More thinking on S&A

KissBlade · #1 February 15th, 2006, 03:07 PM

Recently I was playing a strat with S&A according to one of qm's games I was watching.

Basically he focused on a dual bless strategy taking advantage of the water demons/fire demons with body ethereal to beat stuff up. N9W9 style.

So here are some thoughts I was having with this theme. Perhaps S&A is really meant to just be a conjuring theme. Their gem income is usually higher than the others while their gold is practically minimal and their troops really aren't worth it since nobles have no leadership. However, the problem with the conjuring strat is usually the mages often don't have enough path to do some conjuring and you'd need lots and lots of master of the five elements to hope to roll lucky and get either e2 for clockwork, n2 for a thistle so you can get vine ogres, etc etc. The main reliable summons seem to be the demons and spirits, neither of which are bad and probably can use a healthy support of the archers that TC gets. But what about the astral gems? What use do you guys use for them?

Further, what are the thoughts on w9n9 for demons bless? Ideally it seems to be that w9e9 would be better but TC doesn't have access to it. Perhaps Earth Mother's E9N9? But let me also point out, while EM is a better thug, Lady Fortune's ability is actually quite quite useful. I was literally seeing a good event combined with luck 3, turmoil 2, every turn.

What're current thoughts on this? Strats? Also what about even a rainbow great sage to research and cast summons with to use up TC's gem income for an early army?

quantum_mechani · #2 February 15th, 2006, 03:18 PM

Quote:

KissBlade said:
Recently I was playing a strat with S&A according to one of qm's games I was watching.

Basically he focused on a dual bless strategy taking advantage of the water demons/fire demons with body ethereal to beat stuff up. N9W9 style.

So here are some thoughts I was having with this theme. Perhaps S&A is really meant to just be a conjuring theme. Their gem income is usually higher than the others while their gold is practically minimal and their troops really aren't worth it since nobles have no leadership. However, the problem with the conjuring strat is usually the mages often don't have enough path to do some conjuring and you'd need lots and lots of master of the five elements to hope to roll lucky and get either e2 for clockwork, n2 for a thistle so you can get vine ogres, etc etc. The main reliable summons seem to be the demons and spirits, neither of which are bad and probably can use a healthy support of the archers that TC gets. But what about the astral gems? What use do you guys use for them?

Further, what are the thoughts on w9n9 for demons bless? Ideally it seems to be that w9e9 would be better but TC doesn't have access to it. Perhaps Earth Mother's E9N9? But let me also point out, while EM is a better thug, Lady Fortune's ability is actually quite quite useful. I was literally seeing a good event combined with luck 3, turmoil 2, every turn.

What're current thoughts on this? Strats? Also what about even a rainbow great sage to research and cast summons with to use up TC's gem income for an early army?

w9e9 is actually I think not as useful was w9n9, since it is the regen that with ethereal that makes the demons so tough to wear down. And they generally don't need the reinvig.

For spending astral, early and mid game it usually goes to alchemy for the gem types you do need.

The leadership problem is not so huge, it is pretty easy to recruit a few indy commanders most of the time.

thejeff · #3 February 15th, 2006, 03:32 PM

I tried the n9 bless with S&A. It was nice on the Water Demons, but I lost too many mages (and fire demons) berserk charges.

Sacred mages and nature blesses don't mix.

F9W9, now that's sweet...

shovah · #4 February 15th, 2006, 03:33 PM

w9 is good if you plan mainly on using fire demons but i agree with qm that w9n9 is better for both. best of all it adds to water demons berserk. and while nobles may not have much leadership they are great at trampleing indies if you set themn to attack archers and place them on the flanks

quantum_mechani · #5 February 15th, 2006, 03:35 PM

Quote:

thejeff said:

Sacred mages and nature blesses don't mix.

I mix them all of the time and it is almost never an issue. With a fragile mage there is not much margin between a hit that berzerks them or one that kills them.

shovah · #6 February 15th, 2006, 03:44 PM

not to mention the fact that unless your jotun or something if your mages start getting hit your in trouble

KissBlade · #7 February 15th, 2006, 03:59 PM

I'd have to chime in, I used to think berserk sucks for mages but after watching a master of the five elements get killed by one stinking arrow, I think it's not a worry ...

shovah · #8 February 15th, 2006, 04:01 PM

exactly, almost all non jotun mages get killed by something that hurts them unless they are heavily armoured. and imo any vunerable mage should be placed so that they will not be targetted

Tom_Scudder · #9 February 15th, 2006, 04:49 PM

And jotun mages aren't sacred (except for the niefel jarls, and it's not exactly a tragedy if one of those guys charges into combat).

Cainehill · #10 February 15th, 2006, 04:52 PM

Hmm. Guess I got in the habit of thinking "no nature bless with sacred mages" back when I was always playing CW Pangaea, who has the sacred undead Pans. Probably also from sacred mages taking a single point of damage from spells (or because they had mistform up).