Pythium\'s Magery
 

After all the fuss about Pythium's mighty summons and superb magic skills had been made, I decided to try them myself. I picked some nice scales and a Ghost King E4 D5 to supplement the nation's lack of paths.
So far so good; the troops seem to be decent enough, forts are being built on a daily basis so to say and with Arch-Theurgs' broad spectrum of magic paths the gems are flowing in nicely enough.

However.

At the first glance (Arch-)Theurgs make your jaw unhinge in awe:'Whoa, these bastards simply have to kick ***!' But when you check the spell list... What the hell CAN they cast? The combination of their paths seems to be practically useless. What to do with a communioned Arch-Theurg? Perhaps make him cast Mind Burn? Oh no, wait, Luck would be better!
Seriously, I think there is a severe lack of available battlefield spells for Pythium.
So far I've only come up with a handful of ideas:

-Orb Lightning and other lightning spells (Possible, but a group of 1 Theurg and 4 Communicants in order to kill 3-4 troops? Caelum would kick their arses any day of the week...)

-Falling Frost (Again, too many a Communicant, too puny an effect)

-Astral Fires (Ah, now there's something! [Haven't tested it yet, though...] But this spell can only be cast with a path in fire. And Theurgs with one are real primadonnas 1 out of every four and capital only)


So how the hell can I put those lazy bums into good use? (Any advice is appreciated) =)

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Paralyze, Enslave Mind, Soul Slay, Stellar Cascades and Thunderstrike come to mind. Then there's spells such as Fog Warriors, Battle Fortune and the like.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

They can cast pretty much any A/S/W spell with their communicants...

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Early: put 2-3 Theurgs in the middle of a squad - set on hold & attack, Theurgs cast 3x Body Ethereal.

Can they still cast Falling Frost? That was another battlefield staple in dom2.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Astral Fires is a biggie. That spell is normally a bit sad against anything but low-MR chaff because of its MR check, but communion and items can easily raise an Arch Theurge's penetration totals way way higher

True, only 1/4 arch theurges can cast it... but you only need one per army!

Fog Warriors is also beautiful for Pythium, especially in combo with hydras.

Also, when playing with large-scale communions, there are a few tricks to help protect your mages. All buff spells are shared throughout the communion, so have two Masters, one casting your attack spells and the other dropping stuff like Air Shield and Personal Luck. Give a Crystal Shield to one too. If you have an S/E pretender, forge a few Crystal Matrices to save precious time in combat. And finally, don't just use communicants as communion slaves, if you're going to use high-path Astral spells. Fatigue is divided between people before it's divided by path levels, and those poor communicants aren't getting any path-boosting buffs since they have no paths. The little S1 guys, however, will benefit from a Banner of the Northern Star and Crystal Shield, so they take 1/3 the fatigue from astral spells.

Finally, never forget their national summons. I was lately playing pythium in SP, and used a sleeping Oracle with S6F4E4N4, with S/F so I can eventually summon the seraphim (Arch Theurges never get enough F to do it alone), E for the piles of sacred mages, and N for the sacred angels.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

I've never played with Pythium in MP, but my SP dabblings suggest that the Theurgs and Arch-Theurgs benefit enormously from Power of the Spheres. A Theurg with 2 communicants (250 gold cost) and a pearl can get up to 3W3A4S.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

You should be banned from ever playing Pythium after insulting the Arch Theurgs so!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

But in all seriousness, you are actually shooting way too low with your arch-theurgs. Arch-thuergs are there for heavy-lifting, not day to day battlefield spells. They should be casting things like Will of the Fates, Doom, Solar Brilliance, Storm, Light of the Northern Star, etc. Stuff that your mages-of-the-line just arent able to cast. In addition, your arch-theurgs should be doing all your summoning and ritual work as well. Getting those Angels in play and Mind Hunting your enemy to death.

The regular battlefield spells should be left to your Theurgs. Commune them up and just let loose with Falling Frosts (for normal troops), Lightning Bolts/Orb Lightning (for heavy armored troops), and Soul Slays (for SCs). If you really insist on using an arch theurg for battle spells, they are great for Falling Frost of course but if you get a strong Air mage, they can just repeat cast Thunderstrike till the end of time which is really great.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Dont forget enslave mind ironhawk, its useful vrs all but the chaff-iest units.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Off the Theurg topic, but does anyone make any use out of the Battle Vestals? Seems that if they could be massed, with a decent light bless, they could do some damage (they're plenty cheap). But is it worth it going that route, with pretender design and all?

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Even if you could, I wouldn't recommend it; get a bless that fits your angels, not one that fits your vestals. Vestals make good front-liners against low-archer empires; beyond that, they're just a way to round off your resources.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

When you want to deal damage you have two spells: Thunderstrike ( which is great ), and Falling Frost ( decent ) and that is about it.

Enslave mind is decent aginst SC's but not usually worth it when you are facing larger armies.

OTOH you can buff your army with quite a few spells: Anti-magic, Astral Healing ( which your theurges will cast by themselves, and quite often in some battles. Leading to some comical communicants ), Arrow Fend, Mass Flight, Doom, Will of the Fates, Fog Warriors.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

And of course dont forget the suicidal F2 mage with crystal matrix casting phoenix power with multiple communicants attacking closest http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif If its a F2 arch theurg you could cast flight second turn too(and feel free to add in a screen for protection while buffing)

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Enslave mind is useful almost always.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

I have played with a triple bless and found them stellar. 9W9D6air they do some serious damage.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Almost any sacred unit would do serious damage with that bless. To put it simply you shouldnt plan a bless strategy on battle vestals because they are fragile and not particularly adept at dealing damage. If they recieve a bless from your pretender thats fine but you really shouldnt make your strategy around them as your already have a passable military and your nation benefits from good scales very strongly(a bit of a bless for theurgs/angels such as nature, earth or astral is another nice bonus but i dont reccomend planning a strategy around it).

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Hmmm, hopefully not too much OT, but has anybody put Bandar Log's recruitable mages to good use? Lots of potential communicants, but I can't find anything terribly effective to do with a S/N mage except in a few cases. Unscripted they do silly things like Touch of Madness and Healing Light. Ethereal elephants are pretty good, and Enslave Mind can be useful against some kinds of enemies, but I have a hard time justifying them as combat mages based on their effectiveness. Anybody more clever than I have something sneaky to do with them short of the high research straight astral spells?

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Bandar Logs strongest mages(forget the name) are quite nice. They can forge alot of nice magic items(regen, luck, MR ect) for your national summons and a group of them(i get as many as i can asap) soul slaying is deadly, particularly before late game, just march in with a shield of infantry and let rip. Even gods fall fairly quickly to a group of these guys and they do very heavy damage to small, elite armies(eg jotuns, expensive sacreds, super heavy troops, elephants ect).
Just the general astral spells and maybe swarm/panic if im in need for that sort of thing.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Off the Bandar Log topic(:)); I'd only like to say thanks to all the brainstorming regarding the title of the thread.

I see those Thunder Strikes are pretty effective albeit extremely exhausting, (Any way to counter that apart from an E bless which I don't have?) and I've just summoned my very first angels! They seem quite impressive and will probably make fine thugs... Won't they? Or are there other, more efficient ways of employing them?

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Angels of Wrath and Seraphim are more SC than thug material IMO, but I don't really have experience using either.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Thunderstrikes are not exhausting if you power them via a communion. Take your 3A arch-theurgs and give them just two communion slaves. This boosts them to 4A which cuts the fatigue for the spell to 25. Then, since you are communed, each member gets only 1/3rd of the fatigue so we are talking 8.333 fatigue per casting. Not exhausting at all. But I would like to re-iterate that in anything but the smallest maps, your Theurgs are really what should be your default combat mage.

Harbingers make excellent thugs. If you have a decent bless you can have them bless themselves before buffing Mistform/Mirror Image. An easy equipment loadout (for base Pythium paths) for them is a standard set of "living" sc gear: Sword of Swiftness, Lucky Coin, Starshine Skullcap, Chainmail of Displacement, Boots of Quickness, AMA, RoR. Angels of Wrath are awesome anti-personel thugs, but unlike the Harbingers they cannot cloud trapezee which makes them a touch harder to deploy.

Edit:
HMmmm... actually my loadout above was based on the assumption of a decent Earth blessing (which I had in my last game as pythium). You'll need to adjust for Reinvigoration.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Seraphs are pretty much SC quality as soon as you summon them. Angels of wrath can go either way depending on blessing and equipment.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

What is your tactic against the old age problem with Pythium ? Even the lower Theurgs suffer from old age.
Is it wise to take a Growth scale ?
I like to have Nature on my Pretender and forge Lycantroph amulets...but that make the mages berserk and unable to cast battlefield spells. Do you guys go for contruction 6 and forge this water bottle that stop aging or do you just ignore old age ?

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

I definitely dont take Death scales, thats for sure! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Growth is nice but not required. Generally I just ignore old age. If a mage ever gets Diseased I just teleport him to the front lines to get some use out of him before he dies.

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

With pythium i always try to take good scales including good growth since pythiums real strength comes into play i mainly plan for then(+good scales means large, well supplied expansion armies) but i also try to get 4 nature on my pretender. The nature magic on the pretender not only helps with magic versatility but it also gives a minor regeneration bless that stops units taking damage from disease if you give them a shroud of the battlesaint(5 pearls and fairly low construction iirc). It also means you dont HAVE to give your angel thugs/SCs regeneration if your just using it to avoid the occasional affliction(if you expect them to take a fair amount of damage they need either more regeneration or a new build).

Re: Pythium\'s Magery
 

Just wanted to note that spell fatigue gets split *before* adjusting for path costs. So that's 17 points to the theurg and both communion slaves. The theurg still takes 17/2 = 8 + encumbrance fatigue because he's A4, and the slaves take 17*3 + fatigue because they're A1 (IIRC). However, if you use communicants, which have no paths, the slaves will just take the base 17.

Generally communicants are better than mages as communion slaves.

-Max

Re: Pythium's Magery
 

What would be the optimal bless for the angels? I have played Pythium only rarely and don't recall what sort of stats they have. I have seen some hints that earth and nature blesses are good, but I would like to know more specifically what some different bless advantages would be.

Re: Pythium's Magery
 

Earth and nature is where it's at for Angels: regeneration is obviously useful, and reinvigoration because they do take fatigue. Earth is doubly useful because all your mages are sacred, so you get to reduce fatigue, and if (non-seraph) angels have a weakness, it's low protection, so that's also worth buffing a bit. However, they'll still be lethal enough with no bless at all. I've got a game running where I ignored bless completely, but otherwise I'd probably take something like E9N4.

Re: Pythium's Magery
 

The question isn't what's a good bless for angels, but should you even develop a bless strategy around angels? The answer is no. The earliest you can summon them is Conjuration-6 to get the Harbringer (A3H2 @ 25 pearls). Then you're going to want some Construction and Alteration to help them work as thugs. Angels are essentially a sideshow for Pythium (I'm actually working on a guide for them that I'll finish as soon as I wrap some games up with them). The real story and aresenal a Pythium player should focus on is Theurgs and communions, which are all sacred and benefit greatly from even a small Earth Bless (which incidently helps out Angels as well). Also, Pythium has some bad magic diversity and could really use a rainbow... and positive scales to boom with... and an awake SC for expansion... and production to build Principe with... you get the idea. I'd start with Growth-3 to keep my Theurgs alive and some Earth to revig my Communions.

On a somewhat unrelated note, does anyone have an opion on the viability of casting Thetis's blessing the same turn as numerous Arch Theurgs teleport into water provinces to take on some PD single handedly?

Re: Pythium's Magery
 

I'm thinking that if you try to tele on the same turn you cast Thetis, they'll all need water breathing items anyways, because the global hasn't succeeded yet.


As to the rest, I'd think that unless you were going with an awake pretender, you could just go a straight E9 and call it good, as far as global, full game benefit. If you wanted an awake pretender, going E4 at least should be worth it, and if you were going to do E4/N? then it may be worth pushing from N2 to N4, just to leverage the self buffing into a better bless, if you can afford it.

There are plenty of other things you can do to enhance angels (and/or sacred mages), but those are likely the two routes most applicable to MP, most others would just be fun to play with in SP a bit (like a W9/E4 or something).

Well, S9/E4 if you wanted an Imprisoned Oracle, could be a pretty cost effective and versatile MP pretender - as long as you aren't one who is highly reliant on the awake SC.

Re: Pythium's Magery
 

Agreed with Omikron.

Ultimately, you'll never be able to summon enough angels to make a bless strategy for them that useful, and MA Pythium's recruitable sacreds surely aren't worth particular effort. As Pythium's mages and troops are both very capable, you can view your SC more as a support and a rainbow is a good idea. Death, Nature, Earth are all good things to have at least skill 2 in. They're easily boosted (particularly as arch theurgs can make rings of sorc. & wiz.), and easy summons or common indy mages sort the rest out.

Fire is trickier as it's hard to boost, you might just want to wait until you can summon a seraph. I guess you can give a ring of wizardry to an arch theurg with F1 to get some searching spells going, but it would be late on and slow going. Otherwise you'd want F3.

Re: Pythium's Magery
 

If you're going for a rainbow pretender and have D2+ already, you could splash 10 design points for F1. Then you can make flaming skulls for the +F boost.

Re: Pythium's Magery
 

E4 reinvigoration is good for Pythium's sacred mages, N4 is good for their old age (shrouds). And E4N4 is good diversification for Pythium.

I don't see a need for an SC god when you've got hydras. So a rainbow with N4E4, and whatever other paths you want to round it out with sounds good to me.

The N4 regen cuts down on angel afflictions, and E4 reinvig is good for them too.

Re: Pythium's Magery
 

This is an old thread, but maybe the right place to ask if Theurges auto cast Astral Tempest if you leave unscripted pearls on them. I seem to remember in dom2 just researching evo and casting SOAP, but when then theurgs self destructed some good armies right after I got astral tempest.

Re: Pythium's Magery
 

And if you came here looking for a strategy for Pythium, I'm a newb, and I've only had evo/SOAP work against just one opponent or the AI. I played Pythium in an MP game and was working this strategy, but not only was I small, but I got ganged up on... which I guess can frequently happen to Pythium, and I assume it is assured to happen if you try and skip mid-game by casting SOAP with a rainbow pretender early, and going to conj.