Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?

[Boron]

Cainehill said:

Nope. Not even close, even looking only at the pretenders available in the demo's five nations. Wyrm, Mother of Monsters, Drakaina, Manticore, possibly Father of Serpents, Destroyer of Worlds, White Bull, Earth Momma.

Some may not be perfect for turn 2 - but by turn 4 or 5, definately. (And I've had a Wyrm take 15 provinces by turn 20.)

Hm the wyrm has low protection. Only 11, and only 8 defense. So you need to buff him with at least BE and personal luck imho.
But any buff adds encumberance, and unless you have a damage shield the wyrm only kills 2 enemies a turn.
And he costs more than a dragon because you have to buy him at least 1 magic path.

Mother of monsters also needs protection, but thanks to the poison she has a damage shield. And she's cold blooded.

Drakaina has similiar issues as the mother of monsters.

Manticore has no breath attack and horrible protection, so you need to buy lots of buff magic for him.

Father of serpents also has horrible protection and costs 125 already.

The earth momma works, but imho she needs ironskin + summon ep or some items to work, and that is lots of research in dom3.

White bull works i think, so does the deva and the destroyer of worlds. But none of them is imho cheaper than the dragon.

[thejeff]

Don't knock the magicless wyrm.

Sure, protection and defense are low, but with all those hit points and regeneration, plus fear?

He may not kill a lot, but they run away pretty quickly.

And if he dies, call him back. No paths to lose, so no worries.

[Cainehill]

Boron said:

Hm the wyrm has low protection. Only 11, and only 8 defense. So you need to buff him with at least BE and personal luck imho. But any buff adds encumberance, and unless you have a damage shield the wyrm only kills 2 enemies a turn.
And he costs more than a dragon because you have to buy him at least 1 magic path.

Read what I said about my Wyrm taking 15 provinces. That was with indies _6_, and no magic paths. No items until turn 10 or so, when I researched Construction and got some things on him. "Only" killing 2 enemies a turn wasn't a problem, given that the defenders break morale.

Frankly, I didn't expect him to do so well, but figured it didn't matter much if he died. Spent about 2 turns healing him with priestesses, and other than that, used only a single "trick" to help him do so well. Again, I suspect a number of other pretenders could do nearly as well, certainly as well as the dragon once you equip them with a few items or research a few turns.

[Boron]

Cainehill said:
Read what I said about my Wyrm taking 15 provinces. That was with indies _6_, and no magic paths. No items until turn 10 or so, when I researched Construction and got some things on him. "Only" killing 2 enemies a turn wasn't a problem, given that the defenders break morale.

Frankly, I didn't expect him to do so well, but figured it didn't matter much if he died. Spent about 2 turns healing him with priestesses, and other than that, used only a single "trick" to help him do so well. Again, I suspect a number of other pretenders could do nearly as well, certainly as well as the dragon once you equip them with a few items or research a few turns.

Which trick did you use?
Something as cute as your poor mans SC black servant?

[Shovah32]

How dare you diss black servants!! They are my litle ulmish babies, ulms forging abilities+various items and site searching from a rainbow mage= 3 or so stealthy, ethereal, 16-20 strength, life stealing, fear causing, great prot and/or defence thugs by turn 20 (in dom2, in 3 life stealing and, in the case of this build shield, are nerfed).

[Cainehill]

Boron, I used a "trick" that any nation, any pretender, can use on turn one, or rather before, at turn zero design.

[Boron]

Cainehill said:
Boron, I used a "trick" that any nation, any pretender, can use on turn one, or rather before, at turn zero design.

Tell master inquisitor Boron the "trick". Confess

[Corwin]

Shovah32 said:
How dare you diss black servants!! They are my litle ulmish babies, ulms forging abilities+various items and site searching from a rainbow mage= 3 or so stealthy, ethereal, 16-20 strength, life stealing, fear causing, great prot and/or defence thugs by turn 20 (in dom2, in 3 life stealing and, in the case of this build shield, are nerfed).

Hmm, I thought I've read somewhere that only lifestealing weapons were nerfed in Dom3, not native lifestealing ability. Is it not the case?


I've never tried mini-SC out of black servant. They seem to have to few hitpoints zero protection for me to risk giving them good items and to risk loosing these items if you lose the battle. Were they actually that effective?

[Fate]

It seems to me like this system has the ability to (possibly) introduce an entirely new genre of pretenders - research/forging/summoning ones (especially for acessing alternate paths).

This would be a preferebly awake, possibly dormant pretender with good magic (maybe -air is it?- for owl quil) on a non-battle chassis (immobile pretenders seem like the most obvious choices). It may or may not be rainbow. It might a sort of fine line to draw (between a bless strat and a rainbow strat), but it is something to look into...

[Cainehill]

Korvin said:
I've never tried mini-SC out of black servant. They seem to have to few hitpoints zero protection for me to risk giving them good items and to risk loosing these items if you lose the battle. Were they actually that effective?

Yep. It wasn't putting _great_ items on them, it was just inexpensive trinkets - cheap black steel armor, maybe a lucky pendant, and then between etherealness, high armor, and lifestealing to get back health, they were the cheapest, least expensive mini-thug around. Had them take 8 or so provinces all by themselves against indies-9, and they were also a real surprise to human players.