Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

Last night, my single player Arco nation was really getting moving well. I had just gotten construction level six and had spent a turn or three producing Starshine caps and Banners of the northern star, along with assorted minor protective gear. I took my ten astrologers off research, gave them the goodies to lift their astral levels, then teleported them off to join the fight against Man. Teleport is such an useful spell!

I had them on Body Ethereal, then Soul Slay. They joined the main army and the next turn entered battle against a big force. And then… The opposition just melted! Ten soul slays a turn punches an enemy army pretty hard. Do it four turns in a row, with 40 potential deaths and they are reeling. The astrologers also tend to target the bigger units first, or those closest, which usually hits the most troublesome units. They also keep firing after the army routs, so they eat up a lot of enemy troops, so you do not need to fight them again.

I just walked to the capital, often my melee units could not even reach the enemy, they were bLasted so fast. Once in the capital, I did run into a problem. The astrologers targeted the enemy pretender, who did have high magic resistance. This did seem like a waste, but after ten a turn for a few turns, one spell did get through. I would throw in a few spell penetration items before using this against pretenders.

In any case, I know the “Firing Squad” has been written about before in the forum and I know that I should expect a real power for my 1800 gold plus many astral gems, but the power of this combination really blew me away and I had to share.

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

The astrologer is my favortite mage. He's definately the cheapest 3-astral mage, and IIRC also the cheapest 3-anything mage in the game. Being capitol-only is really his only drawback, as 180 gold for SSS and a true random pick is outstanding. I usually give each of them boots of the messenger, a skullcap and a clam. 180 gold and 25 gems is a big investment, but there's a big payoff at the end.

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

Yeah, being capitol only is a minor drawback, but being innately S3 means getting him to the front is trivial anyway.

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

Capitol only is a bit of a drawback, but I found that teleport needs a bit of a network of labs to be really effective. As such, I was able to invest in other mages at the same time as buying an astrologer every turn. The other mages, who’s name I forget, are better at research and, with the two astral, are still a respectable three astral with a banner of the northern star. This blends in nicely with the soul slay barrage I used, or can be toned down to merely paralyze if you want to reduce fatigue. Your melee troops can usually take care of the paralyzed units… The other kind of mage also provided fair site search capability, as they can get a range of randoms.

On a really big map, I can see the capitol only limiting things, but medium and small should be ok. The armies are just not that big on the smaller maps.

All in all, I really liked this pair of national mages, they may be a new favorite.

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

hm that soulslay really works quite nice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

i didn't experiment too much until now with battlefield spells that was a fault and i will do now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
so are there any good other astral battlefield spells (preferred without gem costs , doing areadamage without mrcheck ) ?

a modification to your soul slay strat which comes to my mind and i will try now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

the pythium theurgs can be produced everywhere , are sacred + cost 150 gems . so they cost only about 45% upkeep of the arco mystics + can be massproduced .
unfortunately they are only astral 2 .

but if you really need them early on you can at least mind burn with them and you can empower them quite cheap to astral 3 via forging http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

so all in all you can field the same number like arco mystics and pay only half of the upkeep .
pythium has a superior gem income to arco and for the saved upkeep you could either field the double number of mindburners/soulslayers or build some arch theurgs which are either due to superior magical equipment like penetration increasing equipment compared to the theurgs high mr resistance creatures ( like scs ) slayers or they cast via communion empowered air spells http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

what do you think ?

only problem perhaps is that at battles longer than 5 turns since the pythium mages are priests too they probably cast many crappy priest spells instead of casting soul slays , orb lightnings and so on http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

but for the first 5 rounds they will do more damage at same upkeep costs + are better massproduceable http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mystics can be produced anywhere, as well. Astrologers are capitol only.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Paralyze is a really good 2s alternative if you have troops to accompany them. In fact, I tend to use paralyze more than soul slay in small/mid sized battles since you get better penetration and it costs less fatigue, due to the lower path requirement. In small/mid sized battles, enemies will usually die before paralyze wears off.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Only in the very early game. Don't forget that the 3 random elemental picks on the mystics will give you the ability to site search extensively.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Communion can be a bit fragile and laborious but one of the nice things is that, with random picks, it can give you access to a huge variety of buffs, making them very powerful and flexible. Mystics, of course, excel at this with 3 random picks, but even the one random of the arch can be used for a variety of battle effects (elemental resistances, flame arrow, wind guide, legions of steel, weapons of sharpness, strength of giants, etc.).

Theurgs do have some advantages. They are sacred, as you pointed out, and thus not only cheaper but also able to gain bless effects (like quickness from a W9 blessing, for example). You just might want to avoid giving them a berserker blessing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

They also have a built in W for quickness (where as mystics will often have one but not always).

Plus, being a priest has some advantages in the field, flexibility wise. You can use them to preach and build temples which can be handy. Of course they also site search worse than mystics but you can't have everything.

- Kel

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">meant the astrologers , the one with astral 3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Only in the very early game. Don't forget that the 3 random elemental picks on the mystics will give you the ability to site search extensively.

[/QB][/quote]

thats true but sometimes time wasting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
depends on the magic frequenzy / research settings but if they are not too low / high :

you can get conjuration 5 with pythium quite quick . most probably you have amassed the initial astral gems and when you have researched accashic can cast 2-3 at one time with all your astral gems and hopefully find some astral gem producing sites again so that you can make 1 accashic every 2-3 turns .
and hopefully you got lucky and have meanwhile 1 arch theurg too who is able to clamforge http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

edit :
so if you are lucky with searching through mystics you find some nice sites early on but if you aren't and they are elemental 2 or nonelemental like the quite frequent death sites you perhaps find none while when you cast an accashic you find 2 , one lowlevel death and a lvl 2/3 elemental one e.g.

but you will find most astral gem sites so you get very good astral income earlier http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
on a rough estimation you find about 1/3 of the magic sites this way .
but the high level ones you never find with this and though they are rare on the other hand most of them are worth as much as ~5 lvl 1 sites http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

edit 2 :
but arcos national troops are more flexible like the pythium ones i think because pythiums troops are very expensive in resources http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif
so because arcos troops are easier to massproduce it has quite an advantage because it can take far more sloth / worse admin rating castles like pythium and so gets more points .
and the 350 recruit costs for the arch theurg are heavy too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ July 02, 2004, 16:41: Message edited by: Boron ]

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

Quote:

and when you have researched accashic can cast 2-3 at one time with all your astral gems

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">
If you are rushing your research to conj 5 and you aren't searching territories, you aren't likely to have 75+ gems to acashic 3 territories. Eventually you will, of course, but by that time, you could already have a good gem ecnomy going.

Now, if you had could figure out a viable, specific conjuration rush strategy with Pythium, I could see this being more useful.

Quote:

so if you are lucky with searching through mystics you find some nice sites early on but if you aren't and they are elemental 2

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Eh ? Not sure what you mean, mystics are commonly elemental 2 in one element. And, in any case, I wasn't necessarily saying they should go out and physically site search, site searching spells all find up to lvl 9.

Quote:

or nonelemental like the quite frequent death sites

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">
You search those sites with astrologers who get a random pick in death. Death is slower to develop but then again, so is acashic.

Quote:

and hopefully you got lucky and have meanwhile 1 arch theurg too who is able to clamforge

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

It will take a lot of clam forging to not only pay for the cost of the clams but the 75 astral you have spent on acashic. Also note that mystics can both clamforge *and* fetish forge.

I don't think I could wait until I could afford acashic to start gem searching, even if I knew I had no enemies, didn't need to forge anything, etc. Getting gems early just leads to more gems (from site searching spells) and that leads to more gems. Plus, you can search for the gems you need faster and you can search the sites that are more likely to have them.

However, I will say that I am intrigued enough to go play some test games and see for sure. I have played with varying how long I wait until I start searching but never really developed a conjuration rush strategy, incorporating acashic.

In any case, even if you consider rushing to acashic(which is, admittedly, in a great research branch) more efficient than individual site-searching, in the early game, the difference in starting gems is pretty insignificant, which was my point.

- Kel

[ July 02, 2004, 18:38: Message edited by: Kel ]

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not unless you empower them in Nature, they can't. Fetishes are FN, and mystic randoms are elemental only, so they cannot roll a N. Mystics can only clamforge if they roll one or more Ws, but this isn't really uncommon.

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

Quote:

Not unless you empower them in Nature, they can't. Fetishes are FN, and mystic randoms are elemental only, so they cannot roll a N.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Oops, good point, knew there was a reason i don't actually do it...ok, I retract that sentence of the post, then http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

- Kel

[ July 02, 2004, 19:25: Message edited by: Kel ]

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Eh ? Not sure what you mean, mystics are commonly elemental 2 in one element. And, in any case, I wasn't necessarily saying they should go out and physically site search, site searching spells all find up to lvl 9.

Quote:

- Kel

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">you have some good points but i have still some questions /wonderings: all based at research difficulty not higher than normal :
ihmo best accashic Users are pythium , arco/ryhleh

arco has 4 astral , 1 nature gem base income .
pyhtium 5 astral , 2 air , 1 water .
ryhleh i think 3 astral , 2 water .

expect the dark knowlegde spell all the one kind of magic finding rituals are traumaturgy lvl 2 .
so you have to go traumaturgy 2 instead but this are only 60 rp so not very long .
but now my real problems :
according to the manual you need lvl 2 in the ritual + 2 gems of this path .

ok some of the lvl 2's you get on your mystics .
but how do you get the 2 gems of that colour ?
so as arco e.g. you could only search nature sites with your regular gem income . but since priestresses have only nature 1 and mystics can't get it you have to have it on your pretender in order to search it .

if you search by such a spell you find about ~1/8 of the possible sites in the province .
(holy/unholy sites you do not find at all , according to the excel graph they are about 20/4xx so ~5% , additional ~5% since you never will use the blood search ritual )

but with your nice 4/5 astral pearl income as pythium at turn 5 you can cast 1 accashic , turn 10 2 and so on.
if you find a sage province early you boost your research and can cast your first accashic at ~turn 12-20 . at this time you get 2-4 once http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

every ritual like dark knowlegde used and later accaishing is quite a waste .

but you only find about 1/8 of the sides so normally at setting 50% in a province are 2 sites . roughly estimated i think you have about 25% success in finding one site with one of the "find all sites of one colour" spells .
but since many sites are sites like gold mines , the sage recruting side and so on which you discover immediately and with luck you discover a lvl 1 site even without a mage the chance of success with this spells is even down to 10-15%.


the "best" method of site searching i have in mind at the moment is the following :
either :
make a rainbowish mage 2 in every colour ( expect blood ) .
search your first provinces with him until accaish record is researched . then first search the provinces which weren't searched by your rainbow . first moutains , swamps , forests .
or : search every province manually with a good astral mage ---> your astral income will become quite high .
then accaish everything .

but for pythium / ryhleh / arco the most valuable spell seems to be accaish record ihmo and the 8 find one element spells are total crap .

for almost every other nation this is a different story though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Either through regular site searching or alchemy. Once you have the ball rolling, you can site search with spells. For death, I usually alchemize for the first couple of site searches. Site search for death in provinces that have a high death scale already for an improved chance of finding death sites, specifically.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I usually put some nature on my pretender, as Arcos, but not for site searching. I make one thistle mace and then let a priestess haruspex for them. This is a bit slower than I would like, admittedly...but one nice thing is that you already have nature income to make up, somewhat, for having to wait for a thistle mace.

I hate to assume that I will ever find certain indies, especially in the early game. However, that said, another point is that N2 indie mages are *quite* easy to come by. I don't know the whole list but druids, for example, seem quite common. Again, I wouldn't plan on this but if it happens early enough, it's an added bonus.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If Pythium started with acashic, that might have some nasty potential.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree. I don't tend to acashic a lot, especially in the early game, but when I do, I usually do it only on territories I haven't searched, either newly conquered ones, or ones that had low income and I didn't bother with them in the early part of the game when I needed gold income more.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is the case at first glance. However, there are some factors that modify those odds in your favor:
1) All sites are not created equal. For example, glancing at the site chart shows that blood sites can give me ~20 gems total where astral is in the 90-100 range. The numbers are probably off but it's still something to consider.
2) You can concentrate on finding the gems you need.
3) You often aren't searching blindly so it's not a straight random chance. Scales can tip you off to the existence of sites, particularly death. Certain terrain is also more likely to contain certain sites, further improving your odds.

All this said, the biggest point for acashic, as opposed to physical/individual spell searching is the loss of research from individual site searchers. That's why I am intrigued to try out a rush strategy in conj. with Pythium.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would generally rather have the provinces from an SC geared towards early expansion, than a rainbow who can search the few provinces I have.

Also, this seems to assume that you don't need gold from farmland/plains, that you don't need specific gems at certain times, that you have no aggressive neighbors and you need no spells outside of acashic in the early game. Which could be true, with unusual settings and/or SP games.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's pretty strong sentiments http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Arcos has a lot of flexibility in their mages and, in some ways, can individually site search better than most nations.
Rlyeh isn't particularly good at individual site searches in the early game but they can astral search early and a bit later use Voice Of Tiamat(conj-4, 8 water gems), which is quite nice.
If acashic is good for any of those 3 nations, I would say it would be pythium, since their provinces are likely to be mostly land and they don't have the elemental flexibility of mystics.

- Kel

[ July 02, 2004, 21:30: Message edited by: Kel ]

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">all in all you are right i think .

in theory pythium is really good and with normal research you can get quite quick ( turn 12-15 ) at conjuration 5 but the problem is that you need time to benefit from this potential.

my main problems are : either i have a very bad economy ( by turn 10-15 you should have 1 better 2 grand theurgs + some theurgs to quick research ) . if you take a weak pretender you can get nice dominion scales but then you can accashic but there are no good summons even for the arch theurgs in the beginning and so on .

but on the other way if you make a good pretender i have such incomeproblems and since the principles / legionaires cost both 19 resources i can't take sloth and productivity would be a good idea .

so at the moment i am either a quite good accaish caster but very fragile in early game or i have such a weak economy that i can't research fast enough and so on http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif


arco is really much more flexible i think since e.g. elephants are nice for early expansion ihmo but are not very expensive and thaumaturgy with the one kind of site find spells is a good path anyway with mind burn and soul slay as early / midpath battle spells .

so perhaps a good use of accashic is for ryhleh then but only for some of his land provinces since underwater probably voice of tiamat is more cost effective ( almost 50% of all sites for the cost of 9 water gems right ) ?

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

Quote:

probably voice of tiamat is more cost effective ( almost 50% of all sites for the cost of 9 water gems right ) ?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

8 water gems, even better. Not sure what % of sites, exactly. All elemental, in any case.

Btw, while I don't think acashic is normally all that good, at 25 astral, but as i mentioned, you have inspired me to try out a Pythium conj rush so thanks for the idea, in any case =)

- Kel

[ July 02, 2004, 22:08: Message edited by: Kel ]

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

Tiamat is great underwater, since it hits 4 out of the 7 site types available to you: I don't think there are blood sites underwater, all for the cost of 8 water gems that would probably have otherwise become a clam anyway, and the payoff for Tiamating is usually better unless site frequency is crud.

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

8 water gems, even better. Not sure what % of sites, exactly. All elemental, in any case.

Btw, while I don't think acashic is normally all that good, at 25 astral, but as i mentioned, you have inspired me to try out a Pythium conj rush so thanks for the idea, in any case =)

- Kel </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">thnx for opening my mind against accashic too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

if you are successful with pyhtium would you say me what pretender you took and the scales ?

because my main problem with pythium is they are a bit unflexible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
principles are good but at the moment i see no use for any other pythium unit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif
serpent cataphracts are very expensive with ~60 resource costs , for the same you get 3 principles which are better

emerald guards have ~30 resource costs + strat movement of 1 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

the hydras i consider as too expensive


so in conclusion at least for early-midgame my army mainly consists of principles .
they take out indies very well and are only a bit vulnerable for crossbowfire .
but they are not very quick so flanking units are a real problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

i guess i either focus on ryhleh now or a blood nation first http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Fun with Arco Astrologers
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I can't even begin to tell you how much I disagree with this.