Turn 1

Well the dorment pretender is on the condition of having a NAP. If we don't have that I will need to redesign so that I can get water access from the start.

@all

Do you have some capabilities for really testing things?
Easy research makes a lot of spells accessible early, and testing them becomes a pita.
So I thought about making a mod for this game that makes all spells castable without research and all units cost nothing.
If I can't upload it here and you want it I can send it to you via PM on the real forum.

rdonj wrote:

Lavaere wrote:Yeah well they had so many blood magic, and that was just the first thing I did. But I've since had a glance through the guides and tested a few different designs for a Lanka pretender. And I have come up with this one.

Dormant Lady of Fortune
Water 6, Astral 4, Nature 4, Dominion 6, Order 3, Heat 3, Growth 3, Luck 1, Drain 2

Will give some defence and magic boost, and some regeneration. Being a Lady of Fortune would also allow access to water regions once she awakens. So what do people think about this design.

As a variation on this design, what do you think about losing one growth and luck to get an extra point of dominion and 2 more astral? Anyway, I've tested the design and it does work quite well on independants, suffering losses usually only to heavy cavalry/elephants. I'm not sure how well the sacreds will do against niefel giants with that cold aura, but you should be reasonably successful overall.

Jachra: I suggest testing against giant nations to get a feel for what you'll be going up against T'ien Ch'i is reasonably strong though and is a good choice.

Generally I'd say if you take growth g3 is the way to go.
After 36 turns in a province growth3 has generated more money than order3.
A g2 needs more than 70 turns. At that time the extra money won't cut it.
Imo growth3 luck3 is really good. Doesn't necessarily mean you'd have less money than everyone else at the start (lucky events) and gives the best long term benefit.
Also I'd think about drain. You might say that the easy research allows to take drain and still get critical stuff. On the other hand it will make a much more notable difference to a nation without drain because each RP counts more. Don't really know what's better though.

Septimius Severus wrote:Uhh, well we do need some nations with amphibious units.

Ehh, if I may suggest, maybe we could focus early expansion in two directions, main force towards the land enemy to deny them provinces (we can fill in our backyard in due time), a secondary force towards the sea, to deny the vet water nation provinces, cut access routes, maybe build an undersea fort. I figure we could all (except for Ill One) make it a priority to take and hold 1 water prov with amph, undead, or whatever.

Hmm, I think it's better if one or two players made it a priority to keep the water nation at bay. Many spells that are great underwater don't work on land and vice versa. If everyone focuses on uw fighting we'll just not have enough niefel counters.
Btw. can you tell me where I start?

Illuminated One wrote:

Do you have some capabilities for really testing things?
Easy research makes a lot of spells accessible early, and testing them becomes a pita.
So I thought about making a mod for this game that makes all spells castable without research and all units cost nothing.
If I can't upload it here and you want it I can send it to you via PM on the real forum.

A mod to test spells would be great, if you could upload it to another server and stick a link in a thread (like rdonj did/will do for the map) that be good, or you can PM me it. Hopefully I'll have time to fool around with it.

Yes, changing the indy strength does have benefits and drawbacks, though it may hamper vet water nations and less strong land nations. I'll probably leave it be.

I'll likely recommened an NAP for at least 10 turns just in case the vets try anything. If you guys want 15 or 20, of course I'd heartily agree. Another bonus of an NAP, we could get close to them and have a bit of protection (the first part of my two prong strategy). heh.

Well, I wasn't saying we should all make water a priority, just if we all can try to grab 1 prov with a small fraction of our forces. We will need our main forces against the giants. Yes, it can be difficult to hold for land nations, and you may need to use some undead, but 9 provinces out of the vets hands sounds, at least for a while sounds good.

I'll have to check at home, but I beleive Illumnated's location is 202.

After some consideration, I will take C'tis unless anyone requests otherwise. I've played them once before and I've run a quick test game to consider things. Since undead really don't care about how hot or cold they are, this should work nicely against the cold of the enemies, and I'll take a really strong dominion with heat 3 to try and push heat into enemy territory, supported by C'tis's strong national priests. I'll have trouble being offensive against a cold-dom early on, but with fast research it shouldn't be long before I am summoning hordes of undead and such instead.

So we have Abysia, C'Tis and Lanka all being heat nations. What other heat nations are there for EA that we could use to push into the vets

Septimius Severus wrote:A mod to test spells would be great, if you could upload it to another server and stick a link in a thread (like rdonj did/will do for the map) that be good, or you can PM me it. Hopefully I'll have time to fool around with it.

The mod is finished. I couldn't get all spells and units but most of them. Works with CBM, too, I think. I will try to upload it tomorrow.

Septimius Severus wrote:Well, I wasn't saying we should all make water a priority, just if we all can try to grab 1 prov with a small fraction of our forces. We will need our main forces against the giants. Yes, it can be difficult to hold for land nations, and you may need to use some undead, but 9 provinces out of the vets hands sounds, at least for a while sounds good.

In the two games I finished I fought almost exclusively underwater.
One as MA Atlantis one as Ulm against Atlantis. As Ulm I spent every gem and coin I could squeeze up during the first 20 turns for going uw and he kicked me out in 3 turns. And that was my end.
What I mean is that most land nations can't expect to hold water provinces without a large commitment. So I think they shouldn't try at all (quote Baalz: circumvent your weakness). If one or two nations with good amphibian/undead access make it a priority to fight underwater they might be a lot more effective than if just everyone tries to keep some.
Hmm, I'm looking at Atlantis now and just posting some thoughts:

Underwater has bad mobility (mapmove 1).
Gem Income UW is better accessible.
Basalt Kings are scary. Another SC nation?
All their units seem to have bad defence.

Man how are we supposed to win that?

Illuminated One wrote:

In the two games I finished I fought almost exclusively underwater.
One as MA Atlantis one as Ulm against Atlantis. As Ulm I spent every gem and coin I could squeeze up during the first 20 turns for going uw and he kicked me out in 3 turns. And that was my end.
What I mean is that most land nations can't expect to hold water provinces without a large commitment. So I think they shouldn't try at all (quote Baalz: circumvent your weakness). If one or two nations with good amphibian/undead access make it a priority to fight underwater they might be a lot more effective than if just everyone tries to keep some.
Hmm, I'm looking at Atlantis now and just posting some thoughts:

Underwater has bad mobility (mapmove 1).
Gem Income UW is better accessible.
Basalt Kings are scary. Another SC nation?
All their units seem to have bad defence.

Man how are we supposed to win that?

We'll certainly do that, make it priority for 1 or two of us with strong death and amph, but I would like to see everyone also active on land against the giants and not slacking in that regard. In terms of taking water provinces, I don't want any of us, but especially the other nations, to pour resources into grabbing water provinces. But the more raiding and harrasement we can do, the better, even if we need to recapture a single province over and over again, IMO. No rest for the wicked!

Rdonj, I may be having Internet issues, I'll contact you if approriate.

I see we've got Formoria.

A spell mod exists already.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=36453

So at this point we're just waiting for the Vets to finish their picks and then we make ours?

Vets are done picking, their picks are 2 or 3 pages back on the other forum. So it's all on you guys now.

We are awaiting an official announcement of nation picks on the main forum for Jachra (T'ien Chi?) and Illuminated one, after that I will pick (gosh, all my fav's are gone, any suggestions? I prefer a nation with blood and death) and create the game.

Illuminated, from your central position and with your experience you'll make a good new defacto leader. R'donj, of course will remain our forum moderator and as I see it our unofficial 'Consigliere'.

I'll post notice of a 10 turn NAP, which seems agreeable to all.

I've been doing even more testing, and started to hate my old pretender designs. Exspecially with the Lady of Fortune on taking around 20 into the water and the design didn't allow undead, and the low research count. When made me think going Sage. Go straight to getting shambler armor and summoning Gana.

Septimius Severus wrote:We are awaiting an official announcement of nation picks on the main forum for Jachra (T'ien Chi?) and Illuminated one, after that I will pick (gosh, all my fav's are gone, any suggestions? I prefer a nation with blood and death) and create the game.

Illuminated, from your central position and with your experience you'll make a good new defacto leader. R'donj, of course will remain our forum moderator and as I see it our unofficial 'Consigliere'.

I'll post notice of a 10 turn NAP, which seems agreeable to all.

Unfortunately I don't think there are any remaining blood/death nations to choose from. There are still plenty with one or the other.... My tentative picks for nations you could play as would probably be something like Marverni, Mictlan, or Tir na N'og. The first two still have blood at least, if you really wanted that. Mictlan is of course quite powerful as we well know, and playing Marverni as Baalz suggested in his guide would be an excellent choice for giant killing. Tir na N'og would be an excellent choice for raiding and combat magic with several excellent choices for giant slaying. Their commanders would also make ideal platforms for anti-giant thugging with a bit of a water bless.

Or you could play as Yomi, my first mp game I played as Yomi and held off a much larger Caelum for years (until finally he went AI and the game ended) Of course he wasn't really trying that hard to kill me most of the time. If I was playing I would probably play as Yomi, to see how much different it is playing them against a vet as opposed to a relatively new player.

Damn, all my post gone. Again...

Septimius Severus wrote:We are awaiting an official announcement of nation picks on the main forum for Jachra (T'ien Chi?) and Illuminated one, after that I will pick (gosh, all my fav's are gone, any suggestions? I prefer a nation with blood and death) and create the game.

Illuminated, from your central position and with your experience you'll make a good new defacto leader. R'donj, of course will remain our forum moderator and as I see it our unofficial 'Consigliere'.

I'll post notice of a 10 turn NAP, which seems agreeable to all.[/

Hmm, I wouldn't want to order folks around.
I will take that position if everyone agrees and try to make some economy/late game strategy, but I still make more than enough mistakes and at the beginning I will probably not see to much of the combat so I think it's best if the frontliners coordinate that without my interference. Heh, chance is I'm the first that is rushed.

About my own nation pick I was looking at Mictlan today and I like them better than Arco/Ulm. They do have a lot of flying or stealthy summons and horrors so I might join combat later. And I wouldn't be as vulnerable if someone breaks through to me. On the other hand they have good sacreds so if you want them on the front I will change.
Also I'd really suggest that someone takes Marverni or a high Astral pretender.
Sites are at 75% so Arcane Nexus will give a huge gem income and the chance to find a discount site for wishing for gems is quite high. If we survive until then we might be hard pressed to have more gems than the vets because of their recruitable SCs. So if noone else has I will take that.
I probably won't take Marverni though as I'm playing them currently in another game. They don't have blood on their recruitables but with Luck you can get Bloodhenge Druids (=Druid + extra Blood). And with Gifts of Heaven, Soul Slay, Weapons of Sharpness they might be devastating against giants midgame.

edit: If you take Marverni it might be worth thinking about leaving the air from Baalz guide away. We have 4 air nations now iirc so you could trade eyes of aiming/robes of missile protection.

Illuminated One wrote:
I probably won't take Marverni though as I'm playing them currently in another game. They don't have blood on their recruitables but with Luck you can get Bloodhenge Druids (=Druid + extra Blood). And with Gifts of Heaven, Soul Slay, Weapons of Sharpness they might be devastating against giants midgame.

edit: If you take Marverni it might be worth thinking about leaving the air from Baalz guide away. We have 4 air nations now iirc so you could trade eyes of aiming/robes of missile protection.

Really? I could have sworn they had at least a blood random on one of their mages. Oh well, I can't check right now but if you are playing them in a game atm I would be inclined to believe you. Also I agree about staying away from the air, it shouldn't be necessary with so many air nations unless none of them take up construction.

Speaking of ulm they wouldn't be bad for this either. They don't have gifts from heaven unfortunately but they have quite a bit of earth and have the handy addition of native cold resistance on all their troops. This would come in handy against niefelheim as cold resistance helps a lot against their cold aura. Plus their smiths have a forge bonus and can craft quite a variety of items cheaply. And most of their units are stealthy.

If we think that the current nation selections aren't ideal, or if someone wants to play Agartha, I'd be fine swapping for Ulm, T'ien Ch'i, or Tir na n'Og. Doesn't matter to me. However, we should get this show on the road!

T'ien Ch'i has already been claimed. Agartha isn't entirely a bad choice, as they are amphibious, have good magic and their national summons can be quite useful. Their sacreds aren't quite as good as the giants though from what I've seen of them and agarthans are cold blooded, which will hurt if you are fighting in cold dominion much of the time. If you wanted to change either of the others would be perfectly acceptable choices, but if you're happy with agartha and your build for them there is probably no real need to change.

Well, Pangaea or Tir'na'nog. Pangaea seem to have rather large physical troops which might stand up against giants though they have few commanders, they also got spawning units, or Tir'na nog (whose troops all seem to look alike) but seem to be better magically. Any opionions, if not I'll choose one or the other and some astral to my pretender.

Edit: Of course, there is also Arco (great for research), Ermor, for magic, and Ulm looks like a good choice as well. Don't care much for druids (Marverni).

I like diversity of units, and lots of magic for my rainbow pretender.

As I said if someone wants Mitclan I'll change. They should be good against Niefel if you take heat-3 and fire bless.

I tried to get some ideas for them and found Rain of Toads interesting.
3 castings per turn (=30 blood slaves) to completely lock down a capital.
With all the blood nations in the game we could try to do this to everyone.

Septimius Severus wrote:Well, Pangaea or Tir'na'nog. Pangaea seem to have rather large physical troops which might stand up against giants though they have few commanders, they also got spawning units, or Tir'na nog (whose troops all seem to look alike) but seem to be better magically. Any opionions, if not I'll choose one or the other and some astral to my pretender.

Edit: Of course, there is also Arco (great for research), Ermor, for magic, and Ulm looks like a good choice as well. Don't care much for druids (Marverni).

I like diversity of units, and lots of magic for my rainbow pretender.

Using pan's large high hp troops to fight giants would be a bad idea. They're expensive, don't have that much armor and have awful attack skill. They might be somewhat worthwhile against atlantis but other than that they would not do very well. You could go with maenads, but they really need buffs and support to a good level before they'll be strong enough to take on the vets. Arcoscephale could work, air and earth is a good anti-giant combination. You want to stay away from their heavily armored units though when you're going against the giants.

A reminder to upload your pretenders.

I'll probably go with a scale-heavy approach and rely on andro archers with a minor bless. And a rainbow pretender for fast research and site searching, so I have chances to put my many D4 mages into good use.

I think I'll take a Collosal head with Fire9 Nature6 Blood6 and Turmoil3 Sloth3 Heat3 Growth3 Luck3 Magic3.
If nothing goes wrong I should be able to cast 3 Rains of Toads in fall of year 2. Who would be the best target?
If you are building thugs against the giants, I'm picking up Heart Finder Swords, and Flesh Eater Axes which should be quite good against them.
Also is someone able to give me crystal coins for horrors later?

edit: (I go to const 4 than blood so I might be able to forge other items)

Personally, I would try to lock down niefelheim. To me niefelheim is pretty much the scariest EA nation, and is pretty capitol-centric. I've not played against hinnom though, and certainly hinnom is very powerful as well. However I think hinnom is supposed to have stronger non-cap recruitables than niefelheim. Helheim I think is also very cap-centric, so they would be a good choice to shut down. Atlantis I think wouldn't be the best choice as their non-cap units are quite sufficient for the duty of coastal raiding and making your lives miserable. Caelum would probably not be a bad idea either since they rely very heavily on eagle kings.

I guess thinking about it more maybe Caelum would be the better choice. It's very hard to kill off mages, and without eagle kings caelum would be supremely neutered. Everyone else has strong out-of-cap units they can recruit and be effective with, if caelum was stuck with only a few eagle kings their battle magic would be pretty well shot. But either Caelum, Niefel, or Helheim would be my choice.

Hi, i upload my god

Abysia

Imprisoned Warlock

Dom 5

F9 N4 B4

Heat 3 Unluck 1 Order 3 Prodctivity 1