Guide: MA Pangaea strategies

[Gregstrom]

More has been added to the top post again.

[Lingchih]

Nice job Gregstrom. I think you have summed up Pangaea nicely. I wish I had the dedication to write up such a treatise. I am too busy playing though, to spend time writing something like this. That, and perhaps, I don't want other players to see my stategies

[Gregstrom]

Ah well, I don't play Pan so much yet. And of course the real power of any strategy is in its execution . Writing this has been a learning experience for me, actually. I find that putting all this onto paper has really added to my comprehension of how Pan works. And there's more to come, including more of the contributions by other people on this thread.

[kasnavada]

Hum, some questions, about armored units... I've been trying a few games with pangaea against the Ai and am about to start a multiplayer game with it. The main problem I faced is that I'm always having trouble against armored units.

The only things I've found that can actually hold the line without suffering huge losses are the armored units you control (I mainly used centaurs), and manikins (probably due to the stun effect). Manikins are rather hard to get though... a few times I got them with independant shamans (the ones that costs 110 and have 10% chance of death, since they are sacred, they are as good as dryads for research purposes and spellcasting), the other times I used a pan to summon them (but it seemed like a waste of time for a 350 gold unit). So I can't really rely on that. Using my pretender seems even more of a waste. Finally, armored units don't come cheap when you try to max out maenads numbers (turmoil 3, building forts in forest if possible).

What I actually want to ask is, apart from destruction, mass protection which are given in the opening post, what other spells or units can be used to handle them in early game and later, relying on national units mostly ?

What I currently do is giving the armored units something to waste their attack on (either the armored centaurs or maenads) while the bulk of my forces attack the archers behind, eventually causing enough killing to rout them, surrounding them in the process, and pelting them with centaur archer fire. That works well with independants but against human players or AI, obviously, this leads to an army of armored troups I won't be able to handle later on, and won't work against a army with high defense.

Another idea I thought of was making minotaur thugs. They seem best suited for it since the white centaurs commander already have a bow and don't need to go melee... other commanders are mages, and expensive ones. I've got little experience with making thugs since I just got the game though, so I'd like some advice on that. Again, only relying on national capabilities if possible. But since Pangaea has good access to earth, and access to nature magic goodies like ring of regen and invigoration, it looked like a good idea.

So... any advice on that ?

[Dedas]

Armored units are quite easily dealt with the nice tune of dancing death and tune of growth that your dryads can sing. Now, now, I know you will all say it's too risky having mages up front but stay with me.

First let's look at "Tune of Dancing Death":

Area effect 15, stun damage 31+, fatigue 5, armor negating, magic resistance negates.

"Tune of Growth"
AoE 15, entangles enemies, depends on growth scale

The clever thing is that these tunes comes in harmony with comman pangean scales and strategies.
Growth adds to ToG
Magic +3 helps ToDD negate MR on enemies
200gp temples makes it very cheap to spread dominion
The dryad is cheap in initial cost (110), cheap in large numbers due to holiness, and is also a priest able to build temples.
Dryad has Awe +2 and no encumbering armor + able to cast barkskin with her N1 + able to forge a hide shield with the same to protect her from arrows.

The plan
Take three or four dryads (no less for best effect).
Forge a barkskin shield for each one (easy with 6N gem income from start)
Research alteration 1
Attack where dominion and scale is on your side to help with awe and magic negation.
In battle, place some chaff first (satyrs or maenads) and behind them the dryads mixed with satyrs (almost same movement). Script: 1 barkskin 2 attack one, ToDD, ToDD, Tune of Fear.

That is it. It really does work and the dryads thanks to awe, chaff, barkskin and shield. I always use this strategy when expanding and the results are more than often great. Of course you will rarely lose a dryad now and then but it is worth considering how many troops you would lose otherwise.

Try it. Experiment with placement as that is key.

Oh, tune of growth is just ridiculously effective on barbarians because of low MR (against growth) and low morale (against awe). Also, they have no bows to shoot the dryads with. That is one reason I always buy a dryad on the first turn so that I can claim any province defended by barbarians much easier.

I just want to add that the trick is really to use multiple dryads to sing the tunes as the three songs scale nicely.

[kasnavada]

I'll have to try that. It sounds pretty useful !

[OmikronWarrior]

A little off topic, but what other nations have the Gorgon?

[Dedas]

Here is a small demonstration of what I am talking about. Note that the dryads do not use the barkskin spell as it isn't researched yet. They could of course also benefit from any blessing you like.

[Dedas]

OmikronWarrior said:
A little off topic, but what other nations have the Gorgon?

Sauromatia is the only one I believe.

[kasnavada]

Thanks for the replay. One more strategy I need to learn to use.