Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

So I have been trying out SC pretenders and here is what I have tried so far with the results:

In all cases I only sent them out after Alteration3 and Enchantment1 were researched.

1) Ghost King. The current "hot" SC choice. Gave him 1 Fire, 2 Air, 3 water, and 3 earth. Buffs: Quickness, Iron Skin, Mistform, Breath of Winter, Fire Shield.

Results: a crap shoot. Sometimes he cleans up against all indeps. Once in a while he dies. I have seen him die against militia once. Amazing. Quite often he runs into mages who cast dust to dust and he gets killed. Heavy Cav has I would figure a 20% chance to kill him. He gets aflications, on average, after about 10 provinces.

2) VQ with 1 Fire, 2 Air, 2 Water, 1 Earth. Buffs: Quickness, Iron Skin, Mistform, Breath of Winter, Fire Shield.

Really quite solid. But really expensive it hurts your scales. Hard to get much more than 5 dominion which limits where you can go ( you have to follow dominion around ).

2) VQ with 1 Fire, 2 Water, 1 Earth. Buffs: Quickness, Iron Skin, Breath of Winter, Fire Shield.

A little cheaper, but had real problems with Heavy cav, less than 50% chance of killing a HV province, but OTOH the only thing you lose is time.

3) Wyrm with 1 fire, 2 water, 1 air, 3 earth. Pretty decent. Does not pick up afflictions. Better against Heavy cav, but still can get killed perhaps 25% of the time. And will never be able to fly ( no feet ) which is a serious drawback. But it was doing better than the Ghost King.

So am I missing something? Does anyone know of a better build? Indeps were set to 7 since that is the game I am about to start. I would hate to use the ghost king since it seems like a crap shoot. Maybe one out of every 2 or 3 games everything works great and he does very well. But the other times something goes horribly wrong and he's done.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

What i would suggest is putting more than the minimum required in all those paths, most especially Air. The main thing about Mirror Image is that it creates 1 image for each level of air you have, and as far as i can tell there is an equal chance for each image to be attacked. It only goes away when they land a solid hit on the real image (i believe a solid hit, not just an attempt). So with 4-5 in Air you get 4-5 images as opposed to only 2, with correspondingly better odds for avoiding the hit. Also with higher level's in the paths you accumulate less fatigue which can be important to the non-undead SC's. I usually avoid fire and focus on air water and earth. 4-5 air, 2 water, 3 earth minimum. As soon as possible i try to get them a luck pendant which helps out a bunch for its cost/low requirements. I'm alot more willing to sacrifice scales then you evidently are though, so you might not be able to afford everything im suggesting.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

You get +2 images for every level above one. Mirror image seems to be the best in keeping your pretender alive against independents.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

its true that the GK is not the best combat pretender. I like it a lot, and think it's paths should be increased in price, but it is still not as good an indy clearer as a VQ, or numerous others in fact.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Usually Air is needed for Mistform and Mirrors (that is 2*Air +1 mirror images).
Water is needed for quickness, optional breathe of winter.
Earth optional for protection.
Fire optional for Fire Shield.

Otherwise another non race specified choice is Virtue.
An A9 or something about Virtue could take out Indep with Awe and few less than 20 Mirrors.
Could think on a 1W for Quickness.
Later however the SC role falls into a mobile gunship.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

A PoD is quite good too .
Nationspecific the Nataraja is just awesome . Against indies he is already good and later with equipment he just rocks . Jotunheim and Pangenea have good nationspecific pretenders too .

Any indy fliers are bad http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
Against heavy knights 15 protection is not enough to survive the lance attacks . With mistform + ironskin you are relative save though . If you are not playing Arco or using Vq i think your pretender is not worth being risked against indies with Knights/Heavy Cav + X-bows .
You survive normally but the risk to get an affliction is quite high .

I personally mostly take A2 , W2 and E3 on my Sc-pretenders . Air 2 for mistform + mirrorimage but mainly for cloud trapeze as magic movement later .
W2 for quickness + BoW and later i can forge then some boots of quickness this way if i have no watermages like as ulm .
E3 is for forging dwarfen hammers + earth boots later and this way i can use later invulnerability instead of ironskin as buff too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I think the best indy expander sc is the Vq .
Later the strongest Sc pretender is probably the Nataraja , especially with Arco .

The problem is though that some of the summonable Scs are really good too and can give any other pretender than the Nataraja a really good fight and win probably .
Normally you prefer to equip your Airqueen/Niefel Jarl/Ice devil and use him as antiplayer-sc then to risk your pretender .

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

The GK isn't good because it is an uber SC, like the VQ was, it is good because it is a relatively economical indy clearer, forger and site searcher.

The VQ was all of those plus a top notch SC. It is still good, it just isn't as economical anymore. I hate things that sound fanboyish but in this case, the developers really did a good job of balancing without gimping.

- Kel

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Some more reports:

The Virtue with a lot of air is a little better at cleaning out indeps than the ghost king. The Virtue also flies which is very handy.

However you need more research with the Virtue, you really need evoc 2 for shockwave and alteration 3 ( but you can live with 2 ). Soild choice.

This is what I don't get. What are these mysterious others? Are they all nation specific? The Virtue was slightly better I'll agree to that. And the wyrm was a touch better.

What else is good?

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Tried out a PoD with Death 9, Water 1. Scripted Quickness, Raise Skelly x4, cast.

Works out pretty well. Can even handle cav most of the time. He does lose sooner or later though.

He takes more research than the ghost king, and is not as flexable as the ghost king, but is perhaps slightly better at busting indeps.

Any other ideas?

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Void Lord is great against Indy's but probably needs more attack and defense to be viable against other SCs. Carrion Dragon is really good because of recuperation and sleep vines but suffers late game (like all dragons) from a lack of equipment slots. A lich/saurolich spamming raise skeleton is pretty decent.

Other than that, most of the large, high-hp pretenders can make decent SCs with the right types of magic.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Several of the best are nation specific - Allfather, Carrion Dragon, Niefel Jarl, maybe the Medusa. Others include the cyclops, several of the titan-esque pretenders, even the earth momma (albeit she is, imo, _crippled_ because of the way trampling works - same with the Dagon).

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

No it doesn't. Unlike the elemental dragons, the CD is still pretty beefy in its humanish form - 53 base hit points or so, and full equipment slots. The only real weakness is a relatively low attack / defense in carrion lord form. Helping to make up for that is the 6 carrion sleep vine attacks in addition to whatever weapon is equipped. In dragon form, it has much higher offense, and great HPs - base 200, easily getting close to 500 in favorable dominion.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

It's always seemed to me that the most crucial spells for your early expansion, indy-killing, SC are Mistform and Mirror Image. Ironskin/Invulnerability are next on my list. I've experimented with many of the chassis that people have mentioned (Ghost King, Wyrm, etc.) with some air and earth magic but none of this "1 point of fire for fire shield, 2 points of water for quickness and breath of winter." And they've mostly done just fine against all but the toughest indies. And this frees up quite a few more points to use on some non-SC related magic paths, or on better scales.

Have other people found that quickness, BoW, or fire shield, really make a big difference? I haven't been seeing it but I know there are plenty of folks with more experience than I have.

On a different note, one thing I have noticed is very helpful in cleaning out indies is a powerful Fear aura. When I tried a Carrion Dragon chasis with 7 Death magic on top of his naturally very high Fear, he would often rout high morale units with just a single kill. Regular morale units often ran without even getting close enough to fight. He had no air or earth magic at all but still had no trouble with indies, not even knights. A Prince of Death could probably do something similar, although I haven't tried it.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

I pretty well always build in quickness for an early indie clearer. I start with quickness, ironskin, mistform, mirror image. All the others you listed (+ a few others like Soul Vortex) can help later, against other players, but for non flying indies, that usually does the trick with pretty much any pretender.

The PoD is great for routing indies with fear. The only thing I run into with him is that if I don't give him the aforementioned spells, I occasionally lose him to some group that got lucky with their morale roles. I still use him but only when I really want the death magic anyway (as it should be). He is also one of my favorite choices for Miasma Ctis.

- Kel

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Cainehill,

What do you mean that the Earth Mother is crippled by the way that trampling works? It seems really effective (trampling) in my experience.

Thanks,
John

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

I assume he is refering to the fact that giving her a hell sword or blood thorn is useless because she will trample rather than use it.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Having played Dagon in my first MP game, I can say that trample fails miserably against SCs. He was fine clearing the level 9 indies, but was completely hopeless against the VQ. The VQ with the quickness and mistform never got run over. It always squirted away. Every single time. So the VQ just kept growing in HP as Dagon slowly died. Totally one-sided.

I am sure it is the same against any other SC who has quickness/flying/mistform. Trample has a pathetically low probability against these buffs. And it will never use the normal sword attack when up against a smaller opponent. Even against indies, dagon was always getting heavily fatigued while trampling. A reinvigoration artifact is an absolute must.

You simply cannot make a true SC who has the busted ability trample. Now, if there was a way to turn it off before a battle, than I would modify my opinion. Or maybe even if it was smart enough to actually do an attack rather than trying a completely hopeless trample a dozen times or more. But as it stands, trample loses to pretty much ANY other SC who is smaller in size.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Nope, the big decider here is etherealness (although if the trampled has a lifedraining attack it's even worse). For the record, I saw an AI Dagon lose an arena dearhmatch to a Black Servant once.

Myself I learned the effectiveness of etherealness vs trampling the hard way in my first MP a few years ago, when I lost THREE Iron Dragons to a Dusk Elder and an etherealized Ghoul! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

I still think trampling is great, it's just not great vs everything, so pick your targets accordingly. A trampling pretender should equip as many reinvigoration items as possible. Buying a few levels of death magic for Soul Vortex is also a good idea.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Tramplers don't swing their life draining weapons. Someone needs to invent life draining boots for them.

- Kel

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

As others have mentioned, trample is ... less than effective against a number of opponents - ethereal for instance, and I believe it's not only against ethereal opponents.

And the real problem is that you can't do _anything_ about it. A unit that can trample, will trample, against anything less than its own size. So - as others mentioned, the nice Hellsword, or Bloodthorn does nothing for you, and it's not only the life-stealing weapons that are thus useless. Ember - nope, not going to get the 1-hex area of effect fire and cold attack. Ditto for other weapons.

Thus, a large trampling commander is screwed - it's okay for dealing with ... peasants, but, in my experience, loses to any halfway decently magicked combatant commander, simply because the trample doesn't work.

(For example: my scout watched _two_ very well equipped golems lose to one VQ. In fact - the VQ was unconscious, and the tramplers _STILL_ couldn't do anything to her - they'd trample, the VQ would shift about the battlefield in her sleep, and the golems kept losing fatigue until the VQ woke up and finished things. This, despite the fact that the golems had good weapons.)

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

IIRC, the astral golem doesn't have trample innate right? Guess the lesson is it's a waste to give boots of the behemoth AND magic weapons to an SC.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Or Boots and Stymphalian Wings.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Just a few days back I've learned that trampling is much more dangerous than I thought. Some crazy golem with stymphalian wings had nearly trampled my fully equipped wraith lord to death. The problem is that the trampling still causes the damage (1 hp) and the wraith lord doesn't have too many of them to start with and there's no way to replenish them vs Golem. My WL has barely get away with it, finishing the battle with only few HP left.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

VQ is not in danger because of the regeneration, otherwise she would be risking to run out of HP (like what nearly had happened to my wraith lord). But of course, knowing what it has to fight VQ has little problems dealing with such golems, whether it is by Hand-Of-Deathing them or dusk-daggering or both.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

I am pretty sure 0 enc golems do not get fatigue from trampling. Otherwise sounds right.

Pickles

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

How did the Vq get unconscious ?
She has 0 melee encumberance so did she win against the golems AND e.g. a drainlife caster to fatigue her ?
Or does trampling do fatigue to the target ?

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Just my take on the Sc-lot: Prince of Death with 4 air, 4 death, optionally some earth or water. Give him a water sword (or better, two) at start to replace that horrible wand he has, research some alteration and you are good to go. The main thing going for him is the enc-0, innate flying, good stats and full set of equip slots that make him into a terrific late-game sc. Early in the game, his suberb fear means he doesn't really have to kill indeps, just stay untouched until they flee, which doesn't take too long. Also, his innate high death is very good for caelum because it fills the caelian void of summon magic.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Casted enough big spells to drive her unconscious.

That said - it really seems that I've watched VQs and perhaps some other beings continue doing things when their fatigue is over 100. Possibly a bug.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

I believe I've seen this with all my pretenders, but it's hard to say if it's a bug, or a reflection of ambiguous combat reporting. Much as I enjoy this game, I really have a hard time getting a precise understanding of what has ocurred in combat, based on watching the replays.

The ambiguous aspect w/r to fatigue is that I don't know the sequence of recording fatigue vs. when actions are taken. For example if my pretender shows 103, then the next round the sequence could be:
1) fatigue drops to 98
2) pretender casts 5 fatigue spell
3) fatigue back to 103
4) fatigue updated on pretender's fatigue display

In which case, no bug.

But I've seen other cases where I something more complex is going on, but I really don't know enough about fatigue mechanics to attribute it to a bug, or my lack of knowledge.

Whatever the case, one of my most wished for improvements in this game is more detailed/accurate information reported during combat.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Tuna,

nice post that sounds like a good pretender.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

My question and or problem I am having with SC is many MP games now are using Very Difficult Research. Which means if your counting on early expansion from and SC it just does not seem to work for me. Oh and most games are indy sth 7 or better.

Even Dragons, Cyclops, Wynm all seem to die or take an affliction if used with just Alt 1 research, if I wait for any more research my opponents already have a lot of places under there control. So what are they doing different from me is the questions.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Expand with regular troops? I usually use 1 national army, starting from turn 3 or 4, 3-4 turns later I can field second national army, and pretender joins the expansion team as soon as something useful is researched (for example, Alteration-3).

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

I personally find that high indep+Very Difficult research == sacred troops with a bless.

However I am currently playing a game in which Ulm did *very* well smashing indeps of strength 9 with his blackplate+legions of steel.

In the end he got hurt by a blood nation, however the game is not decided yet.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Can you tell me how your Ulm got hurt by a blood nation? I might be in that position soon in an MP game I am currently in...

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

devils consider black plate infantry a type of roasted peanut.

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

LOL

Re: Looking for help with SC pretenders
 

Hm thats really weird then . Even though your opponent made scripting errors the vq still won http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif


Yeah very difficult research / low magic site frequency is done trying making magic a bit less important but it fails because it strenghtens as you said the nations with blessed troops / good troops and blood nations .

So nations like e.g. pythium / arco get weaker but especially the blood nations really benefit . Especially Abysia/Vanheim should there be really excellent nations . They have good troops , Blessable troops and blood hunt ability . Vanheim has a bit better troops but less good bloodhunting .