Brainstorming Nation Strategies

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Torin

chris, that`s great pangaea stuff, specially the swarm trick.
You got more dragonflies or ants with the other one... dont remember the spell name. And what about the life after death or the ankh. will it work too?

There are two spells, creeping doom and another spell whose name escapes me. And yes the ankh works too.

Yeah... I'm just giving themes.. I'm too lazy to type a full nation guide like Baalz does.

[chrispedersen]

Wraithcrown + swarm ....

[Starshine_Monarch]

LA-Ctis

-Try a sleeping Rainbow Master Lich. You really don't need a bless or SC to start you off with. You do need the gems though. You can take an awake rainbow chassis instead but, as a personal preference, I think the Immortality is worth the extra points and time. I think at least 3+ in Earth, Astral and Nature are the paths you need the most and you can add more from there if you like. Incidentally, minor Earth, Death and even Nature are nice blesses to have on your Sauromancers. Not so much for your undead sacreds though.

-For scales, I like O1,H3,L3 as it will help your initial income a lot with both gem and gold events. Since you aren't taking Turmoil, you should still be sitting on a nice stack of cash by the start of year 2 to build forts, temples and labs with. You'll need it, because as far as I've seen, you cannot get any 800 gold forts. Since you can easily forge Skull Mentors and Lightless Lanterns, Magic isn't really needed and Drain 2 might even be an option if you're so inclined, especially if you want to try an awake rather than sleeping pretender. Still, if you've got the points, Magic 1 certainly won't hurt.

-Expansion should consist of mostly Desert Rangers and Tomb Chariots where you can spare them. Your chariots, being skeletons, you should expect to die pretty easily, the consolation being that they'll never break and trample your own units like Elephants and living Chariots.

-Send a Sauromancer, preferably with an Earth random, out to do some manual site searching before your pretender wakes up. If you're lucky, you can possibly have a F1E1S1D3 or F1E1D4 Sauromancer to send out, but don't count on it. Astral can easily be searched remotely with 25% of your Sauromancers using alchemized gems if needed, plus the Sauromancer's H1 should net you a few Ancient Temples that give you Pearls.

-There are quite a few research schools useful to you. Construction of course gets you Skull Mentors and Lightless Lanterns to help you win the research race, as well as giving you all sorts of gear for Bane Lords, Tomb Kings and Tartarians. With Earth on your pretender, try forging a Hammer as soon as you're able. With that, you can easily forge lots of nice equipment for your Bane Lords, Tomb Kings and Tartarians.

-Early on, Enchantment will get you Mound Kings to herd your undead chariots around with, so you can save your Sauromancers and Tomb Priests the trouble. Enchantment also is the way to go if you want to pull off the C'tissian Special, though without the Marshmasters of MA, it's not as easy to pull off. Foul Vapors will really only be castable by your pretender, but an Empoisoner with a Thistle Mace will be able to cast Poison Ward on your Rangers while Poison Slingers and skellispamming Sauromancers back them up. Aside from that, Enchantment can also get you other Death spells such as Reanimate Archers, Life after Death and Lichcraft. Your pretender, depending on your build, might also be able to cast things like Enliven Gargoyle, Forest Dome, even eventually Arcane Nexus.

-Conjuration of course is Ctis's old standby, mostly for Tartarian Gate. Conjuration will also let you summon other mages to help diversify your magic pool once your Preteneder can find the gems to summon them with. Lamia Queens, Naiads, Couatls and Faerie Queens will get you further into Nature, Water, Blood, Astral and Air. A Troll King or two empowered in Blood will eventually get you Blood stones and a few Naiads can easily make clams once water gems start flowing faster. LA Ctis, unlike the previous two ages, is also in a great position to summon Scorpion Men, so later on, summon those with the Earth random Sauromancers that aren't busy with Tartarians.

((I haven't tried this yet, but will a Naiad with a Shroud and an N4 Bless still lose HP if she moves around?)

-Evocation has quite a few nice battle spells for you to use. All your Sauromances, of course, can be spitting out Banefire at level 6, as well as Shadow Blast, which becomes more dangerous with a higher Death level, also cutting back on fatigue (but not gem cost). Magma Eruption can be cast by Earth Sauromancers with Earth Boots and Summon Earth Power, and Nether Darts by any Astral Sauromancers. If you can find an independent air mage, like Crystal Amazons, Eyes of Aiming can easily be forged for these guys. Suffice to say that most anything Agartha can lay down, you can as well.

[Ferrosol]

EA Arcosphale

1. Uber researchers- sloth 3 and magic 3 turn your philosophers into uber researchers

2. Communions- your mystics are ideal for communinoning up giving you access to all the battlefield FEWS spells

3. Dual blessed wind riders- Flying sacreds with a flying H1 commander to lead and bless them

4. Thuggable Orieads- your orieads make great thugs having access to nice buffs awe and cloud trapeze to put them where you want to be and have stealth to get them out of there

5. Master assassin- Your oreiads can seduce enemy commanders giving you access to other magic paths and if the seduction fails well it becomes an assassination and a few well placed lightning bolts can take down anything not shock immune

6. Dom Killer- Cheap temples and sceptics combined with a high dom make you an ideal candidate for killing enemy candles bonus points for prophetising and or equipping stone idols to your skeptics

7. Trample to death- Size 4 chariots can carve through anything smaller and are a threat to bigger enemies.

8. Engineering- a Few engineers and or mage engineers make taking enemy forts that much quicker

[Dragar]

Ferrosol - are the wind riders really worth the bless? I would have thought a good high dominion awake SC like wyrm or great bull would be better for arco? particularly as it supports dom kill

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Ferrosol

EA Arcosphale

1. Uber researchers- sloth 3 and magic 3 turn your philosophers into uber researchers

2. Communions- your mystics are ideal for communinoning up giving you access to all the battlefield FEWS spells

3. Dual blessed wind riders- Flying sacreds with a flying H1 commander to lead and bless them

4. Thuggable Orieads- your orieads make great thugs having access to nice buffs awe and cloud trapeze to put them where you want to be and have stealth to get them out of there

5. Master assassin- Your oreiads can seduce enemy commanders giving you access to other magic paths and if the seduction fails well it becomes an assassination and a few well placed lightning bolts can take down anything not shock immune

6. Dom Killer- Cheap temples and sceptics combined with a high dom make you an ideal candidate for killing enemy candles bonus points for prophetising and or equipping stone idols to your skeptics

7. Trample to death- Size 4 chariots can carve through anything smaller and are a threat to bigger enemies.

8. Engineering- a Few engineers and or mage engineers make taking enemy forts that much quicker

Many of these points are excellent. However arco does not do well with a double bless. In fact, getting a single w9 bless can often be challenging.

I played a lot with arco recently; I started with a Sloth 3, magic 3 approach: I went with something like an
O3S3-G3Mi2M3, and a Dom 7ish.

However, after playing around a lot the following occured to me.

1. Sloth helps your rp 1:1 whereas Drain2 only hurts you 1 - and gives you 80 design points. I'd even consider drain 3.
2. Save the points on your dominion. If you make your first build a skeptic and pick out where you want your 2nd castle to be, you can move your skeptic there. Your sceptic will prevent your drain scale from asserting. So you get all the benefits of the drain scale (design points) at the cost of a 25pt sceptic build on the first turn.
3. If you pay attention, you can manage your dominion almost as well as mictlan.
4. Your drain scales will hurt enemy mages more than yourself, as you will be using communions to spread fatigue. But I do think with this approach, a few crystal matrixes are invaluable.
5. Sloth really makes chariots impossible to mass.
6. But you are right on the value of skeptics. These suckers are a lot more powerful at killing dominion than people realize.


So, I'd be looking at something like
O3S3H0G3Mi2D3 for a grand total of around -80 pts.
Death3 is also an interesting option.

I'd look at awake pretenders: Baalz wrote up a good guide for the White Bull. I also like the phoenix.
The bull costs you 25? pts, Dom 5, 42 points., leaving you 413 points for magic paths.....

Just realize the lack of awe needs to be compensated for.

[Ferrosol]

Originally Posted by Dragar

Ferrosol - are the wind riders really worth the bless? I would have thought a good high dominion awake SC like wyrm or great bull would be better for arco? particularly as it supports dom kill

To be honest I would consider relying on dual blessed wind riders somewhat sub optimal given that they are capital only and expensive but that said something like a E9N4 bless that can benefit your oreiads as well has potential to help your wind lords or perhaps giving them a minor death bless to add to the shock from those first strike lances they carry. That said a rather interesting idea has just occurred to me sleeping lady of love Dom 7 O3S3Mis2M3 with W9N5 (N5 to use up a few extra points)which provides you with a nice bless for your wind riders and with a little research down the alt path makes a respectable SC when she wakes up with her inbuilt awe. Haven't really tested this build but it looks like it could work.

[Dragar]

W9N5 looks like a shaky SC to me for a non-immortal pretender. Earth and astral are pretty key for the required self-buffs in my opinion.

I once used W9 on an SC pretender, Son of Niefel for Utgard, as he also has cold power and a cold aura. The synergy was good and I had the smattering of other schools required to make him very tough to kill. I've never really considered it viable for another chassis

[Ferrosol]

Originally Posted by Dragar

W9N5 looks like a shaky SC to me for a non-immortal pretender. Earth and astral are pretty key for the required self-buffs in my opinion.

I once used W9 on an SC pretender, Son of Niefel for Utgard, as he also has cold power and a cold aura. The synergy was good and I had the smattering of other schools required to make him very tough to kill. I've never really considered it viable for another chassis

For what it is worth I agree with you but I was just trying to suggest a pretender that combines good enough scales with a bless and some SC potential. Personally I would probably go with some sort of awake pretender and ignore your sacreds. The question is which awake pretender do you go with? I have a hard time looking past a Prince of Death in that it gives you access to death magic (the one magic path you are really lacking)and makes a decent SC in his own right.

[LDiCesare]

EA T'ien Ch'i
-W9F9 bless for warriors of the four elements (they can rush).
-Water demon Summons. Berserk, sacred.
-Fire demon Summons. Fly, hurl fire wheels.
-Flying celestial masters casting acid bolts/rains.
-Communions for celestial masters and late game battle spells or reverse communions.
-Use pretender for flaming arrows when he awakens/breaks free.
-Use Internal alchemy to save your best Celestial masters from old age (but beware madness).
-Empower one of your death mages to start ramping up death path to get access to late game death magic.