Re: LA Man - Death and Taxes
 

Yep, sorry for the OT, AreaOfEffect, I too wanted to say that your guide is very interesting and deep :)

Well if you're planning to put up to three magic paths into a Wyrm you probably won't use it awaken, which is what I've been thinking. S3 for teleport is 90 points. Summon Earthpower (you were thinking about its +4 reinvig, as the Wyrm has encumbrance 3?) is E2 for another 66 points. Air 2 for Mistform, another 66.
I prefer to use different chassis, less expensive chassis types to go for the buffs. But I admit I am a n00b too :D

Re: LA Man - Death and Taxes
 

I like pathless wyrms. If I have an astral caster, I'll follow the wyrm, cast body ethereal, and retreat. Low astral on a wyrm is just setting it up for the bad end of a magic duel. Pathless wyrms are supposed to be killable. I'll call it back when it dies.

Oops, sorry, I am OT too.

Re: LA Man - Death and Taxes
 

Excellent guide and very interesting strategy.

Delaying research is something I seldom consider as I often need a couple for emergencies, but this certainly sounds like it might work.

On another note - has anyone found any good ways of utilizing the Bean Sidhe?

She is a decent assassin, I suppose, but I keep wanting to use her for more. Having her running around with a pack of Barghests presents a rather fitting image, but it does not seem very efficient.

Re: LA Man - Death and Taxes
 

And that's perfectly acceptable for the pathless wyrm. He's there to get your expansion going fast and early (which he does fine with just dom-10), and anything beyond that is gravy. At the end of the day, not a lot of afflictions are going to diminish Awe+Fear plus Regen. Possibly a valid option for the otherwise hard to get out of the gate LA Man (see, I'm not off topic).

Re: LA Man - Death and Taxes
 

Not an option really for magically weak Man. In most cases PoD will be better than wyrm but though the times when I thought that astral wyrms are uber have passed, if I decided to take wyrm as my pretender I would think of adding some magic. In most cases earth is the best option because you get reinvigoration which guarantees that he will not be swarmed and when you later add four other artifacts your wyrm will remain a force and probably won't gather many wounds. I don't think that a pretender should take only an initial expander role. It is just too narrow.
Once again, it's my vision of this game aspect. If you have another one, just use it.
Let's stop the OT with this;)

Re: LA Man - Death and Taxes
 

I will make one addendum to the discussion of Man's limited magic skill.

It occurs to me that you can in fact boost magisters with earth and judges with fire in an interesting way. Supplying either with a corresponding gem allows them to cast one spell at a skill level higher. If you use that gem to cast Summon Earth Power or Phoenix Power, then you can boost their magic skill for the duration of the battle. This can really open up some of your battlefield spell options for very little fatigue.

If you follow up the empowering spells with a another use of a gem, you can cast spells requiring earth 3 or fire 3. A judge with two fire gems can cast falling fires once and follow up with some fireballs. A magister with earth and air and three earth gems can cast Summon Earth Power followed by Rain of Stones. Sneaky.

Re: LA Man - Death and Taxes
 

The mages might decide to use two gems on Earth/Phoenix Power, though, so you'd need to give them some spare ones, and they would always spend those before the battle ends.

Re: LA Man - Death and Taxes
 

No, the mages will only ever use 1 gem because at the time of casting have only 1 skill in that path. I have used this tactic many times of making a 1F or 1E mage to 2F or 2E.

Re: LA Man - Death and Taxes
 

Indeed. I have tested it. The best part about the tactic is that you know exactly how many gems will be used. It didn't occur to me before because I generally only use gems to cast spells that require them. Even if they could use more gems they wouldn't likely do so anyhow as the spells you're scripting only cause about 10 to 20 fatigue, not the usual +100.

Re: LA Man - Death and Taxes
 

I have recently tried using the tax strategy in SP(setting taxes to 120 and patrolling with a Judge), and even with Growth 3 population is still dying faster than it is replaced. Am I doing something wrong?