Tuatha endgame
 

Currently in my MP game, playing tuatha with human only pretenders (ick), so couldn't take a real bless effect. I decided to go purely good scales and the heck with it, at the time they were waiting for one or two more so I figured why not (then they ended up cramming 17 players onto Karan, yikes). My research is well behind all my opponents, so I fully expect to lose soon, though they're all busy beating up on each other at the moment and probably don't see me as much of a threat because I'm not. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I'm just curious what you do for endgame power when all you have access to is air & nature magic. Have gotten no special independents (though I hope to conquer a library for sages soon, whee!), Brangwen hasn't joined me so no astral magic, and as far as I know air & nature don't make for potent endgames which seem to be all about ice devils and well-equipped bane lords from what little I've seen. Any suggestions? (not that I'll Last long enough to use any of them....) My only positives are a nice corner location so I'm not too exposed and I have a fair number of provinces and good income, but low gem income and no specials other than gem or gold income.

[vent] Also, once again, luck 3 is completely wasted, I've gotten a total of 20 zealots, 38 militia, one silver mine, 2 province defense boosts, and about 40 gems (with magic3) through quite a few turns now (probably around turn 40 now). I hate hate hate having to take luck! Not a single 100 gold event much less the big ones! Bah! Stupid luck scales. [/vent] At least my lab didn't burn on turn 2 this time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

Lol I normally dont mess with the luck scale, ever since i went negative all the way on luck, and had my temple, my lab, and my castle die on turn 2,3,and 4 respectively. Soon followed up by getting all my troops cursed by a lot of pissed witches. its only happened once so far though.

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's usually good news. You get a handful of free gems out of it, in exchange for a few schmucks, who may or may not actually exist, being cursed. That's not a large price to pay for free loot.

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

Air and nature are great schools. Ideally I'd go for Air Queens (if they're still available) and/or Firbolgs. A bunch of firbolgs equipped with cheap items are almost as good as those bane lords. Give some air mages gems so that they can spam air elementals in battle. Lamia queens are great for upkeep-less researchers and also give access to sorcery magic. Spring Hawks aren't bad. Seeking Arrows can be useful. As can a staff of storms. You have some decent options depending on what you're fighting.

[ July 22, 2004, 11:42: Message edited by: Yossar ]

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

I recently got totally destroyed by Tuatha in a recent game. What the Tuatha player did was put 5-6 bards at the back of the map with 5-6 Air2 mages. Gave someone on the field of staff of storms, and the mages cranked out False Horrors at an alarming rate. The Bards did their reinvigoration song so the mages could cast forever. By the time my units approached the enemy, there were often 30+ False Horrors, with more showing up every turn. It was a total rout every time. Throw in a few Tuatha units to cover the mages/bards, and you are good-to-go and completely stealthy.

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">yeah depending on your gem income i would try to get at least one air queen first . they are excellent sc's too .
airqueen , storm + wrathful skies are nice against troopmasses .
if you are only a bit lucky with your lamia queen she gets d3 so you can summon your own bane lords cause i guess 10 deathgems for a bane lord are not a problem .
every 16th lamia queen is even d4 . so if you get such a lamiaqueen for only 10 d you can forge a +1 deathitem and then summon wrath lords .

i would try to use my airincome first to get 1-2 airqueens then for forging .
nature for lamias , forging and firbolgs .
every excess gems that you don't need for forging and are not nature or air you could convert to death and so either forge wraithswords and so on and or try to summon bane / wraith lords .

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Castle dying because of bad luck? I've never heard of that, what do you mean exactly?

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

I recently had a fortified city created by a arndom event ( not even my nation type) so I imagine a random event can destroy em also

frosted flake

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, there is not an event (nor spell) that destroys a fort. Imagine it happening on turn two; and everyone thinks the current lab/temple event is mean http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

[ July 23, 2004, 03:22: Message edited by: quantum_mechani ]

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

Could almost make me think about taking negative luck every game...

Nah...

- Kel

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

Arg, double post. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

[ July 23, 2004, 21:47: Message edited by: Jasper ]

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

I'm playing Tuatha right now; some thoughts.

-Cloud Trapezing Sidhe Lords and Tuatha are a powerfull tool.
-Lightning kicks ***.
-Soothing Song kicks ***, especiall with gemless battlefield summons.
-Nature has strong mass battlefield magic.
-Nature can branch out into any sorcery via Lamia Queens.
-Air Queens are good.
-Vine Ogres, Kith. Lions, Lamias, and Tarrasques area ll good summons. Hama Dryads are ok in the right circumstances.
-If you find some death mage independents, go to town with Soothing Song + Animate Skeleton.
Storm is your friend, forget about Longbows except possibly for early expansion.
-Take the minimum luck you can, Luck 1. Accept this as the major handicap it is.
-Blessing strategies in general aren't worth it, but Water 9 Tuatha is one of the few decent ones. You lose a ton of income, but you make a fair amount of it back via sacred reducing maintenance costs. And your Sidhe really kicks ***, especially with 50% quickness, which when combined with soothing song lets you get 50% out of each Sidhe mage.

I am playing Water Dragon, W9, Dom 6, Production -1, Magic +1, Luck +1, 80pt castle.

[ July 23, 2004, 21:51: Message edited by: Jasper ]

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Order +3 Unlock -2/-3 IMHO is clearly more powerfull than other combinations. The bad effects of unluck are almost completely mitigated by Order 3. The only reason to pick something else is for roleplaying reasons, or because your theme can't.

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Order +3 Unlock -2/-3 IMHO is clearly more powerfull than other combinations. The bad effects of unluck are almost completely mitigated by Order 3. The only reason to pick something else is for roleplaying reasons, or because your theme can't. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hehe, yes, that was kind of the point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

If my castle could burn down on turn 2, it would *almost* make me think about the wisdom in taking it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

- Kel

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Order +3 Unlock -2/-3 IMHO is clearly more powerfull than other combinations. The bad effects of unluck are almost completely mitigated by Order 3. The only reason to pick something else is for roleplaying reasons, or because your theme can't. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No way. I just lost a game because I took that. Definitely not "completely mitigated". By turn 20 or so I had 3 barbarian invasions in key provinces, the lab in my capital burn down, a quarter of the population in my capital die. and various other disasters occur. Every time I started making progress, some sort of random event would knock me back down. There's no way I'm ever taking misfortune 3 again, but ymmv.

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

i think order 3 , luck 3 , sloth 3 , cold 3 , death 3 and magic 3 are nice for man Last of tuatha . castle watchtower .
this way you have 500 points for pretender + dominion . if you need more you can go down to luck 1 and/or magic 1 .
this way you can e.g. take a vq and give her some paths to make her quite powerful . she is a nice sitesearcher too then , covers most of your non national paths and gives you access to death magic later in the game . cold 3 doesn't hurt you too much but enchances your vq's breath of winter .

together with the awesome tuathas you have very nice flexibility .
and with a vq or if you want better scales e.g. a pod you have access to death magic for endgame too . 30 gold stealthy priests are neat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

running early into caelum could be problematic but not much else . i guess caelum is early game problematic for almost every nation .

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

Minrhael,

your doing great in the game! Ulm is gone and you control the entire east part of the map.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Dude the game has been awesome. I was in conflict with bordering nations by turn 10 or so. Non-stop action. It has been great.

And you can turn around your research in a heart beat. I went from basically 0 research ( 200 a turn ) to decent research ( as the graph shows ) in like 5 turns by just making casters, lightless lanterns and skull mentors.

Hell I would be willing to sell you some, message me in game!

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">caelum is problematic? why?

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

Really in that game is Caelum that runned into me ...
When I'll be finished of Minhrael have to go on Caelum or underwater I believe.

Good Luck ^^

However the thing I hate a lot of Man is almost all mages (except bards) capitol only.

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't understand combining order 3/luck 3 - that seems inefficient to me. In my (albeit limited) SP experience playing Tsien Chi, Luck 3 combined very nicely with order -1. You do need a bunch of provinces in your dominion before you really see the benefits kicking in, but once you get 10+ (or ideally 30+) provinces the good luck events just start rolling in.

Conversely, as Jasper points out, with order 3, it would seem like you could afford negative luck.

[ July 25, 2004, 16:32: Message edited by: Thufir ]

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't understand combining order 3/luck 3 - that seems inefficient to me. In my (albeit limited) SP experience playing Tsien Chi, Luck 3 combined very nicely with order -1. You do need a bunch of provinces in your dominion before you really see the benefits kicking in, but once you get 10+ (or ideally 30+) provinces the good luck events just start rolling in.

Conversely, as Jasper points out, with order 3, it would seem like you could afford negative luck. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, Tuatha requires one luck, but I still don't see the need for three. Also, cold 3 really cripples your income.

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">caelum is problematic? why? [/QB]</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">cause caelum has a strategic move advantage .

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't understand combining order 3/luck 3 - that seems inefficient to me. In my (albeit limited) SP experience playing Tsien Chi, Luck 3 combined very nicely with order -1. You do need a bunch of provinces in your dominion before you really see the benefits kicking in, but once you get 10+ (or ideally 30+) provinces the good luck events just start rolling in.

Conversely, as Jasper points out, with order 3, it would seem like you could afford negative luck. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">uargh i meant turmoil 3 i shouldn't post anymore at 2.00+ in the morning . you make to easy faults then ^^.

Re: Tuatha endgame
 

Tuatha is about all I play as I really want to try and get good with one theme and they seemed the most fun. I've tried turmoil 3/luck 3 plenty of times, and it just does not make up for the income from order 3, not to mention the increased chance of the lab burning on turn 2 like it did the first mp game i tried it out.

Without an improvement to luck, (personally I'd prefer luck3 to prevent anything from the nastiest group of bad luck stuff), I really think you're better off with order3, luck1, though the 160 extra design points you gain the other way are pretty nice for a theme strapped for points, and enable you to go for a pretty solid SC and/or bless; if you're luckier than I am it can work, but I rarely see the big gold events or semi-frequent smaller gold events you need to make turmoil3/luck3 work, mostly I just see more gem events, which don't make up for a 42% difference in income.