Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

I was suprised at the relatively high selling price for gems after some accidental tests. It occured to me one could use alchemy, especially in multiplayer, to create extra income to fuel your early game expansions. Hire another mercenary company, build your fortress a couple turns earlier, ect. In multiplayer small early economic advantages can compound mightily as the game progresses. I suppose this is what the designers had in mind when they gave Ulm an Alchemist Pretender.

[ February 22, 2004, 08:11: Message edited by: SelfishGene ]

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

especially if you think about ulms magic in general. there is not much to do with your gems except forging, so you usually have spare gems.

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

no you need the master alchemist, to get 30 gp for each fire gem. Essentially, its a nature/fire/whatever please you rainbow mage. You have to find at least 3 nature gems a turn though, which is rather feasible by searching sites, or with diplomatical contacts. Once it is done, you income increase by 30 gp/turn. You can then stockpile for the Eternal Pyre (that you cast with your pretender) to get a nice +20 gems (600 gp). Thats basically that, an 'underground' gold strategy which cant be spotted and/or hampered by the others players.

An alternate path would be the blood stone one.

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I had never realised that Fire gems were worth more in alchemy than Earth.

I just started a SP game with a Master Alchemist (to see a few things), on the World map; unfortunately, my starting province was Iceland, and the closest neighbour (Northern America) is Ermor... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

its goes like that:

15 gp for fire, 10 gp for earth

x2 for master alchemist

x1.5 (of base worth) for alchemy stone, or indep alchemist.

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Too much micro management for me, you have to keep juggling the Fever Fetishes between scouts before they die from disease.

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

With Master Alchemist + Alchemist Stone, its 30 gp per Earth Gem and 45 per fire gem.

Last Ulm game I had Earth Blood Deep Well and Eternal Pyre both running, along with Fata Morgana and Riches from Beneath for huge income/resources. In my best castle, I could pop out a Knight Lord and 24 Knights a turn, not to mention at least 10 knights(the mounted ones) at every other castle, every turn, with 1000's of gold left over. Obviously thats SP, in MP no one will let you have every enchantment, so you'd need the fever fetish strategies which arent as visible.

Build Blood Stones and Fever Fetishes instead of clams, and you'll be swimming in cash.

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Gift of Health ...

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Too much micro management for me, you have to keep juggling the Fever Fetishes between scouts before they die from disease. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Use Revenants .. deck out with fetishes, set to "research", forget about them. And they don't cost you upkeep, too! Black Servants will work, too, but you won't get any additional benefit from them. But they are stealthy and wouldn't show up on a spy report (AFAIK).

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Gift of Health ... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would help with the afflictions, but would it stop the scout from losing 1 HP per month?

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Gift of Health ... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would help with the afflictions, but would it stop the scout from losing 1 HP per month? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, when it cures the disease. Disease is an affliction.

EDIT: it also gives your units more HPs while in friendly dominion, so they'll Last longer if it takes a few months to get rid of the disease.

[ February 22, 2004, 18:51: Message edited by: Arryn ]

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

This whole "give disease causing item to units that can't be diseased" really sounds like an exploit to me... how can the heat of the sickness produce fire gems if there IS no sickness? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

That's what I said. But it's also easy to circumvent in other ways - just more of a hassle to watch all your diseased scouts. I suppose if there were also a random chance of a sudden death, or if they were non-reusable, and the undead couldn't use them, then it would make more sense. It'd be nice if the gems earned automatically went to any local lab when the guy died, too, to avoid silly micromanagement moving gems all the time.

PvK

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The GoH doesn't prevent the sickness. It cures it afterwards. Get sick (& get gems), get healed, get sick (& get gems), get healed. Ad infinitum.

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

Playing Ulm I never had too many Fire and Earth Gems, forging and Construction "summons" eat up your gems steadily !
However Pocus described me a "financial" Alchemist strategy : with Nature & Fire a RB can forge a boatload of Fever Fetish (give' em to Scouts) producing many Fire gems, that you can sell for cash. Only problem is that this requires your RB himself to forgeing items, so you lose on research/site searching (that's what the guy should do else...)

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What are you using to make sure you have the Nature gems? A Master Druid?

(Also, if you add Death you can give the Fever Fetishes to undead summons so you don't even have to lose upkeep and recruiting costs on scouts)

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">unless it has changed from dom1, the alchemy stone dont add +50% after master alchemist doubling, but add +50% on the base cost. Thus a fire gem is worth 37 gp, not 45.
Still a good deal, but for this strategy to work, you really need the alchemist, and not necessarly the philosopher's stone.

I generaly use scouts, but black servants is also a possibility if you have a death income.

This gem factory can be further enhanced with the forge of ancients, which allow master smith to forges the fetish, at 1 nature and 1 fire. You can easily comes with +4 to +6 fetish a turn, which lead to a net increase of 200 gp a turn. You should be able to reach 5000 gp worth of fire gems if nobody see you coming.

... And then you win http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

But dont misunderstand me, its not an exploit for me. its a valid and circumvoluted strategy, which asks for preparation and planning, in the same way that the making of a tartarian factory is a difficult strategy to pay off. Its one of the pleasure of the game to have a set of puzzle (jigsaw) pieces, and works his way to finish it before the others kill you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif . As a sidenote, this is where dominions shines, in the same way that Master of Magic shined (circumvoluted combos to establish on the long term).

Re: Early game slingshot w/ alchemy
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">True for Undead commanders- these should not be able to use the Fetish...