ea pangaea vs tienchi
 

Hi!

Im quite new to the game, but have read a great many posts in these forums and played many SP games. And only 5 MPs so far (all of them 2 vs 2 in small (35ish) maps).

I have just played vs one of my friends on a 40 province map, EA pangaea vs his tienchi. i tried to overwhelm him with maenads and built only pans (and bought most of the mercs). I had gained the upper hand as for quite long there were no battles between us except the ones with my mercenaries. Then came the time when I deployed my maenads with pans busy casting wooden warriors and swarm (I was rushing with my research with great sage (knowing that there is hardly any time in such a small map)). He followed his usual strategy this time too: took good scales for strong economy and amassed archers and the tower-shielded infantry (and as many mages and priests as possible, with quite little research). Experienced players surely know now that my army - although superior in numbers - barely could even inflict any casualties when our main forces met. His victory was so obvious to me that after a couple more battles i gave up.

1) any general ideas to counter this above strat? I know its coming if he plays tienchi)

2) I can come up with different strategies with pangaea, but would like to give maenads some more tries. Any ideas how can i improve my chances? I guess im missing on something (probably not even a few things but many).

There is little time to research other things, this time i managed alter5 and conjur3 (for summon EP).

When the decisive battle began i was having more provinces, equal income (with turmoil vs his order) and 3 castles vs his 2.
Pans are expensive, so i barely had money for anything else.

3) One more: he always builds only very few extra castles and always on big farmland. Even sometimes near my main army: he comes (with his main army), conquers the farmland, buys a big PD and waits 5 turns (sometimes conquering neighboring provinces. Attacking him is suicidal because the high PD and the possibility of him not moving)If its suboptimal strategy how can i take advantage of it?

thanks for all the answers.

Re: ea pangaea vs tienchi
 

Make lots of minotaurs. They can trample his infantry troops. Also, summon animals is good a good way to get a lot of troops early on.

Or, if you want to build pans, build a lab or two and make as many pans as you can, and research charm as quickly as you can. Then you can charm all of his troops.

Re: ea pangaea vs tienchi
 

What age.

It sounds as if you are talking middle or late age, due to the heavy use of pd.

You haven't mention if this was CBM or not.

My gut instinct is that you have no chance. Its like attacking fire elementals with paper mache golems.

This is sort of judo - he relies on pd to destroy your army. On top of that you are already gold hindered due to the enomous cost of your pans.

I would consider building mannikin SC's. Easier under cbm, but still possible in vanilla. Gift of reason and then equip.
Enchantment and constuction become goto schools.

Dryads interspersed with your scs can help with your mannikin boosting spells.....

Re: ea pangaea vs tienchi
 

With a bit of Construction, Pan, Dryads or Minotaur Lords can make good thugs.

Re: ea pangaea vs tienchi
 

Pans are great thugs - summon earthpower, ironskin/invulnerability, personal regen - snake bladder stick/ a brand, vine shield, black plate, boots of messenger

Re: ea pangaea vs tienchi
 

Watch out for Invulnerability & Snake bladder.

Re: ea pangaea vs tienchi
 

Unless you put resist poison in the mix as well. Iron pigs are nice in CBM - 10 pigs for 4 gems and Pans can cast them without boosters.

Re: ea pangaea vs tienchi
 

Pan aren't natively poison resistant are they? If not, with resist poison and invulnerability, they'll still be taking damage. Use Ironskin instead.

Re: ea pangaea vs tienchi
 

In my opinion you need to plan your pretender for this. Examples:
1) A Bull with E4 and N2 (one of the skins, personal regeneration, resist elements, attack rear) together with minotaurs will trample through TC troops
2) Carrion Woods caster. Mix maenads and manikin after you get Carrion Woods up, with centaurs on the flank. Manikin stun the TC troops, maenads rip the stunned targets apart, while berserking centaurs make it impossible for TC to flank them. If you have time to research Mass Protection (or have several Pans casting Wooden Warriors) the mixed manikin-maenad will be a nighthmare for TC to handle (and you'll have lots and lots of those, you should accept and expect 10 to 1 losses) because the army simply won't rout (undead don't rout, and maenads will pracctically autoberserk when they are mixed to same units with manikin).

Re: ea pangaea vs tienchi
 

another option is to ditch the mass maenads idea and go for neutral order/turmoil and focus more on Dryads than Pans in the early game. you won't get as many maenads, but than again TC is fielding mass archers against you... instead you can afford your more expensive troops, be it centaurs(archers+warriors) or minotaurs. both of them are very good against TC's infantry forces. put some centaur warriors at the front with hold and attack orders(they have shields and high hp, so they can catch arrow fire just fine) than put some centaur archers behind them to take out TC's archers and the trampling minotaurs on the flanks on attack rear so they trample through TC's forces.