Pangean Musings
 

Hello folks !
Pangea was what I played almost exclusivly in DOM1, and I was little bit frustrated that the demo deprived me of testing my beloved berserkers in DOM2. Preordered anyway, and after a short detour with Spring&Autumn T.C. I'm now back to the woods. And as I feel a strong urge to share some of my findings, here we go ... .

At first, let's have a look at the new and old(standard) themes:

New Era
Heavy steel-clad Infantry, good archers, lousy priests(2), only one mage command which is good, but certainly not overpowered.
Depends on order/productivity/high admin castle to build the troops, needs rainbow pretender to get indy mages and decent gem income, few points left for magic scale, might in fact work better with drain.

You've seen this before you say? Yeah, that's why I call it
Ulmagea !
nuff said...


Carrion Woods
They allied with a vengeful dark god to avenge the slaughter and destruction man brought to the woods. Now unholy vines are reanimating the corpses of the dead ...
.. that's the story so far. What I can't understand is that instead of bringing back the slain pangeans to hand man to death, the wood creatures chose the way of collective suicide:

CaWo has a destructive dominion that strong, that you'll lose about 500 people in your home province each turn even with growth+3 !

Looks to me like you can't expand fast enough to "survive" 'til midgame - this has been mentioned in some other thread before.

It is an interesting theme (to me), but it would be even better (playable) if it wasn't the "everything is doomed"-thing (as ermor) but some dark'n'bloody nature ... blood- and death-magic, unholy vines, blood vines (haven't I seen them elsewhere before?) and strong growth rate. Why not go the whole way and make turmoil-3, sloth-3, growth-3 mandatory and maybe tweak the death dominion down so much that it negates the growth-0/growth-1 dominions of the human neighbours, but leaves some growth for the pangeans .. could be quite nasty I think.

After all, natures decided it's time to bring death to man so others can grow again - as nature is great in forming new life from rotting corpses.
Thinking about it, the rather boring mother-pretender could get a nice twist with this theme .. some death/blood magic and a slightly altered pic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif


standard theme
Despite pangea was never thought about as one of the strongest nations, it looks to me like it has been toned down even more: The heavy inf has 2 less protection now, but cost ~20% ressources more (as they're using bronce cuirasses) and may also have more encumbrance, but I'll unshure here (will check again). Free maenads are berserker-(1) only, so most times they won't hit anything or do any damage now, but are most easily mowed down.
A new berseking Sartyr has been added, but it has very limited use - it's shield- and armorless and dies to anything that comes it's way as the standard militia.

This seems not to be a big deal, but these troops are the those you'll build in the beginning, so losing more of them will hamper exansion significantly.

It doesn't really help that the Pan is one of the best starting mages in the game now with Earth-2, Nature-3 and a random pic which could you get -3/-4 with some luck - you can only get one with a cost of 350 for quite some time ... .

I'll try a standard theme and report from time to time;

Pangea
Gold Naga
Fire -4 Water -4
Death -4
Turmoil-3 Sloth -3
Growth +3 Luck +3
Magic +1
Dom.strength 5
40 Admin castle (80pts)

Maybe it's not optimised, but the pretender is a little bit more durable than the norm, it's paths cover those pangea doesn't have, the expensive pan is producing the max of maenads, maigc will speed up the rather bad research and the high admin castle will make bulding the high-ressource-units possible.
I'm not shure about the castle,though. Could be that the indy troops are in fact better than the pangean counterparts, so using a cheapo tower and bulding indies all over the place would make more sense.

See you soon, and maybe I have something more to tell you about troop choices ...

A.

EDITED: spelling, again and again. pardon me, I'm working on it, but I'm not a native speaker...

[ November 26, 2003, 11:58: Message edited by: Arralen ]

Re: Pangean Musings
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I disagree with many if not all of your opinions.

Concerning Carrion Woods: The idea behind this theme is that nature has tired of the interference and dabblings of men. In the dominions mythology blood is the corrupt unnatural magic. The Carrion Woods is not really intended to carry connotations of corruption and unnaturalness that is inherent in the blood nature combos such as dark vines and cross breeding. Carrion Woods is intended to be hostile to men, but not corrupt as in allied with demons and perverting nature in order to achieve its revange. Although one might argue that an angered nature gone corrupt in its wrath would have been cooler than Carrion Woods, wether or not this true it isn't quite the idea behind Carrion Pangaea.

The dominion of Carrion Woods kills pop because the wrathful nature kills tax payers, squirrels boars and bears do not pay taxes, neither do oaks mistletoe or rowan. It requires a positive growth scale not for gameplay but fot thematic reasons, it is intended to evoke the image that the dominion causes foilage to grow and cover trappings of men, that it is an explosive and choking non beneficial growth of plantlife. The Pangaeans of the Carrion Wood are cleansing the world of humanity at the cost of their own settlements and society, they are serving a nature so enraged that it in the end cannot even abide their frugal trappings civilsation.

Unlike you I do not* think they are unplaybale, just difficult. It might also be advisable to stay away from Carrion Woods on bigger maps, although they might be viable on there to.


Concerning the standard theme being weaker than old dom 1 Pangaea: I think the standard theme of Pangaea is significantly improved over old Pangaea. Not only does the Pan posess +1 nature and +1? for a measly cost increase if 30gp. Pangaea now also posess the new stealthy and berserking Centaur cavalry, in both standard and holy variants. Both of these are stealthy and have a strategic move of 3 combined with woodland survival. This makes them excellent as a reactive force, as well as very easy to get to the frontlines. The usefullness of high strategic is more appearent in MP than in SP, since the AI isn't as adept at attacking from several directions as a human player. With the appropriate blessings the white Centaurs become very offensive units, their innate berserk will stack with the berserk bless ability for example, with nature 9 the white Centaurs will also recieve regeneration which is uncommonly beneficial to them due to their large amount of hitpoints. A berserking Centaur, wether white or brown, will also have very hefty attack and strength Ratings. If you find standard theme Pangaea weaker than dom 1 Pangaea I just think you need to switch tactics somewhat.

If you go for blood magic I recommend the darkvines, they are singificantly more priceworthy than they were in dom1.

If you want Satyr Hoplites, play new era.

*Edit: changed "do" to "do not"

[ November 26, 2003, 15:43: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Re: Pangean Musings
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Im very thankful for the changes to Pangaea. THank you thank you thank you. Just based on the descriptions Im kindof automatically obligated to play Pangaea and Man.

Im having alot of fun with it. ULMing Pangaea was something I was afraid was going to happen but the other themes make me feel that Ive not been forgotten. Especially boosting the sneak armies. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Still didnt go for some things I like but they can always be added by spell use. (note to other Pangaea players, some pangaea units make AMAZING assassins if you learn how to make that blood heart equipment)

Re: Pangean Musings
 

I can make Carrion Woods work well past mid-game - but it's hard. I'm having a lot of fun doing it so I don't care. Like Ermor you just don't buy any units that you will have maintain. But with a high dominon, you can reek all kids of havoc on other nations. Curn out those Carrion Lords every few turns and forget temples once your starting gold is gone (you won't get ANY more ever). My "normal" troops grumble about being unpiad - but my undead constructs don't mind at all.

Yo

Re: Pangean Musings
 

This could be a good place to post my Carrion Woods specific Pretender...

Re: Pangean Musings
 

about temple and gold... Perhaps it cames initially from a game balancing decision, but I dont find that logical that temple can only be paid in gold. Why a Soul Gate Ermor, or Carrion Wood Pangea should pay with gold the construction of a temple? That is completely antithematic, and even detrimental to the gameplay. Ermor or CW should be able to construct temple with another resources (gems being the simplest one to implement).

Re: Pangean Musings
 

Although I haven't done a full game with carrion woods, but rather just tried out different things for 20 turns or so, I still think that losing black centaurs very early and for good is a bit, I don't know, sad. I don't think it would be unbalancing to make them recruitable everywhere with fort and temple: how many times will you be able to afford those anyway? Yet it still makes their situation less terminal, and if somebody (a roleplayer like me, e.g.) would like to recruit another one sometimes later in the game, it would be possible to do.