EA Pangaea strategy

[Dedas]

A SMALL GUIDE TO EARLY AGE PANGAEA

The main reason why I've begun writing this guide on Pangaea EA, is because after getting inspired by the recent MA Pangaea strategy thread, I decided to do some testing and experimenting on EA Pangaea. Now I want to share and discuss the results with you. And the reason it is in a new thread is because EA Pangaea may be similar to MA, but they are not the same – armor being one of the main differences.

Attached is a savegame meant as a demonstration of early game with this strategy.



THE SETUP

Pretender
As I'm trying to use EA Pan's every potential, I also tried to find a good pretender to use with spell songs. What I found was the ”The lady of love”. Now, this woman is ideal for the job of singing in front line battle. And the reason for this is that she has both high awe (+4) and the ability to craft herself a hide shield on the first turn. That shield and her pretty high HP will help her and her troops to deal with arrows to a less extent when expanding. Arrows that of course are deadly to any EA Pan unit. Other things she is even better at are sucking up cavalry chargers and staying alive singing. Her awe helps her with these tasks.
Also not to be forgotten is her nature and water magic that will strengthen her and her minions defensive capabilities later on when research really kicks in. But for start game she doesn't need any of that.

Scales
Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Heat 1, Growth 3, Luck 3, Magic 3.

Heavy on growth as you are going to patrol your provinces heavily to afford all those castles and pans.

Heavy on magic will help with spell songs (negating MR and less fatigue for the caster) and research.

The battle in the savegame:
It show effective use of the spell song as the small and lightly damaged starting army takes out a relatively big group of heavy cavalry.



STEP BY STEP

Early game general goals

Build a strong economy that will fuel a strong research base with pans as core. The cheap in upkeep dryads will soon become abundant and can be used as support troops in many various roles.

Early game – the first crucial turns

TURN 1
Recruit:
A dryad
40xharpies

Forge a hide shield with your pretender.
Make your black harpy prophet.
Put the minotaur with accompanying troops to patrol.
Set taxes to 200%.

Turn 2
Recruit:
A dryad
(no nothing else, save your gold)

Equip your pretender with hide shield.
Give all harpies to the dryad, set her to patrol (taxes still at 200%.)
With your pretender, prophet and minotaur:
Attack any province that is not a farm (too expensive fortress) but still produces a good amount of gold. For battle placement see savegame.

TURN 3
Recruit:
A dryad.
As many harpies as you can afford (not over 40).
If you don't have the money, try to alchemise a small amount of nature gems.

Build with your harpy:
A fortress in the newly taken province.

Attack another province with your pretender and minotaur.

TURN 4
Recruit:
A dryad
40xharpies

Put all free harpies on the newly recruited dryad. Move her to the fortress construction site.

Move your pretender and the minotaur to the fortress construction site.

TURN 5
Recruit:
A dryad
40xharpies

Build at the fortress construction site:
A temple with you prophet.
A lab with your pretender.
Continue construction with your minotaur.

Put all free harpies on the newly recruited dryad. Move her to one of the newly taken provinces that produces the most gold.

Set taxes to 200% at the fortress construction site. Set the dryad there to patrol.

TURN 6 AND BEYOND – Roughly

You should now have a new fortress to continue the dryad production in.

*Note*
The reason you are recruiting dryads is because they later can be set to various tasks including research, spying, defense and offense (singing and blessing), patrol, lab and temple building. Other commanders are either too expensive in both upkeep and price, or they have less uses.

Your old fortress should be set to spamming pans.
When you very soon have yet another fortress, much to the help of your income boosting patrol dryads, you should set the old one to pans as well.

*Note*
Pans are good but need a strong economy. The dryads can manage this. The pans will later help with free patrollers as maenads become abundant. A growth scale is needed to battle low supplies from patrolling.

Your pans should of course be set to research.

Middle game

Coming soon...

Late game

Coming soon...