Just running a little test game, and the Virtue is almost tailor made for EA Arco. Philosophers w/sloth 3 magic 1 give you stratospheric research to get those all important buffs early. E income and a quick oreiad gives you a cheap black steel chest piece to fix prot issues. Finally, Arco has plenty of design points to spare. My build is Awake, Dom 10, A3S4, O3S3H1G0L2M1. Your virtue can expand in 5 turns or less, and flying lets you skip over whatever indies you like. Recruit peltasts and indy commanders to further expand, and you will be rolling in money in no time. Fort spam like crazy and go from there. If your virtue gets a booboo, just send her back to the cap and have one of your awesome healers fix her up. Later she'll get you the rings, and cast stuff like wind guide, arrow fend, or whatever you need.

Re: Better Know a Pretender: The Virtue
 

FYI- It doesn't look like LA Pythium gets the virtue. Unfortunate, since they could use her paths.

Re: Better Know a Pretender: The Virtue
 

You could consider D5 for Fear +0 instead of (or in addition to) Dom10. Plus, that lets you cast nifty stuff like Wind of Death later on.

That Pathcost 80's a killer, though.

-Max

Re: Better Know a Pretender: The Virtue
 

Dom 10 virtue can safely attack indies on turn 1.
Script air shield (research 0) and attack. The extreme awe (+7?) will keep her from hth attacks and air shield protects her from missiles. No other paths or equipment needed for that.

Re: Better Know a Pretender: The Virtue
 

Sounds risky to me. Admittedly, normal morale units won't hth through that awe. But 20% of normal missiles will go right through the air shield and any indies with abnormal mr could hit through the awe.

I'd be surprised if you died that way, but it's a definite risk. It would only take some fatigue and an indy commander with the ability to summon up some undead and you would end up afflicted or worse.

Re: Better Know a Pretender: The Virtue
 

There is no reason to attack blind. Upside just isn't worth the downside risks.

Barbarians or longdead will penetrate the awe no problem, yielding one dead pretender. Maybe knights too.

Waiting 1 turn, to establish dominion - which boosts morale, strength, mr, hit points... and allows you to pick a weak province is vastly preferable.

Re: Better Know a Pretender: The Virtue
 

Maybe not blind.
Turn 2, avoid crossbows, undead or too many arrows. Also lizards (curse).
Knights, Barbarians rarely hurt her at all.

Re: Better Know a Pretender: The Virtue
 

Barbarians wouldn't berserk from being hit, because one hit would kill them. But I think they could berserk from a repel. Then again with that awe, they would never get repelled.

So yeah, barbs would be safe, as they'd never berserk.

Re: Better Know a Pretender: The Virtue
 

Not to mention elephants. As far as I can tell, trample doesn't check Awe. (I'm assuming Virtue is smaller than an elephant - could be wrong).

Re: Better Know a Pretender: The Virtue
 

Umm, trample DOES check awe. Thats what makes nationals w/animal awe useful. So ele provs would actually be a pretty fair bet, so long as you cast air shield. Armor would be nice though, since there's going to be a LOT of sling bullets.