EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Was reading up on EA arco strategy on the strategy index - wouldn't they be better used as a bless-strategy then a cyclops or ghost king strategy? flying 17prot/17def sacreds is nothing to sneer at with a earth/water or water/fire bless

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Really not too bad of an idea because they are particularly fierce sacreds, but with Arco having no Death or Blood, I think it's imperative to have very good scales for endgame, precluding a bless strategy for anything but smaller maps and rush strategies.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

ahh...why do death and blood = the best for endgame?

it seems such a waste with those pretty flying sacreds

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Death because Tartarians make good SCs and let you expand into earth, astral, and air. I admit I'm partial to death's endgame spells like Stygian Paths and Utterdark as well.

I don't understand blood magic as well--I try to stay away from it.

-Max

P.S. You could certainly try an Earth bless on those sacreds, or Earth/Death if you're feeling spendy. Fliers do tend to spend a lot of fatigue on flying.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

will tartarians continue to dominate end game now that they come 25% insane?

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Insanity doesn't hurt their ability to forge items and branch out into new paths, so I expect Tartarians to still remain relevant and important. Air Queens are probably better SCs, for instance, but you need Air to summon them and all they give you is more Air. Tartarians convert Death + Nature -> Earth, Air, Astral, Blood.

-Max

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

In simple melee cost effectiveness they are the worst recruitable sacreds in the game. (Of the 57 I tested anyway.) Flying makes up for a lot but still... even the independent Pegasus riders are better.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

how do you come to that conclusion wick?

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

They're fun, though. Actually I remember using Arco a lot when I first got the game, and I thought E9 Wind Riders were pretty cool (and very survivable) although at the time I didn't have much perspective on how expensive they are.

The indy Pegasus riders are not nearly as tough as E9 Wind Riders.

-Max

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

i like the idea of e9 but i see w9 as great for them and their attack is just so low - so i went f4, w9 e4 - your thoughts?

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Blood scales better than any other path since your "gems" come from population, not sites. So in the end-game, when your gem income is more or less static, you can still really crank out the blood.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

An awake pretender is the way to go with EA ARCO. The sacreds are too expensive and they have too many weaknesses. Low hits. high encumberance. Low attack skill and low damage. The low damage really hurts because they are so big, they cant cut their way out of a paper bag. even the flying hurts them because when they attack they are all over the place instead of concentrating their attacks.

Try an awake Virtue with Air 5, Death 5. dominion 7. Take order 3, Sloth 3. Research Alteration 3 right away for mistform. Your virtue can take out independants on turn 2. Keep it in the back and script air shield then attack archers. And if it happends to get a bad affliction you can heal it with priestess.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

W9 will kill them with fatigue. I'd be more likely to try F4W4E9. I would only use W9 with cheap sacreds like Mictlan's or very low-enc ones.

-Max

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

I've done a stupid amount of testing of "How many of a vast hoard of heavy infantry (ID 40) can 600g of <unit_type> kill before dying." In a four battle trial the Wind Riders scored a total of 19. The median for recruitable sacred troops (57 types, null blessed) is 63. The Heavy Infantry got 79 against themselves, which was a slightly better then the overall median. Basically, the implication is if you have a strong bless multiplying the Wind Riders 400% then they are as strong as independent infantry.

Certainly, the test is pretty simplistic. It's biased against archers and in favor of tramplers and poison. However, the results tend to be stable and to approximate the conventional wisdom -- which includes, Wind Riders aren't worth a bless strategy.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Hmmm, interesting. I just did a quick check myself, and F4W4E9-blessed Wind Riders (5 in number, 625 gp) plus a prophet doing <Divine Bless, Cast> in the background lost handily to 80 Heavy Infantry #40, killing maybe 10 of them before dying/fleeing. I wonder how much of that is due to the unfortunate tendency of fliers to spread themselves too thin and get ganged up on.

In contrast, 7 E9D9 Helhirdlings (630 gp) killed maybe thirty or forty heavy infantry before routing (4 surviving Helhirdlings). 1 E9N6 Niefel Jarl + 1 Niefel Giant (650 gp) killed them all with no losses. 4 E10N6 Ahiman Anakites (600 gp) killed them all but one of them got a limp. 24 F9W9S9N4 Jaguar Warriors (600 gp) killed them all and lost 4 jags.

Altogether, it's an interesting way of evaluating the cost-effectiveness of sacreds. It's a little bit misleading in some cases because some sacreds are more resource-limited or holy-limited than gold-limited, especially depending upon what scales you traded away to get the bless you're using in the test. It also doesn't evaluate non-combat-related stuff like strat move (flying troops are sometimes better for expanding in rough terrain even if you take more casualties). Overall, though... interesting methodology.

-Max

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Well, I'm not necessarily going to argue with conventional wisdom, but sacreds are occasionally used against something other than heavy infantry, and some sacreds benefit from blesses more than others do, IMHO. Especially since in the early era, heavy infantry is comparatively less common. I would, however, still agree that EA Arco isn't a bless nation. Just compare Wind Riders to what is established as good sacreds - they aren't terrible, but three of them probably won't beat most indiy provinces.

As a somewhat OT note, what do people think of Hinom's sacred giant? The Melqart is awesome, able to solo most EA poptypes no proeblem, and Hinom can eaven heal it, but what about the units? There doesn't really seem to be a whole lot of point to them...

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

The Rephaelite is a good unit, equivalent in almost every way that I can see to <font color="red">(a pair of)</font> Palankashas except there's no head armor vulnerability and the resource cost is slightly higher than two Palankashas. The difference is that Lanka is likely to have a good bless because of all their blood sacreds, and Hinnom is perhaps less likely. But the base unit is pretty good--it's just that the Melqart is so much better that the Rephaelite is overshadowed. It's as if you could recruit both Niefel Jarls and Agarthan Seal Guards. Sure you could buy them both, but why would you unless you had extra resources?

-Max

<font color="red">Edited for clarity.</font>

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Rephaelite costs more than two Palankashas, but doesnt have as much offense as two Palankashas (or staying power, for that matter). Also, their summons are inferior to Lanka's (with the exception of Gregori), and their mages arent as good for research and crafting equipment.

I'm really qurious where are strengths of EA Arco btw. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Sure, research is there. But their troops are simply bad, and mages, while nice in their own way, have no endgame paths (weak astral, no death, no blood). And no national summons... Of all things, ancient Greece has no summons - its just not fair in my opinion. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Have you run the tests multiple times? Results can vary a lot from trial to trial.

In contrast, in an EA MP game I had 5 points Agarthan PD rout a force of 3 Niefel giants (N9F4?? bless), plus priest leader (Skratti?). They got lucky, nailed one Nief and injured another on the second round of melee, the giants routed off.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

There is a bit of an issue with Greek summons, isn't there?

Satyrs and Maenads went off to form their own nation, Hydras belong to someone else, Kithaironic Lions are open access (if they're Greek - they sound like the lion Hercules killed), so are the Furies...

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

I think you got pretty lucky.

A N9F4 bless sounds awful though. I would definitely go some form of E9N4-6. Generally you don't even care about those giants swinging. If they can't hit the broad side of a barn, their cold aura, which stacks, kills everything around them through fatigue anyways. Honestly, what you really want to have happen is that you get swarmed by a bunch of guys in waves. They start to fatigue from the cold, and then they fatigue down to the point where they pass out. What happens then is that you have these big nasty giants, mostly surrounded by units that are asleep, and who are slowly dying to the cold aura. Then the guys who first came up to attack the giants die off, opening up a 3 unit square next to the giant which is quickly filled in.

Once this starts happening your giants are mostly immune to meele damage.

Jazzepi

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

IIRC Palankashas have 1 Falchion attack at 12 and 1 defense at 13, and 30 HP. A Rephaelite has 1 Dawn Sword attack at 15 and a horn attack at 12. The Dawn Sword does 30-odd damage and the horn does 22. Palankasha falchions do 26 (this is all IIRC). It looks to me like Rephaelites have at least as much attack as Palankashas. Staying-power-wise, they have as many hit points as two Palankashas, probably worse Enc, a higher defense by 3 but a larger size (which means worse defense than 2 Palankashas against swarms). They also regenerate twice as fast. There are ways in which Palankashas are superior (cost) but Rephaelite &lt;=&gt; Palankasha is IMHO a fair analogy.

When I get home I'll try Wick's heavy-inf rule-of-thumb test and see if the Palankashas can beat more heavy inf and/or Steel Maidens than the Rephaelite.

-Max

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Wick ran it multiple times. I didn't because 1.) I was sanity-checking the methodology, not the units, 2.) luck didn't appear to play a huge part in any of the battles I examined. The Helhirdlings didn't get hit once with a lucky hit and then rout, they gradually degraded under infantry pressure. The Wind Riders died one or two each round and then routed--maybe they would have killed slightly more HI in a different run but it was pretty obvious they weren't going to do as well as Niefelheim. Niefelheim, of course, just needs to survive one or two rounds of combat and then everybody around freezes solid.
Obviously you would be more rigorous if you were trying to make a decision whether to take a bless strategy for a certain kind of unit. You'd want to check vs. heavy infantry, units with multiple attacks (Ulm's Steel Maidens or C'tis' Elite Warriors), cavalry (Helheim's Mounted Hirdmen), other blessed units (F9W9 Jaguar Warriors), archers, etc. I didn't.

-Max

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Most of the Greek myths have been incorporated into other nations, sure. Does this preclude Arco from summoning them? Of particular interest are things such as the gorgon and cyclops. Being able to summon versions of these creatures seems only fair, really. If they are made comparable to other higher end summons, and cost similar amounts of gems, they won't confer any distinct advantage, but would hopefully be summonable by national mages, with a bit of boosting.

Honestly, I think that's one of the things that would most improve this game, more plentiful national summons. Many of them wouldn't even need to be completely exotic, but for example Caelum could get a "Giant Ice Drake" at Conj6 that had enhanced power. Pangaea might have a "Minotaur of the Maze" who is larger, and angrier than the ones that they can recruit. Obviously it would lose some of the point if ALL of them were just bigger versions of already available creatures, but there's a lot of room for creative additions.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

They've got good recruitable thugs (Onead &lt;sp&gt; with natural awe + mistform + personal regeneration properly outfitted is a threat to most anything) and they're the communion posterchildren with some of the best research in the game to power some of the best communion mages in the game (mystics). Their troops are decent for what they should be used for - meat shields while the damage is laid down from mages. True, nations with weak astral, blood and death (of which Arco is hardly alone) can have a hard time in the end game if you don't plan ahead (starting with pretender design), but Arco is a very solid nation in all eras.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Give me a break. Onead, good thug? With 10 hp, attack and defense, 9 str, capitol-only and 400 g. cost? Ouch.

Communion is nice, but with astral 1, it just asks for a few magic duels. Had it done against me by Kailasa recently. Astral 2 monkeys vs Astral 1 mystics - 16 mages lost by Arco, 6 mages lost by Kailasa.

&gt;&gt; True, nations with weak astral, blood and death.
Its worse. Asco is a nation with weak astral, NO blood and NO death.

As for troops, SO many troops are much better at being meat shields AND still deal damage, I think it may be safely commented that EA Arco's troops are bad.

Regarding summons, Greek myths have one peculiarity that can be speculated upon - they had loads of demigods walking the earth. Perhaps if they are so plentiful, they can make a good and unique summon, hmm?
'Awaken divine blood'
Unlocks the dormant powers of God's ichor in a worthy individual's blood, improving his stats and giving him (random) abilities and spell paths.
Maybe several spells of this type - starting with awakening the dormant Blood and ending up with summoning epic heroes who are almost gods themselves.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

This is what I thought too so I went and tested it a bit. My test oreaid had frostbrand, vine shield, rainbow armor and no bless of any kind. Buff sequence was summon earthpower+ironskin+mistform+personal regen+air shield+attack. I then pitted her against blocks of 40-100 troops of varying difficulty, probably around 500 units in total. The oreaid won all fights easily, in fact I think she won most fights without taking even a single point of damage. Awe +5 combined with ability to self buff into stratosphere is a massive defensive barrier, which does make oreaid a good thug.

Of course mages will kill oreaid thug easily enough but that is the fate of any thug really.

Also, I think EA Arco is good enough in astral magic without help from pretender because they can forge crystal coins. S2 mystic empowered once into S3(45 gems)+coin+skullcap-&gt;RoS-&gt;RoW is pretty much all the astral nation needs. For combat astral magic, communions are the key.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

That makes her a raider. Thug (in my opinion anyway) should be able to kill things in major battles too, like a Sea troll king, for example.

But thanks for a tip, thats rather interesting.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Right....a sea troll king is better. Zenzei touched on how effective she is, but didn't get into her versatility:

resist elements, resist poison, resist lighting - with just a frost brand and fire helm (*cheap*) plus MR boosting items they can be effectively immune most mages. Swapping out your buffs/equipment to fit what you're fighting and there's not much you can't walk over.

cloud trapeze + stealth - you pick your fights. Just think about that in combination with the point above.

Holy - reinvig/regen/air shield/lighting resist/MR boost - whatever you've got. Nothing she can't self buff in other ways, but frees up a slot or two for more buffs if you've got a priest nearby.

seduction/assassination - as if everything else wasn't enough, this army killing thug can *assassinate*! If you can't beat the army, just kill all the commanders. You'll probably even seduce a couple...

Heck, 99% of the time I'd take one Onead over 10 Sea Kings.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Greek mythological creatures are pretty well covered in dominions. The problem is that most of the creatures not used are thematically at the pretender level rather than the summon level. Cyclopes and titans are at the pretender level, so a summon like the Hecatonchires wouldn't really make sense (unless it was banished to tartarus, in which case it is already in the game).

Not saying it couldn't happen, but it might be problematic. The only thing I can think of that isn't covered is something like stymphalian birds. In game terms they'd be flying mechanical men I guess. Also, you could further split nymphs into their classifications:

Melissae
Nephelae
Oceanids
Nereids
etc.

Hard to say exactly how they'd be different from each other though.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

The difference between pretenders and powerful summons isn't power level (some of the pretenders are pretty weak). It's naked, raw ambition and a willingness to lie about being a god.

I think Hecatonchires would make thematic summons for Arco or maybe C'tis. (A quick check to Wikipedia reveals that there were only three Hecatonchires. Hunh. They never mentioned that in my Greek Mythology books back in 1st grade and I've always assumed there were lots.)

-Max

P.S. Of course, one presumes that AFTER pretender X has conquered the world he will use the entire global gem output to empower himself up to crazy levels and Wish for power multiple times, etc. At that point there is a definite difference between him and a powerful summon.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

There's also the Faith factor. The spread of a pretender's Dominion is more a factor of the love/fear of their people, and the level of belief in that god, no? This in and of itself seperates it distinctly from other "beings of great power".

I don't see much reason we couldn't summon things like Void Lords, Gorgons, Olms, etc. I mean, we even have a Summon Kraken, it just happens to be a much younger and smaller Kraken than the pretender chassis. When you take away the ability to add custom magic paths, to add/increase Awe auras, etc, really any pretender is comparable to decent level 7-9 summons. Putting versions of them into nation specific summon spells could go VERY far towards breaking the current "you need death or blood to compete" paradigm of the game.

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Hmmm, I like that idea too. Maybe add an A9 spell to summon one of those Air/Earth Titans, an N7E5 spell to summon a Gorgon, etc. The difference between them and a pretender is charisma, i.e. a Dominion score.

-Max

Re: EA arcosephele - bless strategy?
 

Deal. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I take 10 Kings.
King can take hits. He's got regen and poison immunity, with self-buff he's immune to frost (and has chill aura), with quickness he's got two attacks and standing attack/defense scores. With fire brand (superior to frost brand anyway) and dragon helmet, he's also immune to fire.
I'm convinced that oreads are nice raiders, but somebody has to take hits when armies meet, and Arco is a loser here.