Guide to playing Patala competitively

[Daynarr]

KissBlade said:

I have already given a strategy to expand early with Patala so I have no idea why you're harping on that point. With the right unit scripting and archer decoying, you can take on most indies on turn 2. I typically play on indies setting 6 or 7.

I'm not ‘harping point’, I saying that you suggested bad pretender design and explained why. I'll repeat, you get no pretender, not bless and low resources with it. And until your pretender arrives you probably be facing more then just indies.

Second, I have already said and highlighted why sacreds are NOT Patala's strength.

And I have highlited why they ARE their strength. If you didn't manage to use them effectively and I did then by all means I won't accept your opinion on that as true.

I do not tell people how to play turn by turn. Instead I offer a general guideline on what they should be doing if following THIS strategy. The variety of different strategies in dominions III comes from battle formations, scripting issues, horde vs. rush, etc. Choosing which units for these purposes generally tends not to deviate from player to player. When you watch good player's execute their first few turns, you will generally see the same pattern regardless of which nation they're using. The only rare exceptions to this are uber bless strats and those with odd awaken designs (aka dom 9 or 10 PoD for a second turn expander). But I digress, as I've said, I am open to other builds, I've even responded to Boron's post earlier about his suggestion of awaken thug vs dormant SC pretenders. However, I don't find your current build viable.

I explained in those desings that they are meant for people who start playing with Patala. They won’t jump into blitzes immediately. Designs I posted are not blitz designs so your reasons for not finding them viable are off the mark.

Other nations with powerful sacreds like Vanheim and Pangaea (Helheim is not a late era nation and I'm keeping it out of this discussion for that reason) have exactly that. POWERFUL Sacreds, which nagas are NOT. Duel blessed Vans and Centaurs can easily take most indies, possess stealth and have enormous raiding potential. You work those sacreds into a strategy by themselves AND they have the advantage of being non capital only occasionally and are able to be troop ferried by indie commanders. The last part is VERY important as logistics makes and breaks your game usually. Also they're not encumbered like a ***** and you're able to mass them a LOT easier (thanks to the imbalanced ratio of gold vs. resource) cost. How can you even find Nagahs comparable to Vans and Black Centaurs is baffling to me! Nagahs are among the WORST sacreds in the Late Era!

You point to a lot of theories but there is NO way Patala can compete without research as opposed to certain other powerful sacred nations, leading four or five commanders to bless 40 - 50 nagahs is ridiculous since if you're moving out at that stage of the game, you're going to get overruned. SIX TO SEVEN Dual blesed black centaurs are able to take most indie provinces. Your gurus should form the bulk of your battlemages not your nagarishis which have SO many other uses! Nagarishis are really amazing battlemages yes but they're also going to be your main summoners, site searchers, forgers, etc.

Quite frankly, I have no idea what is all this directed to.
You said

The only way you can bless your nagahs would be with your capital only mages since they are magical only and can't be ferried with non mage commanders. This is already a fault with them.

And I responded

They have no more problems with blessing sacred troops then virtually any other nation with powerful sacreds (Vans and Helheim for example). Most of those nations don't have h3 priests to cast divine blessing on them. They can however make temples and hire normal priests to bless those troops and so can Patala. From GAMEPLAY experience you need 4-5 of them to bless a group of 40 naga warriors that are on hold/attack orders. It's no problem for them at all. No more then for almost any other nation that is. Do I need to mention that you also have prophet that can cast divine bless and is perfect for early expansion? And yes, you will use capitol mages to get your nagas around but then again, you want those mages in battle and gurus to do research. In worse case gurus can do it to as they can lead 25 magic units each.

That means following:
1. My post is about blessing sacred troops and all era's have them. Therefore for that point, era is irrelevant. Vanheim and Helheim were just examples for nations with sacreds, that need to use h1 priests to bless their sacred troops.
2. I have not mentioned any sort of comparison between Vans, Centaurs and Nagas. Where did you come up with :’ How can you even find Nagahs comparable to Vans and Black Centaurs is baffling to me!’ is baffling me actually. You are arguing something that I never said.
3. I did not say ANYWHERE that you will use 40-50 nagas to take indie provinces. I said that you need 4-5 h1 priests to bless 40 nagas. I also mentioned prophet for early expansion. That was example. It looked like example as well.
4. None of this is really response to anything I said.

Edit, typos.

[KissBlade]

I have NEVER even mentioned blitzes in any of my arguments. I've even stated this current strat and Patala as a whole is NOT A GOOD BLITZ NATION. I've also explained how to handle early game scuffles and your VQ arrives usually around the same time you find your first few neighbors anyway. Bandar longbows, indies + aggressive mercenaries are good to hold the defensive line from turn 6-12 against 95% of the MP players ESPECIALLY if you're adept at raiding and counter raiding. I can guarantee you this. If the player is good enough that he outwits you, your sacreds will DEFINITELY not save you. This is the difference between Patala and an actual sacred nation like Vanheim. Van's sacreds are actually GOOD.

[Graeme Dice]

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[JaydedOne]

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[Truper]

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[st.patrik]

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[PDF]

@Zen,
According to your analysis, there's just no good troops with Patala, just standard Atavi archers...
So what do you build when playing them ? Nothing ?

[Twan]

I've not played Patala sufficiently to have a definitive opinion, and Kissblade probably has far more experience and knowledge of the subject than me, but I find strange not to have a strategy allowing to give their full efficiency to national summons and mages, at least on big maps (if the nagas are not short terms good sacred, having a bless strat or semi bless strat for long term looks better than nothing, on paper at least, when you have access to many kinds of sacred summons including ones with 4 attack in end game). It's why I've presumed the first strategy was only the best for small games.

For sure Patala looks like one of the many nations that may be rushed without a chance by double blessed troops (even after 20 or so turns on a big map). But as relying upon a dormant VQ and mercenaries against vans won't be really more efficient than hoping any other pretender may stop them, why not taking a pretender giving an earth and/or water bless ? Of course like all nations without a great short term efficiency, in a big mp game you need some diplomacy to survive, but then you have access to very good sacred troops and thugs, with clam hoarding to finance the summons. And as you are an earth nation you are one of the most useful allies nations not producing hammers can have, so I think in most games (allowing diplomacy) you are going to find some. So my only question is (and it's a question not an arguement one more time I'm not pretending to know very well this nation) why do you find a bless strategy for Patala so bad (outside of blitzes / no diplo games) ? The way you have answered Daynarr's posts doesn't make your reasons very clear.

[Mindi]

This thread is being locked to help tempers cool down and to preform some clean up. KissBlade has been issued a warning for his initial attitude that helped send this thread down a wrong path and Graeme has been booted for 3 days because he doesn't seem to like to listen to warnings.

When this thread reopens I hope all of you will remember to treat one another with respect. It's perfectly fine to have strong opinions and to give those opinions but other people are entitled to express their equally strong opinions as well. No character assasinations or personal attacks allowed. If you are going to debate, debate the issue, not the person.

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Okay I have been addressing this issue all morning and have cleaned up this thread. This includes deletion of some posts entirely and editing of others including any references to the deleted content.

I expect this thread to be civil from here on out. This means debating the issues, not the posters and debating in a respectful manner. If I have to lock it again, it will stay locked.

We are now back to your regularly scheduled program.

[KissBlade]

Twan said:I've not played Patala sufficiently to have a definitive opinion, and Kissblade probably has far more experience and knowledge of the subject than me, but I find strange not to have a strategy allowing to give their full efficiency to national summons and mages, at least on big maps (if the nagas are not short terms good sacred, having a bless strat or semi bless strat for long term looks better than nothing, on paper at least, when you have access to many kinds of sacred summons including ones with 4 attack in end game). It's why I've presumed the first strategy was only the best for small games.

Sacred troops' strengths are entirely determined by their early game efficiency. Simply put once evocation spells are researched, a majority of sacreds tends to die the same. There are exceptions to this but Nagahs are not one of them. Hence a semi bless or a bless for long term strategy isn't effective unless you're talking about earth bless for your mages, which even then isn't really required since your best mages get summon earthpower and you don't want to waste scripting slots (which are very important) on everyone self blessing themselves. Theoretically you can also bring in priests to bless your gurus but that's a micromanagement nightmare and you can sidestep this issue largely by simply just communioning with them to a summon earthpowered nagarishi. Your most effective sacred troops comes in at conjuration 5. And they're not even that good since you have better uses for astral gems. Also your sacreds are magical beings so ferrying them is a very big hassle and takes away from your mage time. Efficient mage time is one of the most important things in a competitive setting. Worse yet, Nagah's capital only so you won't be getting them to the frontlines too quickly anyway. AND did I mention they were cold blooded so they're dominion reliant ESPECIALLY with their HUGE encumberance. Their stats are also very subpar given their huge resource costs. As said, they're among the least cost effective sacreds in the late era. (troops are typically determined by resources as their limiting factor, not gold) I'm not even going to bother pointing out the flaws of regular nagas who don't wear armor since their crappiness speaks for itself.

Also if we're on the topic of early game, your best long term strategy is to have a strong early game. Which spending your resources recruiting Nagahs instead of your more effective archers won't get you. A Vampire Queen however can cover a somewhat laggy early game however (if you get a tough start aka next to xbows/heavy cavs, etc) because she can take on the tough indies without a problem. She's a little excessive actually I mentioned this when I said that you can take a Ghost King instead but you'll have more fun with a VQ most likely. =)

Nagahs are not short term good sacreds. They are not long term good sacreds. In short, they're not good sacreds. In fact if anyone actually really bothered reading my description about Nagah sacreds I've even specifically said,theoeritcally you can make them /decent/ (not good) with a e9/n9 bless but if you're going that route why not use an actual bless nation??

Twan said:

So my only question is (and it's a question not an arguement one more time I'm not pretending to know very well this nation) why do you find a bless strategy for Patala so bad (outside of blitzes / no diplo games) ? The way you have answered Daynarr's posts doesn't make your reasons very clear.

If it's already past 20 turns, chances are you are safe with Patala, by then you should have the evoation spells to handle any "rushes". Also a VQ still be significantly more problematic for a nation like Van to handle since not only is the hotter + higher dominion from a pretender that's awake more effective against Vans, you'll have a reusable raider / defender. Also I have no idea why some people still think Patala has very good troops, as I've mentioned, Nagahs are among the worst sacreds and your level 5 conjuration is barely at adequate level. Heck I think equal heavy infantry indies even beats out Nagah dual blessed in cost. Also you'll rare see a dual bless strategy from most MP players simply because it's not a diplomatic strategy. It relies on constant wars and as mentioned, mid game battlemagic murders sacreds. In short to answer your question, a bless strategy for Patala is bad because their sacreds are awful. The awaken pretender option is feasible but IMO has it's faults because it tends to putter out of strength around early mid which is when your toughest time with Patala is going to be.