Newbie Pythium Questions
 

Hello!
Well, Me and my friends have just found this game and have downloaded the demo for 2. I basicly use pythium, my friends use citis and abysia. Since Im new here, I still don't know any strategys yet. I basicly rely on serpent preist and emerald guards, trying to swarm the opponents by build lots of cheap fast forts. I use serpent cult but I don't know if its good or not. My friend already has this undead thing going on with desert tombs with citis and have obilerated me. Im just asking about strategys for Pythium to beat undead citis and abysia. I really like Pythium, but have heard it is one of the worst in the game. Still, any advice? thanks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

a bunch of priests set to banish take out priests pretty effectively.

additionally, learn some thaumaturgy and get some of those astral mages set to cast mind blast - it won't target mindless troops (like most of the cheap undead)

Pythium has the advantage of really getting a lot of gem income, and powerful mages. they don't really get archers, so you have to research some evocation and use those spells. Unfortunmately in the demo, you can't really reach the good evocation spells.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

Haha even though Serpent Cult isn't bad thanks to quickness/eagle eye banishment for undead and demons, Serpent cult is one of the worst in the game while Pythium base is one of the strongest nations. =)

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

Okay, so I should start using the default for pythium?
What should my god be? Stats ansd stuff? And how do I use my units specificly to take out undead citis and abysia?

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

Yes, yes you should start using def. Pythium. The Cult is a lovely theme and it oozes with hydra flavour but it really just doesn't cut it.

As for regular Pythium...never played them that much but here goes:

Masses of weak undead are easy peasy since you have priests with Water magic. Research Quickness and spam Banishment with them.

You also have a pretty easy acces to Astral battle magic, namle Soul Slay and Enslave and Air battle magic like Thunder Strike and Orb Lightning. OL is wonderful since it scales in a sweet, sweet manner with your air magic level but early on TS and even regular Lightning Bolt is very good.

Don't forget Quickness. Use it. Feel the power of shooting two spells per round with a quickened caster.

Don't forget communion either. Recruit Communicants or those 1 S Theurgs. Communicants have no magic skills but they have Communion Slave autocast on them at all times. The S1 Theurgs need to use the spell Communion Slave but can also do something useful on the field. Well, semi-useful.

Communion allows you to increase the power of mages who have cast Communion Master by 1 for every two mages who have cast Communion Slave. The fatigue from the master's spells partially goes to the Slaves, but the buff spells are also transfered to them. So if you cast Summon Earthpower and Bless on a Master the Slaves will get the Earthpower effect and Bless if they are sacred. This, as you can imagine, is very useful.

You can easily rack up amazingly high Holy magic levels and magic levels in general while easening the fatigue burden. But keep in mind that the fatique can quickly become deadly for the slaves. A pro way the fight fatigue is the have a Nature Theurg as one of the Masters and then have him cast Relief.

A more demo friendly way is taking enough Earth magic to get some of the Earth bless and then have an Earth theurg be a master and have him cast Summon Earthpower and Bless. This will help a bit with the fatigue.

Setting up a big Communion with multiple Slaves (some have used up to 16 or so slaves) and with several Masters can be difficult but it pays off.

Emerald Guards are very good units but they are too resource intensive for start in my opinion. Regular troops (I believe Princes are where it's at) with Standards mixed in are good enough for start I believe. Support them with mages and summons. Emerald Guards become useful if/when you enough resources to build them in proper numbers.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

So can communicants raise all the magic by 1 for the master? Or just the astral? And how many princes per standard?

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

All magic including holy.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

So how does communicant work? Can the communicant guys automatically give power to arch therugs? Because I tried with 3 slaves and 2 arch but they didn't seem to have any extra powers.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

It doesn't actually display the extra magic when you use communion, but it's there.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

Nerfix, you said communion increases magical power by 1 for each 2 slaves, but IIRC it increases by N for 2^N slaves.
I could be mistaken though, I don't use communion much.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

The masters have to cast Communion Master to get the bonuses. Pythium starts with Communion Slave and Communion Master spells already researched.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

2 communion slaves increase magic by 1, 4 increase by 2, 8 increases by 3, 16 increases by 4.

I think Agrajag is right about that.

Edit: typo

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

Ahh, yo uare indeed correct.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

Regular pythium is good at magic (nice in the long run). Serpent cult has sacred hydras (regular hydras are not sacred) so is good for rushing.

Choose earth mother as your god. choose serpent cult. boost magic to you mother up to 9 at earth and 9 at nature. voila every time your priests blesses your hydras they get:
+4 reinvigoration (cures fatigue)
+4 armor
all thanx to earth magic of your pretender
and
+3 berserk
+ added regeneration (boosting their natural one) and posion protection (useless as they are immune i think)
thanx to nature magic.
This could help.




This is the breakdown of blessing effects (depends on your pretender's starting magic:

Bless Effects
(From Dominionsx)


None - Morale +3

Fire 4 - Attack Skill +2
Fire 6 - Attack Skill +3
Fire 8 - Attack Skill +4
Fire 9 - Flaming Weapons
Fire 10 - Attack Skill +5

Air 4 - Air Shield (20%)
Air 5 - Air Shield (25%)
Air 6 - Air Shield (30%)
Air 7 - Air Shield (35%)
Air 8 - Air Shield (40%)
Air 9 - Shock resistance (75%)
Air 10 - Air Shield (45%)

Water 4 - Defense Skill +2
Water 6 - Defense Skill +3
Water 8 - Defense Skill +4
Water 9 - Quickness (50%)
Water 10 - Defense Skill +5

Earth 4 - Reinvigoration 2
Earth 6 - Reinvigoration 3
Earth 8 - Reinvigoration 4
Earth 9 - Armor value +4
Earth 10 - Reinvigoration 5

Astral 4 - Magic Resistance +1 (Max 18)
Astral 6 - Magic Resistance +2
Astral 8 - Magic Resistance +3
Astral 9 - Twist Fate (protection from first hit)
Astral 10 - Magic Resistance +4

Death 4 - Lesser Fear
Death 6 - Lesser Fear
Death 8 - Lesser Fear
Death 9 - Life after Death, Fear (Undead beings only)
Death 10 - Lesser Fear

Nature 4 - Berserk +1
Nature 6 - Berserk +2
Nature 8 - Berserk +3
Nature 9 - Regeneration, Poison Resistance (50%)
Nature 10 - Berserk +4

Blood 4 - Strength +2
Blood 6 - Strength +3
Blood 8 - Strength +4
Blood 9 - Death Curse
Blood 10 - Strength +5



those bonus are enough to make your hydras really tough.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

You could also consider w9 instead of e9. I think quickness and defense would be better than reinvig and armor, but I don't know if Pythium has a pretender they can successfully get w9 and n9 with.

Man, I just thought of something that would be cool for DomII, but I don't think would work with Dom3 because of how the eras work. You know how you can choose one special Dominion, such as a Theme, or Water Cult, or Restless Worshippers, etc? Well, I think a cool special would be something called "Armies of Legend" where all of a nations sacred troops are always blessed while they are within the gods dominion. This would be like a 50-100 point special, I think. Dom3 doesn't have special dominions, does it?

=$= Big J Money =$=

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

No, it doesn't. It would also cause some strange effects with one-shot effects, at least Twist Fate of Astral 9. Currently, it is only initiated when the unit is blessed.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

Doesn't have special dominions at all anymore? I hope you mean it doesn't have dominions that change the nation's recruitable makeup, but that there are still Restless Worshippers, Golem Cult, and hopefully some new ones. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

Sorry, but the selection of special selection powers went away. Some of the effects are in there, with some nations, but there are few that seem to have disappeared.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

That's gonna hurt my Ulm game. I relied upon Ceremonial Faith every time I played Ulm, but I kind of expected this anyway. Besides, it's not like I'm a great player, lol.

=$=

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

That sucks. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I was looking forward to all the nation-changing dominions having been broken out into nations/eras, thinking we'd finally be able to do combos previously impossible, such as Last of the Tuatha / Water Cult.

Not to mention that it helped somewhat with variety, since a few of the dominions (Water & Golem Cult, for example) sometimes made a significant difference even with the same nation.

Re: Newbie Pythium Questions
 

Yeah, it's kinda sad. Ahhh well.