Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Not uncommonly when I pick up a new game I just choose a team at random and stick with it. In this case it's Sauramatia.

So far the strategy I've been trying is to use Androphags in junction with Androphag Archers and it's been working okay.

Blessed with Death Weapons and Air Shield they go like blade through butter through any "creep camp" (I don't know the slang yet!) and almost any other army. Magic weapons seems to work wonders in general, and the air shield protects from friendly fire from the poison archers.

Apart from that however I'm a little lost ~~
I use luck scales for cash, and that hasn't failed me yet, but perhaps someone knows of a better strategy. What god to use, what spells to research (still a bit confused in that area), if there's a way to get any use out of the hydras etc...

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

The independent enemies are just called independents.

Luck scale provides random gems and mages (generic mages and heroes) in addition to gold and the occasional resource site, as well as protecting from population death and barbarian raids. For just gold, Order scale is better, both in the very early and the very late game. The reason for this is that you need to conquer some area before you can get the maximum amount of events available per turn (3), and that you can't get more than those.

Personally, I find that Luck is much more fun, so I prefer it over Order.

If you haven't updated to 3.10 yet, I suggest doing that. Hydras got a big change in that one, getting several forms, losing heads, etc. The first form will have just few hp, but don't care about that. Think of that as the amount of hp ONE of the heads has. That said, hydras are a bit hard to use. You could combine them with undead to finish off hard-to-hit enemy units, like sacred cavalry.

Death magic: Enchantment gets you ground troops (Reanimation is quite costly unless you get better types of undead, e.g by playing one of the giant nations, but Raise Dead/Skeletons is already quite good. Enough mages casting that can conquer provinces on their own. Pale Riders is the next big spell on Enchantment), Conjuration elites and tough commanders that you can equip for battle (Black Servants, Bane Lords and Wraith Lords are commanders).

If you go for Enchantment, Gift of Health would be really nice. If you don't want to take pretender for it, try to forge booster items. Page 282 of the manual lists the boosters. Even with them, unless you get a hero you might have to empower one of your mages, so if you don't know what else to do with a pretender take good scales, supportive bless and enough Nature to cast Gift of Health. Taking an imprisoned pretender won't hurt if you don't need him for the early game, so you can probably afford something suitable. Just remember to compare how much the magic and dominion you want cost with different forms - increasing a path gets expensive very fast unless your pretender starts with that magic.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Hmm... undeads you say... I haven't really given undead armies much though. They seem to crumble so quickly once the enemy gets a few priests, but you might be right...

If nothing else they could be used as terror units, taking over poorly defended provinces. Should be alright even if you lose it again the following turn(s).

The problem I have with hydras is of course that they poison everything you have while being too slow to reach archers and similar things that hurt them badly before they can even do anything. But as you say, an undead army wouldn't feel the poison... Thanks! ^^

2 more quick questions:

If you'd suggest a pretender from them, what would that be?

and

Would you agree that the Sauramatian province defense is one of the strongest ones?

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

The thing about undead is that you can easily get huge amounts of them, and still have your normal armies. Enchantment 1 spell Reanimation is slow. Once you have few Death 3 or Death 4 mages casting Raise Skeletons (Death 2 mages go unconscious from the fatigue too soon), you'll get a constant stream of new undead fighting for you. You'll have to position your army so that the summoned undead won't get stuck behind your real troops while your mages are protected, but that isn't hard. And once you can cast Pale Riders you can mass lots of fast undead units really fast. Most undead can also go underwater, and are immune to cold and poison, never rout, and only get fatigue from spellcasting thanks to their 0 encumberance.

The summoned undead aren't that good at raiding because their numbers usually go down pretty fast, but again, Raise Skeletons works nicely if you've got other troops as well.


Hydras are hard so slow it's hard to get them to archers. Think of them as stationary defence, instead. Enemy comes at you, is poisoned, retreats. Also, enemies pursuing a retreating hydra sometimes suffer huge losses because they go straigth through the poison aura the hydra leaves behind. That's not easy to do intentionally, though.


If you go for a Death bless over 6, Prince of Death is good. He's pretty tough in battles if you give him any kind of armor. Just don't let him get fatigued before attacking, because fatigue kills.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

The Medusa is one of the best pretenders in base. No reason you shouldn't use her if you can get her considering a) she doesn't sync with your magic so you diversify your magic and b) you don't need blesses except a minor earth one which she provides. Archers = win for Sauro but their cavalry isn't bad either.

Also nether spells are the order of the battlemagicking day along with cheap enchants for your guys to spam undead buffers. Antimagic goes a long way for your undeads against banish.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

I agree, if a nation lets you take the Gorgon; take it.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

3rd. The auto-petrification-damage shield is terrifying.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

I'm trying out the master lich at the moment. He starts with high death magic and dominion, so he's a good choice I think. Also I don't have to worry about him getting killed too much ^^

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Don't forget Sauromatia can blood sacrifice. You can blood hunt with a N1B1 Warrior Sorceress who has a Sanguine Rod. Witch Kings are a bit expensive to just use for blood hunting. And best of all, N1B1s can make Jade Daggers too. I like to have an indy priest with a Jade Dagger blood sacrificing on every temple I build.

Also, Enaries are "Fortune Tellers" (only 5% each though). While luck is fun to play with, I prefer Order-3, Misfortune-2 for Sauromatia, and use Enaries as my primary mage. 10 researching in each castle of yours will cut down on bad events in the castle provinces, and just a few can immediately take back any neighbor province that get by hit barbarian events. You can even try Order-3, Misfortune-2, Death-2, high dominion, and push the misfortune and death out into your neighbors with your blood sacrifices.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Is there a good reason to buy androphags ? They seem to be very similar to oiorpatas and more expensive.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Swamp Survival? If you have a W9 pretender, he could cast Quagmire. Plus when the rider dies, the lizard fights the rest of the battle. I usually buy Oiorpatas though, but I do like a W9 bless. So maybe I should try Quagmire with a bunch of Androphags some day.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Got to give it a try. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

What's the effect of Quagmire ?

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Pg 259: -1 att, -1 def, +2 enc, swamp survival negates

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

thanks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

It's a good way to spread dominion, but it doesn't help with the actual fighting very much, does it? And the fortune telling strategy sounds risky. I mean, if I use high fortune scales I usually get like 200 extra gold each turn from events (if you average it out). If I lost 200 each turn instead I wouldn't be able to get any Enaries ~~ And if I did get them I couldn't afford an army. Either way, it sounds like it would screw you over way too much early on.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Order 3 Misfortune 2 is pretty standard. It tends to get you more gold early on when you aren't getting 3 events/turn, and more again during the late game when you've expanded to the point that your 3/turn aren't as important.

Of course, Order/luck is always fun too. Although I am usually more of an order person myself.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Sauromatia has a number of unique tactics available to it.

Here they are:

1. Poison Cloud spamming w/Hydra. Undead created by Raise dead and Raise Skeletons and Hydras are all immune to poison, and Hydras produce poison clouds and you get Nature mages who can cast Poison Cloud. Spam undead so that they mass around hydras and let the enemy army hot your front line of mixed hydras undead. Hydras kill anything close to them and the poison clouds will surrounds them, and the undead will take hits so that your expensive hydras won't get killed. The Poison from Androphage archers also won't hurt these troops.

2. Leeching Darkness and Raise dead/Skeletons can jam a castle entrance better than anything in the game.

3. ASAP make an undead/demon commander into your prophet, as a Sauromatian H3 can Reanimate Longdead Horsemen, a nearly unique ability that produces dramatically better reanimated undead.

4. Witch Kings seem designed to spam Drain Life.

5. You get one of the only real province defenses in the game (it can withstand a real army if you invest in it).

6. Dominion kill with blood sacrifice.

7. You are really good at communions, since you can combine Sabbaths and Astral Communions.

8. Keep standard units in your army to keep yoour armies from routing.

9. You get really good EA archers in addition to the wicked Androphage Archers.

10. You seem naturally designed to summon Dark Vines.

More later....

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Cool... like... I thought Dark Vines sucked... Shows what I know : /

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Dark Vines aren't that strong offensively. But they make an excellent wall to hold the enemy back while you pound them with arrows and poison.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Dark Vines. Hmmm. I guess if you could actually spam a bunch of them, yeah. But they really are pretty horrible. In a recent test game with MA Ermor, I ran into a rash of them in Indy Provinces. I think I hit like 4 indies that had the bloodhenge druids, with their 3-4 dark vines. My tiny force of Shadow Vestals killed them in every case in 1-2 rounds.

If you had twenty of them... then yes, that might make a good wall. Or, if you just want a defensive wall, it might be cheaper to just summon Vine Ogres. Dunno. They look really cool though.

Re: Sauramatia Strategy tips
 

Tried this long time ago (just when dom 3 was out), but I remember I had good results (vs AI) mixing dark vines and hydras (3-4 vines with 1 hydra iirc).