Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

I've been playing this strategy for some time now... mostly with Jotunheim, using the Skratti pre-patch and the Son of Neifel post-patch.

Basically it involves taking lvl 2 in every magic path (except blood) and gradually upgrading until I have a complete lvl 4 magic site-finder. An added benefit of this is access to most crafted items, most battle spells, and a large gem income.

While I haven't taken this strategy into the late-game, it's certainly kept me competitive against the AI. I know this is probably a pretty basic strat, and I know conversations on this board have progressed well beyond this topic, but I'm still new to the game and am very interested in your thoughts.

So... anyone else using this strat? Anyone got any comments on it?

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It is known as a RB (Rainbow Mage). To be cost effective you mostly make it with so called, 10 point path pretenders, (what were your scales with a Son of Niefel?). In mid game you will have a awesome gem income but you will not be specialised (don't have a path with 9-10) so you can't cast the nastier spell.You will have problems because your will not be really tough (assuming 10 point path pret.), so you can't rely on him in taking indies, and have to fear attacs from other player in mid-late game. I don't know if it is played by good player in competitive MP, but there are some game with house rules who cry after such a concept, and he can be really fun in SP.
Skolem

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

pretty new myself, but i've found that 'all-paths' (or 'rainbow' as its references on the forum) isn't all that useful. But its probably just my playstyle. I like to mass equip all my main units. Even by midgame that means at least a dozen or more of everything. And I'm not a very patient fellow, so I won't wait a dozen turns for my Pretender to forge my armory.

Rather, I prefer forging items that my national casters can forge (even if it means equiping them all with a level boost). I've read that some people like to go after a handful of items that only two or three of their casters can produce. That's also reasonable. But when the only one who can produce the items is your Pretender, that's means if you lose an army, it'll be quite a while before you can get re-equipped. And that's a big risk.

Then again, you could also use Alchemy to convert gems you don't need into ones you do need. But I'd much rather spend the points on better scales and use my casters to search sites using spells (that also makes it possible to search all your provinces alot more efficiently if you a group of casters taking breaks from their busy research to cast the right spell to search all your provinces for the gems you need.

Also, in my even limited experience, i've found that searching EVERY site with your pretender is difficult, time-consuming, and sometimes you wish your pretender was doing better things so early in the game. Whereas its extremely easy to search every province, as you gain them, with your casters. The trade off is you can only search (cheaply) for your 'national' gems (the gems you start off with in your capital).. other types of gems you need to send some guys out to search manually, until you get a bit of them, and can start casting the spells. But once you get going, its very easy to get really high gem income.

[ August 03, 2004, 19:00: Message edited by: Alexi ]

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I just tried what you say and it leaves me with 54 points, so assuming cold 3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , I can take say 2 Order and it leaves me with 94 Points maybe 1 water more and a castle or 1 growth and 1 Prod. I would not play Jotun with that scales... I think Jotuns is one of the race who need the most beneficial scales (anyone to contradict me? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ), also Why don't take blood, you can (it is only difficult) build a blood economy with the giants, so they would profit of it. If you want to play a RB mage you should try with a 10-20 path pretender , maybe the Ghost King would be just nice.

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You don't use only your pretender for forging. Untill midgame you use him as a sitesearcher. Believes me the amount of Gems you will have has no comparison to any other strat. After this you can forge one or two magic boost to summon Mage with the path you don't have, with the time you will have a lot of Mage with a lot of different path combos and they will allow you to equip (in the mid-late game) 2 to 3 SC fully in one turn. It will be no problem because the amount of gem your pretender gives you is really amazing.

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

Originally posted by Skolem:

"believes me the amount of Gems you will have has no comparison to any other strat. "

except clam spamming or similar..
But is is a good income & you do not need to keep boosting your pretender for searching - or at least by the time I have readily available boosts I have better things to do

Pickles

[ August 03, 2004, 19:27: Message edited by: Pickles ]

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

i guess if you go for lots of gems (with a rainbow pretender), you're probably gonna rely mainly on summons+casters+SCs and a bit of troop backup if any? or do you still need large troop armies.

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would say it depends on the Race played, if you have good national troops you build them, if not you mostly have good mage to summon what you lack of. For exemple with caelum I build a begining army with wingless Temple guards and Mammoths to conquer Indies, and mid game I switch for Storm Guards with Spring Hawks and if I can Storm Devils. I would build much more national with Jotunheim for exemple, but this choice doesn't depend on your Pretender but rather on your national troops and their abillities to be usefull in late Game (best exemple would be Mictlan and Abyssia Blood of Human were Blood Summons are your real national troops)
Skolem

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No one says you couldn't do that with your RB http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

I also forgot to mention that its strength must depend on the gem richness chosen. Blood races are relatively better & rainbows worse on poor maps. I am not sure at what level the balance is best - I suspect it is at somewhat more thanthe default "40"

Pickles

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

Tried a couple of times with rainbow pretender, but it didn't fit very well for my play-style. I think to much time is wasted on upgrading the pretender's magic pathes IMO. I would use the time more effecient with my pretender.

Mostly I play with SC and when I play a magic prender I focus its magic path(es) instead.

Nothing wrong with Rainbow pretenders it just aren't my type http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif


best regards
Thilock

[ August 03, 2004, 20:22: Message edited by: Thilock_Dominus ]

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

When I use a Rainbow Pretender, which is not all that often, I usually do not bother with the paths that my national mages are already good at.

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

I've played a RB but didn't bother using gems to upgrade paths. Instead I made a ring of sorcery, ring of wizardry, an elemental staff and the horror robe thingy that also gives you +1 all paths. It was no more expensive or time-consuming than the upgrades and I could move 3 of the 4 items around ...

CC

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You don't use only your pretender for forging. Untill midgame you use him as a sitesearcher. Believes me the amount of Gems you will have has no comparison to any other strat. After this you can forge one or two magic boost to summon Mage with the path you don't have, with the time you will have a lot of Mage with a lot of different path combos and they will allow you to equip (in the mid-late game) 2 to 3 SC fully in one turn. It will be no problem because the amount of gem your pretender gives you is really amazing. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">with pythium rushing to accashic gives you the gems a bit later but no need for a rainbow . you can so faster expand and with standard settings of 40+% normally accashic is just fine http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

for ermor ae/sg i like a strong rainbow . either ghost king or frostfather because they need gems so bad http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

but for every other race than ermor i either don't care tooo much about gems ( only the national thaumaturgy sitesearch spells i cast there ) or i have accashic or i have a semirainbow sc pretender .
2-3 in every path only you find lots of sites by searching but that's slow .
and you have to take a nonscpretender . forging ring of wizardy and the like is too expensive earlygame .
so while you have one of the highest gem incomes you have no access to highlevel summons while the others only have about 1/3 of your income but access to highlevel summons / items without empowering .
given that their pretender is already a sc + they can get more your additional gems you get are almost wasted .

furthermore clamhording can be nice too .
a rainbow needs at least 2 turns per province searched . midgame letting him search your outskirts is a really dangerous choice anyways http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

conclusion : rainbows are fun in sp but in mp they are probably not very competetive .

Re: Who uses an All-Paths Pretender?
 

Just a couple of points to add to the mix. In MP, if people have the graphs turned on, your increased gem income shows like a beacon. Someone with a SC pretender will come after you in a rush, as they know you have valuable income to loot and no tough god to defend it. The solution is to turn off the graphs, though that does take away a lot of information in other areas.

Also, some other threads have talked about the cost effectiveness of searching for the level three and four sites. If I remember correctly, most people argue that the high level sites are quite rare and do not provide that much extra income. As such, a level two search will get the large majority of the sites and the extra cost for the level three and four sites is not worth it. I think Sunray’s site ahs a listing of all magic sites and you can see the percentages of each kind. I am not sure, but I think that around 75% of sites are level one or two. You should run a search on this for more accurate details.

All of that said, in SP, I love having gems and have a lot of fun with this strategy. You can try out the various forged items and summonings that are limited in other strategies. I recommend it to someone who is just starting, as you can play with more of the toys and learn about them. Once you know how cool something is, like a wraith sword, you can go on to build a fancy strategy around it in your next game.