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-   -   LA Pythium (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=37999)

Lingchih March 13th, 2008 12:17 AM

LA Pythium
 
Hmmmm. I have been assigned LA Pythium in a new MP game. I just had a look at them. Holy cow, they are different from MA Pythium. I have no idea where to go with these guys. The troops are nice, but you would have to go full Order/Production to be able to recruit a sufficient number. And the commanders/mages are quite numerous, and even more confusing. Half of them cause unrest.

Has anyone had any luck with this nation? There are virtually no posts to give any hints on how to play them.

I assume one will have to try to use the very expensive Hydras in a big way.

Thanks.

B0rsuk March 13th, 2008 02:59 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Depressing lack of creativity.

Besides, Revelers are hardly half of your commanders. Most of mages are heretics, that's it.

Lingchih March 13th, 2008 03:17 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Borsuk, you depress me. I am as creative as the next guy, I was just asking for pointers.

And, I have already come up with a good build. I will share it if it is actually as good as it looks on paper.

Dedas March 13th, 2008 03:24 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Please do! I'm very interested in this nation but haven't had the time to test it much.

B0rsuk March 13th, 2008 06:04 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Ok, some random thoughts below:

- hydras for fast early game, possibly elephant counter (I'm not sure if they're size6).

- Theurgs can counter elephants, minotaurs, and other tramplers. Hydras, theurgs and cataphracts against minotaurs.

- Serpent Priests are Water/Nature mages. Bone Melter is available, although I didn't have a chance to try it.

- National hero is a level3 serpent priest with high water and nature. Human with 3 misc slots and awe.

- Daughter of Typhoon is an immortal hydra.

- National mages: theurgs for communion and astral, occasional astral on other mages. Epoptes can heal afflictions. Heliodromus and Leo can forge lightless lanterns. Leo sounds like a good prophet. Serpent Priests, Renata and Renatus are not heretics. Low ranking cultists are usually not heretics, too.

- Solaris infantry: very expensive in terms of gold, but higher stats and fire resistance. Still, if you're not facing fire magic or Abyssians, they're overpriced.
Regular infantry is mapmove1. Elite infantry with mapmove2 is capitol only.

ComTrav March 13th, 2008 06:31 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Serpent Priests also have a high chance for a death pick, so it seems like expansion into death would be easy; Streams from Hades is probably the best route to a decent-path death mage. Water/Death also lets you get a good chance for Earth with Frozen in Snow.

Digress March 13th, 2008 06:47 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
hydras for fast early game, possibly elephant counter (I'm not sure if they're size6)

They literally eat elephants for breakfast. Every head hits (with poison) - and if the elephants gang up on the hydra and actually hit the worst they will do is knock a lesser head off. Then there is the fear ....

Randvek March 13th, 2008 07:24 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
I've been using hydras with a strong fire bless in MP, and what you can take with only 4 hydras is truly disgusting.

Sombre March 13th, 2008 07:31 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
I'm not convinced Hydras even need a bless (they don't seem to get much from any of them). Then again Pythium is well suited to bad scales because it can control its own dominion using heretics. You could take drain and install all your researchers in a heretic heavy province, where it won't affect them.

B0rsuk March 13th, 2008 07:56 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Quote:

ComTrav said:
Serpent Priests also have a high chance for a death pick, so it seems like expansion into death would be easy; Streams from Hades is probably the best route to a decent-path death mage. Water/Death also lets you get a good chance for Earth with Frozen in Snow.

Well, Renatus simply starts with D1, and has either 1/3 or 1/4 chance for DD . They're sacred, cheap, and available everywhere. Cost-effective researchers, so you're likely to have many of them.
Renata with WN can cast Mossbody. Sounds like an interesting spell, I'll have to try it.

Karlem March 13th, 2008 12:23 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Easy question: heretics only lower dominion where they are? I mean, they do not spread it like negative temple checks to other provinces? If that's the case having drain and seems quite interesting....

Kuritza March 13th, 2008 12:30 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Great infantry and terrifying Hydras, lots of mages incapable of good combat spells. No national summons worth mentioning.
With a booster, your mages can cast foul vapors though - that might compliment Hydras. Otherwise,I believe that Serpent Cult's only hope for the late game is a properly designed God. Perhaps a rainbow mage to improvise with whatever available resources. Early on, it may be capable of a good rush; I am curious whether archers are a good counter to Hydras or not.

P.S.
I tried taking drain and playing a wannabe-Mictlan, it didnt pay. Researchers are bad already, drain makes them terrible. It takes a while to build a second castle, and then it will be a very long time till your heretics 'clear' drain from it, if they do at all. Regrettably, they lower dominion, not wipe scales. I think they may be of some use to suppress enemy dominion as you invade somebody, not your own.

Jazzepi March 13th, 2008 12:37 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Quote:

Kuritza said:
Great infantry and terrifying Hydras, lots of mages incapable of good combat spells. No national summons worth mentioning.
With a booster, your mages can cast foul vapors though - that might compliment Hydras. Otherwise,I believe that Serpent Cult's only hope for the late game is a properly designed God. Perhaps a rainbow mage to improvise with whatever available resources. Early on, it may be capable of a good rush; I am curious whether archers are a good counter to Hydras or not.

P.S.
I tried taking drain and playing a wannabe-Mictlan, it didnt pay. Researchers are bad already, drain makes them terrible. It takes a while to build a second castle, and then it will be a very long time till your heretics 'clear' drain from it, if they do at all. Regrettably, they lower dominion, not wipe scales. I think they may be of some use to suppress enemy dominion as you invade somebody, not your own.

You probably can't do this anymore. Even if you eradicate all the scales from a given province I think the way the new scales work, all the provinces around it with your dominion in them would still tilt the scales inside of the "voided" province.

Jazzepi

Agema March 13th, 2008 02:11 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Jazzepi's right. Scales take a while to fade away. And drain is a disaster for nations that can't build high-research mages outside the capital, as is the case for LA Pythium.

My suggestion is an S/E pretender with at least +2 Productivity, otherwise you'll barely be able to recruit troops except the chaff. Order would be good too. I'm thinking your critical items are Ring of Wizardry, Dwarven Hammer, and crystal doo-dahs (Coins for +1S, Matrices) to help along communions.

Pythium has every type of magic, even blood, and S mages are easy for N, W, A; rarer for D. So that's 5 magic types viable for communion immediately. Nature and Death can be advanced to mid-level easily enough. Everything else is tricky, so I'd think Ring of Wizardry is an absolute must, as then W, E and S can be raised easily (although you'll already have E and S from the pretender.) So all you'll be missing is Fire, Air and Blood from easy increases. I'd be tempted to ignore blood entirely though.

The other thing to do is site search like crazy for massive gem income - you can search for anything to at least level 1.

Lingchih March 13th, 2008 02:54 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Thanks for all the ideas. I was very impressed by the Hydras as well, and after boosting to 3/3 order/productivity, I was able to build the very nice elite infantry at an acceptable level. I really don't think the Hydras need a bless at all.

Too bad the drain idea won't work. That would have been a great help with the scales.

Zenzei March 13th, 2008 03:38 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
I've been testing the following in SP and it worked nicely for me. Dormant S6E4 Son of the Sun with dominion strength 9. Scales were order3/sloth1/heat1/misfortune1/magic1.

Use starting army boosted with gladiators/retiaruses for initial expansion around your capital, this works really well. At this point you have enough resources to build enough palantines/palantines with javelins even with the sloth scale. If you need more troops/turn, build more forts and you should be doing that anyway because your mages are so cost effective. Serpent acolyte is second only to Mictlan priest and Yogi when it comes to good cost/research ratio. Aim to have 3 castles up and running by fall of the second year.

Buy hydras during the early turns whenever you have the extra 250 available. 5 snakes plus serpent acolyte as a leader takes indies easily. Because additional castles and snakes cost a lot of money you are really going love that order 3.

For site searching mix & match two mages so that you have WNSDH covered between them and send them out to find sites. Of course you should search for FAE gems too but WNSDH are the important gem types you are going to need later on, so they are a priority.

Research alteration 3 first and construction 4 second. After that you want to have at least alteration 5 (bone melter & mother oak), enchantment 7 (guaqmire/foul vapors/relief/serpents blessing/stellar focus etc), construction 6 (path boosters) and thaumaturgy 4 (gift of reason). When your gem income starts to shape up you need to decide whether to go for alteration 9 (seraphs and other wishable goodies) or conjuration 9 (tartarians) in order to have a good late game. It's kind of fun to able to make up your mind during the game because both options are totally available to you. If you go alteration 9, remember to clam spam with those renatas.

Word about pretender. Once awake, he is very capable SC provided you give him some items and script buffs like personal luck, body ethereal and ironskin. He can also forge some seriously important stuff like rings of sorcery/wizardry, crystal coins, dwarven hammers etc. You could go with great enchantress or oracle and get slightly better scales but I like the additional security SC god provides. Sun god is the fun god.

So there you have some tips. I find it very hard to give good well formatted advice because this nation is so tangled, everything affects everything.

Kuritza March 13th, 2008 05:10 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Man... just tell me, how are you going to cast bone melter without a water bracelet, which is construction 6?

Zenzei March 13th, 2008 06:10 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
I said it is hard to make well formatted. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
But you are right, construction 6 should be in fact researched before alteration 5 because you want the bracelets. So let's try this again, assuming a decent water gem income: alteration 3 -> construction 4 -> enchantment 5 -> construction 6 -> more alteration & enchantment. Make quick dips into other schools when you have enough research points to get the first two or three levels in one turn.

vfb March 14th, 2008 07:59 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Here's what I tried with LA Pythium:

Awake Prince of Death, Dom 10, E4D5,
Order 3, Sloth 3, Heat 1, Misfortune 2, Growth 0, Magic 1

Heat and Sloth are for Hydras. Neutral growth is for blood hunting. You could try a Dom9 PoD instead, with Growth 1.

E4D5 gives you hammers, early site searching, and a little reinvigoration for your Hydras, plus all the benefits of pretty good death for the late game.

Hydras or the PoD will kill everything except undead. Use H2S1 priests and 8 H1S1 theurgs in communions for killing undead with Banshment. Use Milites and Comitats for catching arrows with their tower shields. Use the Guard Commander order, plus Hold x 5/Attack Rear on the commanders, and strategic commander placement, to keep your tower shields from getting poisoned. Indy commanders with shields are best because archers continue to target your tower shields even after they have retreated past your hydras.

Holdx5, Attack Rear is critical (and place the commanders at the very top or bottom). Commanders on 'Stay behind troops' will end up in the poison cloud. That's okay for them if they've got a ring, but the tower shields will die.

Early research goals:
Const 2 (PoD gear), Thaum 1 (communion), Evo 2 (arcane probing), Const 4 (rods, more PoD gear, and path boosters),
Alt-4 (body ethereal, luck, quickness).

Turn 1:
Tax at 150, Patrol, research with the PoD.
Hire a Serpent Acolyte, 4 Milites.
Don't hire Hydras yet, to save upkeep.
Prophet scout.

Turn 2:
Forge a Hide Shield.
Tax at 150, Patrol.
Hire a Serpent Acolyte, 4 Milites.
Don't hire Hydras yet, to save upkeep.
Preach with prophet.
Attack with PoD and one skelly archer chaff.

Turn 3:
Alchemise 2 S to N and forge a Serpent Ring.
Move an Acolyte with Shield to PoD.
Search with PoD, recruit an indy commander with a shield.
Tax at 150, Patrol.
Hire 5 Hydras, 110 Gold D1 or N1 mage, Comitats.
Preach with prophet.

Turn 4:
PoD wields Shield, continues attacks.
Centurion wields Serpent Ring just in case.
Start hiring Theurgs, or the 110 Gold mages.
Don't use the Comitats, they can patrol, expand into weak indies or handle barbarian invasions if the PoD is busy.
Attack with 5 Hydras and Milites, prophet and Centurion.

Hydras in the center on hold and attack. Centurion in the top left on hold x 5, attack rear. Milities at the top right on Guard Commander. The Milites will run away from the enemy to the Centurion, the indies will follow and be killed. Archers will fire at range at the Milites.

Turns 5 and up:

Build another squad of 5 Hydras, then a cheap castle with temple and lab. Continue taking provinces with the PoD, and searching for earth/death sites. Make gear for the PoD as it becomes available, and have him craft a hammer as soon as you have enough earth. Cast Arcane Probing at Evo 2.

You've got 2 armies of 5 Hydras, 1 army of Comitats, and 1 PoD to expand or fight a war with.

At Const 4 hire some Revelers to get into blood, and make Earth boots with your PoD so he can stop wasting his time site searching. Revelers without blood can all research at your second castle, so that your dominion is only negatively impacted in one province. Revelers with blood should make thorns armour for better hunting and toads.

What you do next depends on who your neighbors are and your state of war. Don't forget to build lots of Serpent Priests and Theurgs for Banishment communions if Ermor is on the map.

Your Theurgs can also cast Body Ethereal and Luck on your hydras if you give them a serpent ring. Forge lots.

Lingchih March 14th, 2008 02:49 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Wow, you just wrote the definitive guide for LA Pythium. Someone should add this to the strategy guide post.

Thanks vfb

vfb March 14th, 2008 06:50 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Ha ha ha http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Sorry, but I only played one game in SP, and didn't even hire a bunch of units available to the nation.

There's so many other things LA Pythium can do, like make Fever Fetishes with a Heliodromus, cast an early Mother Oak with a N3 Serpent Priest, actually use your Epoptes healers (they can't heal the PoD! And since they are heretics, they either belong on your front lines or in one of your quarantine labs), etc.

A definitive guide should mention all that and more.

Lingchih March 14th, 2008 07:04 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Well, I can add a few things then. From playing several builds now.

The Epoptes are rather poor healers. I had an afflicted dragon in one game (limp), and he had never healed after more than 10 turns trying to heal him. They do not really cause much unrest though, unless you have a bunch. I kept a few in my capitol for a long time, and unrest never climbed above 0, with no patrolling.

I am curious about your choice of sloth? All of Pythiums elite troops, which are awesome, have a very high cost in resources? How could you build enough with Sloth3?

vfb March 14th, 2008 07:53 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
I don't. I build Hydras as my main force. The only other troops I hired were Comitats and Milites.

I'm still playing that game and am thinking of branching out with indy archers (yay, tribals in LA) and Flaming Arrows from F2 Heliodromes, with fever fetishes on scouts.

I hate taking production scales. Just my personal preference http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. It always seems a waste later on in the game.

I don't like map-move 1 units either, that's why I stick with Comitats. I prefer them to Palatines because of the javelins. I can't recruit a lot, but that's good, because I need the cash for new forts with labs, and hydras. Hydras are mapmove-1 so it's good to have something faster.

Epoptes don't cause unrest. They are heretics, so they lower your dominion (or your enemy dominion).

Edit: Is there a quickfix for the "U 1856 Hydra Wrong secondshape" bug? I searched but couldn't find one. If you're going to do a Pythium MP game with a Hydra strategy, you should really use a patch for this.

Lingchih March 14th, 2008 08:44 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
I don't know about that bug. I thought the Hydra problems had been fixed with the last patch.

Wick March 14th, 2008 09:30 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
The hydras were fixed and, if not, Endoperez had a QuickFix mod that did.

Are you sure about recruiting Revelers? They are an extra 30g each for a 1/20th chance of blood, so 600g for B1. I wouldn't touch that unless I wanted unrest causing heretic 3 units for some other reason.

vfb March 14th, 2008 09:56 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
1 Attachment(s)
I thought they were fixed, but then I thought I saw a hydra limping around with one head. I made a disabled (pretty much empty) sacredhydrasfix315.dm just in case I need to apply it in the middle of the game.

Revelers are cheap enough researchers that the ones without blood can sit around in your quarantine lab researching or making snake rings. It's a 20% (1 in 5) chance of BN, so 1 in 10 for B1, not 1 in 20. I'm a big fan of blood, so that's worth it for me.

I've attached my SP save game at around 12 months. Caelum declared war on me, the other nations are leaving me alone. I would not buy this much PD (21 etc) in an MP game, but it keeps the AI off your back.

There was a cluster#!%& in Birman Highs the previous month, where my tower shields managed to get mixed up with my hydras and they all got poisoned and died, that's why my hydras and some new infantry are getting together in Waywoods. They aren't set up to fight yet, but the army in Kolermegor is. This sort of disaster happens about 1 in 15 fights, and it's just a loss of 8 to 12 infantry. Not really a disaster, but it means you have to regroup. I don't like sending in hydras without an arrow shield. I was surprised by a wind mage province early on, but because the arrows were all firing at my tower shields instead of the hydras, I took the province with no lost hydras.

Hydras are terrible at defending if you mix them with PD because you can take 75% losses and route. That's why Kolermegor has no PD.

The map I'm using can be found here:

http://dom3maps.wikidot.com/system:sixlands

Lingchih March 14th, 2008 11:22 PM

Re: LA Pythium
 
I have been using my Hydras separately, with a poison immune commander (usually my Pretender), and keeping my other armies Hydra free. The Pythium troops, especially the elite ones, are very good, and can take provinces easily without Hydra help. And the Hydras, even without any backup troops, pretty much slaughter anything that is not poison immune. It helps to send a meat shield (like an SC) with them to soak up some blows, so they don't get overwhelmed while they are poisoning everyone.

vfb March 15th, 2008 05:00 AM

Re: LA Pythium
 
Yeah, I agree about the infantry, they are pretty nice. Which ones are you using?

I think my "shield decoy" for the Hydras would fail miserably against any half-decent MP player, who would just set archers to fire at monsters. Limitane Solaris should do pretty well against Flaming Arrows, with their tower shields and 50% FR. So I suppose it's just a question of sending the right army against the your opponent.

Did you try out Foul Vapors with your Hydra army? N3W1 Serpent Priests are pretty common.


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