[MaxWilson]

(Continued from previous post...)

Thug options:

Flying thugs: If you don't have Winged Boots, or maybe even if you do, you could go with Hashmalim as thugs. A brand sword (Shadow or Fire), a Vine Shield, a Pendant of Luck, and Bracers of Defense make a pretty resilient thug protected by layers of defenses: ethereality, luck, Awe +4, Vines, high defense (22 before experience), and reasonable protection (12). Note that the vine shield grapples even opponents who are deterred by Awe. Thus, most opponents will be entangled most of the time, making the Hashmalim hard to swarm, so the high defense really will stop most attacks. Note that he's also got a built-in fire shield (8 AP) to punish successful attackers and a regeneration rate of 3 HP/round to recover. (He can also cast Holy Avenger, for whatever that's worth.) Net encumbrance is -4. Total cost w/ hammers: 24 pearls, 6 earth gems, 7 nature gems, and either 3 fire gems or 7 death gems depending upon which brand sword you picked. The downside? Hashmalim are hard to summon without empowering an Astral Talmai Elder in Fire (you can get lucky on the randoms but don't count on it). On the plus side, they are pretty tough. One of these guys with a couple of stars can consistently take down 80 knights, 80 mounted hirdmen, 80 steel maidens--pretty much any non-sacred national troops except guardians. (Sacreds may give more trouble, especially Niefel Giants. But you already knew that.) Did I mention that Hashmalim are fire-immune and shock-resistant?

Poison Golem: SotD, Pendant of Luck, a Shroud and Bracers of Defense. Season to taste, depending upon your indy mage finds (Rainbow Armor is good if you find Enchantresses, a Wraith Crown is also good if you have Forge of the Ancients up and/or have nothing better to do with your death gems).

Wraith Lord: Standard thug option, not much to say here. Soul Vortex, recuperation (from immortality), good stats and built-in ethereal.

Zamzummite: Surprisingly good thug for a mage, especially when blessed. Can self-bless. Negative encumbrance, regenerates, can cast Ironskin/Invulnerability/Body Ethereal/Personal Luck/Fire Shield/Soul Vortex. Try a brand sword, Shield of Gleaming Gold, and Bracers of Defense. If he picks up an affliction just pass the equipment to someone new. Cheap enough that you can use them in pairs.

Adon: He's pretty tough even naked, but try to get at least Bracers of Defense and Boots of the Messenger on him so he can self-buff without fatigue problems and also cover the weak head armor. (If you can't find any N1 indy mages and/or have no nature income you can also use Girdle of Strength.) E2 Adonim don't necessarily need either of those items if you have Summon Earthpower and Ironskin researched. Once you've got some gem income and some research, consider a Fire Brand and a Shield of Gleaming Gold. There's really not much else to say. The Astral ones are particularly nice because they can go ethereal and lucky, and with a starshine skullcap they can teleport to hotspots. The Fire Adonim are good in melee (higher attack rating), but not quite as good as either the Earth or Astral Adonim partly because there's no Fire buff that helps magic resistance. Therefore you may opt to use them as arty mages instead, with a screen of Ahimans: bless, bless, Phoenix Power, Flame Eruption, Flame Eruption, cast spells for example. Adonim are more durable than most mages so can be set close to the front lines where Flame Eruption is likely to do a lot of damage.

Ophan: Ridiculously good for the price. Give him a Pendant of Luck and let him go. His one weakness is his lack of slots, which means his MR won't go above 22 (w/ Amulet of Antimagic) when soloing provinces. Well, his other weakness is that he's Lifeless and thus doesn't regenerate, but honestly that's rarely a problem because he rarely takes damage from normal troops. He's not immune to cold, though, so watch out for Frozen Heart. And also watch out for swamp ground or extremely cold dominion, because that pushes his encumbrance up to 3 per trample, which is more than reinvig 5 from the E10 bless can handle (he tramples 3 or 4 squares per turn). Other than that, he's an extremely nice and effective thug for 39 pearls and change, and he also makes a nice addition to any army of Ahimans (since the Ophan is going to Divine Bless himself anyway, you don't have to spend time blessing your troops and/or mages). Note: if you're not worried about MR you can give him a little bit of extra Prot from Bracers of Defense (which will raise his Prot from 21 to 24 after the blessing).

Ditanu: Skip Dirge For the Dead and go straight to Banquet For the Dead. See "Malik."

Malik: Excellent SC. Just like an Adon, except with better MR, built-in Ethereal and better resistances,Morale 30 and Fear +7, zero encumbrance (works great with Stymphalian Wings or Boots of Quickness), the ability to cast Soul Vortex (and/or Blood Vengeance if you're into that sort of thing) if you use a booster or a death gem, and an escort of Ditanu, who are like undead Ahiman Anakites with Fear +0, better stats and MR and built-in ethereal. (Slightly worse Protection though.) For 50 death gems and a dead Zamzummite, this is a treat. On the other hand, I have to admit that there's not an extremely compelling case for using Malkim over Adonim, since most things that will take out an Adon will also take out a Malik (lightning, Petrify, Disintegrate, etc.). Malkim are, however, undead and thus immune to Frozen Heart and poison, friendly fire from Shadow Brands/Sunslayer, and they and their Ditanu are also less vulnerable to fatigue damage (from lightning, Sleep Cloud, etc.) because of their negative encumbrance. (Nor do you have to worry about Chest Wounds, which are the bane of Adon and Ahiman alike, or about fighting in swamps or extreme cold.) Morale 30 is nice, though (e.g. it gives immunity to Fear), and the cumulative Fear of the Malik and his Ditanu can sometimes be useful. (It synergizes well with Awe, and it can end some battles early.) Moreover, there are sometimes logistical benefits to summons over cap-only national troops/commanders. The upshot: in most respects, consider the Malik a significant quantitative but not a qualitative improvement over the Adon.

Chayot: Insanely good either as a thug or as a mage. Master Enslave? Astral Tempest? Flame Storm? Will of the Fates? Antimagic? Army of Lead? Fog Warriors? Petrify? They can do all of this and more. (For Master Enslave you'll want a Crystal Shield, a Starshine Skullcap, and a RoW + RoS, bringing them up to S8. That leaves one hand conveniently free for a Rune Smasher.) One caution: don't cast Phoenix Pyre unless you're planning to spend time in Earth form. Chayot already have a #secondshape on death, and Phoenix Pyre overrides it--if you die with more than 100 fatigue you don't go to your next form, you just die. Of course if you're planning to be in the E4 form then you might as well Phoenix Pyre to your heart's content. You can cast cross-path spells if you use a booster (RoW works fine) to boost your levels back up from zero, since Chayot's "natural" levels are at 4 in all paths with a negative #magicboost for all paths but one. E.g. the E4 form becomes E4F1 if you give it a skull of fire, thus conveniently allowing it to cast Magma Eruption. Honestly, though, Chayot are so awesome that using them as an arty mage is a waste. It's your call whether you want to use the Ophanim that come with them as their bodyguards or split some or all off into another army. Even with no slots and thus no luck or antimagic pendant, Ophanim are still ridiculously good, and you get FOUR of them along with your Chayot when you cast Call Merkavah. (Of course, it also costs a ridiculous amount of gems.)

Other tips and strats:

Bloodstones: If you can bootstrap into a blood economy (usually takes 2-3 provinces full of indy scouts blood hunting), you can empower an Earth Talmai Elder to Blood-2. Using a ring of sorcery and a ring of wizardry, he can then forge himself a Blood Thorn and a Brazen Vessel (15 slaves each w/ hammer because of the 15% Talmai Elder forge bonus). He can start forging Bloodstones for 6 earth gems and 9 slaves apiece. 80 blood slaves brings another forger online (50 to empower to Blood-1, then 30 to forge the Brazen Vessel and Blood Thorn). It's up to you whether it's more useful to hoard the bloodstones in the lab or use them on battlemages (or scouts on gem-carrying duty). Note also that you can also get to Bloodstones via Malkim, although you will probably have better things to do with Malkim than having them hunt for slaves or forge Bloodstones in the lab.

Fever Fetishing: Ashdod has no particular advantages in fever fetishing. Indy scouts are more cost-efficient receptacles for fetishes than any of your national troops (although Kohanim or Edomite Scouts come within 20% or so and take less micromanagement), and you are reliant on luck to find forgers. If, however, you are lucky enough to find one of the sites that allows Enchantress recruitment (some of them are N1 sites), consider putting Fever Fetishes on your blood hunting indy scouts. Ashdod can always use more Fire gem income to empower Astral Talmai Elders for summoning national summons, for Fire Arrows or Fire Storm in combat, for forging brands and shields, and for Flames From the Sky.

Magic Diversification:

Your pretender can summon a Fairy Queen via Fairy Court to get you into Air and Nature, if you still haven't gotten any through site searching w/ N1 mages and/or sites captured from other nations. Arelot (plural of Arel) would also be useful for bootstrapping into Nature, if you were able to find a lizard shaman to summon one for you (w/ Crystal Coin + Starshine Skullcap + Ring of Sorcery).

You can bootstrap into low Water by summoning a spectral mage (Summon Spectre) and leveraging the easy water boosters + Ring of Wizardry from your national mages.

You can bootstrap into Blood via indy scouts + empowerment as mentioned above, via Malkim, or by summoning Tartarians (Tartarian Monstras have the best chance of Blood randoms), and from there to vampires. I don't have much experience with Blood, though, so there might be a better way, and anyway I'm not sure it's worth doing without recruitable B1 blood hunters.

Conclusion:

Ashdod early game is gold-hungry and resource-hungry, but your strong sacreds help you to expand ferociously and put you in a good position in mid-game to begin utilizing your excellent battlemages and thugs. Ashdod's strong death and astral magic remain useful into the endgame. This nation has everything it needs to compete with any other nation in any era. Good luck!

-Max