Pythium's Magery

[Novi]

After all the fuss about Pythium's mighty summons and superb magic skills had been made, I decided to try them myself. I picked some nice scales and a Ghost King E4 D5 to supplement the nation's lack of paths.
So far so good; the troops seem to be decent enough, forts are being built on a daily basis so to say and with Arch-Theurgs' broad spectrum of magic paths the gems are flowing in nicely enough.

However.

At the first glance (Arch-)Theurgs make your jaw unhinge in awe:'Whoa, these bastards simply have to kick ***!' But when you check the spell list... What the hell CAN they cast? The combination of their paths seems to be practically useless. What to do with a communioned Arch-Theurg? Perhaps make him cast Mind Burn? Oh no, wait, Luck would be better!
Seriously, I think there is a severe lack of available battlefield spells for Pythium.
So far I've only come up with a handful of ideas:

-Orb Lightning and other lightning spells (Possible, but a group of 1 Theurg and 4 Communicants in order to kill 3-4 troops? Caelum would kick their arses any day of the week...)

-Falling Frost (Again, too many a Communicant, too puny an effect)

-Astral Fires (Ah, now there's something! [Haven't tested it yet, though...] But this spell can only be cast with a path in fire. And Theurgs with one are real primadonnas 1 out of every four and capital only)


So how the hell can I put those lazy bums into good use? (Any advice is appreciated) =)

[Teraswaerto]

Paralyze, Enslave Mind, Soul Slay, Stellar Cascades and Thunderstrike come to mind. Then there's spells such as Fog Warriors, Battle Fortune and the like.

[Velusion]

They can cast pretty much any A/S/W spell with their communicants...

[RonD]

Early: put 2-3 Theurgs in the middle of a squad - set on hold & attack, Theurgs cast 3x Body Ethereal.

Can they still cast Falling Frost? That was another battlefield staple in dom2.

[Sandman]

I've never played with Pythium in MP, but my SP dabblings suggest that the Theurgs and Arch-Theurgs benefit enormously from Power of the Spheres. A Theurg with 2 communicants (250 gold cost) and a pearl can get up to 3W3A4S.

[Ewierl]

Astral Fires is a biggie. That spell is normally a bit sad against anything but low-MR chaff because of its MR check, but communion and items can easily raise an Arch Theurge's penetration totals way way higher

True, only 1/4 arch theurges can cast it... but you only need one per army!

Fog Warriors is also beautiful for Pythium, especially in combo with hydras.

Also, when playing with large-scale communions, there are a few tricks to help protect your mages. All buff spells are shared throughout the communion, so have two Masters, one casting your attack spells and the other dropping stuff like Air Shield and Personal Luck. Give a Crystal Shield to one too. If you have an S/E pretender, forge a few Crystal Matrices to save precious time in combat. And finally, don't just use communicants as communion slaves, if you're going to use high-path Astral spells. Fatigue is divided between people before it's divided by path levels, and those poor communicants aren't getting any path-boosting buffs since they have no paths. The little S1 guys, however, will benefit from a Banner of the Northern Star and Crystal Shield, so they take 1/3 the fatigue from astral spells.

Finally, never forget their national summons. I was lately playing pythium in SP, and used a sleeping Oracle with S6F4E4N4, with S/F so I can eventually summon the seraphim (Arch Theurges never get enough F to do it alone), E for the piles of sacred mages, and N for the sacred angels.

[Ironhawk]

Novi said:
So how the hell can I put those lazy bums into good use? (Any advice is appreciated) =)

You should be banned from ever playing Pythium after insulting the Arch Theurgs so!!

But in all seriousness, you are actually shooting way too low with your arch-theurgs. Arch-thuergs are there for heavy-lifting, not day to day battlefield spells. They should be casting things like Will of the Fates, Doom, Solar Brilliance, Storm, Light of the Northern Star, etc. Stuff that your mages-of-the-line just arent able to cast. In addition, your arch-theurgs should be doing all your summoning and ritual work as well. Getting those Angels in play and Mind Hunting your enemy to death.

The regular battlefield spells should be left to your Theurgs. Commune them up and just let loose with Falling Frosts (for normal troops), Lightning Bolts/Orb Lightning (for heavy armored troops), and Soul Slays (for SCs). If you really insist on using an arch theurg for battle spells, they are great for Falling Frost of course but if you get a strong Air mage, they can just repeat cast Thunderstrike till the end of time which is really great.

[Shovah32]

Dont forget enslave mind ironhawk, its useful vrs all but the chaff-iest units.

[TwoBits]

Off the Theurg topic, but does anyone make any use out of the Battle Vestals? Seems that if they could be massed, with a decent light bless, they could do some damage (they're plenty cheap). But is it worth it going that route, with pretender design and all?

[Ewierl]

TwoBits said:
Off the Theurg topic, but does anyone make any use out of the Battle Vestals? Seems that if they could be massed, with a decent light bless, they could do some damage (they're plenty cheap). But is it worth it going that route, with pretender design and all?

Even if you could, I wouldn't recommend it; get a bless that fits your angels, not one that fits your vestals. Vestals make good front-liners against low-archer empires; beyond that, they're just a way to round off your resources.