Best Way to Kill Unearthed Titan?


Although apparently a very rare event, I recently encountered (well, it wandered into my empire and started eating settlements) an Unearthed Titan. I think the Unearthed Titan only shows up after the "Unearthed" world event (which put some interesting resource nodes around like a multi-metal node). I found it exceptionally hard to kill. It is a walking nightmare - 205 hp, 50+ def, 91 att, high spell resist. Worse, it has fear, despair, blizzard, and a multi-strike (kinda like swipe, but wayyy more effective). It's only rated "deadly", but its capabilities put it way into the epic class. I tried using a death stack (which had been more than capable of eating dragons) with heavy meat shields, spellcasters, etc. I got the beast down to 40 hp, but then it cast despair (which killed about 1/2 of my army itself) and was back up to full hp. Is there an effective way of doing this thing in? The AI definitely uses the right spells and attack combos with this critter. It was almost a game-ender after it ate two death stacks. Maybe a couple of dragons would have been effective, but I think it was highly resistant to just about everything.

(PS: I actually killed it with a garrisoned "deadly" hero army when it was getting ready to eat its third or fourth settlement - major cities all 'cause it showed up in my home territory. I was so disgusted at that point I just went auto-resolve and was surprised when the game gave me the win).

28,653 views 21 replies
Reply #1 Top

CTRL+N! :grin:

Reply #2 Top

i had a "gold rush" event in one of my games rather early and it spawned a titan in an important region of my empire. the thing immediately razed 3 towns within few turns and it was way too early in the game for me to deal with it. i didn't give up immediately and tried a few strategies to handle it, though. I crated a new class of troops (basically just throwaway units) with cutting weapons (the titan is labeled as vulnerable to cutting, but that probably just means that he has some sort of "plate" armor and even more defense against blunt?). i gave them the "underdog" trait (extra damage to higher level units) and extra initiative and charge. a group of 5 of those units (squad size 4) on "auto resolve" took out about 50 HP of the titan; in tactical combat, they didn't even scratch him. so i guess my observation was that the best way to defeat him may be to "auto resolve". i guess a deadly army might even kill him in the first battle with auto resolve, or weake him enough so that another deadly army can kill him afterwards.

I didn't actually kill him in that game. it was around turn 150 and it was only my 3rd game or something so i was still learning and only had maybe 5 or 6 cities and the titan killed half of them. i guess if you already have deadly armies when the event triggers, you might have a decent chance to get rid of him with the above mentioned strategy. may be it's a bit cheesy to "cheat" with auto resolve, but those titans are just a nightmare otherwise. 

Reply #3 Top

Quoting sweatyboatman, reply 1
CTRL+N!

Oh yeah. Believe me I seriously considered that. However, I was already at like turn 300+ and winning handily. It just seemed such a waste to restart. Plus I had already had the "Syndicate Responds" world event and wasted like 30 turns running my armies around my territory killing those yoyos so I guess I was kind of invested in the game at that point. :D

 

Reply #4 Top


I think you may be right about the auto-resolve in that situation. Kinda weird. I'll guarantee it doesn't appear beatable on tactical. Nasty critter!

Reply #5 Top

This is now the second time today I read someone had let go all hope only to be saved from an impossible situation by auto-resolve. Interesting.

Reply #6 Top

Curgen's Volcano?

Reply #7 Top

It's taken me less than 200 turns to finish all my games since April, and I have to admit, the only two events I've ever seen are the girl with Kitty and the asshole with the Kill-thousands-of-citizens spell.

These titans sound really scary, but what prevents you from holding them in place with Freeze/Tremor/Tornado and chipping at them with strategic spell?

Reply #8 Top

Quoting Piglet007, reply 3

Oh yeah. Believe me I seriously considered that. However, I was already at like turn 300+ and winning handily. It just seemed such a waste to restart. Plus I had already had the "Syndicate Responds" world event and wasted like 30 turns running my armies around my territory killing those yoyos so I guess I was kind of invested in the game at that point.
 

There's a thread (one of the monsters are cheating :waaaa: threads) where someone put forward the idea that you should be able to "bribe" monsters so that they wont attack you and they will leave your territory.  I think a mechanism where you can give gold & influence to deter monster attacks would be so cool in an instance like this.

Imagine, you cobble together all the wealth of your empire to bribe this uber powerful beast who then wanders off and wreaks havoc amongst your enemies.  Only to have him return 100 turns later 10 levels higher!

Reply #9 Top

These titans sound really scary, but what prevents you from holding them in place with Freeze/Tremor/Tornado and chipping at them with strategic spell?

That was my first attempt :D. I held him in place first with freeze and then tremor. Burned over 850 mana over multiple turns using the two flame strategic spells (can't remember the exact names - I didn't have Curgen's volcano or the starfall spell yet). He stayed still, right enough, but the attacks did so little damage each I was only able to get him down to about 140 hp after burning through all my stored mana. AND he regenerated like 20+ hp/turn when he wasn't attacked. And when I couldn't tremor him in place, he proceeded to carry on and eat another settlement.

All I can say is I'm REALLY glad he's a rare world event spawn. I think I'll try the "cheese" auto-resolve next time he shows up. :D

Reply #10 Top

If you can post a screenshot of his detail screen, I'm sure that we could come up with a way to smash him to pieces at reasonable expense.

Reply #11 Top

The Kill spell?

Other then that it seems his main weapon is despair so get units with spell resistance. his high armor also would make elemental damage a good idea.

Reply #12 Top

Quoting Tuidjy, reply 11
If you can post a screenshot of his detail screen, I'm sure that we could come up with a way to smash him to pieces at reasonable expense.

If he shows up again I will! Thanks for the offer. Unfortunately I didn't save that game. I just remember all his stuff was red bordered armor, with multiple attributes and a wicked double-bitted battleaxe - also red with multiple attributes. Now that I think, he really reminded me of the Lich King in Wrath (WoW).

Reply #13 Top

I managed it farily easily with my Magnar. I just used the different kinds of counterspells (Despair has a casting time of 1). If I remember correctly I believe Magnar had 120++ something spell mastery (it's from a finished game) and an army with 3 fel dragons and 1 ashwake dragon, with all dragons being level 20++. Gaining levels in an insane speed is easy once you get a dragon early on. It's as the saying goes "get them young and the possibilities are endless".

With my spell focused Magnar who was dealing 100+++ damage with his "pass all defenses" Shadowbolts, even the difficult fights became easy.

Reply #14 Top

Can I be honest? With 205 HP and 50 def... he won't even survive the opening salvo against my chargers. I don't understand how he's eating your stacks.

Reply #15 Top

Shadowbolt owns.  I actually did almost all of my damage to Waerloga (I butchered the spelling, I know) using it.

 

I'd be very interested in running into one of these on one of my games. 

Reply #16 Top

@ Babby. Thanks - I kinda thought having a dragon or two would have easily tipped the scales. Unfortunately I had only *just* found and defeated my first dragon lair, so was still trying to research dances. A dragon or two would have probably beaten him up and taken his lunch money...

Quoting Kalin, reply 15
Can I be honest? With 205 HP and 50 def... he won't even survive the opening salvo against my chargers. I don't understand how he's eating your stacks.

Legitimate question. I probably overstated the "death stack" part in the OP, although they had been pretty deadly agains everything ELSE they had run into. I had been playing a pretty lazy game (fighting a desultory two-front defensive war while my sov ran around clearing wildlands) up to that point (challenging/challenging, large map, dense monsters/wildlands, 4 factions only). Makes for a longer game and I wanted to try out a new sov build without being bothered by the AI (*except monsters). Soooo, anyway, in spite of the game length (and remember I mentioned I'd wasted ~20% of the game chasing stupid syndicate armies around my core area), nothing was really super far along development wise. If I remember correctly, I had three hero stacks of 7 units, with 5's unit sizes. I can't remember the exact mix, but it was probably my "default" of an ice mage, a fire mage, an archer, three hvy cav and hero. All mounted, custom designs. The computer classed each stack as "deadly" (and we all know how accurate THAT is...). I used the spell that brings everybody to a tile (Call of Titans?). After all, didn't look too tough, right? Ate my Sov, sent in the back up. Ate that. Retreated remaining group to nearest city. Won battle on auto-resolve.

In any event, I think some of the suggestions about spell use/mix was legit. And btw, I used a similar stack at a similar dev level to take out Ruin of Summer without even breaking a sweat - and he has 500 hp and about the same armor. Blizzard scrolls are your friend on that one :D

Reply #17 Top


I tried hitting him with Strategic Spells.  I would run out of Mana before you even do any significant damage to him.  He recofers a lot every turn.  Unfortunately the one time I ran into him, was about mid way in the game, I did not have enough mana to really jurt him on the strategic map.

The Unearthed Titan is a significant problem.  I pretty much just gave him that portion of the map and let him have it.  I never did beat him.

 

***edit***don't change him, I thought it was an awesome event in the game.

Reply #18 Top


By the sounds of it, the issue is Despair. It's one of those spells that exists to teach you the deeply profound error of neglecting your magic. It's laughably easy to lock it down with the counterspells and beat in the face of whoever is using it, but if you don't have any magic? Ouch time....

And yes, usually the autoresolve hilariously misrepresents the power of Despair so you can end up with a much better result.

Reply #19 Top

Troops who act first in combat and charge or shoot shit also make things easier.

Reply #20 Top


General reply: PLEASE PLEASE DON'T change him!! He's the kind of frustration factor that makes me love this game more!

Reply #21 Top

Quoting Piglet007, reply 21

General reply: PLEASE PLEASE DON'T change him!! He's the kind of frustration factor that makes me love this game more!

 

Completely agree.  After so many years of wandering, give him a pet dragon.