Ashdod proto-guide

[chrispedersen]

Sorry, can't agree at all. I have now played about 20 games (sp) with the various hinnon, ashdod, gath races - and find them very very different, despite outward similarities.

The production requirements for gath are so heavy that I don't believe it really does follow a few mighty man approach. Rather I believe you will do better with a levite/benjamite bless approach, transitioning directly to a thug/SC. Try a Air/Earth dual bless.

Yes, I know air is considered a weak bless. However, in this case, nature is inferior due to low hp (for giants anyway) high scale requirements. Additionally, you have units which will allow you to heal afflictions.

Interestingly, I too did arrive at the Misfortune 3 setting as well. Your PD is good enough to handle much of the resulting problems- with spammed fortune teller mages.

Similiarly, for Hinnon, I believe you are best served without a bless strategy at all. Your troops are so strong, and your potential end game thugs ditto - that you do not need the bless. Rather a awake pretender + trampler rush looks almost unbeatable.

The three races seem very distinct to me - and progressively weaker.

[MaxWilson]

Chris,

Can you elaborate on where you disagree? I agree that Hinnom and Gath look very different from Ashdod.

-Max

[chrispedersen]

MaxWilson said:
Chris,

Can you elaborate on where you disagree? I agree that Hinnom and Gath look very different from Ashdod.

-Max

I think the nation is intended to create SC's. You have great access to death, astral, and good access to earth, and fire.

You have a forge bonus.

You have great, unique heroes, and incredible summons.

Try +3 -1 +3 +2 -x +3 imprisoned oracle with something like a s9, x4, n6 magic path.

Research conjuration first all the way up to acashic record. Spam that to generate gem income. You can also dark knowledge for death sites.

Followup with construction till dwarven hammers. Vice versa if you get good gem income early.

[MaxWilson]

The idea of "spamming" a 25-pearl spell boggles the mind. I'd much rather spend those pearls on thugging out commanders or summoning Ophanim. Maybe it's just me--I know some people love Acashic Record.

-Max

[Kristoffer O]

Opinions on the Ophanim?

I'm a bit worried that they are too cheap. They cannot have much equipment, but they do not need it that much.

[MaxWilson]

I haven't gotten to the Ophanim in a real game yet, but yeah, I suspect they're going to be devastatingly cost-effective in SP. On the other hand, so are Wraith Lords, so it might just be the age-old issue the AI has with SCs. But on the other hand, they're resistant to almost everything so all the counters I can think of to Wraith Lords wouldn't work against Ophanim (with a ring for cold resistance). On the gripping hand, I'm not experienced at countering SCs either--I tend to reach for spells and in this case you'd probably want a thug with quickness + flying + Axe of Cleaving instead--so it may be they're okay, especially compared with other Level 8 conjurations like air queens and earth kings. The main cost of summons at that level is the research cost.

That doesn't change the fact that I'm salivating over the idea of getting to Conj 9 for Call Merkavah.

-Max

P.S. Oh yeah, in most cases Ophanim will need to use one of their slots for a reinvig item since they're enc 1 and not enc 0. Nice touch, there--it's one area where they're clearly inferior to the elementals, and for tramplers it does make a big difference.

[chrispedersen]

Honestly KO.. I think the hin and ashdod are way strong.. gath is weak.

[Kristoffer O]

Likely. I've never understood the end game.

[Baalz]

chrispedersen said:
Rather a awake pretender + trampler rush looks almost unbeatable.

I've seen this sentiment elsewhere, but I just don't see it. Their tramplers have 25 hp, cost 75 gold and very high resources. That means a rush is going to see a very low amount of hitpoints in it - you can't afford too many and they've got very low hp compared to elephants. That means any 1) High damage dealers (halberds, greatsword, etc.) or 2) AP (xbows!) or AN (low level lighting spells!) will drop them like flies.

Anyway, yeah they can be good, but depending on the nation elephants are way scarier in a low research (rush) environment.

[MaxWilson]

There aren't any crossbows to my knowledge in EA, so that's not an issue in vanilla Dom3 (although I personally prefer Single-Age Mod). Low-level lightning spells will require lots of mages (I'm assuming the attack/Shock Wave trick is not an option against tramplers), who would rather be doing other things like researching. So I don't see lightning spells dropping them quite like flies--it's be a fair fight IMHO, maybe slightly biased toward Hinnom depending upon the cost of the air mages. I agree that high damage dealers are likely to clean the chariots' clocks on a goldcost basis.

-Max