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| LA Pythium???; Da fuq do I do with these guys? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 2 2014, 07:53 AM (13,204 Views) | |
| Morsigil | Mar 23 2016, 08:06 PM Post #76 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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I guess you could just recruit primarily Heliodromus and Serpent Priests, go up evoc and then spit poison and fire at your enemies with your foreign rec and non-str casters from behind a horde of javelin tossing milite. That's not a bad start. You'll want enchantment for foul vapors, serpent's blessing, and flaming arrows is along the way so you can get in a few volleys of flaming javelins in, too. |
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| Ohlmann | Mar 23 2016, 08:16 PM Post #77 |
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Dom 5 Beta Team
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That's not a bad start until your remember that heliodromus cost 100g, and half of them won't spit anything because they are F1N1 with 7 RP and heretics. Also, Nature evos aren't used a lot because they aren't very good in practice. Serpent's blessing and Foul Vapor is kind of trying to be C'tis, but ineffectively. Only your cap only mage can cast that, and your troops don't resist it, which require the rather late enchantment 7. It's not that it's an impossibly bad advice to say to do that. It's just that it's very underpowered for the amount of effort needed. |
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| Morsigil | Mar 23 2016, 09:43 PM Post #78 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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No, I took into account that half of them wouldn't be able to throw fireballs. I think they'd still be serviceable in an early war. Eagle eyes + fire darts isn't to be sneezed at, and breath of the dragon stacks nicely. It's the heretic 2 I wasn't totally taking into consideration. 90 gold isn't bad for a 50/50 shot at an F2, but heretic 2 is too high a price to pay for these guys. |
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| Rejakor | Mar 23 2016, 11:28 PM Post #79 |
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^ I would, uh, not sneeze at, but not intentionally use fire darts in any sense. Eagle Eyes and Fireball (Phoenix Power from a gem) is probably actually stronger than f2 fireballs (due to far better prec), but requires two rounds to set up. --
Heretics are not the same as blood sac, which builds your candles. The mechanism is different and the result is different, even if you can use both to keep a low dom build alive. I'm pretty sure you don't get the positive effect of high magic scales if heretics reduce your dom to 0. Neither do you receive other positive effects from scales, other than maybe luck.
What 'your upkeep' is is relatively meaningless because I have no idea what you build or how you play. You used expensive troops as an example of a unit you build, and I said they were hugely expensive for little benefit. Now you're saying you build milite, and okay, but milite are crap. The other ones are overpriced crap - milite are at least cheap, but the rescost means you can't spam them, and crap that you can't spam tends to be outnumbered by actually good units and lose fights and lose wars.
Rain doubles the fatigue cost. It's inaccurate as crap, and is largely defeated simply by line formation. I don't know but strongly suspect that Rain cancels out the heat shock effect. It doesn't reliably kill the way tstrike does. The aoe is worse in effect. It misses more. It doesn't win fights. It hits your own troops. I've played a lot of Abysia and my judgement has been that fireball is simply not effective enough to justify outside niche or emergency use. And that's with a nation that has fire-resistant troops it can fairly easily spam (outside of EA). Shooting at your 9g milites sounds like a fine idea except in any sort of situation where you can't rely on time to replenish losses, like a war, the rescost is going to ruin you and leave you without sufficient soldiers to man the front line.
I'm talking about getting off big spells using theurg or renatus communion masters. Not defending against raiding. And if a b1 reveler gets raided, he is in the rear, and set to 'retreat'. Losing a b1 reveler trying to 'fight off raiders' is a horrific waste of a 10% random.
Seeking Arrow is AN damage at ritual range with no chance of failing. Seduction requires the unit to be in the province the turn the enemy moves there, and has a high chance of doing nothing (no battle, no seduction). I haven't experimented with cats charms or bear whatever but that's more gear and I am dubious it actually changes the chance of seduction working/causing a battle, rather than simply changing the seducer's gender. And no, it's 10 gems. You do not have native earth for hammers. And hammers cost 15E each. They are not 'free'.
Fire Ants are awful units. Flame Eruption requires point blank range, kills your own guys, is defeated by line formation. It's still one of the few things you've said here that is usable, though. Disposable mages ordered to attack with troops and then cast Flame Eruption from (hopefully) the front lines is something i've used with mixed success as Aby. Mixed success. Not 'overwhelmingly good'. Army of Giants on baby hydras means you have hydras with less attacks and more of them per square so they receive more attacks. The +hp and +str does not compensate for the increased size which screws them over a lot. Baby Hydras + Body Ethereal/Fog Warriors + Foul Vapours for a later-game poison-army is something you can do, although it kinda sucks. I am utterly dubious that buffless hydra hatchlings live long enough for any bless to matter. Maybe increasing their stats with w9 might help, but I am still dubious, and that's an entire major bless for an expensive and crappy sacred unit.
You have relatively late protection, unless you mean Protection, as opposed to Wooden Warriors. Weak gem-granting items or whatever aren't an argument that the nation is strong, and if people are attacking you on multiple fronts so you need to be lab teleporting items around to different mages to defend, as Pyth, you are probably totally screwed. Bone Melter is a not-great spell that your cap mage needs either a random or boosters to cast, iirc. Tanglevines might be a use for your non-random'd revelers but apparently you're also using them to stealth heretic and other stuff as well. Or you're wasting mystes on it? Serpent priests? Everything you're talking about just does not sound viable, either you can't deploy enough of it or it is not strong enough to work against anything but the weakest players.
Very little. Which is relatively meaningless, given that unit stats are interchangeable unless you can present some kind of tactic or theory that can show me (and others) that the nation/units are stronger than previously presented. I'll note also that if you blitz on a private server with the same people, the personalities and skills of the players involved may be more responsible for your view of the nation's strength than any actual qualities it has. If you feel it is 'one of the stronger LA nations', you should join a PBEM with people you don't know, and win it using them. Then, your view of them may carry more weight than it currently does. |
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| GlointheDark | Mar 24 2016, 01:30 AM Post #80 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Oh yes. There are so many nations that have heretic 3. So many nations that have mages recruit able everywhere. So many nations whose best unit costs 8 gp. So many nations that combine all that with wide path coverage, cheap mages... So I guess you can be an expert at the nation since it is so identical to all other nations, much like mictlan or vanheim play so identically to every other nation. It really is a wonder Illwinter includes so many identical nations. The very idea you think pythium will have unit shortages when it's units are cheaper and recruit able everywhere .. why dont you actually try playing the nation? |
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| GlointheDark | Mar 24 2016, 02:01 AM Post #81 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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I never said anything about stealth heretics. At all. Heretics are not stealthy. You can be pretty sure all you want, but growth dominion works regardless of dominion. Not that I'm recommending it here, but while you don't get the benefit of magic 3 under foreign dominion, it counts as magic 0, which if your native dominion is m-3 is still an improvement. And more importantly, scales work d0. Last sp test, not particularly unusual, 220 rp per turn early spring, year2. And no one is talking about using b1 heretics to defend raids. I'm talking you have scads of mages in unforted provinces which defend against raiding. W9 is not particulsrly effective on baby hydras. The skirmish formation means they get hit regardless. D4n9 is better. N9b9 People rave about LA-ulms recruitable anywhere S1 75 gp 7rp illuminiti mage, yet someone disregard pythiums N1 40 gp 5rp mage. After an m3 scale (mandatory for pythium) the comparison would be 75 gp 2.5 upkeep for 10 rp. vs 40 gp 2.66 upkeep for 8. LA Pythium has much lower upfront costs. Higher upkeep - but this just points to an agressive strategy. And finslly, I guess my point is.. if you think heretic 2 Is a cost, your not playing the nation right. It's an advantage imo. |
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| Itwastuesday | Mar 24 2016, 07:22 AM Post #82 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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A Heliodromus is the cheapest at least 50% F2 mage, and the most cost-effective way to spam Fireballs. If that doesn't work on this nation then Fireball just sucks ass. Which it, and the whole path probably does. |
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| suppenit | Mar 24 2016, 10:34 PM Post #83 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Seduction vs the same gender doesn't have fails: these appear if morale roll differs for a small number (1-2) and the same gender results in "in fact wasn't even interested"-like message and 100% assassination. The rest points of Rejakor are solid. |
| aka olli!, bumpjack | |
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| GlointheDark | Mar 25 2016, 01:59 AM Post #84 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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In point of fact, a satyr with a catcharm can seduce a man. |
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| suppenit | Mar 25 2016, 03:13 PM Post #85 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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You are correct. With cat charm satyr can seduce a man and have fails with no seduction and no assassination. Without cat charm there are no fails and always assassination. |
| aka olli!, bumpjack | |
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| Ohlmann | Mar 25 2016, 03:52 PM Post #86 |
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Dom 5 Beta Team
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150g, non sacred, per fireball caster isn't in any way or shape "cheap". Or the most cost effective way to spam fireball. Their good point is that they don't need a fort, their horrible bad point is that they are heretic !2! and a research malus, which mostly mean you want to actually kill 40% of them as soon as decently possible. Look at the witch hunters, sun priests, and shit like that if you want efficient fireball spamming. |
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| Itwastuesday | Mar 25 2016, 04:08 PM Post #87 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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It's 90 gold. Way more efficient than witch hunters. EDIT : You must mean that if you only care about having a F2 Heliodromus the average cost for one is 150 gold, but the battle impaired ones are passing researchers. Further, the infrastructure to build them is the cheapest out of all F2 mages. A witch hunter requires lab+temple+a castle (?), and is horrifically expensive. Sort of the same deal with an Anathemant Salamander, the F2 mage of what is probably supposed to be the best fire nation. So if the Heliodromi can't make Fireballs good, then Fireballs aren't good. |
| Eagles may soar high, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. | |
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| Morsigil | Mar 25 2016, 06:22 PM Post #88 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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It's the heretic that does it, though. Fireballs are OK on the other nations, but you need a lot of fireballs to make them really shine and that means a lot of heliodromus, which means a lot of heretics. The other reason it's not great on these guys is that once protection is in your mage's spell roster, they'll default to it over vine arrow very frequently. Suddenly your troops are living kindling and any of them who walk through a flaming patch or pretender god forbid get hit with your fireball or are ignited by the aoe are as good as dead. Meanwhile, you could have had a non-heretic researcher instead in the mystes, who along with your acolytes rank as some of the most cost efficient researchers in the game. I was playing with a Neteret of many names and went up evoc to try to get poison and sleep clouds, breath of the dragon, and eventually I wanted evoc 7 for storm of thorns and ice strike. With their excellent research that seems like a feasible goal, but perhaps not early enough and it opens you up to a bless rush. What I found was that all it took was a small group of elite cavalry set to charge middle or a couple of elephants to wade into your people and then you're doing insane amounts of friendly fire in the form of sleep clouds and breath of the dragon. Your mages will spit poison on the hard spot in the enemy army until they die, but not stop if they're poisoned enough to die on their own, meaning they just keep focusing the same targets until they flee or die and do horrendous friendly fire damage even with eagle eyes. That's just playing with serpent priests as the damage dealers with milite for blockers. Trying to communion the nation runs into the same kind of problems that EA TC has, which is that they have a cap only mage with astral and 1/4th of 2 fort mages who can join in with varying levels of usefulness. If you get a crossbow province you can go up enchant for flaming arrows and that really helps you make something of the nation in the early to mid game. |
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| GlointheDark | Mar 26 2016, 06:04 AM Post #89 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Yup. What I said ealier. Give em a catscharm if you need to seduce a man, a bears claw if you want to assassinate. Vice versa for women. |
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| GlointheDark | Mar 26 2016, 06:58 AM Post #90 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Hey Li, So there are a lot of ways to play any nation. I'll give a walk thru on one way. For this bulid, I chose the Divine Emperor, a rarely used pretender. But in many ways perfect for pythium. His speciality is fanaticism, which helps with the milites morale. I used the following build: F4 A4 W3 E3 S5 D3 N3 B4 Dom 3 Awake. Ord =3, P0 H3 D3 L3 M3. As I said earlier - even with such crappy money scales - money is not going to be an issue. Milites are CHEAP. T1: Prophetize. Your pretender has 66 rp. Research alteration. This will go a long way in making sure your pretender has some survivability. Your script will be Air shield, Skeletal, Barkskin, Eagle eyes cast. You're going to continuously build out milites and gladiators, and feed them in with a serpent acolyte or battle deacon. Set all units full back. Your starting army and milites closer to the middle set to hold attack. Gladiators in the corner, set to attack closest. The gladiators handle any cav, which could otherwise be a problem. You want your main force set to hold so that your pretener has fewer problems with range. Set your prophet to hold smitex4. Proceeding this way - I built nothing but milites and gladiators until summer year 3. After your ring - you will be capable of making 35 ish milites per turn. Keep ferrying. Do not hesitate to build an occasional magister. Your fort priests are too expensive for research, really, we leave that to the mystes. Fort priests are primarily for path. Small comment- if you use hydras - you can commune a few of your theurgs to give you divine blessing / fanaticism on a second stack. Start building labs. Aim to have 5 complete by the end of year 1. Whenever you start getting encroaching by enemy domnion, start building revelers to head it off. Around that time, but not urgent you want to research blood 2. You are looking specifically for orgy, and blood fecundity. Anyway. After alteration 1, my goal is alt 2. This gives you major upgrades in stoneskin and earthmeld, which will let your milites hit your opponents. After that, Evo. If research starts to get strained, Ie, more than a turn or two to research. I switch to con. Here, you're looking for dousing rods, imp familiars, and especially thistle maces and death staffs. At some point, to get a blood economy going, you will use your pretender to make armor of twisty thorns, blood thorns, blood armor, etc. Your pretender can make flaming skulls and flame helmets. Which will let you get flame spirits. Conjuration - The forest troll shaman can step you to lamias; naiads in conjunction with moonvines help in water & nature vines. Your pretender is also set for coins, skull caps for ROW and earthstone boosters. When you build a fort, do so with an eye to roads more than income, as mobility is a bigger problem for you. I'm sorry I'm not very specific. What I research etc. depends on my neighbors. (BTW as I said earlier, I don't regard fireballs as the end all be all. But you will need some fire site searchers, and a firestack is one of the tools at your disposal. I do wish fever fetish was still a thing, I have to say. |
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