Re: I suck with Pythium ... please help!
 

Mages *will* cast relief after turn 5. I don't know what conditions encourage it but I have seen relief casters cast it repeatedly through long battles, much to my relief, so to speak.

True, you can't count on it...but then that applies to most mage scripting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I don't know if you are already doing it but I tend to make at least some of my communion masters into communion slaves also. This does take up one of their 5 guaranteed spell slots so it's more useful in long battles (then again, I don't bother with communions early on or in small battles unless I *really* need a specific spell).

It may also be what you are casting and who your masters are since, as you knwo, the more paths you have, the cheaper each spell is.

- Kel

Re: I suck with Pythium ... please help!
 

If you are talking late game then the answer all troop: doom horrors. For the cost of 3 angelic Hosts you get a commander who has a strat move of 10 and who can take out tons of devils.

Before you get to that tech level there is not much you can do other than make an SC via alchemy.

Well it's a nice plan. But it does not work out too well. Devils in quanity are very hard for Pythium to handle. Heck they are hard for most armies ( not SC's ) to handle.

Re: I suck with Pythium ... please help!
 

w/ pythium? my experience is that they usually don't, though their may be ways to "entice" them to do so.
Lol. well, surely it does depend on the relative numbers of theurgs and devils. as a cost effective method, given that pythium has no trouble forging staff of storms, it certainly can work. you can also script them for falling frost or orb lighting, or hell, wrathful skies and false horrors http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif, or whatever else suits your fancy. the only advantage of banishing demons is the lack of any fatigue cost, which is negated if you have a lizard anyways

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

ooh, and against devils, don't forget to throw in a water gem for "rain"

Re: I suck with Pythium ... please help!
 

Trolls can be summoned independently of the kings, so angels ought to be as well. OTOH, the devs may not consider an archangel as a "king/queen" type unit.

Re: I suck with Pythium ... please help!
 

Thunder strike, astral fires, falling frost, frozen heart, raise skeletons + drain life or drain life + raise skeletons depending on what order you want them in, bladewind etc. Those are all effective spells against Devils.

Re: I suck with Pythium ... please help!
 

You'll probably want about 4-5 communicants per theurg when you have 4 or so theurgs.

These spells will usually be things like thunderstrike, paralyze, soul slay, and such, plus body ethereal, so they aren't that useless.

Re: I suck with Pythium ... please help!
 

Relief gets cast when the fatigue of your entire army starts to get to be large. Cast heat from hell, rigor mortis, or rain if you want your army to generate more fatigue so that relief gets cast more often. You can also put clockwork horrors on the field, since their fatigue generation will trigger the casting of relief.

Re: I suck with Pythium ... please help!
 

Thunder stike works quite well on devils. Astral fires not so well, MR negates and it's hard for pythium to get access to it, falling frost is ok but does not really kill devils all that well ( it really should don't know what goes wrong ), Blade wind works decently but against it is hard for Pythium to gain access to it, raise dead/drainlife works well against anything, but is hard for pythium to gain access to it.

Of those suggestions the best two for Pythium are Thunderstrike and falling frost. And thunderstrike has a cool sound effect.

Re: I suck with Pythium ... please help!
 

3 seems to work at 4 theurgs. They die exceedingly rarely. I have not tested for 5 theurgs.

Actually I see a tremendous amount of ghost wolves. Mostly when the opposing army is retreating. I do however also see soul slay and enslave mind which is nice.

Really? Are you sure about this? If so then clockwork horrors could be quite useful.

Re: I suck with Pythium ... please help!
 

A little thing I've found out about mages casting relief: If you have mass protection up, they are a LOT more likely to cast relief once the script runs out, as you dont have protection to cast.