Draconian iii installation guide

An advanced guide on how to swiftly and consistently defeat large teams of allied emperor AI opponents as a Necromancer.

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• This is an advanced strategy guide for playing Necromancer on Age of Wonder III (v1.802) with all DLC installed (i.e., Golden Realms + Eternal Lords expansions). I also provide advice for certain other race/class combinations in the "Challenge" sections toward the end of the guide.
  
• This guide assumes you are familiar with basic AOW3 gameplay and strategy, as well as the Necromancer units, Empire Upgrades, Strategic Spells, and Combat Spells. You can read up on this information at Fandom's AOW3 website [age-of-wonders-3.fandom.com] , if necessary. For introductory and advanced strategy video walkthroughs for AOW3 more generally, Bob at Black Arrow Gaming is good for foundational strategy, whereas Hiliadan and Marcus Persson are good for pro-level strategy. I've learned a lot from these folks since I started playing AOW3 in 2016. Other helpful resources include Hiliadan's AOW3 Wiki tutorial videos [age-of-wonders-3.fandom.com] webpage and AOW3 Strategy and Tactical Guide [age-of-wonders-3.fandom.com] webpage.
  
• This guide is designed to help you defeat 4 to 7 allied Emperor-level AI opponents using the strong race/class combination of Draconian Necromancer, but most advice applies equally well to any Necromancer regardless of race. It is not designed for multiplayer or auto-combat contexts. It is designed with the below settings in mind, some of which increase the difficulty of the standard game for added challenge and enjoyment.

• Random Map
  
• Difficulty: Emperor
  
• Map Size: Large (the larger the map, the stronger the AI can snowball)
  
• Map Type: Land (AI has an easier time navigating land maps; harder for single human player to defend against multiple AI when there are many more choke points)
  
• Surface and underground enabled
  
• 5 to 8 total players: human player (team 1) and 4 to 7 Emperor AI opponents (all on team 2). There is some debate about what is the hardest number of AIs to face. The more AIs forced to occupy their side the of map, the less space each of them has to expand and snowball. Thus, I believe the hardest setting is 4 or 5 allied AIs, having played everything from 1v1 to 1v7.
  
• Starting Distance: Far (allows AI more time to snowball before you can start to take them out and prevents human from rushing AI)
  
• Roaming units: Few (fewer roaming monsters helps AI)
  
• Cities: Many (allows the AI to capture many independent cities to help them snowball)
  
• Treasures + Treasure structures: Few (particularly harder for the human player)
  
• All Heroes have resurgence: Never
  
• Defender strengths: Normal (for stronger AI) or Strong (makes site clearing more challenging but makes it harder for AI to snowball)
  
• Number of Heroes: for maximum challenge, set this number to max (so that the AI's can have as many heroes as they want) BUT place restrictions on how many heroes you allow yourself to recruit to join you. For example, some games I have limited myself to just my leader, and have declined all future hero invitations. For maximum challenge, you can avoid ghouling enemy AI heroes to permanently avoid using any heroes besides your leader.
  
• Max Hero Level: the lower the level cap, the harder it will be on you. I recommend between 7 and 15.
  
• Settlers/City Founding: toggled off (to prevent city settling, which humans are skilled at and AI are not good at, so we need to remove that human advantage to increase difficulty)
  
• All other settings set to default/normal.
  
• Note: I recommend installing the AOW3 mods called "Movement Orders First" and "Clouds Begone" to increase quality of life when playing the game.

I have recorded a number of video walkthroughs (see links in this section) on how to put this Necromancer strategy guide into action. The most recent walkthroughs involve me imposing artificial restrictions on myself (e.g., using only Hero units to do battle; sitting in my base with my starting army for 40 turns before venturing out to give my opponents a head start) to increase the difficulty and novelty of playing Necromancer. Some of these "Challenge Series" campaigns required deviating from the strategy I've laid out in the main part of this guide, and those strategy adjustments are documented in the sections toward the end of this guide.

Here's a Heroes-Only Challenge video walkthrough where I only allow myself to use hero units to defeat a team of 5 allied Emperor-level AI opponents, beating them in Turn 141. I record episode videos (20 videos total) periodically to recap important battles, troops movement, hero ghouling progress, hero leveling and equipment loadout progression, etc. This was very enjoyable and much less stressful than the 40-Turn Head Start Challenge listed below. Please see the "Heroes-Only Challenge" Advice section toward the bottom of this guide for detailed advice on winning this particular challenge.

Here's a 40-Turn Head Start Challenge video walkthrough where I do nothing for the first 40 turns of the game to give my 5 allied Emperor-level AI opponents a head start, beating them in Turn 122. I also refuse to recruit any Heroes after the first, leaving me with 1 Leader and 1 Hero for the first half of the game until I start ghouling enemy Heroes. Normal Defender Strength with Shadowborn Adept and Destruction Adept/Master. For this campaign, I pre-selected each of my opponents to use leaders and class/race combinations that tend to be more difficult opponents for a Necromancer to face. This was a brutal challenge. The playlist is 90 videos long (85 episodes worth of content) and is a total of 84 hours of gametime. Instead of recaps at the end of each turn (or set of turns) like for many of my other strategy series' playlists, I decided to record everything to let you get a sense of how I made each individual decision on the map and in combat. It's not always the most exciting thing to watch, given that I take lots of time to think through my options during tough battles as there was often very little room for error given the nature of this challenge. It was super important for me not to lose important troops and heroes when possible. Toward the bottom of this guide, I added a section with links to specific videos highlighting interesting/pivotal battles I fought during the campaign. Please see the "40-Turn Head Start Challenge" Advice section toward the bottom of this guide for detailed advice on winning this particular challenge. Also, here is a list of links to video episodes from the series featuring interesting/pivotal battles [docs.google.com] I fought during this challenge.

Here's a 20-Turn Head Start Challenge video walkthrough where I do nothing for the first 20 turns of the game to give my 5 allied Emperor-level AI opponents a head start, beating them in Turn 89. I also refuse to recruit any Heroes after the first, leaving me with 1 Leader and 1 Hero for the first half of the game until I start ghouling enemy Heroes. I record videos every few turns or so to recap important battles, troops movement, hero leveling and equipment loadout progression, etc. Normal Defender Strength with Shadowborn Adept and Destruction Adept/Master. This was much easier than the 40 turn challenge mentioned above.

Here's a 1v7 video walkthrough from a Normal Defender Strength game versus 7 AI's where I record videos at the end of each turn, recapping important battles, movement, decisions, etc. I beat this map in 49 turns. I specialized in Shadowborn Adept and Destruction Adept/Master.

Here's a 1v5 video walkthrough from a Normal Defender Strength game versus 5 AIs where I record videos at the end of each set of turns (13 episodes about 8 minutes each), recapping important battles, movement, decisions, etc. I beat this map in 40 turns. I specialized in Shadowborn Adept and Destruction Adept/Master. I started in the bottom middle of the map and the opponents were mostly clustered in the upper right; I ran into them quickly and took them out early so they didn't have a chance to develop strong late stage armies. For this campaign, I pre-selected each of my opponents to use leaders and class/race combinations that tend to be more difficult opponents for a Necromancer to face.

Here's a 1v7 video recap from a Strong Defender Strength game versus 7 AIs where I achieved victory on Turn 67. I specialized in Shadowborn Adept/Master and Destruction Adept. I spend time reviewing my heroes (skills, items), towns, army composition, and other general strategic principles I followed to achieve victory.

Here's a partial 1v7 video walkthrough from a Strong Defender Strength game versus 7 AIs where I specialized in Earth Adept and Grey Guard Adept/Master. I did not finish it as I got distracted by other opportunities, but you can get the gist of several aspects of my strategy from what I discuss in the video.

Toward the bottom of this guide, I provide advice mini-guides and links to video walkthroughs for additional fun AOW3 Challenges (e.g., Single Stack Challenge, Weak Starting Army Only Challenge) that called for race/class combinations beyond Draconian Necromancer.

Every race and class combination offers something new and enjoyable to AOW3 players. Here are some reasons I've particularly enjoyed playing Draconian Necromancer, specifically when trying to defeat a strong set of allied AI opponents.

• Combat is emphasized and empire management kept simple. You build your army through Ghouling independent units, so cities are used primarily to "Produce Merchandise" to help pay for the upkeep of your growing army. You are not spending much time thinking about how to build up your empire's infrastructure or unit production capacity, so most of your game time is spent contemplating troop movement and combat decisions (arguably the most enjoyable aspect of playing AOW3).
  
• You don't have to worry about Empire/Race Happiness and Unit Morale [aow.triumph.net] as much, which helps simplify things. Your Undead units are also 100% immune to blight, which means immunity to curses, mind control and panic status effects, and the Dread Reaper's Invoke Death spell, which make certain battles much less scary.
  
• Reanimating is liberating. It feels great to throw your Cadavers relentlessly into enemy units and raise/reanimate them 2, 3, even 4 times before the end of the battle. They get quite tanky after a few Champion levels and their Resurgence ability means you don't even need to bother Reanimating them. Likewise, with Greater Reanimate Undead, you can throw your high-dps T3/T4 (or even Arch Lich heroes!) into the fray, provided you have one of your two Necromancer Heroes ready to Reanimate them before the battle ends. If you're a perfectionist like me, it is a wonderful way to make aggressive plays without the risk of losing a high-value unit you've been spending the entire game ranking up.
  
• The opportunity to use a variety of high-tier units via Ghouling. I enjoy assembling stacks comprised of the best T3/T4's from a variety of classes/dwellings and using these power stacks to attack and defeat much larger opponent armies. You can Ghoul units you normally can't charm/convert with other classes, so it feels like I'm cheating the system (and loving it).
  
• A big reason I prefer Draconians as my Necromancer race is because their Reanimators are strong, with 3 damage channels (fire is the new addition), which makes them much more robust damage dealers. Other benefits of playing Draconian include: reduced fire weakness of the racial units, +3 mana per city; racial units that deal fire which helps balance usual damage channels of a necro; a strong set of early-mid Racial Governance Upgrades including cheaper shrines and 10+ casting points on Draconian Heroes. But many people prefer Frostlings as Necromancers, which can work well too (e.g., lesser resurrecting Mammoth Riders feels good).

Hiliadan did a poll back in 2017 about what makes it difficult to play Necromancer generally. These were some of the main points raised:

• Lack of automatic healing for Undead and Arch Lich heroes (when healers are not in the stack)
  
• Lack of economic (gold, mana, research, production) bonus because of the lack of morale for cities, translating in a lack of economic competitiveness, especially in late game
  
• Higher than usual losses against certain sites because of Fire and Spirit weaknesses
  
• Higher (physical) damage taken by Ghouls due to their lower defense
  
• Low population growth because of the way Undead city works

• Hasty Plunder: allows you to plunder cities in 2 turns, which is essential when plunging deep into enemy territory and you want to obtain quick gold and cannot afford to leave defenders behind in newly captured cities. Works well in this 1v7 context. Research this when you need it, otherwise prioritize your Necromancer techs.
  
• Scorched Earth: if you don’t want to plunder a valuable city but would hate for it to fall into enemy hands, Scorched Earth is perfect. Cast Scorched Earth on a city you own. If it is captured by the enemy, it will be instantly razed. If you can recapture that territory later in the game, you can use the Necromancer ability Animate Ruins to instantly rebuild the city. Like Hasty Plunder, Scorched Earth is perfect for this 1v7 context, and should only be researched when needed.

• Wreck: powerful combat spell to help you deal with enemy Undead or machines, as Necromancer lacks attack power against enemy Necromancers and Dreadnought machines. Research only when needed.
  
• Storm Magic: empire upgrade that increases damage of direct damage combat spells by 50%, which synergizes with Death Ray and Disintegrate.
  
• Disintegrate: combat spell that attempts to disintegrate target (strength of 15 physical is quite substantial) which can be a wonderful counter to T4’s and enemy Heroes. If it does not disintegrate them, the unit still takes a substantial 25 physical damage. Storm Magic increases this damage even further.

• Embrace Darkness: to allow your built and summoned units to have the Life Steal ability, which is powerful on tanky high tier units such as your racial T3 (Draconian Flyers), Necromancer class Banshees and Dread Reapers (upgrades their native life drain to greater life drain, as these stack), Dwelling T4's (e.g., Lords of the Deep, Giants. Dragons), and any other summons (e.g., Bone/Obsidian Dragons) you may be using. Also makes all of your Heroes instantly Dedicated to Evil, so make sure you've declared war on enough neutral towns to reach evil alignment.
  
• Black Lightning: if you can research it early enough, it will let you lower the resistance and spirit protection of enemies, thereby allowing you to more easily Ghoul Curse living units, helping to build your army.

• Master Cartographer: The entire world map is explored and stays that way. Explored hexes are still covered in Fog of War though. Very helpful for hunting down enemy capitals efficiently. For my challenge series, this is typically a must-have specialization.

• Rot: Deals 20 physical damage to target Machine or Undead and weakens it for 5 turns. The effect jumps to a maximum of 3 other enemy machines or Undead units within 3 hexes of the previous target. Take this specialization only when you are worried about your ability to deal with enemy Dreadnoughts machines.

• When playing 1v7, I almost never build units from my cities. The reason: I instead build my army by Ghouling/Necromatic Aura’ing T2 supports as well as T3/T4 tanky units. There are only 2 types of units that I will build from my cities: Reanimator and Flyers. Reanimators are built early game. Flyers may or may not be built mid-to-late game, depending on my gold reserve.
  
• Reanimators: once I’ve researched this tech, I build 3-6 of them and distribute them to my armies (1-2 per stack). They are necessary for in-battle healing, between-turn overworld map healing, raising Cadavers and keeping them alive so they can reach gold rank, and inflicting curse/despair with their ranged attack on units your Necromancers wish to Ghoul. Once Healers of the Dead is researched, Reanimators also get Lesser Reanimate Undead, which can help you keep Cadavers and your T2 supports alive during tough fights. A big reason I prefer Draconians as my Necromancer race is because their Reanimators are strong, with 3 damage channels (fire is the new addition), which makes them much more robust damage dealers.
  
• Flyers: if I have sufficient gold to build units (i.e., if I’m not spending it all on upkeep for my Ghouled units), I will (1) build Embalmers Guilds and (2) cast Embrace Darkness on 1-3 high production cities and start building Flyers from them. If the Necromancer Vampiric Hunger upgrade has been researched, this means that these Flyers will have Greater Life Stealing, because the life stealing from Vampiric Hunger and from Embrace Darkness stack. If you can level these flyers up to gold rank and beyond, they become incredibly tanky with Greater Life Stealing and Killing Momentum. You can build stacks of 6 Flyers and send them out to assist your main stacks, clear out of the way treasure sites, etc.

• Lost Soul: early game, if you have the mana to spare, I recommend summoning 1-3 Lost Souls to assist with map exploration and perhaps to assist with splitting armies during treasure site clearing. Lost Souls have Undying, which allows them to come back in 2 turns (assuming an enemy is not standing on their hex) or revive if the battle ends before then. This makes them great ways to split armies (entice a few units to chase it, making it easier on your main stack to kill the remaining treasure site creeps). If you don’t have mana to spare because you are prioritizing casting Whispers of the Fallen and Undead Plague and upkeep on Cadavers, then that is not the end of the world, as these things take priority.
  
• Banshees: if possible, summon 1-2 banshees to help a few of your stacks with tanking attacks. Their incorporeal status means they have 60% physical protection, which makes them great for soaking up initial enemy attack. Furthermore, as they gain medals, they start to inflict a host of useful debuffs on enemies that can soften enemies up and make them easier to Ghoul. Debuffs include despair (-200 morale and 20% spirit weakness), frostbite (-2 defense), exhausting fatigue (-300 morale and -4 melee attack), and spirit breaking (-2 resistance and -600 morale). The resistance and spirit debuffs stack and enhance each other, with each debuff making further debuffs more likely. Despair debuff also stacks with itself, which is overpowered. After a living unit gets despaired a bunch of times, they reach 100% spirit weakness, which leads to 100% chance of Ghoul Curse working, which is very useful for Ghouling T3/T4s to build your army. In short, Banshees are handy units, especially for reinforcing armies far from your cities that need some extra firepower. Because their primary damage channel is spirit, they are also incredibly useful for clearing Castles of the Lich King, which are filled with units vulnerable only to spirit and fire. I highly recommend having 1 banshee per stack for your Necromancer-led stacks.
  
• Dread Reaper: Dread Reapers are amazing. They are my favorite T4 class unit. They start with Fearsome (chance to panic enemy on attack), life drain (6-10 HP gained with each hit on living unit), Invoke Death (11 spirit chance to kill unit outright otherwise reduces unit health by 40), Energy Drain (10 spirit chance to remove 50% of unit movement), Flying (great for siege etc.), Incorporeal (60% physical protection and immune to physical debuffs such as webbing touch and shock debuffs like Stun). These can tank enemy melee units for days because the life drain can keep their hp at a steady level. This is especially true when you summon them in a city that you have cast Embrace Darkness on, which will boost their native Life Drain to Greater Life Drain (8 to 12 HP), making them even more tanky. Make sure to build fortresses on Hearts of the X, build Palaces of the Perished in your big cities, and get enough levels of Necromancy to be able to summon them quickly enough (they take 260 casting points to summon, so its efficient to hit 90 casting points which allows a summon in 3 turns; late game you can hit 130 points to summon in 2 turns).
  
• It is likely that you will clear some treasure sites that grant you Strategic Spells allowing you to summon other kinds of units. You will have to choose between summoning the available Necromancer units and these non-Necromancer units, which will be dictated by your situation and the relative power of the units. Some of my favorite summons are Dragons, Elementals, and Angels. These summons are often more powerful than Banshees but not more powerful than Dread Reapers.

• There are 6 Dwelling types: Archon, Dragons, Fey, Giants, Naga, and Merfolk.
  
• If you will be facing AIs that deal fire damage (e.g., Dwarves, Draconians, Dreadnought Machines), then Merfolk, Dragons, Fey, and Giants are valuable Dwellings to acquire in order to build strong countering units.
  
• If you will be facing AIs that deal Shock damage (e.g., Sorcerer), then Archon and Fey are valuable Dwellings to acquire in order to build strong countering units.
  
• Remember to cast Embrace Darkness on the Dwelling before producing units, as life stealing on these tanky T4s is delicious.
  
• Merfolk: produce Lords of the Deep, which are incredibly tanky pikeman with 80% fire protection for tanking, Slip Away for hearing, Thunderstorm for free long range damage and further battlefield wide fire protection, Projectile Reflection for punishing ranged attacks, Total Awareness at silver rank, and Static Shield at Gold rank. Their native frost weakness is removed once they are Ghouled. By far my favorite unit from any Dwelling for adding to Necromancer armies.
  
• Dragons: produce Fire Dragons (Golden Dragons are Dedicated to Good and will have low morale if used once Dedicated to Evil has been researched as a Shadowborn specialty user. oh well) for 100% fire protection, 100% spirit protection, Inflict Spirit Breaking at bronze rank, and Inflict Daze at gold rank. Please note that Dragons cannot be Ghouled, so these will be one of the few living units in your armies (you'll have trouble keeping them healed without keeping them in a stack with a Hero that has a crafted Healing item from the Forge.
  
• Giants: produce either Stone Giants or Fire Giants. Fire Giants have strong fire protection for easy tanking of fire damage and high health (their frost weakness is removed once they are Ghouled). Stone Giants give advantage in sieges and do strong physical damage at a distance, as well as Demolisher for dealing with enemy Dreadnoughts.
  
• Archon Revanant: produce Wraith Kings, who have floating, Heal Undead (once Healers of the Dead empire upgrade is researched), lifestealing (stacks to Greater Life Stealing with Embrace Darkness), 60% physical protection, and Throw Curse at gold rank. Great for keeping your 6-flying-unit-stacks healed up (I recommend 2 per stack) and also great at tanking physical hits.
  
• Fey: produce Nightshade Fairies with their strong resistance to most everything. When they are Ghouled, their 40% blight weakness is removed, making them incredibly resistant and also strong multichannel damage dealers. I recommend 2 per 6-fyling-unit-stacks.

These items are listed in order of importance, from most important first to less important last.

• Whispers of the Fallen: main source of research points, so important to get up and running early. Will help you reach key empire and tech upgrades that will help Necro snowball.
  
• Produce Reanimator: get Reanimators out to your armies as soon as possible. If Lost Souls is not researched by default, research that first so you can start researching Produce Reanimator.
  
• Stiffen Limbs: slows units by -12 speed (also -2 defense and -2 melee). An essential spell for dealing with tough T3/T4 units, especially when you are seeking to Ghoul them but first need to Inflict Despair several times to maximize your chances of Ghouling them.
  
• Shrines of Unlife: Necromancers run low on mana in early game, so this helps better sustain spell casting and summons.
  
• Necromancy: there are key thresholds for casting points that are advantageous to reach. You start with 20 CP. Getting one level of Necromancy (i.e., 30 CP total) will allow you to cast Whispers of the Fallen in two turns instead of 3 and Summon Banshee in 3 turns instead of 5, for example. Keep an eye out on what spells you are hoping to cast and look for efficiencies you can get by taking additional levels of Necromancy to boost your CP to key thresholds.
  
• Healers of the Dead: Once you start to Ghoul support units, you want this empire upgrade. It allows all support-type units to “Heal Undead”. This reduces the pressure to build Reanimators, as these Ghoul support units can help out with healing (though they can’t Raise Cadaver or Lesser Reanimate Undead, which is why you always want at least 1 Reanimator per stack). Once your armies venture far from your core empire, you won’t be able to get Reanimators to your newly-created stacks, so Ghouled support units will have to be responsible for doing all the healing.
  
• Undead Plague: target city loses 400 per turn, which your nearest Undead city gains as population. Undead Ghoul cities grow slowly, which is why Ghouling is the only practical way to build armies capable of taking out 7 allied Emperor AI. Undead plague can help your cities grow. However, you’ll only have the opportunity to use the Undead Plague strategy if you can research it at a proper time and you have sufficient mana to spend on it and you have lost souls that are roaming to areas where your stacks are not. You will be conquering and migrating to Ghoul Draconian all the independent cities you come across with your main stacks. The only exception is when you are unable to take over a given city because its not near your main stacks but has only been explored by lost souls or other scouting units. When it works out, I encourage you to cast Undead Plague on cities. But I’ve won many 1v7 games when I didn’t cast a single Undead Plague because I was prioritizing other technologies and strategies. Please note that you cannot cast Undead Plague on dwellings.
  
• Dark Ritual: spawns 3 Cadavers near target owned city. Easy way to raise impromptu defenders when enemies threaten a city of yours. If you want Cadavers to remain as defenders over several turns, you need to stop them from decaying to death, which is where the Embalmers Guild becomes necessary to keep them alive and even a little buffed in health and fire resistance. Most games I don’t need to cast this, but it’s nice to have in your back pocket.
  
• There are other spells and upgrades that I have not mentioned because I find them non-essential for victory.

• Vampiric Hunger: helps your Flyers and Cadavers sustain in melee combat. May also help other Ghouled infantry/irregular/pikeman you have acquired.
  
• Harbingers of Death: all Heroes become Undead, which grants them Lich Aura (+1 def, +1 res, 20% spirit protection, turn all units in their stack to Ghoul units after one strategic turn). Aside from the buff to themselves and the units in their stack, the thing I like about HoD is that Heroes become immune to Convert/Charm/Invoke Death because they are now classed as Undead. A hero getting converted or invoked death can ruin a game for the human player. Also, once classed as Undead, heroes can be healed by Heal Undead ability and reanimated via Greater Reanimate Undead ability, which has saved me from losing valuable hero units during tough fights many times.
  
• Scourge of Undead: a very cost effective spell that spawns powerful Undead units each turn (and does not stop doing so unless disjuncted). Makes clearing treasure sites easy, as you can sit back as the map fills with summoned Undead units, who can do all the heavy lifting for you. Because your Leader can cast this at double the cost when not in the battle, once you reach 100 Casting Points, you can deploy it for any battle being fought in a given turn, which is crazy helpful for clearing tough sites or winning defensive sieges that you were unlikely to win. When in combat with AI opponents, make sure to drain their Casting Points before casting Scourge of Undead so that they cannot disjunct it.
  
• Enemy of the Faith: Units gain devout slayer and support slayer. Handy for early and mid game before AI opponents start relentlessly disjuncting your strategic spells.
  
• Power Ritual: added damage for Undead units. Handy for early and mid game before AI opponents start relentlessly disjuncting your strategic spells.
  
• Damnation: cast on target enemy city, which causes defenders to -1 defense, -1 resistance, -200 morale, and most importantly, 60% blight weakness. The latter really makes units vulnerable to your blight-heavy armies.

• Produce Bone Collector -> Produce Death Bringer -> Summon Dread Reaper: you only need to research the first two upgrades so that you can start research on Summon Dread Reaper. I don’t find Bone Collectors and Death Bringers to be worth building; I’d rather save the money to help fund Upkeep on your Ghouled T3/T4s.
  
• Undying Army: bestows undying on all friendly Undead units on battlefield. Just like with Scourge of Undead, the goal is to avoid getting this spell disjuncted. When that is not a risk, this is a wonderful spell to use. I prioritize casting Scourge of Undead first and Undying Army second, if Casting Points and circumstance allows. Undying Army helps ensure your champion rank high tier units are not lost during tough fights, as well as your non-Necromancer Heroes who are liches (once Harbingers of Death has been researched).
  
• Age of Death: 35% of all fallen units from all battles become Ghouls under your control. A nice spell for swelling your ranks but has a huge casting points cost and will be disjuncted relentlessly. One of the last spells to be researched, typically, and also quite expensive to research. In my experience, AoD is researched too late to make a big difference in this 1v7 context, especially since it takes so many casting points and will be disjuncted quickly. I usually find it more productive to spend my casting points on Summon Dread Repear.

• Level 2: spend 1 upgrade point on Stats such as +1 HP. Save the rest of your points for the upgrades listed below.
  
• L3: Lesser Reanimate Undead (4 upgrade points) + Life Steal (2) + Throw Curse (3). Being able to Reanimate Undead will help keep the same Cadaver leveling up and can save your T1/T2 units from being lost in early battles. Lifesteal helps with survivability and will eventually stack with the the lifesteal from a life drain weapon that you should eventually craft in an Item Forge. Throw Curse will help you gain additional XP per battle, trigger aggro once your forces are properly arranged in the battlefield, reduce the movement of high-resistance enemies so you don’t take too much damage during a single combat round, and lower resistance to assist with Ghouling T3/T4 targets.
  
• L4: Protection from Light (5) or another alternative. Protection from Light gives 20% spirit protection and 20% fire protection. You can delay this upgrade if you wish, especially if you won't be fighting enemies that deal spirit or fire damage for a while. If you'll be fighting lots of difficult Fey/Animals/Devout units early on, you can consider Bane of the Good instead. Or you can invest in additional basic stats to increase survivability. Or you can save points to get an additional Level 7 or 9 upgrade when the time comes.
  
• L5: Devour (3) – until your two starting Necromancer Heroes become Arch Liches, they remain living units and thus can’t be healed by Heal Undead. Since you’ll be doing many battles each turn and losing healthy on your Heroes, it will be important to have a mechanism for them to heal up. Devour allows them to eat corpses toward the end of each battle to regain significant health, allowing them to stay healthy across multiple battles. Also an easy way to gain additional XP each battle.
  
• L6: Save your points for later.
  
• L7: Greater Reanimate Undead (6) and Energy Drain (4). Greater Reanimate Undead is a powerful ability that has two primary purposes. First, it acts as a second opportunity to Reanimate Undead that can keep Cadavers and low level units alive. Second, it allows you to revive T3/T4/Lich Heroes (not your Leader, though, since Leader goes to the void rather than leaving a corpse on the battlefield) during tough fights, which is an incredible lifesaver. Third, when fighting Undead units, once they die in battle and leave a corpse, you will have a chance to Renaimate them to join your stack. This is a great way to add T2 support units (e.g., Reanimators) and high powered T3/T4 Undead units (e.g., Wraith Kings, Bone Dragons, Death Bringers, Archon Titans) to your armies when you are far away from your home cities. Energy Drain reduces enemy movement, giving you more options in battle. If you can root a target enemy in place, it makes it easier to focus on dealing with other enemy units for the time being. Once you hit Level 9 and get Ghoul Curse (see below), Energy Drain will buy you more time to stack Inflict Despair debuffs on a key target unit them before sending your Necromancer in for the Ghoul Curse melee attack. If you can keep the target enemy unit in place, you can kill of the rest of the enemy units on the battlefield before turning your attention back to the target enemy you wish to Ghoul Curse.
  
• L8: save your points for better things at L9.
  
• L9: Inflict Ghoul Curse (7) and Inflict Despair (5). Inflict Despair reduces morale and inflicts spirit weakness (stackable!) when attacking with melee or range attacks. This allows your Necromancers, as well as your Reanimators and Banshees, to stack Despair on key target unit you want to Ghoul Curse. Despair stacks also help you do additional spirit damage to high HP targets you need to kill. Get as close to 100% Spirit Weakness on the target enemy unit as possible before going in for the Ghoul Curse. If Inflict Ghoul Curse does not work during this first Necromancer melee hit, the enemy becomes Immune to Ghoul Curse and will cannot be Ghouled the rest of the battle by anything. Thus, it’s important to maximize your chances of Inflict Ghoul Curse successfully working during this one first and only chance. Properly preparing the target enemy unit for Ghoul Cursing is one of the most important skills to perfect in order for you to dominate with the Necromancer class in AOW3.
  
• L10: spend 2 points on Stats such as +1 Resistance.
  
• L11: Undying (8). Undying allows you to use your Necromancer Heroes much more aggressively because they will be revived two turns later (or resurged if the battle ends before then) if they die. This helps with Inflict Ghoul Curse because you can put yourself in dangerous situations in order to get the Ghoul Curse on high value targets where your flank may be opened to counterattack. I have three warnings about Undying, though. First, if an opponent keeps a unit on the hex where you died, you will not respawn during battle (though you will resurged after the battle). Second, if you died and are revived two turns later, you will NOT have the ability to use many of your one-shot abilities such as Greater Reanimate Undead. So, there is a downside to dying early in battle if you are hoping to be able to use these abilities later in battle. Third, if you are killed a second time, you will not revive/resurge, so it’s not a get out of jail free card.
  
• L12 Onward: You have some flexibility with how to spend your points going forward. You can take those upgrades that seem most urgent to you and suit your playstyle. Here are the upgrades you'll want to consider getting at L12 and beyond.
  Inflict Curse (4): Inflict Curse allows your melee or ranged attacks a chance to apply the Curse debuff to the enemy target, which reduces armor by 2 and resistance by 2 and -300 morale. A Cursed enemy unit is easier to debuff with stacks of Inflict Despair on and Energy Drain, which in turn makes it easier to Inflict Ghoul Curse.
  Shadow Step (4): allows you to hop 3 hexes from your current location during battle (it’s unlocked at Level 9 but we don’t have the upgrade points to spare until now; feel free to take it earlier if I don’t mind pushing something else back), which is handy for avoiding death and getting in a clutch Inflict Ghoul Curse. It also allows you to jump inside city walls during sieges, reducing the need for a winged mount.
  Invoke Death (5): as I noted when discussing Dread Reapers earlier in this guide, this spell is a great nuke for dealing with tough foes. Take this after Inflict Curse and Shadow Step if you manage it, as the former make Ghouling easier.
  If you didn't take Protection From Light or Bane of the Good, you may want to take those now.
  If the Necromancer is a Hero who did not start with Stiffen Limbs (5) spell, you may want to consider investing upgrade points in getting that early on to help with Ghouling (though your Leader can often cast Stiffen Limbs from a distance at double the cost to help out in such circumstances). Likewise, Syphon Life (5) can help heal your Undead/Ghoul units during a dangerous battle situation by dealing some blight and spirit damage to an adjacent enemy unit, but this is situational.

See the Hero Upgrades tab of my AOW3 Google Spreadsheet [docs.google.com] , which has recommended upgrade paths for each Hero class when playing as Necromancer.

• Your starting Leader and the Hero that offers to join during turn 1 will both be Necromancers. This is important, as it helps you build up two Heroes who can start Ghouling to build your armies. However, statistically, it’s unlikely you’ll have a third Necromancer offer to join the rest of the game—though if one of your opponents has Necromancer Heroes, you might be able to Greater Reanimate Undead them or Necromantic Aura them to gain another Necromancer hero. It feels great taking over someone else’s Hero that you now get to benefit from.
  
• Aside from your 2 Necromancer Heroes, there are some other Hero classes that are a better versus worse fit for leading Necromancer armies. I’ll detail some of the better and worse ones here. I have provided recommended upgrade paths for each Hero class in the Hero Upgrades tab of my AOW3 Google Spreadsheet [docs.google.com] . Personally, I “request another hero” until I’m offered a Warlord, Rogue, Sorcerer, Arch Druid, or Necromancer.
  
• Warlord and Rogue are great tanky Heroes that you build up to be brawlers. Warlord’s Blood Brothers ability makes your entire stack 100% immune to spirit damage, which is an amazing buff for spirit-weak Undead units.
  
• I like to build Sorcerer to Level 11 Chaos Rift, which allows for easy treasure site clearing, sieging, and winning underdog battles against multiple AI stacks. On the way to Level 11, I build Sorcerers to provide heavy healing to Undead troops via Harmonizing Energy. The ability to stun and spirit break on attack can be good for Ghouling if you pair the Sorcerer with a Necro-led stack. Sorcerer can get floating movement as well, which means you can pair them with all-flying/floating armies of Undead units for easy map movement.
  
• I like to build Arch Druid to Level 11 Summon Beast Horde for the same reason I like Sorcerer’s Chaos Rift. Arch Druids can also help me acquire Shock Serpents (which I like to Ghoul with a visit to a Well) via Befriend Animal. The Call Ancestral Spirit ability is great for treasure site clearing between levels 5 and 11, when Summon Beast Horde is not available. Spirit of the Land helps partially protect your troops against spirit-channel damage, though it’s not as amazing as the Warlord’s Blood Brothers upgrade.
  
• Dreadnoughts and Theocrats are less of a good match for leading Undead armies, though the Dreadnoughts Forge Aprons ability (40% fire protection) might be useful if facing certain fire-type-heavy AI opponents.

• At the start of the game, accept the offer of your second hero to join (they are always Necromancer and hopefully a race that does not hate the volcanic terrain on which you will likely start).
  
• Put your Leader and Hero in the same stack, which ideally also has a Flyer and an Elder. The last two slots should be taken up by any additional Flyers or Elders (you are unlikely to start with two of a kind, though) as a first priority, and as a second priority I recommend Hatchlings, and as third priority I recommend Raptors.
  
• Send the rest of your units to explore the map, prioritizing picking up free resources, particularly mana, which you desperately need during early game.
  
• Prioritize finding independent cities and dwellings that you can capture (if discovered by a main stack) or cast Undead Plague on (if found by a scout and your main stacks are not nearby), as these facilitate early empire growth. Clear treasure sites in an efficient manner as you head toward these cities, trying never to double back on the same path you cleared before. Your main stacks should be able to capture almost all cities/dwellings you come across, with the exception of giant/dragon dwellings. Capturing cities is preferable because it allows you to migrate them to Ghoul draconian, which will help you work towards the Monoculture empire quest (3 free Ghoul Draconian Flyers given to you) and Racial Governance upgrades (The more cities belonging to a specific race you have in your empire, the more Racial Experience you get). If you can hold the city easily, then do so. If you won’t be able to hold it easily because you are plunging into enemy territory and don’t have sufficient forces to garrison the captured city, then do Hasty Plunder to get a bunch of resources in 2 turns time (make sure the enemy cannot recapture before that happens though). You can always Animate Ruins to instantly rebuild the city you Plundered, and in fact this is a great way to earn a bunch of resources and then rebuild the city once you can hold onto it, without any penalty to yourself. If you can’t capture the city and must cast Undead Plague instead, then this will help your nearest city grow its borders thanks to the influx of population from Undead Plague. Make sure you plan ahead so that you can cast Undead Plague when your scouts (e.g., Lost Souls) come across independent cities you can’t reach with your main stacks for a while.
  
• When should you split your Necromancer Heroes up into two separate armies that go their separate ways? You can do this once you have 10 other units, such that 5 will go with Leader stack and 5 with your second Necromancer Hero stack. The ideal composition for your stack when you split up should include, ideally: your Hero, a Flyer, an Elder, a Reanimator, a Cadaver, and a sixth unit of your choice. It’s likely you won’t have a flyer and elder for both stacks, so improvise as necessary. If you don’t have an elder for a given stack, use a second Reanimator for that stack instead. It find it’s helpful when at least 3 of your 6 units have ranged attacks (e.g., hero, elder/reanimator, reanimator). If you have Ghouled/Greater Reanimate Undead a strong T3 or T4 unit or two by the time you are splitting, then your stacks may look different (and more powerful!).
  
• Given the above recommended stack composition for your two primary armies, I have some advice about your early fights.
  
• First, raise two Cadavers as early as possible and then keep those two Cadavers alive for the remainder of the game. Use your Raise Cadaver and Lesser Reanimate Undead spells from your two Heroes to keep raising those Cadavers when you they fall during battle so they can keep tanking enemy hits. The ability to allow Cadavers to tank big hits/charges to keep your other units healthy is what allows you to take on high-level treasure sites earlier than you otherwise would. Ideally, you will have 2 gold-ranked Cadavers by the time you split your force into the two primary armies. At gold rank, Cadavers get resurgence, which means you can allow them to die during battle and they will resurge after the battle with a 1/3 of their health, which frees you up from having to worry about Raising/Reanimating them before the battle closes… one less thing to micromanage. You’ll keep these Cadavers alive turn after turn thanks for your Necromancer Hero/Leader and the Reanimator that is with it in the same stack. It is wonderful when your Cadavers start getting Champion medal ranks because +10 hp per Champion level is a huge amount for this unit, and if you keep these alive over the course of the game it is not uncommon to have one or two Champion 4-6 level Cadavers by turn 50.
  
• Second, it is important to keep your other key units alive. In order of most to least important to keep alive: second Necromancer Hero, Necromancer Leader, Flyer, Elder, etc. If you’re in a tough spot and have a chance to sacrifice a Flyer to keep a Hero alive, do so. It’s always better to keep the higher-value units alive, even if you must sacrifice a lower tier unit. Keep in mind that Lesser Reanimate Undead can revive T1/T2 units such as your Elders and Greater Reanimate Undead can revive units of any tier, including your second Necromancer Hero (but only once they are an Undead Arch Lich, mind you). These two abilities give you some an escape plan when a battle is too tough and you must lose a unit. Just make sure your Hero will have the opportunity and safety to Reanimate the dead unit in question before the battle ends or the Hero gets put in jeopardy. The single biggest way to lose momentum is to have your Hero or Flyer die, so concentrate on avoiding this, even if it means passing up on juicy high-tier treasure sites with tempting rewards.
  
• Third, ideally, you will have started in a corner of the world map or at least the far left or right side. This allows you to meet the 7 allied AI opponents later in the game, once you’ve had time to build up your forces and allowed Whispers of the Fallen to propel your research for a good while. Please note, when you meet 1 AI, one or two turns later you will automatically meet the other 6 AI; they will start disjuncting your spells from then on out, which is why you should not count on Strategic Spells staying up for long periods of time (and besides, you’ll want to be prioritizing your casting points for summoning Dread Reapers rather than reinforcing/re-casting your Strategic Spells). You should be able to explore the fourth of the map closest to you without running into the AI until at least turn 30, so vigorously explore that fourth of the map but do not venture out too far beyond that fourth of the map, as this will hasten when you will meet the opponents. Once you have at least 2-3 strong stacks (ideally with at least 2 T4 units per strong stack) and your two Necromancer Heroes have Undying, you are ready to meet the AI, so you can then feel free to venture beyond your fourth of the map. Please note that you are more likely to meet the AI on the topside than the underground, so feel free to explore a bit farther underground than you would the overworld. The idea is to clear out your back corner/side of the map in an efficient fashion where you don’t have to double back with your strong stacks to clear higher level sites. You need to build up your hero and troop ranks by defeating treasure sites before you are ready to battle the enemy AI, which is why you should focus on defeating neutral camps rather than seeking out the enemy AI early on.
  
• Fourth, in order from most important to least important, you want to gain experience on the following units: Heroes, Flyers, Ghouled or Greater Renimate Undead’d T4/T3 units, Cadavers, Reanimators, Elders, everything else. This order prioritizing Heroes as the engines of your whole strategy, Flyers are your power house units until T4 Ghouls start arriving, T3/T4 Ghouled or Greater Reanimate Undead’d units become the backbone

• In your capital city, start off with Builders Hall to increase production. Rush production if you can afford the gold (you can always afford the population cost!). Build Reanimators as soon as you are able, though you may have time to build a shrine and then a harvesters/embalmers guild before then. Shrine helps with your mana shortage. Harvesters/Embalmers will help with growth and allow Cadavers to chill in your capital without Reanimators keeping them from decaying to death. Once you’ve produced the recommended 4-6 Reanimators early game, you have some flexibility with what to produce in your capital city.
  
• Produce a few builders early on that will trail behind your main stacks. They can build fortresses in key areas to capture several resource structures to help increase resource accrual. You can also build settlers to increase your city density (though I like playing with this option off to self-handicap as humans are so much better than AI are abusing settler spamming to rapidly increase empire strength).
  
• I love research so I tend to prioritize laboratories and observatories in most all of my cities, whether built or captured (I stop building these once I’ve researched my key techs and can summon Dread Reapers). However, if you're clearing a lot of Sphinx Temples early and therefore ahead of schedule on researching key techs, save your money instead.
  
• If you have enough resources, you can build up to Palace of the Perished in your capital (and any other city that has a well-developed infrastructure when you capture it, such as core enemy cities). However, make absolutely certain you have enough gold income to cover the cost of the upkeep for all of the expensive T3/T4 units you will be Ghouling. The casting points are the main reason to build Palaces, as these points make it much easier to summon the Dread Reapers that form the backbone of your late game army.
  
• Regarding non-capital cities, I will build Shrines if I still need the increased mana income, I may build Harvesters Guild for boosted growth to help expand borders to encompass key resource-generating structures, and I may build Embalmers Guilds in key frontier cities and fill them with Cadavers raised during nearby battles to help them resist minor raids (mana upkeep on Cadavers is super cheap).
  
• I pick 1-3 cities that have high production and build item forges. Item forges help round out the items equipped by your Heroes and are a great value. Items cost more mana than gold, which makes it perfect for using your large mana reserve that you should have mid to late game. I have provided clear item forge recommendations for different types of heroes (melee vs flesh, melee vs machine, ranged, etc.) in the Item Forge Priorities tab of my AOW3 Google Spreadsheet [docs.google.com] . Please note that, if money is tight, you will want to consider prioritizing forging Bringer of Goodwill items for your expensive stack leaders. Otherwise, melee heroes most benefit from Life Drain/Tireless combo vs flesh and ranged heroes most benefit from seeker and +4 damage combo. Honestly, you will probably only have time to craft the 3 most important items for your four most important Heroes before the game is decided, so it’s important to have clear item forging priorities in mind.
  
• Racial Governance Upgrade recommendations: Patron (shrines cheaper), Protector (Magma Forges give +10 production), Champion (all Heroes +10 casting points), Prophet (Flyers gains movement and martial arts), and Deity (pick the one that fits better for your situation). In my experience, I win games by turn 60 or 70, which means I may or may not reach Deity in time for it to matter much. The Champion upgrade is typically the most impactful, as it can be eared early enough in a game to make a difference (e.g., helps your Heroes start casting their Level 11 spells a bit sooner).
  
• Dwellings (Giants, Dragons, Fey, Archons, Naga and Merfolk) serve three functions. First, if you can own one of these cities early enough in the game, you can build up the infrastructure enough to be able to produce their T4 units. Second, if you do not have the resources and time to build up a dwelling’s infrastructure to produce troops, then it is best to keep them as a vassal or conquered town. Both provide a trickle of resources to you, but vassals with whom you have a good relationship will periodically offer you tributes and quests (which can help you earn units when accomplished). I find it quite helpful when I am frequently offered tributes and quests of mid to high tier units from a dwelling and can keep an army around their location to help complete those quests. Please note that the units built by these Dwellings are not automatically Ghouled (you don’t Ghoul Dwellings that you capture), so you will have to find a Well of Souls to send these units to for Ghouling before battle (or send them to a Hero-led stack once Harbingers of Death is researched).

• If you play well during the early to mid game, then the mid to late game is not difficult, and merely a matter of avoiding major mistakes.
  
• By turn 40, you should have 4-6 strong single stacks that are roaming the map on their own, most led by a single hero. These stacks should be composed of (1) Champion-level T2 units that you started the game with or produced in the first 18 turns, (2) a wide array of T3/T4 Undead and Ghoul units (the older ones of which are at least Gold rank) that you’ve acquired via your two Necromancer Heroes, and (3) some newer T2 Undead and Ghoul support units acquired to support your more recently-formed stacks of T3/T4’s.
  
• The shift to mid to late game is characterized by turning your focus from treasure sites in your 1/3 of the map to moving your stacks against the enemy front lines. There are a few principles to keep in mind when going on the attack against AI.
  
• First, send scouts ahead. You will be raising Cadavers with most battles, which you can send on ahead of you to get the lay of the land. You want to know when you are going to run into a well (or weakly) defended city and when powerful AI stacks are approaching you. This will inform if you need to retreat, wait for reinforcements, or plunge ahead.
  
• Second, if you can’t easily hold a city after conquering it, then use Hasty Plunder so you can move on with your power stack to pursue new objectives. Allowing an enemy to recapture their front line towns creates complications for guarding your borders that you don’t want. If you are worried about being able to hold a captured city for 2 turns, you can cast Scorched Earth to have the city burn to the ground in the event it gets recaptured. We want you to stay on offense, so that the enemy brings their forces to defend rather than getting an opportunity to send them to attack your homeland. In almost all of my games, my AI opponents never had the opportunity to attack any of my homeland cities because I was sending my armies into their territory to meet their forces. Basically, good offense is good defense.
  
• Third, have a plan for how each power stack you are sending can capture a city. Do you have many flying or wall climbing units who overwhelm the enemy? Do you have a ton of ranged units that can park outside the corner of their walls and eliminate their ranged units until the enemy melee units are forced to exit the walls? Do you have a high-level hero with life drain that can hold study at the top of a wall and tank their entire army? Do you have a long-range ability that can be used at a distance and force the enemy to exit their gates? If a given stack cannot take a certain city, pass it by and find another city to conquer. When you discover a city that is well-defended and will require multiple power stacks to conquer, then look for an efficient route for multiple power stacks to arrive at that city so they can take it together. In my games, around turn 50 some of my power stacks are joining forces halfway into enemy territory to take down powerful cities that the enemy is camping.
  
• Fourth, because you will own 1/3 (and soon ½) of the map with your empire, you will find that the individual enemy AI’s will start to surrender to you (especially once you eliminate their power stacks/key cities) faster than you’d guess. This is handy because it gives you a free hero, units, and city, which you can use to support your power stacks in taking other cities. I often take out 1 or 2 of the 7 opponents by turn 50 via surrender. If you want to increase the challenge of the match, you can refuse to accept AI surrender.
  
• Fifth, prioritize summoning Dread Reapers. Logistically, you will likely find it most convenient to summon them next to your power stacks. However, if it is ever feasible to summon them in your Embrace Darkness-affected towns, they will get Greater Life Drain, which is amazing for enhancing their survivability. If they are not overwhelmed by flankers and fire/spirit dealing enemies, they can tank entire enemy stacks to the point that they seem OP.
  
• Sixth, be attentive to what Heroes have what items, which Heroes need new items forged for them, and what items should be swapped around as new Heroes join and old Heroes gain different upgrades. Revaluate your item array every 5 turns or so to make sure you are getting maximum synergy and damage channel resistance across your key Heroes.
  
• Seventh, if you have a surplus of mana, make sure your non-Leader Heroes are spamming spells as much as possible, since you can spare the mana and they will benefit from the experience gain.

• Stop building laboratories and observatories in your newly-conquered cities when you’ve researched all of your key empire upgrades, strategic spells, and the Summon Dread Reaper spell.
  
• You don’t want to Ghoul everything possible because it ends up costing too much in upkeep; you could be using that gold to build toward Palaces of the Perished, which will boost your crucial casting point cap. Focus on Ghouling only the most powerful T3/T4 units and a few T2 support units to support them. Don’t waste your time Ghouling anything else.

I hope that you have found this advice helpful, even if you do not agree with all of it.

I welcome your constructive criticism and suggestions in the comments, and may update this guide in response to your feedback.

Please consider rating and favoriting this guide if you think it might be useful to other players looking to deepen their strategy with Necromancer.

The remaining sections in this guide featured below provide advice for specific AOW3 Challenges that you might find interesting/challenging as well as other bonus content.

• Wasteland Expansion & Nomad Campaign (AOW3 Mod by Gladen) w/ Video - In this guide I introduce readers to the Wasteland Campaign, which is a built-in campaign integrated into Gladen's AOW3 Mod called "Wasteland Expansion", which can be found in the AOW3 Steam Workshop. I also provide links to video overviews/playthroughs of the Reynald campaign and the Tanner campaign.
  
• Guide to Insane AOW3 Challenges (e.g., Two Unit Challenge) w/ Video - This guide provides descriptions of fun/intense challenges, including how to set them up, strategies for beating them, and links to video playthroughs/overviews of me successfully completing each challenge. I use Necromancer to beat several of these challenges.