When you are sitting, just sit...
 

The latest in my "how do you use these pretenders" series.

Humans are good for rainbows or cheapness ...
Big guys and monsters are good for early expansion ...
Dragons are good for bless strategies ...

What are immobile pretenders good for? I've been thinking about them lately. And I remember reading about giving one "twiceborn" and getting them back once they're killed as mobile beings. But how do you get good use out of them until then?

The Sphinx and Monolith look pretty durable. The fountains have lots of item slots. (The blood fountain sounds like a great way to start a blood economy.) But how do you use them? If you teleport them somewhere, you've got to build a lab to teleport them out. I can see using them just for research and big spells, but it seems like a waste.

Your thoughts ... and some good pretender / realm combos are appreciated.

Rylen

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

they can be good for that. except the sphinx, which can't even teleport.

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

Well, Sphinx used to be real baddie. Imagine getting 500-hp pretender to your citadel on turn 5! Unfortunately, it lost all ways of teleporting when it was balanced, not just the cheapest one that made it ultra-powerful.

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

I've been trying this lately. Right now my angle is double-bless effects. I'm in a multi-player game right now with the Flaming Head Baphomet with Astral-9, Fire-9. The nation is Marignon, so the cheap little flagellants can hand out some good damage before dying.

Also the Baphomet can teleport into the fray. That's fun!

In single-player right now I'm experimenting with Jotunheim, Monolith, Astral-9, Nature-9.

Also I like the idea of taking an Oracle, Astral-3, and maximum dominion goodness. That could be fun.

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

About getting immobiles back home : you've to have Astral-2, and can script "Returning", a battle spell that returns you back home.
Downside is that if the battle does not Last till the end of your script, you're stranded - until the next battle that is ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

I've had great success with a fountain of blood with caelum. I used it exclusively for forging and blood hunting and a spell once in a while. Hunting within the captial isnt as bad as one might think, considering the good scales one can afford with a fountain (order+3,growth+3)...

I imagine that an astral fountain might be beneficial to caelum as well (since they are weak at astral magic, but would benefit form matrices and rings of wizardry, etc.)...

PS: But I would not choose it on small-map-games (i.e. < 15 provinces per player), but on large-map-games like 15-20 provinces per player (yep, i know that other player may have a different scale and understanding of 'large')

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

I'm a big fan of the guys that just sit there. Keeps me from sending them out into fights they've no business messing with. And, yes, a pair of level 9 blessings is always nice. Zooko, you've named a couple of my Favorites. Get some Niefel giants blessed with a Gift of Health up, every one of them is a 100+ hp regenerating berserking resisting beast.
I actually liked the Knights of the Chalice better than Flagellants with the Baphomet. While the idea of the Flagellants was beautiful, in practice it seemed that four or five flaming never-missing fate-twisted high-protection knights did a much better job mopping up indies without casualties. Unfortunately the game crapped out, so I never actually got to see how they did against other real people...
The other game I'm in with an immobile deity is a F9S9 Flaming Glyph heading up Abysia. The paths might sound redundant, but that blessing on the Lava Warriors was quite handy and it was very nice not to have to work for Wish. That game is pretty much over (my first or second MP game, too) courtesy of the little burning doodle, so it can't be that doomed a strategy.

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

I've found immobles work well with blood hunting nations like mictlan, teleport them into a good blood hutning province, send the blood hunters in the same turn, and start the hutning fast, with no micromanagement from scouts.

odd_enuf

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

I love Fire-9, Astral-9 blessed knights and paladins against independents, but so far (in my first multiplayer game ever), they haven't been worth their price went sent against an enemy human.

Actually, there *was* one time that a White Knight got behind the lines and cleaned up half-a-dozen enemy mages. That was worth his price!

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

What scales are you using for this? I find a substantial defecit when I put it together. Order 2, Sloth 1, Cold 3 (of course), Growth 0 (These are giants), Luck -2, Magic -2 (I'll get skulls quick enough)

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So, the big use of these guys is a double bless, and keeping out of trouble?

Rylen

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

ehhh, skulls aren't enough :O

you should have magic 2 w/ the jots. giants can deal w/ a bit of death - just get some wineskins going ASAP. Also, w/ a bless strat, you can go w/ a mausoleum and sloth 3, since you're just buying commanders and woodsmen.

so, order 3, sloth 3, cold 3, death 2, misfortune 2 magic 2
dominion 7 mausoleum, seems to work.

its pretty minimal for supply, but if you're careful you can do it.

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

If the woodsmen weren't capitol only, or if Jotuns could easily manage gateways, that'd be good, but... Actually, even with gateways, I haven't found it possible to buy enough woodsmen to fuel a long-term advance.

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

well, when i go for a jot bless-strat, as soon as i expand a bit, my secondary castle spam is pushing out a fair number of Jotun herse. Herse are perhaps the best sacred unit in the game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif woodsmen are good early is all. but even at those settings, if you're careful w/ your forces, you can accumulate quite a few woodsmen too. Of course, they still might not be able to deal w/ a real SC, but that's always a problem.

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

I'm still struggling to get 9N, 9S Niffle Giants.

Rylen

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

I tried some immobiles now and again, but without Zen's pretender mod most simply weren't viable (or at least, certainly not attractive) for MP games.

A few exceptions: R'lyeh's Void Lurker: very cheap magic paths (15 points) made for a very good rainbow mage, very good for research and for forging. With a bit of research, capable of teleporting into provinces and winning all by its lonesome, including land provinces with an amulet to let it breath on land. Very good HPs and ethereal, and post twiceborn, usable for site searching and whatnot.

Marignon's Baphomet: great for a dual Fire/Astral bless, plus pretty good basic dominion. With built in etherealness and fireshield, I took several provinces with one with little more than teleport researched.

Abysian/Machakan Divine Glyph: Just like the Baphomet - less innate fire magic and no fire shield, but has Awe to help take independents all by itself.

Those were pretty much the only immobiles I ever found viable, and I'm not sure I'd have recommended them for a competitive MP game, but fun to try with.

On the other paw, with Zen's mod most if not all the immobiles become reasonably viable and more or less appealing - a lot have built in gem incomes, one (the Glyph) is now immortal, etc.

Re: When you are sitting, just sit...
 

Absolutely.

Hardly. A human without paths still costs more than, say, a Manticore, and is even less useful. To say nothing of a Nataraja. And Wyrms don't cost much more than some human chasses.
'course, I prefer the sacred fountain over any low-grade thug pretender. It may not be mobile(Without wasting a pearl or two), but the high base dominion is always useful, and one can never get too much astral. Particularly with a non-astral nation.

Eh. Plenty of other chasses out there that can pull off a single-path bless, and many of them have other uses which dragons lack.