I need some guides... help me heh? Pretenders....

[quantum_mechani]

Well, do you build lots of mages? A good rule of thumb is to make about one mage per turn if at all possible. Also, what kind of scales are you using? Taking full order and magic are very important, particularly in the base game.

[Slen]

I use tons of mages, whoever I play. I always use mages as the backbone of my army-whether they are casting offensive spells or support, EVERY army I field is high on mages.

[quantum_mechani]

That may be your problem then, if most of your mages are out on the battlefield, you don't have enough researching. Over 50% should be back at home researching in most cases. For this reason, buy a lot of your nation's cheapest mages, they may not be great on the battlefield, but they are the best research bang for the back ehen you have a magic scale.

[Slen]

I crank out lots of mages in my capital(usualy one every turn or two) to research.

The problem is I eventually just get zerged in such a huge amount that I can not stop them, OR I get really unlucky and despite being uber beyond belief, my pretender dies(game over, as the loss of magic is a crippling blow).

[quantum_mechani]

Well, as long as you are just fighting AIs there is one cheap trick to use if it gets to hard. If as soon as you border an AI you take 11 province defense in that province, and then as you border more AIs always put 11 PD in all border provinces, they will very rarely attack you. Of course, if don't want to use that trick, on a big enough map you can usually outfit several combatants capable of destroying almost unimited AI armies. On a small map it is more difficult, but usually you can hold them off long enough to get your combatant factory going, particularly with a pretender like a VQ.

[Slen]

One thing I could really use is a guide to making pretenders... if anyone has one .

[quantum_mechani]

Heh. I was going to write one as a follow up to the guide to buffing but I havn't gotten around to it... though if you are not using Zen's mods there is not a lot to it. Just pick a ghost king, load him up with 4-7 paths (exactly which depends on what nation you are trying to fill in the magic holes for), take full order, full sloth, full death, full magic, misfortune 2, watchtower (once in a while other forts, but never a citadel) and leftover points into dominion.