Understanding D2 strategy - help!

[Yossar]

Some of the best units in the game are blood units. I don't know why yours are dying. Maybe you aren't using enough? With devils and fiends of darkness, I find you need at the very least 5 or 6 to do anything useful, ideally more. Devils are some of the best units in the game and Fiends of Darkness are good until you can get Devils. Two of the toughest commanders in the game are ice devils and arch devils.

For pretenders, you can never go wrong with just making a tough pretender with any nation. A ghost king with at least air and water for quickness and mirror image/mistform is the "overpowered pretender of the moment". Or you can use your pretender to cast spells your nation normally can't. If you don't get mages with earth, take an earth pretender, etc.

[Calistas]

Hmm, good tips. Yes, perhaps not enough fiends and sending them in too early

Another thing I don't get is the themes. I took Niefelheim with Jutheim and I didn't notice anything different about the game? I am reading hte manual adendum and it's not giving me much clues as to what the themes do either.. well, other than the largely obvious stuff, I don't see the up side of themes I guess?

Anyway, thanks.. and keep posting anyone who has something to contribute!

Peter

[Graeme Dice]

Calistas said:
I took Niefelheim with Jutheim and I didn't notice anything different about the game?

Compare the units you have with Niefelheim to those with the other two themes.

[Calistas]

I see it, no giants. So that's the only change? I guess giants are quite nice compared to those little pixies

Erm, blood economy.. who suits setting on up? Should you only bother if you've pretty much chosen a blood-style empire and theme?

Peter

[Cainehill]

Blood? Well, even on a non-blood nation, having a bit of blood on the pretender can be great for forging a couple of very nice items - blood thorn (only single handed weapon in the game with lifestealing), or blood stones.

Other than that, since I tend to play non-blood nations, I don't plan on using a lot of blood. However! There are magic sites that can easily make it worthwhile to go with blood. For instance - if you find the site that gives a blood-60 bonus (60% fewer blood slaves required for each summoning there), or a site that gives cheap powerful blood mages, it can be well worth cranking up a blood economy.

About the themes - most simply change the units and commanders the nation gets; some modify the gem income and required scales, and a very few (death themes mostly) heavily modify other things. But mostly, they change the units.

Some themes play very similarly to the base nation; others are wildly different. Conquerors of the Sea Marignon, for instance, is very different from standard Marignon, with very different magic strengths and with sailing instead of stealth.

Niefelheim theme for Jotunheim gives honking huge combat monsters, both commanders and troops, all very expensive and all sacred, great with a strong bless effect. On the other paw, Niefelheim loses the cheap researchers base Jotunheim has, but still plays fairly similarly to the base.

[Calistas]

Ahh, ok that explains it
How do you lot match up pretender with nation/theme? Anything around to help me understand this process?

Peter

[Cainehill]

For me, how I match up the pretender is different for different nations and themes (plus I still like occasionally trying something experimental in MP). It also varies according to game settings - what I want for a very difficult research game with Indy Strength 9 can be very different from normal research, Indies 5 or 6.

If a nation has very strong (or very cheap sacred troops ( Vanheim, Man's Last of the Tuatha, Marignon ) I may try to pick a pretender that will give a cost-effective strong blessing.

Mostly though, I want a pretender that can act as either a SC or an artillery platform, while having magic strengths that are different from what the theme's national mages have. For instance, making sure I have earth or death on the pretender, if the theme doesn't have easy access. Broken-rainbows - 3 or 4 paths between 3 and 5, for instance.

Other people have very different desires / intentions for their pretenders, but generally you want to play to the strengths of a pretender-chassis, while compensating for a nation / theme's weakness.

Or you play to the theme's strengths, as Zen mentioned - a high earth magic Cyclops for Ulm is pretty potent in combat, and with research can chain-cast some potent battlefield magics like Bladewind with low fatigue costs. Add some fire to that Cyclops, it can do all the nifty magma spells. Or add some water, and it becomes a fair tank, with quickness and breath of winter cast. Of course - that also gets it all kinds of afflictions, so maybe you want nature as well, for regeneration and hopefully forging or summoning some things that can heal wounds.

Hundreds of different ways to pick and design the pretender, according to what you want to try with it. You just have to try and avoid some of the ... decidely sub-optimal pretender chassis's at the moment.

[Calistas]

Er, Zen, what are hammers?

I tried working with the Ulm setup you suggested, it was quite fun and my guy ended up semi-rainbow and did a great job of churning out the gem sites.

I guess those gems can be used to summon rubbish to help with Ulm's weak magic stuff as you suggested?

Cal

[Alneyan]

Calistas said:
Er, Zen, what are hammers?
Cal

The hammers are the Dwarven Hammers, which give you a Forge Bonus of 25%. It effectively means forging is 25% cheaper as before, and will stack with the same bonus of your Master Smiths (making it a 50% forging bonus, so all magic items will be half as expensive as before).

The Dwarven Hammer requires Construction 2 and Earth 3, for a cost of 20 earth gems.

[Calistas]

Ahhh, thanks a lot
So get great items, tool up your summons and whatnot and send them out with the boys? That the strategy? Sounds fun

Cal