Re: Baalz' guides
 

What's wrong with the bless? It's pretty reasonably priced on a moloch. W9 is very expensive. The b4 is nice because it's the difference between 15 13 13 damage on your were jaguars and +2 that.

I didn't pick that bless as a cheap way to win an argument, I'm not arguing in bad faith here. I picked that because it's the bless I'm actually using in a game right now. It's fine.

No one of my critiques was that there are in fact raiders that EA aby should worry about within the first 20 turns. EKs don't need any buffs or equipment to cast thunderstrike.

I didn't at any point say you couldn't get to the unique bloods ahead of mictlan. The timing issue I was highlighting was that you would be going 20ish turns at least with just your nationals and fireball.

Anyhow, I guess I'm done with this argument, you're baalz after all. I still think your nationals are tough to rely on for 20 turns because all the troops are strat 1 except the sallamanders, fireball isn't very efficient on a 140 gp mage, and I think I could handle getting scouts and air mages to raid vulnerable provinces (JUST AS AN EXAMPLE) which would be (AN EXAMPLE OF SOMETHING) hard for you to deal with, even if I just taxed 200 and ran.

And I still think that even if I'm wrong about all that that your pretender + cap only blood hunters just isn't a very impressive toolbox.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

If you have a problem with the guides Baalz writes, don't read them. Wether or not you like them, Baalz is a huge asset to the community. That doesn't mean he is always right, but he at least deserves you to not be a jerk to him when he's trying to help.

and massive raiding on turn 20? that'd be pretty damn impressive.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Why are you taking a Moloch as Mictlan?

Mictlan typically takes an imprisoned pretender solely to be a bless chassis. And F9 is the worst 9 bless you'd actually consider - both W9 and S9 are better for them. (I really don't know why you think an F9 bless would be at all useful against Aby either, since the fire damage is separate from the physical damage, and the fact its AP is useless since Aby troops are immune).

As to raiders - TS is not a raiding strategy - it takes too many mages for it to be effective for raiding, especially within the first 20 turns. Raiding is going to be relying on a thug casting shockwave, and aby is a terrible target relative to just about anyone else. I'd raid Niefl over Aby.

Basically, Aby's national troops and PD are really strong - early game is not the part it needs to worry about. EA Aby's traditional problem is late game - pushing blood is supposed to solve that.

I know, I know, you're done. But your claims are kind of ridiculous. EA Aby has lots of problems, but raiding isn't one of them.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Hey I didn't mean to be rude to Baalz. If I owe you an apology Baalz, here it is: sorry, I think you're a tremendous asset to the community, and I think you've written a lot of very useful guides. I myself have benefited from them greatly.

I didn't pick the mictlan bless to fight aby, as I think I pointed out it wasn't contrived. I picked it because it is the bless I am using right now.

Yes s9 is better than f9 bless, but mictlan no longer has the oracle.

edit: and why is everyone so focused on the raiding? That was the least of my criticism, which was mostly about destruction and lightning evocations in the early game, and then not getting much use out of your nationals in the mid and late game.

second edit: I hope it wasn't the puns that were perceived as rude. I have removed them.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I'm not sure Thaum is worth much if you are rushing for blood summons. CBM fire bolas are Const 0. I also don't think the Thaum 2 site searching spells amount to much. You don't have any A, E, or N gems, nor can you cast any of the associated search spells with national mages, excluding a 2.5% E2 chance on an Anointed. Enough Evo for fireball also gets you arcane probing which warlocks can cast.

That said, I think a nation with exclusively capitol only blood mages is asking for trouble leaning heavy on blood. Not that playing EA Aby isn't asking for it regardless. I mean it really feels like the devs forgot to give them useful things. Like increase heat on EA Smouldercone... or N on warlocks to actually be able to cast crossbreeding...

Anyways, what are peoples feeling about production scales on EA Aby?

Re: Baalz' guides
 

prod scales aren't really a bad thing. At any rate you wouldn't really want to take sloth. I'm not sure whats so crazy good about crossbreeding that warlocks should have N, but another level of S would be great. Or you could make the apprentices noncap, that would make them actually recruitable.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

warlocks casting crossbreeding would be very thematic is the idea i think. the whole demonbred thing.

you need at least neutral so that you can build a few troops early on. though counterable, even unblessed burning ones are a great unit. just don't use them exclusivly

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I don't really think EA Abys is a blood power. I would generally just go for a fiend spam (level 2 research only!) and probably hit conjuration and evo's as my primary aim's. You pretty much need to start out of the games strong and stay there. Start dropping fire spam as quick as you can. A decent earth bless mixed with death/nature can go a long way. Your aim must be another capital roughly by the end of 2nd year IMO or get very lucky with some yummy gems. The end game looks the same for all nations anyway so you don't need to worry so much about your lack of diversity there. It's the mid-late where you need to start thinking about how to reach the end game of death/astral magic. As a result, you pretty much need a death pretender so you can start cranking out some spectres and lamias (if you also took the advised nature picks)

Re: Baalz' guides
 

I concur with Kissblade. While some nations have seeming strong points which are traps (like living pillars) I don't see Abysia as one of them in terms of evocation and Anointed. It's true that if they remain a one trick pony they will lose in the endgame, but going for blood the way that is suggested here will handicap their early/mid game so much by trying to make them something they aren't that they won't have the foundation for lategame regardless. Aggressive expansion and killing a neighbour or two is the best way for Abysia to ensure it is able to diversify, with the large income required to force that.

Re: Baalz' guides
 

Uh huh. And zero wins in the hall of fame.