Guide to EA C'tis

[Shovah32]

You shouldnt notice a big drop in random events once your empire is mid-sized or larger due to the 3 per turn limit.

[MaxWilson]

Your income doesn't go down when you recruit troops, but your upkeep does increase. Every turn your treasury accumulates (income - upkeep).

I think it's been mentioned that stronger indies make for an easier game. IMHO this also applies to larger maps--crowded maps always result in AIs ganging up on me (because I'm weak in the beginning, having no bonuses to production like Impossible AIs get) before I'm ready. I like Glory of the Gods (multiplayer) with 6 or 7 AIs, tops.

I always take Order-3 Misfortune-3, mostly because I don't care about heroes and expand quickly enough not to notice the bad events (chance of events doesn't scale linearly with empire size). Sloth is often a good pick, depending on your race. The only times I've ever taken Death scales I've regretted it, although this may have something to do with my playstyle. Expensive blesses are a lot of fun but not generally as effective for me as good scales and terrific mages (I usually only play races with good recruitable-anywhere mages, like EA C'tis, LA Agartha, pre-3.08 Helheim, Arcoscephale, EA Ermor).

Have fun!

-Max

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Well, see, Max, I did a test game on the demo map, with my own Pretender and C'tis. No matter how many militia (7 gold, 2 resources) I recruited, my income didn't go down, even if they just stood around doing nothing. It makes a certain amount of sense that the militia would be free (7/15 < 1), but not the taskmaster (30 gp). Maybe it was a little glitch? It seems to reacting more or less as expected now - 50 militia increase my upkeep by 24 gold or so a turn, but they didn't before.

Edit- so farmlands still could be profitably overtaxed with militia support.

[Shovah32]

If you have growth then with overtaxing and patrolling you can still keep a stable population at 0 unrest.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

RamsHead, I'm editing some basic information into that wiki page. Do I have your permission to copy your guide in? Or do you think you'll get around to it?

[RamsHead]

If you are on a smaller or even medium sized map, you can go with a death scale. C'tissian mages don't suffer from old age and with nature magic, you should not have any major problems with supply. Though if you do go with a death scale, you should avoid over taxing and patrolling.

Yes, you should put magic on your pretender that your nation doesn't have access to. If you were playing Arcoscephale or T'ien Ch'i, then it wouldn't be as big of a deal, but EA C'tis is quite magically focused.

As far as your magic strategy goes, I don't see any glaring flaws with it. You might want to consider going for Raise Skeletons first. Black Servants are nice, but you should be able to expand fast enough to come across an indie province that allows you to recruit scouts. Most of the time you shouldn't bother with Shades. They are fairly weak, so it is better to save up for more powerful beings.

[RamsHead]

You can copy it in Lazy_Perfectionist.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Say... When my pretender or commanders have natural protection and I give them armor... Does natural protection supplement armor, or is it replaced? If I give a test Cyclops (basic prot. 20, earth +3 prot) black steel plate and helmet, I get a protection of 32. How exactly does it combine?

[RamsHead]

Natural protection and armor protection will combine but will not equal the total. IE you give a Lizard Lord (natural protection 5) a full scale mail (protection 14) and the total will be 17, not 19. The more natural protection a unit has the less he will gain from armor. I don't know what the actual equation is to figure this out though.