser jab/Grizzly/Salamander/Rox/Cockatrice/Treeman/Treetop monkey/Werewolve/Acid beast - if you can get some nagas from the market, they also work quite well in this stack - always use stampede with this stack, positions 3-6 can easily be exchanged as well as 7-9. Feel free to shorten this stack according to your own experience.
You might also try the specialized all flying animals stack: Jab/Rox/Winged serpent/Manticore/Treetop monkey plus Animal Taming, if you want a longer stack add Cocks, Lesser jab, Fire flies but use the spell stampede instead - the item scroll of guardian is your friend with this stack on defense as a cheap solution. Depending on your experience you might drop the monkeys if you have frequent incoming from mages where treetop doesn't work. Pay attention to black mages above you with a heavy ranged stack - they will slay this stack.
From my opinion stacking Jabbs top takes a good bunch of offensive power. I used a Rox/Winged Serpents stack and had a lot of success. wit more acres add more units for example Behemoths on three Ancient Silverbacks (New unit) on four and Acid Beasts on five. Your Winged Serpents will do a LOT of damage. (Grimwood)
spells and items
Kazi's Armour is the green allround spell. It lowers melee resistance of enemy units. Might be worth considering, since alot of your units do have melee attacks. Earthquake is a rarely used spell that is good to lower the damage dealt by your foe, works best together with items like horn of fog or camo paintbox, use it only if you have a really tough stack on defense. Items are very much dependent on your stack, but having all your units fly with a Scroll of Levitation is a neat trick. Shrouding Carpet will take care of the problem with green units being somehwhat slow. Dust of Density will bring fliers down on the ground for your treemen and wendingos to pound on them. Potion of Brawling is excellent to use against other greens as it raises melee reistance (in other words, watch out for people who try to use this against you when you attack them). If you're on a short budget you might consider using Naphtha Keg or Lens of light, they add fire or flash damage to a few of your melee units.
Heroes
A Elite Ranger is one of the best heros for a green. He increases your unit AP - and more important - gets the quicken ability at lvl 17 which increases one of your units initiative by one. Never underestimate the value of hitting first. Another good hero for green is the Mountaineer - he might add Downhill Charge to a few of your units thus increasing ini (but lowering hitpoints, be aware of this) Ice Shield slightly helps againt fireattacks and later on he also gets quicken - again increased ini. Other good heros for green are Lifemonger, Champion, Pilgrim and of course a Artisan - just be careful with those heros - don't try with more than 2 battleheroes at the beginning.
misc
Lastly, understand that this guide is by far not the law on how to play green! It is merely a brief introduction. The most important part is to think before you act and to plan your gameplay. Make sure you read the Encyclopedia to learn the units and to analyze your battleresults. Match your stack against the mages around you and try to use stacks and item/spell-combinations that are unexpected. You need to get inside your enemies mind, always stay one step ahead.
Remains now only to wish you goodluck on your green gameplay!
