Re: LA Pythium Hydras
 

I find that the strength of the hydras is their regen. But knight do much more damage a round then ordinary soldiers and are able to overcome the regen.

Re: LA Pythium Hydras
 

Being on the receiving end of a pair of them right now, I can assure you they a pretty powerful. I don't even want to think about what would happen if they were buffed...

Re: LA Pythium Hydras
 

Does anyone have good ideas about how to use LA Pythium?
Hydras are very nice, but no troop resists to poison, so you're stuck with hydra only armies until you have researched quite a bit.
Then, comitatenses, palatines, theurgs and the good priests are all capital only, which means you only get limitanei and the minor mages in other forts. I find that early expansion is easy (alteration 1 to give resist poison to a minor mage, bringing him to 100% Poison resist, build 4-6 hydras depending on indep strength, and you've got a force that can take all indeps without stopping). But then the hydras strategic move of 1 comes in and hampers mobility a lot. Bringing reinforcements is almost impossible unless you're having a stable front in a long war. You end up relying on a variety of weak mages who may have found one site to give them the needed gems, and a choice of armies that's very limited (milite, limitanei and solaris who are expensive due to fire resistance).
So does anyone think of a strategy for LA Pythium? I think for a small map, going all-hydras with nature/death/fire magic support might be worthwhile?

Re: LA Pythium Hydras
 

Just with a W9 bless the hydras are awesome. I have not had a problem with knights or anything else. I have been using 1-2 big hydras with 18-19 small hydras. You occassionally lose 1 or 2 of the small hydras but thats it.

The only drawback is you only have 1 mage/priest with 100% posion resistance to lead/bless them. He needs armour to protect him from missile fire. Your prophet can of course lead some but he needs a ring of posion resistance.

Re: LA Pythium Hydras
 

Good positioning should be able to protect a prophet or mage from the poison clouds pretty reliably.

I haven't played with Serpent Cult yet, but didn't have any problems losing mages to poison with Sauromatia. Troops, yes, but not mages.

You can also back them up with archers with little risk.

Re: LA Pythium Hydras
 

Strategy with the Serpent Cult?

I can think of several.

One is to ignore the Hydras and go with 'national troop rush'. Their troops are quite possibly the best human troops in the late era.

Another is to use the sacred Hydras. I've done it with a Fire-9 Bless, and troops just evaporate when facing them. Water-9 is another possibility, I guess, but I prefer the 'point blank annihilation' factor of Fire. (Your Serpent Priests are the natural commanders for them.)

Either way, your mages are amazingly diverse and deadly against opposing dominions. Sure, the heretics can't stealth into an opponent's territories like the Skeptic, but it's useful to eliminate opposing dominion from your territories (particularly newly conquered ones). Perhaps it was just my curiosity, but I really wanted Blood Magic, and so I recruited a _lot_ of Revelers trying to get it. That gave me an excess of, basically, auto Holy-3 preaching every turn.

Another point is that you have two Assassins. The Serpent Assassin has good stats and a good weapon, but needs some armor. The Orgy national Blood spell gives you, for 1 Blood slave, a stealthy berserking Satyr _seducer_ that can summon Maenads.

All in all, the Serpent Cult has to be one of my favorite nations to play.

Re: LA Pythium Hydras
 

I really wouldn't go with hydra bless tactics, because if the hydra loses a head it won't be sacred any more. This is a bug, but something to bear in mind. It would only take an arrow to turn them into a regular hydra from that point on.

Re: LA Pythium Hydras
 

This nation sounds awesome. Tonight will involve some Serpent Cult and perhaps some thematic music from Carmina Burana.

Re: LA Pythium Hydras
 

Sombre,

I have Endo's mod to fix this. Even if not, the Hydras can be an immense amount of fun. And it's not like the Hydras are the only thing the Serpent Cult has going for it.

Re: LA Pythium Hydras
 

I think their Enc is a bit high, and they are gold expensive. Plus the comitatenses and palatines are capital only. Although I confess I didn't try the cataphracts.

Yes, but they don't work well alone to take forts. I tried to buy lots of gladiators for the sole purpose to bring down the fort. 8gp for 12 str is great, but you must avoid fights.

Yikes! I never thought to look for Blood national spells for Pythium! Must try that...