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  #11  
Old March 31st, 2008, 05:30 AM

Renojustin Renojustin is offline
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Default Re: New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage,

Oh man those Satyr Warriors, you don't even get anything like them in MA or LA... you actually LOSE army strength there because of it. EA is the best age for Pangaea's troops, barring the weakly-armored Minotaur Warriors, simply because of them. (The lesser encumbrance just doesn't make up for the punishment-taking capability of the armored Minotaurs, even when buffed)

Welll.... LA Dryads are pretty nice too. Awe on recruitable troops? Wow. They're good to go right out of the box without a strong bless. Still, pretty sure they're capital-only so they would be an underwhelming strategy. Satyr Warriors are recruitable everywhere and you can really get an asston of them between their low resource cost, rejuvenation, and heavy nature provisioning.
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  #12  
Old March 31st, 2008, 06:19 AM

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Default Re: New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage,

Ah just did a run-through and came up with the following:

Dormant Gorgon with E9, N8. Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Heat 2 (Your troops have very little encumbrance), Luck 3, Growth 3, Magic 1, Dominion 5, 0 points left over!

While this doesn't give you a whole lot of magic diversity, which can really come back to bite you bigtime, it plays to your strengths, really buffs your Dryads and Centaurs, and gives you a great SC. Too bad there's no way to get Air or Astral in there without really bombing your scales. If anything, drop your Nature bless to N4 and try for as much Astral as you can manage. Looks like a VERY solid build.

Edit: hm, E9N4S6 with Growth 1 works too. That lets you add Ethereal and some other nice endgame stuff. Still you're paying for it bigtime with 2 less growth (your income will be quite low with the temperature scales even considering 3 Luck) and 10% less regeneration... eh, it's worth it.

Ok that gives away a little much but hey, Pangaea is pretty strong however you play her I think.
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  #13  
Old March 31st, 2008, 06:45 AM

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Default Re: New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage,

I did some testing with the gorgon too but I prefer those magic path to the one you use : awake with A4E4N4. Any build with E9 works quite well too, since sending her "naked" and is enough to take care of most indies !

The reason is I find her much more powerful with some air magic is because she can cast cloud trapeze, mistform, and invulnerability, and you have easier access to air items. Which are great for the gorgon, since they improve defense by a lot, and high protection can be taken care of with invulnerability. That gives her easily 30 or more defence and protection. I usually use her to search for the few necessary air sites that you will need to forge the air items though, and take her awake.

The gorgon is a very strong pretender, and there is little you can do to get a wrong build with her. The downside is that she locks your magic diversity.
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  #14  
Old March 31st, 2008, 06:52 AM

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Default Re: New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage,

I'm thinking I'd rather have the E9 and 6 Astral over Air, just for endgame and Ethereal/Luck. She's a 3 movement flier anyway, and so can be used to cover a very wide area without Trapeze, (not counting Teleport which is the same thing for S3) and yeah Mistform is great but not worth 6 Astral imo.

She's a very tough SC and you don't really want to be sending her against anything TOO hard since she's not immortal, and anything that can give her much of a threat will be taking down the Mistform in short order with a magic weapon anyway... so I think I can forego the Air in favor of the superior Astral magic.

And she can definitely be used awake as well, but you risk an early death, and you get the points which are not insignificant, so I feel that getting a little beauty sleep and waiting for some half-decent equipment isn't so bad at all - Earth and Nature have some really excellent gear, and the Astral equipment isn't to be sneezed at either. A Lucky Pendant (I suppose you can just script in Luck, but the extra turn is pretty nice with the plethora of self-buffs she has at her disposal) and possibly Amulet of Antimagic will go a long way in your miscellaneous slots in the time it takes to find some S1 indies. And you can go right up against players with that without having to count on it.

Lastly, Air 4-6 won't help your sacreds as much as the Astral and Earth. Centaurs can definitely take the extra arrows with their shields, berserk, Earthbless, and regeneration, and the extra MR means quite a bit on top of their already-high resistance. I feel that they're just too vulnerable when berserking without the extra +4 protection.

I like Air for combat casters for the Precision, so maybe I just don't see it gelling as well for a melee type outside of Mistform.
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  #15  
Old March 31st, 2008, 06:27 PM

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Default Re: New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage,

A or S are big benefits for the Gorgon, for Cloud Trapeze/Teleport. No amount of flying strat move is as valuable as the ability to pop in before army movement... if she's flying, you have to anticipate enemy movements, but if you jump her with rituals,

Similarly, having her Awake is key- she's a huge boon to early-game expansion and rush attacks. Therefore, you can't afford to get S/A very high... and low Astral is a surefire way to get killed by Mind Duels in MP. Therefore, I prefer Air. (I have actually seen the AI send a lone mage with mind duel in SP, shockingly; they won't do it consistently/spamming though.)

My favorite is E4,A4,N4; Dom 9; Turmoil-3 Sloth-3, Growth-2 Luck-2, Drain-2. You get magic screwed in late game with the Drain, but you can often expand hard enough early to make it worthhile.

This build doesn't do a lot with the sacreds, though you might recruit a handful- your early expansion is mainly Gorgon, especially if you spend turn 1 building her a Hide Shield for your initial 5N gems. The main reason for A4 instead of A2 is to build crucial Air boosters and Staff of the Elements.
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  #16  
Old March 31st, 2008, 06:32 PM

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Default Re: New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage,

Total coincidence the AI using a single mage with mind duel.
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  #17  
Old April 1st, 2008, 03:24 AM

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Default Re: New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage,

Giving her air instead of astral also make her more vulnerable to mind hunt. In my opinion, it doesn't matter much, the point is the petrification ability, all the rest is mainly stuff you give her to increase her life expectancy, and both air and astral work quite well for that.

Another build I gave her was a dormant gorgon with 3 turmoil, 1 growth, 3 luck, 1 magic, dom5, A4W2E4N4. The point was to give her easy access to water breathing item and invade the seas early.
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  #18  
Old April 4th, 2008, 12:55 AM

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Default Re: New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage,

I played another game with a Turmoil 3 scale and ended up with a never-ending supply of maenids pouring out from my research base. Indie commanders filled with maenids proved effective for capturing lightly defended territories without forcing me to divert my main army.

I am having a problem with my upkeep though with the turmoil scales. Should I be patrolling harder to make up for the lost income? I found myself going many turns without gold, albeit I was in a very exposed location and next to an aggressive AI playing Vanheim.
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  #19  
Old April 4th, 2008, 01:05 AM
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Default Re: New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage,

Tumoil three gives you a -21% gold income, and most players go for ORder-3 for +21% income. When they do go Turmoil, its usually matched with Luck-2 or 3 and Magic-1 for income and gem generating events. There is no trick though, you're just going to have less gold unless you do a lot of expansion.

Also, keep in mind that the upkeep for Pans is quite high.
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  #20  
Old April 4th, 2008, 09:01 AM

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Default Re: New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage,

The upkeep for Pans is very high, but at the same time they generate Maenads, so taking Turmoil 3 allows you to make the most of them.

If you use Turmoil-3, use Luck-3. It's synergistic. And you don't necessarily have to expand greatly, just get some good dominion spread going, and your Luck tends to take care of the rest. Once you have around 10 provinces with Luck 3 on them, you'll be very pleasantly surprised at your income.

Luck-Turmoil is actually more conducive to a smaller map than a larger one, and a smaller territory than a larger one. Once you pass 20 provinces or so, it's quite obvious that Order is the real money maker. BUT... upkeepless, freespawn Maenads are definitely worth it in my opinion, with the added benefit of having 120 more points to work with. Especially if you're playing in a smaller game and those points go straight into your Gorgon.

You can do some fairly heavy patrolling if you've got Growth scales if you find you're hurting on funds. Harpies are quite good at patrol. Avoid patrolling with Maenads. They are easily bribed with raw meat and sexual favors.

And from earlier, Ewierl is absolutely right about the Trapeze-Teleport abilities over Fly... being able to hurl your Gorgon into battle before the enemy has time to move is completely invaluable. This way you know exactly what he's going to be fielding on the other end, especially if they just attacked one of your provinces, and script accordingly. This becomes even more obvious if you're using her alone and can never push back the enemy force so as to attack their greatest concentrations instead of just tagging behind them like a forlorn camp prostitute.
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