Turmoil Race(s) and Playing Them

I've been playing around with multiple Turmoil situations. These are my conclusions, I'm interested in any feedback about how/why/what/when of what I have found, or your own tests.

Sucessful -

T'ien Ch'i (Spring & Autumn)

Turmoil 1 (Required)
Growth 3 (Production 3 is just as good, for the most part)
Luck 3
Magic 1 (Required)

Castle: Mausoleum
Pretender: Lady of Fortune.

Reasons for Success: The primary reason I am successful with spring & autumn are because of their Celestial Masters and Master of the Five Elements, Demon of Heavenly (River, Fire), Clam of Pearls, and Immortal Heroes.

Why: Celestial Masters are absolutely fantastic for searching, and reinforcing. They are also incredible for combat as LONG as you are not fighting an astrally powerful nation. Celestial Masters can also drive around squads of Demon of Heavenly Fires because they also fly and have movement 3.

Master of the Five Elements is vital if you face any astral nations. They also have a great selection of spell combinations as well as search/forge engines.

River Demons are decent and the only real access to a non-paper troop. They are a stopgap to allow your missle and mage power to defeat the enemy.

Clam of Pearls are vital to the gem production that is required in the nation. You have easy access to 2 Water Mages to forge them, and they are a primary concern during your entire game. Also making a factory of them is easy enough. They allow the quick reinforcements via summons as you are normally very low on your prefered Fire gems.

Immortal Heroes are vital because of their magic combinations and slightly more powerful astral that they come with. They are useful targets and decoys in your own domain for Astral killers.


Weaknesses:

A.) Their standard army is comprised of 2 useful normal units.

1.) Compositebowman.
2.) Tower Shield Spear Infantry.

Outside of these two units, your normal armies will be comprised of summons. The only reason you use the Infantry is because they form a backbone of your center and allow you the time for your other units to hammer away.

Compositebowmen are great for indy expansion and are semi-decent even under fire from other archers. They are mostly a distraction, and have a hard time punching through anything with any sort of armor. They are backup to the Heavenly Fire demons. Against Abysia you will have to rely on these.

Even under only Turmoil 1 and Growth 3, you are low on money for the most part as your normal troops are distractions. They are nearly the weakest units in the game for the resource/gold cost. If you had anything better you jump on it and it's vital to build on independant sites with useful units (Xbow, Heavy Inf, Knights).

The other units you have access to are Dispossed Spirits, which are great fodder and it's important to be able to command large numbers of them and Revive King is an important early spell.

B.) Your NEED your mages for every kind of duty. You can't afford to not build mages as often as possible and this can become overwhelming and a wrong spell, troop placement or battlefield strategy can result in tremendous losses.

C.) Even under Turmoil 1, Luck 3. You have bad events fairly often. The Lady of Fortune nearly makes up for it with her events. The sheer mass of "Find Gems" luck events help quite a bit because of your reliance on summons. Even some good events (Like Zealot events (Milita and Flags)) can wreak havok on your empire and your precious gold flow. Unrest is an issue as often you recieve Bandit events quite often unless you have a powerful dominion.


Coming Soon: Pangaea (Base) Crossbreed/Maened focus. Barbarian King (T'ien Ch'i) horde. Diabolical Faith (Marignon) demon fever!.

[ December 10, 2003, 17:28: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Daynarr]

This is interesting stuff but the topic name can be a bit misleading. It's more of a guide on how to use turmoil nation then discussing issues.

I apologize for the misinformation and it has been changed.

To Volume II.

Pangaea (Base)

Turmoil 3
Growth 3
Luck 3
Magic 3

Castle: Fortress

Pretender: Lord of the Wild

Reasons for Success: Maeneds, Blood Summons, Crossbreeding, Harpies, Stealth, Pans.

Maeneds. In a Turmoil 3 Domain you attract alot of Maeneds. And by alot, I mean more than you can get rid of most of the time. It is important to get a free source of troops as fast as you can. This can be tricky and painful decisions early on with waiting to buy another Pan or buying a Dryad to research. But initially it's best to buy pans and Centaur Heirophants. Another great aspect of Maeneds is the fact that you can almost never be sieged out; as you attrack Maeneds even under siege and more often than not; you will have so many that they will rebuild the fortress faster than any army can tear it down. This is a key strategy for taking and holding provinces near borderlines. They also have Strat movement of 2.

Blood Summons. With only a few levels in other magics (Construction notably as well as Alteration/Evocation/Enchantment for Pans) you need to bulk your armies with good units from the Blood Path. Easy access to Dark Vines, Serpent Fiends allow a decent heavy troop, as well as provincial attack spells like Horde from Hell, Rain of Toads, are key to keeping up the pain you will be administering.

Crossbreeding. Crossbreeding really shines in this type of enviroment, and basic crossbreeding can provide some impressive results. It is not uncommon to get Ettins, Grotesques and Cockatrices during a crossbreeding session. Improved Crossbreeding, later in the game and produce huge armies out of thin air that can wear and crush down interlopers into your domain.

Harpies. Harpies in and of themselves are great patrollers. Black Harpies can carry 2 misc slot items, which are great for Cauldrons and Wine Bags which you will need for your massive Hoe Train armies. And Last but not least, Harpies are some of the great distractors. Needed later in the game to stop those massive mage crews from decimating your armies before they have a chance to fight.

Stealth. Never underestimate stealth. With virtually everything that Pangaea can produce, having a stealth army will allow you to grow while your opponent is constantly reflexively retaking lost territories.

Pans. Pans are great, all around. 3 Nature, 2 Earth and a random allow them to have a tremendous impact in battles. Also they don't need to engage any any special activity to gain maeneds and thus are free to research/lead armies at your whim. While pricy; they pay for themselves quickly. Pandemoniacs on the other hand are some of the best blood slave hunters around. An average of 4 can get anywhere between 25-40 Slaves a turn which quickly turns you into a blood powerhouse.

Weaknesses:

"But Zen, my mage with Blade Wind will destroy your Maened/Crossbreed armies, by themselves!" That is true; thus you have to combat the heavy spellcasters with the availiable flyer/screen troops. With enough Maeneds and Foul Spawns, even large elite armies can be worn down and destroyed by sheer numbers, but you have to distract or destroy the mages or allow protections.

Battlefield and Large AoE spells are key to doing this and don't be afraid to carry gems on your Harpy 'carriers' for multiple situations. If you get a Pan whose random is in Earth, forge him some Earth boots and set him to work with a few of the better armoring and "Weapon of Sharpness" spells. Mass Protection, and a Staff of Storms is also very valuable.

Turmoil 3 is crippling monetarily. In that light initial expansion must be bought at the price of many lives in order to get your Pan production up. Don't be afraid to throw masses of fodder at high income provinces in order to get a semi-decent income. Pray for early money events and mines; and watch your initial unrest closely.

Same as Spring & Autumn, you are going to run into alot of bad events if you don't have a strong dominion; so keep an eye on it; and remember Pangaea temples are only 100 Gold a pop.

[Keir Maxwell]

Very interesting Zen.

My main experiment in turmoil has been Barbarian Kings in which I have had success using turm3, luck3, prod3, growth3 and the Lady of Fortune.

The HI spear are cheap and the comp bow and Celestial mages important to early success. The key advantage of BK in early expansion is starting LC with lance who attract any enemy that overcomes the HI, thus protecting the comp bow/CM's, and generally rout them with their lances. Over time you build more HC and these combine with Summoned spirits for some brutal charges which can devestate even well armoured opponents.

Big weakness is the Celestial Mages vunerability to Mind Duel and that I can never find many gems.

Unlike Zen I have found Celestial mages to be poor searchers and suspect the difference is the extra random pick of S&A plus the luck of the draw. Having only 1 magic level in most areas (and 2 in water which is hardly commen on the land) you only find a fraction of the sites available in a given path. This makes it hard to follow the standard procedure of using indies mages to fill gaps in searching as your gaps are everywhere. Barbarian Kings has one of the poorest gem incomes of races I play, in practice, despite looking handy on paper.

The random events generally work out positive but I would like to stress the point made by many others - the bad events are significantly worse than the "good ones" - some of which are often bad - militia for example. Order3, misfortune3, in practice, leads to luck which is generally not much worse than luck3/turmoil3. Luck needs to be better.

Biggest problem with Barbarian Kings - when I invest in LC I do badly when I invest in foot I do well.

Waiting for 2.05 with great interest.

Cheers

Keir

[Sammual]

Thanks Zen, I can't wait to try the S&A guide.

Sammual

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Zen:
Same as Spring & Autumn, you are going to run into alot of bad events if you don't have a strong dominion; so keep an eye on it; and remember Pangaea temples are only 100 Gold a pop.

I don't quite follow how a strong dominion stops bad events here?

My experiences overall match yours with Pangaea, although I don't find Panii so great in combat relative to their cost. What spells are you casting with them?

When you don't have a strong Dominion any new provinces you fight into are in the enemies domain. And there is some sort of weird conflict that you have alot of events because it's your province (Even if it's under Order3) but your luck 3 isn't in effect (Most of the time misfortune) so you will get hit by torrents of Floods, brigands, and uprisings on new territories until your Domain takes control.

Domain isn't a primary concern for Pangaea, just in your territories to keep your luck up for events.

Pan's are usually equipped with Earth Boots so most have at least 3 if not 4 Earth.

Offensive:

One spell I always have scripted is; Iron Bane, which should be self-explanitory.

With Eagle Eye, Blade Wind can be very useful; and since Pans can cast Ironskin and Personal Regeneration I usually put them semi-near the frontline and the Blade Wind can cut through archer brigades. Against heavy armors I use Destruction. Earthquake if they can cast it. Sleep Cloud, Stream of Life, and Poison Cloud for Nature Users and then whatever your random pick is. Fire is a Favorite for; Magma Eruption.

Area spells are useful since most of the time your troops are extremely expendable (Since they are free).

Buffs:

Mass Protection (Let the Dryads cast Protection), Iron Warriors (After the Iron Bane , Regeneration (Mass Regeneration if you can), Haste, Relief, Weapons of Sharpness.

For an Air Random pick I like to use Healing Mists.

For Pandimoniacs you don't have alot of options except the Nature spells and Harm. 2 or 3 Harms can really mess up heavy attacking forces.

[Jasper]

I see what you mean now. This will be compounded in multiplayer too, as you're extremely likely to face opponents with Misfortune.

As you say though, you don't really need a strong dominion -- just enough to keep opponents dominion at bay. Cheap Temples helps a bunch here.

The spells you mention are pretty much what I do, although I concentrate less on Earth Magic (however you're forgetting Charm!). My problem is that while Panii can cast some nice spells, they're also very expensive.

Perhaps I should check out Iron Bane and Earthquake more... I'm still used to Panii only having 1 Earth in Dom1.

The spells you mention are pretty much what I do, although I concentrate less on Earth Magic (however you're forgetting Charm!). My problem is that while Panii can cast some nice spells, they're also very expensive.

I didn't forget Charm; but I rarely script it because I usually don't use alot of Panii for fighting (usually 2 or 3) and I don't script in Charm the computer just casts it most of the time

I know it's hard to cough up 350 for a Pan when you are used to fielding massive armies with Order 3/Misfortune 3. It took me a while to get past it; and it was easier when I was playtesting S&A but as long as you can get away from that feeling they more than pay for themselves.