sauromantia
 

hi i am new to the forum but i aam an old player of dominions.
now i have a problem with sauromantia: i never played it and i dont know any strategy with them.
their cavalry seems ok and also the androphagus archer but other them and hydra there ius some good strategy?
now i am using an hydra tamer and 25 hydras to demolish enemy but is very repetitive

Re: sauromantia
 

Sauromantia has many little advantages and a few big ones too. I'd personally say that the faction is capable of being competitive without Hydras at all, which makes their inclusion overkill.

1) An undead profit can generate longdead horsemen. Most other factions can only generate regular longdead, ghouls, and soulless with an undead profit. I start my games with research into Conjuration so that I can start a hoursemen factory. When mixed in with your normal calvary you avoid possible routing.

2) You can effectively use a bless strategy with them. Their sacred lizard riders are one of the fiercest blessable units of the age as they have a second life to fall back on. They also have a combat summon that uses no gems and generates a sacred unit. They also have dirt cheap mages capable of spamming the spell. Research into conjuration plus a death gem allows the same mage to generate a horde of the sacred summons. Let's also not forget that it's early age, sacred amazons are all over the place.

3) Take a look at your calvary again.

4) The Witch King. Sacred mounted mages that allows Saurmantia to generate everything that is great about death magic without needing your pretender god to help. That includes summoning Tartarian. Also, communion via blood magic (with cheap astral mages as your communion slaves) combined with the rejuvinate spell to wipe away the fatigue.

5) Let's not forget the Daughter of Typhon. Take a Hydra and give it more protection, more then double the hit points, +5 on it's fear, make it sacred, and make it immortal. Also, since it can be summoned, it can easily get to the front lines. Yet again, the whole Hydra thing is virtually overkill.

Re: sauromantia
 

Enaries are amazing for Shadow Blast and, later, Nether Darts. They can do Eagle Eyes as well to give themselves good accuracy. They are one of my favourite mages in the game actually.

Re: sauromantia
 

Sauromatia is often overlooked when people consider the powerhouse nations, but when you really stop to consider what they've got going for them they are most definitely a contender for the spot of heavyweight champion of EA.
Baalz, you've lost your mind. Have you ever seen triple blessed jaguar warriors? What the heck do you do when Eath/Nature blessed Niefels come knocking on your gate? What about Vans…Vans!?! Ever heard of that little Lanka nation? That's just rushes, for the long haul you've got some serious magic powerhouses like Arcoscephale and T'ien Ch'i!

Well, sit back my friend, and let me tell you about the Amazon Queens.

First, let me lead with the obvious – Sauromatia has absolutely the best archers in the game. There's not even a close second place – gold & resource per pound, androphag archers are so ridiculously good I have a hard time convincing myself to spend gold on anything else until I've maxed out that recruit queue. To set this even farther over the top, they've got these archers in EA where armors are considerably lighter and archery is consequently more effective in general. If you put a couple infantry in front to catch the return fire, you'll handily be able to capture most indie province with very few losses and make an impressive initial expansion – completely irrespective of what the rest of your strategy is. These guys will also single handedly neuter many, many of the rushes you'll face. From jaguar warriors and vans to elephants nobody is going to fare well fighting through your PD while dozens of androphags pelt them from the back row. There are a couple things which will require to do something different (Lanka and Niefelheim come to mind), but in general these guys will let you pursue whatever other strategy you want, comfortably handling your initial expansion and defense.

Androphag archers are the exception to everything else though, in the fact that you'll basically always use them. Sauromatia suffers from the same "problem" that Lanka does – there are so many really good options to choose from you run a very real risk of not focusing enough on one and dropping the ball. Before I start talking about overall strategy, let me discuss the different tools you've got at your disposal (I'll leave off mentioning the options I don't consider top shelf though its certainly possible you can play around with them and come up with some new clever ideas).

Infantry. Contrary to pretty much every other nation you've only got one kind, but that's ok because they're good for the price. Real good. This is one of your weakest units and it would practically qualify for elite troops for some nations. Anyone who's tried to take an indie province from amazons should realize that though they lack the offense to punch through thick armor a couple extra points in defense and attack go a long way. These are going to be your best choice for blockers for your archers.

Sauromatian Lancer - Sauromatia hands down has the best archers. For non-sacred cavalry they have to tie for having the best. These guys are often overlooked, but they're every bit as good as LA T'ien Ch'i's better known cavalry. Fighting their way across the battlefield into withering composite bow fire, what does your enemy win if they make it? Yeah! A first strike lance charge! Switch these guys forward for an immediate flanking charge when you need that sort of thing – they're very capable switch hitters with a map move of 3.

Cataphract – These are basically the heaviest cavalry of EA and give you a very solid fist when you need a good heavy cavalry charge. The Sauromatian Lancers are more versatile, but if you know you definitely want the specialists these guys will give you a bigger hit when they connect.

Sacred cavalry – you've got two flavors and they're both pretty good. I prefer the Oiorpata for the extra defense, protection, and speed (which helps the first strike charge), but I won't think less of you if you go with the Androphag for the extra hitpoints and bonus lizard you get when they die. Either way, if you look at their stats, they're pretty close to Vans minus the glamour. They're not quite as versatile as the vans due to the lack of stealth, but with a good dual bless they're very close to as effective on the battlefield. A F/W bless is the standard choice for vans, and it'll work equally well for these sacred cavalry, but if you decide to go the dual bless route I prefer a less standard W/E bless for reasons I'll get into in a moment.

Last but not least, hydras round out your strategic choices for troops. They make you essentially immune to any tramplers (it’s comical if you haven’t seen a huge force of elephants try to run over a small group of hydras), and make great kamikaze squads to lead the charge (well ahead!) for major battles. After fighting past hydras and getting good and well poisoned your enemy now must get through your PD (who conveniently sit around shooting bows rather than running into the hydra poison) before they can hit your skellispam to FINALY contemplate those Androphag archers raining death down on them from the back row. Not many things have the endurance and hitpoints to make it that far even in large numbers.

Enarie - These are very respectable mid line mages and nice, cost effective researchers who can forge their own skull mentors. There are a few nations with better research, but not many. On the combat front there's the obvious skellispam which is quite effective en masse, and the not quite as obvious communion potential. Saruomatia doesn't have the raw firepower that comes from earth, air and fire schools, and their astral really isn't strong enough to frontline. What they do get though, lends itself very well indeed to small, easily managed and fielded communions. Picture this – 4 slaves, 1 master. Master is equipped with a rune smasher (if you can get one, skull staff if not), eye of the void, and spell focus. Master is scripted to communion master, power of the spheres then shadow blast X3. With +7 penetration and the number of effects scaling with mage power this is every bit as devastating as the level 9 firestorm evocation – except you cast it at level 5 and you managed it with a handful of research mages. You can pass out skull staffs and use a reverse communion (see my guide to communions) to get a swarm of D4 guys spamming anything from drain life or disintegrate to a combination of darkness and skellispam. And heck, remember I haven't even gotten to your good mages yet.

Witch King - This guy is an amazingly powerful death mage. You'll get plenty of D4 ones which means cheap access to the really nice high end death magic like ghost riders and tartarians. If you've got them available where you need them (they're cap only) these guys are an easier choice for the death spam (drain life, disintegrate, etc) than communions of eraynes, but there's also no reason you can't combine them via Sabbath spells (again, see my communion guide for the benefits of a little blood in your communion). Finally, this guy has the right stuff to be a thug if properly equipped, casting soul vortex, barkskin, resist elements, personal regeneration, blood vengeance and (depending on randoms), quicken self/breath of winter. He can't self bless, but he is sacred so make sure you have somebody else bless him if you've got a nice one.

Warrior sorceresses – these guys are very cost effective recruitable thug chasises and are the reason I like the E/W bless. With just that bless and a frost brand (self buffing with barkskin) you've got an immensely cost effective thug. Set 4 Oiorpata to guard commander and now for 360 gold + 5 water gems you've got a force capable of tearing through almost any PD, or providing very capable flank support to a real army. You're not going to be able to solo them like this (without the Oiorpatas), but they are cheap and recruit everywhere so use them in pairs (or more) and as your gem supply grows throw a few extra items on them. With an amulet of resilience you can comfortably self buff regeneration, quickness, and breath of winter, and with a good shield (I like the shield of the accursed) and chainmail of displacement your defense will soar well into the mid thirties while your protection hits the high twenties – definitely solo-able. Really though, you'll be amazed how far they can go with just a frost brand, this is the reason I always keep several in my laboratory and mix several WSes into my researches despite the fact they're not as cost effective for that – you've got a very effective defense force in each castle. There are 4 possible random picks for WSes, with different best ways to use each:

W – These guys make the best thugs once you start having some extra gems to equip them. Quicken self is generally best reserved for the point you can equip them with more reinvig than their blessing gives them, but it's worth the gems to see this little buzzsaw tearing through the enemy ranks. Against particularly strong opponents (Neifel giants or Lanka's baddies or any thugs) forego the frost brands and dual wield serpent kryss or dusk daggers – so long as you work in small groups your defense should be plenty high enough to give you time to work so long as no one is just surrounded. Against real SCs consider axes of hate – there's not really anything that can stand up to several double quickened, dual wielded axes of hate attacking them from all sides.

N – These guys make casting the nature self buffs much more palatable. I seldom think personal regeneration is worth the fatigue hit for N1 mages, but with these guys it's even worthwhile to equip heavier armor and a thistle mace (dual wield something else as well, like a snake bladder stick) for fighting swarms of small guys where protection + regen is much better than higher defense. These guys are also the easiest way to get those N2 goodies like haurespex, thistle maces, vine shields, rings of regen, etc.

B – By and large these are all going straight to bloodhunting. Your capital gives you a small blood income, and con-4 is going to be a high priority for other obvious reasons, so by the time you're ready to start blood hunting these guys should all just forge themselves sanguine rods and have at it. Sauromatia is not going to be a top tier blood nation like Lanka or Mictlan, but it is fairly strong in blood, about on par with Abyssia in my opinion. More on this later. If you're unfamiliar with blood hunting strategies, make sure you check out my blood hunting guide included as a subsection of my Mictlan guide.

D – Well, I haven't found a real good use for these chicks because of the prevalence of larger death mages you'll have running around. These are generally who I leave to research and defend my heartlands. Don't get me wrong, they're still hellaciously scary chicks, just not quite as much so as their sisters.

Alright, so now that we've got the notes what kind of song do we want to sing? The thing about Sauromatia is they can really pull off almost any type of strategy very competitively. Dual bless rush? Check. Scary SC pretender? Ever seen a dom 10 gorgon? Good scales? They've got the chops to fight off a rush with no SC or big bless. Turtling? With strong death and blood magic and a fairly easy way into astral (eraynes can cast arcane probing) they can have a very scary power curve. Recruitable anywhere thug swarming? I just covered that. Scary dominion push? Temple dom spread + blood sacrifices.

**************

Alright, time to talk about overall strategy. Some of this I briefly touched on in the first section, but I'd like to weave this into a more cohesive tapestry.
Scales – Most nations have one or two scales which they really should always take, Sauromatia can do most anything so long as you play your strategy to match.

Order/Turmoil – Gold is always good and Sauromatia has no lack of great stuff to spend it on and lots of players will take Order-3 all the time for any nation. However, depending on what your other choices are it may make sense to go with Luck/Turmoil

Luck/Misfortune – Obviously this is tied to your order scales for synergistic reasons. Again, plenty people stick with misfortune for all their games, but Sauromatia benefits more than average from luck. For one their national heroes are very nice and help with magic diversity. For another, despite their many astral mages they have no native astral income so bootstrapping into astral site searching can be expensive if your only option is to alchemize those death gems you were hoping to use for skull mentors/staffs. Random gem types are either useful explicitly (if you've got a E/W pretender you've got a pretty good spread) or at the very least to power your initial arcane probing. On the other hand your main research mages have a chance of preventing bad events, so you can mitigate misfortune scales by having your research centers on your best provinces.

Productivity/Sloth – Again, two ways to play this. You've got very good national troops and you can obviously crank out more of them with points in productivity. This is a very reasonable choice. You've also got very good low resource troops (archers) and powerful thugs/sacreds who you can use without resources. This is also a reasonable choice. Going with sloth scales gains you a lot of design points but it removes some of your flexibility – sometimes what you really want is an overwhelming heavy cavalry charge. On the other hand, without sacrificing productivity you're gonna have a hard time landing a nice bless. Choices, choices….

Death/Growth – General wisdom is it's bad to have death scales if you want to blood hunt. It's (relatively) ok to have death scales if none of the guys you're using are old. Well, both are true, take your pick.
Magic – no special considerations here, consider mostly how important research is to your strategy
Heat/cold – Sauromatia likes it neutral

Pretender choice

If you want a SC pretender it's hard to argue for anything other than the gorgon. Only a few nations have access to her, and Sauromatia may be the only one that does who also benefits from her magic paths. A E/N bless works pretty well even if it's not a major bless, and it adds a strong earth element in which complements Sauromatia nicely.

If you're thinking more along the lines of the E/W bless I'd suggest a Father of Winters. He ends up being a pretty bad dude himself by the time you can equip him (you were planning on heading straight to cons-4 anyway, right?), and on top of the optimized bless that gives you strong access to two completely new paths.

Lady of Springs is a decent choice if you want to go for a W/N bless, and she’ll give you some water gems to help crank out those frost brands.

There are a couple other reasonable choices, and given Sauromatia's flexibility you can make a lot of stuff work.

Strategy
It's a bit hard to talk about your overall strategy given the variety of ways you can play this nation. As I mentioned earlier one big risk is that you do a little bit of everything and not do anything well. There is a delicate balancing act you must perform between focusing and specializing, and being flexible and adjusting to what your opponent is doing. So, rather than trying to discuss strategy in a point A to point Z way I'm going to discuss little mini strategies to give you an idea of some effective things you can do and leave it as an exercise for the student to weave these into an overall tapestry.

I don't really want to rehash what I've already discussed above, but there are a few more points to consider as far as how your units interact and overall strategy.

Androphag archers –They work very well as support for Warrior Sorceress - so long as the WS script resist poison and have a shield the WS are immune to the very effective arrows raining down around them. If you're short on water gems for frost brands, you can send WSes out with just their default gear and some backup Androphags – it's surely enough to kill most PD. Also, if you do have a nature bless your sacred cavalry will be almost immune to the arrows and can be effectively used in close combat. As I touched on before these guys work stunningly well in combination with your PD – set them in the back row and they'll provide just as much PD backbone as having a mage back there. Have their leader retreat and they'll flee when your PD breaks having rained poison and death onto the advancing army. Very effective hit and run.

One more dirty little trick you shouldn't forget is the linebacker communion in combination with Sabbath and reinvigoration (see my communion guide). All those WSes you've got sitting around blood hunting can be pressed into service, blessed, and buffed with luck, astral shield, resist magic, soul vortex, barkskin, resist elements, blood vengeance, regeneration, quickness, breath of winter (maybe more depending on what non-national mages you've managed to get)…and then charge forward with 0 fatigue, a dual bless and a frostbrand. Ouch.

So, what to do with those blood slaves you've got flowing in? Lots of options obviously, but Sauromatia is rather uniquely in a position to easily summon something I think is very underrated - the vampire count. Invest in 4 or 5 of them and you've got a ridiculously effective in-dominion defense force. Leave them making vampires when not otherwise occupied and you'll build up a little posse of stealthy, flying immortals who will make anyone trying to move into your dominion rue the day they did. But Baalz, vampires are teh suck! You will never make me fear them! Ah, my friend, you haven't had the joy of fighting a cleverly crafted vampire resistance.

Scenario 1: Large enemy army invades. 4 vampire counts and a couple dozen vampires stealthily fly into the path of the army so they will be the defenders and get the first move. Meanwhile vampire count 5 (or anybody really) outfitted as a thug flies into the province the enemy army is moving from.
Opening turn – the 4 counts cast - rush of strength, blood rain, shadow blast, shadow blast, all the vampires stand around and take an archer volley.

Turn 2 – (you’ve empowered one of your counts in blood) bloodletting + your choice of harm or shadow blast. Enemy army, -4 moral from blood rain, -1 from hostile dominion, (dare we hope you timed this as they moved from a wasteland and some of them are starving?) has just taken significant AN/AP damage across most of their ranks and now your vamps fall on them for 17 armor piercing damage all over them. If they break, they all die. If they kill you….you're back the very next turn with more experienced vampires.

Scenario 2: Enemy army invades, but it's an elite small army with a bunch of thugs/tough guys and the above strategy seems unlikely to work. Stick black hearts on your counts and have them fly into army's path. Assassinate enemy leaders and cast raise skeletons (to keep them busy), hellbind heart X4 – or leech/life for a life if they've got too high MR. This should be very effective even with most bodyguards, and again, if you fail you're out just a couple blood slaves and an easily replacable black heart.

Scenario 3: Enemy is raiding with stealthy/teleporting thugs/SCs. Sprinkle your counts around into likely raiding targets and leave them creating more vampires – don't even need a lab so they're being productive while hanging around. They're stealthy so your opponent won't know where they are. Turn 1 – bad guy appears and vampires surround him before he can cast any buffs, while the count, positioned all the way forward, depending on your mood casts hellbind heart, leech, life for a life, or disintegrate. If you get some bad rolls, well you just deploy your now more experience vamps someplace new next turn. *note: this will work even if the raiders are stealthy/flying groups rather than thugs, you just need to tweak your scripting a bit depending on what you're facing.

All in all, there are worse ways to invest a few hundred blood slaves while the rest of your troops quite capably carry on without needing them. Several stealthy life for a life casters can really make your opponent reconsider the wisdom of dropping tartarians all over you, particularly when he…can't…kill…them!!!!!

Foul vapors can be a great support spell to cast after your WS frontline casts resist poison on itself. It can also be great to have Enaries cast resist poison before starting the skellispam factory…a page right out of C'tis' book. Laugh as your opponent tries to claw his way past your undead chaff getting progressively more poisoned with each step.

Warrior Sorceress with a nature pick + a thistle mace makes a tough and cheap enough charm spammer to place near the front lines, perfect for it's short range. Stick an eye of the void and spell focus on her if you're feeling generous.

Re: sauromantia
 

Baalz, do you even sleep?

Re: sauromantia
 

He's my hero; I had to start a Mictlan game after I saw his guide and it's one of my favorites yet.

Re: sauromantia
 

Only on sundays. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: sauromantia
 

Baalz, you're absolutely awesome, you know that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

That signature of yours contains several of the better thought out and explained advice guides on this forum.

Now I have to find time to play a game with Sauromatia. I liked them from when I first got the game, but never got around to actually playing them and lately just kinda forgot about them.
But your post definitely reminded me of their existence. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

More praise for Baalz
 

I've to agree with Amhazair. Baalz's detailed explanations of strategies etc. and solid examples certainly help out new players like me to catch up on things way faster.
I've been around a month or so but I really think, no, I know that my dominions-fu has skyrockected from its starting level , still a long way to go though, and reading Baalz's guides has played not a small part in it.

In short, I approve of Baalz. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Thanks for the warm sentiments guys. I'm actually working on a part 2 of the above involving higher level strategy. I saw this post though and figured I'd post what I had as a starting point of the discussion.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

I concur!

You make impressive guides.
You also make them deep enough for people to learn and understand other aspects of the game and not just the nation they read about.

Hats off! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: sauromantia
 

Thanks for the help.
i have on last question: if i use gift of reason on my hydras how much head slot they will have? one or nine?

Re: sauromantia
 

I'm sorry, but the Hydra, as I just tested, has no head slot. Both the Hydra, and the much fiercer Daughter of Typhon both have 2 miscellaneous slots and thats all.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Very good points Baalz.

While Sauromatia is not the strongest nation in EA, I would say it is in the top 5 (number 4-5 I think), if played correctly.

The interesting thing about it, as you have pointed out in your guide, is that rather than have one big advantage, it has a lot of smaller ones, plus flexibility to adopt its strategy to their opponents. (Personally I consider flexibility to be Sauromatia's strongest advantage)

I am currently playing Sauromatia in Figment game, with good results so far. So here are my two cents to add to Baals' analysis.

1. Several good strategies that were mentioned earlier do contradict each other. For example, Hydras should not be used with poison archers, or with PD. Friendly fire from composite bows would annihilate 6hp hydra's lesser heads very quickly, and once they are gone 250gp hydra will not last more than 1-2 turns in heavy melee. Same goes for using PD and hydras.

2. Sauromatia do have reasonably good sacred. I've considered playing bless strategy in my current Figment game as Sauromatia, but I have decided against it. The reason for it is that while Sauromatia's sacred are better than average sacred for EA, they are certainly not the best. Many other EA nations have far superior sacreds, and I've decided that I don't want to compete with them in their own field. Plus if you are going to rely heavily on sacred you won't be able to produce a lot of adrophag archers, which may be better counter against some sacred nations.

That being said you can still play efficient sacred strategy with Sauromatia, but it is certainly not a no-brainer, unlike with nations such as Lanka, Niefel, Helheim, Tien Chi, et cetera.

Anyway, these are relatively small points. I've agree with 95% of what you have said in your guide Blaaz. Very well written.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Ah yes, my dirty little secret is I actually haven't recruited a single hydra as Sauromatia due to the aforementioned wealth of options, but I can certainly see a situation where they'd be exactly what you'd want. I will say that you haven't convinced me that they wouldn't be quite effective for the role I suggested though - kamikaze poison bombs to soften up large enemy armies for major confrontations. Particularly since they're practically resource free you can throw them in at the last minute if something nasty threatens your capital. If you're facing a large army, from lets say a dual blessed Vanheim, placing 3 hydras spread out on the front row will have them die to be sure, before you've even got to worry about friendly fire most likely. Now those Vans have used up their first strike though and are poisoned (does this cancel the glamour? I don't remember) and the clock is ticking as they now contemplate your most excellent PD, and behind that your real forces which consist of more than just androphag archers (who are very hard to target because all your PD is archers). The enemy is drastically weakened before they even engage your army - you practically only need skellispam to tie up those super elite enemy troops and give the poison (which the androphag arches continue to pile on) time to work.

WRT the sacreds, I agree with you that though you could hang an effective strategy around your sacred cavalry other nations do that better. To my mind though the sacred cavalry is just a very big bonus to the real reason you'd go dual bless - warrior sorceresses.

One more thing
 

Sauromatia also has really good hero units. Not, take over the world good, but wow look at that magic diversity good. Hmmm... I should run some odds on getting hero units.

Re: One more thing
 

yes thei hero is good: 1 good healer; 1 good mage tha give air magic+ some good allies and 1 good commander

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Original post updated with section 2

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

When you say "frost father" under the Pretender section, did you mean Father of Winters? One is a rainbow chasis, the other an SC.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Yes, that is what I meant. Updating now.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

I took Sauromatia for my first MP game. I'm going in a hugely different path than Baalz's guide might suggest... let's see how it plays out!

...and there is no N in Sauromatia.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Utter madness!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: sauromantia
 

I thought that Vampire Counts were a national summon for LA Ulm...are they available for any other nations besides that and Sauromatia? It seems un-thematic.

That aside, damn Baalz, you write up some good guides!

Re: sauromantia
 

I suppose Baalz meant vampite lords in this instance.

As far as I know vampire counts are indeed Ulm only. The slightly stronger and more expensive vampire lords can be summoned by anyone with the Curse of Blood spell. (Blood7; B3D4; 77 slaves)

Re: sauromantia
 

Sauromatia also has access to Medusa pretender. With A4/E4/N4 and proper equipment/script Medusa is virtually impossible to kill without soulslay or lifedrain. And thats also some access to air/nature/earth 4

Re: sauromantia
 

Gorgon. Medusa was a gorgon. Not all gorgons are named Medusa.

I'll draw a Venn diagram the next time this comes up, I swear.

Re: sauromantia
 

I name all my Gorgons Medusa just to add to the confusion.

Re: sauromantia
 

This particular gorgon isnt immortal, so its Medusa.

Har har. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: sauromantia
 

Good point. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif


On unrelated note, I think Nature 4 is kindof waste on Sauromatia's Gorgon. They already have good nature mages. I would recommend to just give Medusa/Gorgon a Regeneration Ring or Hydra Armor later on, and use these design points on something else.

Re: sauromantia
 

Regeneration (and afliction protection) is still a good addition to Sauromatia blessed units and thugs, though.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

hmmm I'm now using a few small hydra's and/ or 1 large hydra as screen for archers and it seems to work very well, the multiple heads make them survivable and they are poison resistant.

I went for a E9N1 dom 9 awake gorgon... great expansion but gorgon is a bit vulnerable (and dead now) and not easily called back by sauromatia.

Due to the bless my scales suck a bit (sloth 3 and I went for turmoil 3/luck 3 (doesn't seem to be paying of yet apart for a free castle.)

Would it be worth it to skip the bless and go for better scales or would that totaly nerve the effectiveness of the gorgon? Making it dormant is an option too.. but kinda not what a SC is about.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

In this case the dormant Gorgon may not be such a big deal if you can develop a very effective early expansion utilizing what your getting in return.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Well I doubt it'll give me that much province.. the gorgon was taking 1/turn till it died (turn 10 ish)

Luck doesn't seem to be giving me much cash btw maybe order/misfortune and less sloth would give me much more archers.. but I doubt I'll expand as quickly as I did with the gorgon

Or is it luck to have the gorgon survive against 12 indies w/o items?
How is a gorgon SC usually used?

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Did you have Dom 9 (Awe) and crafted a hide shield? That increases its survavility a lot.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Naw, it wasn't luck she survived so long. On the contrary it was bad luck or bad battle selection that she died at turn 10ish. Normally I hit soft provinces with her at turn 2 on, and I forge her some ghetto gear to get her through the early turns. This means that she has to come home at some point, and that point for me is usually when there are not soft provinces left close to my capital. She comes home, gets some gear, maybe some gems if she is going to be casting anything, then she is back out building her reputation in the HOF http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Your quick expansion rate is useless because your scales devalue the usefulness of your provinces.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

I was attacking a Hinnom warband of about 40-50 ish pplz so that would be poor selection I guess.. avvite archers and swordsmen (with no shield the archers did me in with their high damage if I retrack it.. probably the most dangerous units for the gorgon, high damage ranged attackers.

turmoil 3/luck 3 is an accepted strategy is it not?

it is said you end up with about teh same cash. Personally I could easily spend all my cash (even with sloth) though I don't think it was close to order 3 income (a few 100 gc bonus and a castle).

More prod would mean more androphag archers though since they are capitol only so building more castles isn't helping on that part.

sum1lost:
But would it be worth it to go dormant and then about O3 M2 and S -1?
your reply is a bit too easy: give me your adviced strat for sauromatia then so I can try it out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

That's untrue. It depends on how "quick" you mean with "quick". If he has a 50% less gold compared to a nation with good scales, but he conquer 60% more provinces, then he is doing well.

With sauromatia i would not go with turmoil luck. It's a valid strategy, but i would take order-misfortune instead. The Gorgon is awesome, althoug sauromatia has some problems to equip them properly early on. However, put her a Raw Hide shield to start with and high Awe, and should not has any problem to crush weak indies for a few turns. Once she can cast ironskin, summon earth power, wears vine-shield, pendant of luck and hydra skin she can kill most armies without a sweat.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

I did it to try it once (I always go order 3 usually and misfortune 2 to luck 1 depending on scales.

I also have E9 dom 9 for a high protection and a bless (the guide in this thread seems to think the WS can be good thugs with a bless.. though personally I couldn't see the use for a small nature bless with such low HP and couldn't go awake with N9 bless)

I guess I could take some death scales to make neutral production since the androphag archers could be produced in much greater numbers with more production.

I'll be sure to get a shield if I use the gorgon in combat again (since archers seem the biggest of her problems.)

Still I'd like to see a build others use for sauromatia.

thanks for the gorgon kitting advice btw

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

Hey Aezeal

I'm not an expert at Sauromatia - however I have been on the receiving end of them many many times.

I think poison archers, with a screen of hydras - rock.

I guess my .02 would be that you have great troops - hydras are relevent into the end game. I'd maximize the scales (I think) and crank out troops rather than trying for gorgon SC.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

you say going ALL scales? No bless and no SC?

I must say I'm playing prod 1 now (order 3 mis 2) with dormant SC (and dead again atm)

I do have loads of prod now, I always seem to build them andophags but I wonder if I might be overdoing it on the prodscale now.

Sauromatia: Lawful Evil
 

First, I just gotta gush that I enjoyed Baalz's guide a whole bunch. Therefore I'm skipping over some of the more obvious things that he brought to light, and concentrating a bit more on some subtleties, niceties, and details that may not be apparent from your first glance at Sauromatia. Somewhere in between I end up challenging some of his tenets. Oh, the humanity!

My credentials:

I have played Sauromatia twice, in Ascendant and Peccary, 15 and 8 players respectively, and imo I would have handily won Ascendant had the server not gone down at turn 45. It was my first game, a noob game, but I really dominated it, even with some what seemed to be well-skilled players - in part to a good starting position, in part to a trustworthy co-non-belligerent I met in the game, and in part to Sauromatia's strengths. I was fighting 5 and 6 nations at a time by the time Gandalf's server died.

I am leading going into turn 41 in Peccary in provinces, income, gem income, forts, research, and dominion, but by a lesser margin, because this was after getting attacked by 3 nations from turns 15 to 26... three nations that did not have any other enemies to worry about during that whole time except me, myself, and Gazebo.

Always first, ANDROPHAG ARCHERS:

The Androphag Archers are a fantastic unit for expansion and really hit their stride in early game defense. You can even make them a main strategy and recruit 40+ per turn for a long, long time, foregoing a Sloth scale just for them. They can also stop most of what other nations can throw at you in the dangerous early game, which means you don't have to have an awake pretender, something I will get into later. The usefulness of this strategy can be hampered by an unlucky random starting location with few resources.

Still, even with how nice they are, I usually don't find myself hiring many beyond turn 25 or so even with Order 3 and Sloth 3. Mostly this is because I spend a lot to improve my infrastructure and mage corps, but also because Oriopatias are strong units, and are sacred, saving you a lot of upkeep. You will always find a use for them, and they are very durable, especially if you have a good bless, whereas the archers can be easily countered by giants, flyers, poison-immunes, undead, enemy archers, or regenerating troops of any kind (sigh). Use your head as to which of these units you might want to use at any time, because you must bear in mind that they do not work well together at all.

Amazons: You should be recruiting mostly Amazon infantry from your alternate forts, if you have any gold that just needs spending.

Amazons are not a powerful unit by any means, and I find little use for them except as meat shields, but they have a good Attack with a spear (lending a good Repel capability) worthy Morale, reliable survivability, and generally Get The Job Done.

Cavalry: Most of your cavalry is just plain inferior to Androphags and Amazons... your foot archers are better at attacking and your infantry is better at defending on a gold for gold basis, and most of the time on a 1:1 basis. Unless you really NEED to deal Lance damage (once :/), and the need may definitely arise but doesn't seem to all that reliably, I would counsel to just stay away from these.

Hydras I do not use at all, except in the most niche of roles, being highly overpriced as well as slow and terribly unsynergistic with your excellent Androphags.

THE GORGON:

You MUST have a Gorgon pretender in my opinion, for SC value, for a very needed Earth bless, for Earth variety, and for pure goddamn terror factor. I use her sleeping, because the design points are highly valuable, because you just can't afford to lose her early, with Sauromatia's very weak priests, and because you are not vulnerable in early game. In the interim you can start ramping up to Construction-4 which definitely has got the goods she craves.

The highest Earth bless you can manage is vital for your high-encumbrance mage commanders but also adds nicely to their survivability and the strength of your Oriopatias. You are also going to want Nature 4, to keep your middling mage thugs out of affliction danger. Nature 4 is also necessary for Nature globals like Gift of Health and Mother Oak. A couple of points of Air rounds her out very nicely... a path that Sauromatia lacks completely, barring Delgnat the Sorceress hero (W2 A3 D4) and gives her access to the highly effective Mistform, as well as the devastating spells Cloud Trapeze and Rain of Stones. Resist Lightning is nothing to sneeze at either, with her high Protection, covering her main elemental vulnerability. Use Air Shield when you have the slightest doubt.

Use her aggressively, but use her wisely, because she's likely going to be your main deterrent as well as a very versatile and powerful aggressor. It is necessary to remember that she is awfully fragile in hostile dominion, which you will often be operating in.

Her gear should be an assortment of Construction 4 items. Luck Amulet and Magic Resistance Amulets are a mainstay of the SC profession and should never leave her possession. Hydra Armor saves her from having to cast Personal Regeneration, but use Rainbow Armor if you can possibly get it; the MR will save her against Astral nations. Boots of the Messenger is a wonderful piece of cheap gear to help her get her buffing in without crippling or at least disadvantageous Fatigue. A Vine Shield will save her life, and give her time to work against tougher opponents with her...

Snake Bladder Stick! Yes, this always-overlooked piece of crap will turn your Gorgon into a veritable titan of terror. Imagine the looks of complete non-horror on your opponents' faces as they scan this ghettofabulous accessory. Really, it's extremely synergistic with Fear, has a very large AOE for maximum damage, is the easiest thing in the world for you to craft, is thematic as anything, and is just plain ubergeek cool. A Horror Helment rounds out the head slot and your color scheme with a little electric purple. It also gives her a very respectable +10 Fear, which is just absolutely perfect for use with the Snake Bladder Stick.

At 50 design points, it pretty much goes without saying that she is bargain-basement dirt cheap. If you are fighting multiple nations at once, and you will likely have to after everyone reads this guide - ha! - you will live or die by your Gorgon.

COMMANDERS:

I've found that one weakness of Sauromatia is that contrary to popular opinion, their commanders actually make quite poor thugs until well into midgame and closer to late. The reason for this is that they are mounted. High Casting Encumbrance + no feet slot = high Fatigue, even with a good Earth bless, which you will have. Their Casting Encumbrance is 10. 10!! TEN!!11one!eleven

Some commander errata:
-Assassins have a very hard time against you.
-Your MR is sturdy.
-HPs are low to middling.
-High Defense with mediocre Protection.
-Extremely high Casting Encumbrance.
-Excellent buff paths with Nature and Water.
-All potentially poison-immune.
-Sabbath-capable.

Warrior Sorceresses: They are not quite as powerful as Baalz might have led you to believe, but they are still gorgeous units. Also it's a lot of fun to say Sorceresses. Every one of your Death random WSes will be going into research, and every one of your Blood-random WSes will be going into Blood Hunting.

The Nature-random and Water-random Warrior Sorceresses will be your ubuiquitous thugs; tough, hard to hit, and highly resistant to elemental damage. They can all cast Resist Poison, and should always do so when used in conjunction with Androphag Archers. This also opens up the Snake Bladder Stick for use with your rank-and-file. Any enemy army that is not poison IMMUNE is in for a horrifying, emasculating fight. Water randoms can also bust out Foul Vapors, which is the weakest of the damaging battlefield enchantments, but is easy to research and highly useful when used in conjunction with skellyspam.

Witch Kings: Use these bad boys for demoralizing forum stories as they perform all kinds of naughtiness and depraved acts on your defeated foe, and also for picking up chicks.

But really, they are more or less pure skellyspammers until just before late game when you are facing other Thugs and SCs, and have the gear and magic to turn them into soul-sucking monstrosities through a combination of equipment, Sabbaths, and Independent mage Communions. Their early to midgame tactic is simple: vomit out as many skeletons as you can with them until they start to remind you of Nicole Richie at a Big Boy buffet.

Guard the B2 randoms with your everlasting eternal soul, because they are the key to your devastating Ritual Blood magic.

Enaries: should be recruited for about the first five or six turns in your capital, and again only when you have need of artillery close to the front lines. Being slow and vulnerable, they are best used as site searchers at first, afterwards switching to remote site searchers (they can all cast Death, Nature, and Astral finders) and item forgers.

For your Communions, you are going to want Map Move 2 Independent mages with a buff path apart from Astral. This means that you should make finding Amazon Sorceresses or Tribal Priests a priority. Blood allows you some leeway with Sabbaths, and you can rock out to Ozzy while you script your army and have a nice chuckle to yourself.

DIPLOMACY:

The thing about Sauromatia is that your expansion is going to be top notch with the archers, even with Sloth 3... and that causes people to gang up on you early. So it is not necessary to take your Gorgon awake, and that may even be a detriment in the long run.

You are not a Mictlan, or Neifelheim, or Helheim, or even Abysia or Vanheim, and people will correctly not see you as a threat early on, unless you have an explosive early expansion. Use this to make a friend... or to skelly your way to the front door of your nearest neighbor.

PROVINCE DEFENSE:

You have a very powerful province defense. Every one of the units you get up to 20 PD has a composite bow. And after 20, you get LANCES. Your 1-20 PD horsebowmen in front have 15 defense and will stymie a wide range of melee attackers, while the rest lay down the composite law. You should buy a very good amount of Province Defense wherever applicable. It's also very prudent to do with the Misfortune-2 scale that you'll be taking... Sauromatia PD utterly annihilates Barbarians.

SCALES:

You don't need high Dominion, because you can Blood Sacrifice, and you are not making use of an immortal pretender. Nor are your units particularly vulnerable to having bad morale. Nor will you be using a (non-commander) bless strategy. Oriopatias are good, but they are far from the best, and are capital-only.

Order.

Sloth is easy to take, because you will have skellyspam armies, because your archers and sacreds don't take many resources, and because you need the points. The gold hit hurts a lot, but if you have any extra points, (you probably won't) spend them on --

Growth helps significantly with your blood hunting, and it lends itself to more strategies than Death. You can be defensive with Growth, and outlast brightly-burning bless nations. It's also a huge boon for your income elegantly combined with Order, and keeps you much safer from some deadly random events that you might otherwise be pummeled with with your Misfortune scales.

Heat is good with Blood, because most demons like it. It's also good because Neifelheim can give you a ton of trouble. Abysia will give you trouble regardless. The income hit is brutal, but you really have to get the points from somewhere, and this is usually it. You can safely go with Cold, as well, because your skeletons can usually keep Neifel giants at bay, and have much more trouble with Abysians. It's pretty much a preference. All other things being equal, balance this according to whether C'tis, Neifelheim, or Abysia is in the game... because C'tis can usually out-skellyspam you due to their lower Encumbrance.

Misfortune is synergistic with Order AND the Enaries' Fortune Telling, so I always take 2. In Ascendant I took Luck-1 which was very nice and all, getting some good boosts in gold, but more importantly, not getting any bad events in my capital or random attacks. If you're not unlucky early on with Misfortune though, you can power through it handily. And 120 points is a hell of a lot.

Magic is a toss-up. You can safely take Drain-2 if you find yourself needing the points, because Sauromatia has what is quite possibly the best Death magic in the game, allowing you to forge Skull Mentors. With the help of some Dwarven Hammers (yay for Gorgon Earth diversity), you should be making 2 per turn, blowing all your death gems. This is important and drastically powerful because it gives you the equivalent of 3 mage/forts worth of research, with no upkeep. If you take Magic-1, however, you will probably be ahead of any other nation in EA in research. But 120 points is a hell of a lot.

Which brings us to RESEARCH:

I always research Enchantment 3 first off with Sauromatia. Raise Skeletons will allow you to defend against basically anything in early game that your archers cannot. The sheer stopping and overwhelming power of 5 longdead skeletons per caster per turn is the true definition of relentless. With that safely in hand, you can be free to get Thaumaturgy-1 for Communions, and then Construction 4 for items.

Evocation is an important school for Sauromatia; Shadow Blast is devastating when used properly. Enaries are terrifying and accurate Shadow Blasters with Eagle Eyes, Communion, Eye of the Void, and a Spell Focus, all of which you will have very quickly and easily. Nether Darts can be powerful using this forumla as well. Storm of Thorns is a real pain to fight against; imagine how nice it would be in your arsenal instead!

Alteration is another mainstay of Sauromatia. Between the immensely useful and cheap Alteration 1 school, and the Soul Vortex and Darkness ride of the Witch Kings, there lies... SWARM.

Swarm will hold your opponents down for your Androphag archers. Swarm will kill poorly-placed enemy commanders. Swarm will harry and kill 95% of assassins. Swarm will hold enemies back from their fortification's bottleneck during fort storming. Swarm will terrify and confuse your enemies, make them waste valuable rounds of archery, and in general make them a very miserable and frustrated enemy. You can easily mass 10 N1 casters, all of your mages have it, for a vast metaswarm that the opposing army just - can't - get - past.

When using Swarm, it's best to have your archers set to fire against anything except Closest, because otherwise they will die in droves, and their little screams will haunt your dreams for weeks.

Conjuration-3 is worth it simply for Summon Earthpower on your Gorgon, and Thaumaturgy-2 is necessary for remote site searching. You are going to be using a LOT of gems.

You can successfully compete for artifacts with a Magic scale, and Sauromatia should be spending almost all their free gold on independent mages for magic diversity, which Construction-6 boosts tremendously.

Without magic diversity, Sauromatia is much, much weaker. Air alone will get you Wind Guide and Arrow Fend. I took A4 on my Gorgon in Peccary, and have not regretted it, because it is the key to Air boosters.

A single Fire-2 caster with your archers makes them into a magical missile juggernaut. It will also allow you access to Fire Resistance items if your thugs are going to face Abysia.

Earth is essential, if only for Dwarven Hammers, which you NEED to allay your ravenous gem expenditure. Earth has some of the most useful and powerful battlefield spells in my opinion.

Finally, a W2 mage gives you access to W4 with Robes of the Sea; otherwise you are stuck at W2 with Water Bracelets.

EARLY ENDGAME AND OTHER STRATEGIES:

Blood and Death, oh my. Hit the enemy capitals hard with Blood and Death. Rain of Toads can completely shut down enemy capitals by turn 40. It takes that long because you have to empower a Witch King to get to B3 in order to build Armor of Thorns for the rest of your Blood-random Witch Kings.

The more Blood you use to summon, the better your upkeep and the more powerful your armies. Imps are actually nice, solid units, and dropping them on top of enemy PD is one of the best remote summons in the game for the research needed, though it is expensive in Blood Slaves and booster items. But honestly, what else are you going to do with near-mindless virgins?

One efficient tactic you can use very early is to summon Dark Servants and equip them with a Bane Venom Charm, then send them to enemy capitals. They can also be used to damage large armies if you sneak into their path.

There are so many and varied tactics you can use with a great degree of success with Sauromatia, that unless you make up your mind like Baalz once iterated, you can be overwhelmed and spill your seed uselessly on the field of battle. This is a VERY REAL danger and disadvantage. Concentrate on a bright pinpoint of tactical options and you will be much the better for it.

In conclusion, this incaration of Sauromatia is the most powerful and fun nation setup I have ever used in Dominions 3.

Sauromatia

Dominion 5

Order 3
Sloth 3
Heat/Cold 2
Growth 1
Misfortune 2
Magic 1

Gazebo the Gorgon: E10, N4, A4

It may be worth noting that this pretender build has exactly 0 points left over.

Re: More praise for Baalz
 

This isn't specifically responding to you alone, but aren't Hydras a bit too expensive for kamikaze roles? I suppose I tend to play heavy-bless , low Order games, so g250 per unit seems too much for a throw-away unit.

So I tend not to use Hydras at all. Too expensive for niche roles, and too risky to integrate them with the rest of the Sauromantia military machine.

I also think it makes more sense for C'tis to have Hydras--given the innate poison resistance for C'tis--but then I suppose that would make the C'tis over-powered? :) And I suppose it also makes more sense for the Hydras to be units for a nation grounded in the Greek mythos, and Sauromantia is based on Herodotus.

Re: sauromantia
 

Actually the hydra was the first monster made in the game (I like hydras). It was to be the Pythian monster. Every nation (about 5 at the time) was supposed to have one. Arcoscephale has the elephant. Then it ended :) Monsters became summonables, but the hydra remained a recruitable for unknown reasions.

Sauromatian backwardly inherited the hydra from Pythium when it was made the predecessor of Pythium.

Re: sauromantia
 

Hydras most certainly have a niche role. 250 gold is a lot if you plan on losing them while raiding PD, but 500 gold might be a cheap price to pay for major confrontations if it, say completely blunts 2000 gold worth of elephants, or holds a large uber sacred force for an extra couple critical turn (not unreasonable if combined with skellispam) while the poison damage mounts up. The gold cost is particularly relative when you consider that its not uncommon to be resource constrained as a nasty army is threatening your capital and you need to recruit troops fast.

Of course, as I mentioned I don't generally use them too much with Sauromatia, but I can certainly imagine situations where I would.

Re: sauromantia
 

Hydras can be brutal if combined with spammed undead. The Poison Cloud aura doesn't hurt the undead, and they hold off attackers long enough that they get poisoned for several turns and soon die.

Marble Warriors are also ideal with Hydra support.

Re: sauromantia
 

I read the baalz part on the first page... Baalz, Baalz, Baalz... What were you thinking. I couldn't even finish reading your guide. They use hydras and should take heat scales at least a little unless they are absolutely maxing out gold (which, of course, can be quite useful).

Not that I've ever had a problem with hydras passing out, but, on the other hand, I always take the easily justifiable 40 points! :D

Unless you're 2player vs. Abysia (or similar matchup) I wouldn't take cold. Hydras should come in behind other stuff... the stuff will die, of course, but will keep teh hyrdas alive longer. Just a little Hydra guide... You can even have them retreat then (via commander retreat).

Re: sauromantia
 

...

Hydrae are awful. At 250 gold nonsacred, every one is worse than buying another witch king in terms of upkeep, and give you a lot less value for that gold. I would never buy a hydra unless I was planning on getting it killed in a turn or two.

Androphag archers and cavalry are the worthwhile troop choices for building an army.

Re: sauromantia
 

You can use crossbreeds in large enough numbers to "cast" poison cloud on large armies, especially useful for merely defending unimportant provinces.

Squirrellord: As much as I respect that opinion, dragging a players large army through a poison cloud as the chase down retreating crossbreeds is very cheap, often even if you lose the hydras. =BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO LOSE THE HYDRAS!=

The small ones are more useful and harder to target.

I was always disappointed by them too, but I found something specific they worked against... Abysia?

Re: sauromantia
 

Hydras are good against Eles and SCs, possibly some sacreds. You build them as a counter, not as a general unit.