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STARTING OUT WITH SHANGRI-LA
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Author: Globu

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INTRODUCTION
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MA Shangri-La is quite versatile and powerful, with two kinds of very decent
sacreds, well-armed units, and powerful mages across the board.  In my
experience testing it, the price of these strengths is threefold:

1) Everything is *expensive* -- including in resource costs.
2) Your mages and priests tend to suffer from old age.
3) You may tend to find yourself in the same quandary as that of EA Tir na
   n'Og -- no really cheap mages or priests to do cheap mage or priest work,
   so you are somewhat forced to have powerful mages do lesser jobs or find
   independent mages to do them.

So, while I am no expert at Dom3 (particularly since I only play SP), here are
a few starting-out tips.  I'm assuming a normal-length or longer game, not a
short blitz-style one, which would change the analysis quite a bit.

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SCALES
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I imagine many will be torn between taking a bless strategy and a
scales/rainbow/minor bless strategy, what with the quite decent sacreds this
nation has. With the scales needed, I think the latter, with an imprisoned or
at least sleeping pretender, is best.  (I'd be interested to hear how the
nation fares against a nasty early rush without an awake pretender.)

Fortunately, the preference for Cold 2 gives 80 "free" points.  From there,
for scales we know for a fact we should have Growth for those old, expensive
mages -- Growth 2 or 3.  Your better troops are all resource-intensive, so
Production 1 or so is called for.  Finally, you have extremely powerful
(Astral 5) multiheroes and need the points anyway, which tips the scales
toward Turmoil/Luck for your gold needs, as opposed to Order.  So, what we're
looking at is as follows:

Turmoil 2
Production 1
Cold 2
Growth 2
Luck 3

... for a net point cost of 40. You could tack on another point in Production
and/or Growth if you're feeling like you have points to burn.


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PRETENDER, MAGIC AND BLESS
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From here, your choice of magic and bless is your own; your sacreds are pretty
versatile, and you've got no major holes to plug -- with random picks, you
have no path where you can't conceivably get a mage with level 2 access (and
in death a lucky but somewhat unlikely pick can get you three, albeit with a
very expensive mage).

That said, your mages are strongest in astral, air, and earth, and your
starting access is weakest to nature and water.  However, later on you have
summons that can cover that area better.

So, in the end, the nation is like T'ien Ch'i, what with the balance thing.
Go with what you like.


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A NOTE ON CASTLES
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Your castles are the opposite of most nations: expensive with good admin in
forest and mountains, and cheap with low admin in open terrain. So plains are
your target areas for cheap River Fortresses (800g).


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FINAL NOTE
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If you have other guidance and experience to throw in, post it on the thread
and I'd be happy to add it to the guide if you'd like.
