A thought on GE Arco
 

Been away from the game for a few months but the sheer detail in it always draws me back...

Anyways my friends and I have been playing blitz games on the weekends with Zen's Concepts and Saber Cherry's Recruitable Rebalance mods.

I play a lot with Arco default but am always drawn to playing their GE theme. The roleplayer side in me constantly fights with the powergamer side when I do that. Personally I find the default national troops kind of bland but their GE counterparts interesting. They present a lot of interesting options:

1 - Engineer for siege / defence
2 - Philosopher for research
3 - Wind rider for blessing and flying tactics
4 - Icarid for flying tactics
5 - New chariots for both archery and improved protection (though for some reason in SC's mod the default chariot has 4 more HP than their GE counterparts - maybe thematic???)
6 - Myrmidon
7 - Skeptic

And you really only lose:

1 - Astrologer (Ok... this one hurts)
2 - Heart Companion (he's good but low strat move relegates him to defence oft times but a decent bless troop)
3 - Hoplite (meh... a little better than 2 since he be recruited anywhere but still)
4 - Hypaspist
5 - Elephant
6 - a few others of that I'm not bothering to mention (sorry Strategos)

I would argue that, for the most part, the myrmidon can replace the hoplite, hypaspist, and heart companion reasonably and the new chariots can replace and improve slightly on the old one. The other loses hurt. I lose early expansion power with the elephant and my lovely S31? (true random) astrologer.

The skeptic with stealth 0 just doesn't get the juices flowing for me. The only use I usually have for him is if I've lost and want to preach myself out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif. The other new leaders / units are good and if I didn't have to choose between only using one type of them in any significant numbers I might like them and say goodbye to the astrologer more often. I mean except for the chariots and myrmidon, everyone is capitol only. Every turn I have to choose between my philosopher (#1 researcher), my engineer (pocket-protected castle defender), and my icarid champion or wind lord (to take advantage of flying). This is of course neglecting the mystics (versatility anyone?), priestess (healing / priest), or other commanders still available but this problem disappears with a second castle.

Beyond the leaders you also have your icarids and your wind riders - both heavy on the resources. To save money you can combine these two weighing more to the side of icarids. You still can't get a decent number of them this way when you factor in the forced sloth.

With only strat move one you need a lot of engineers to be effective in a defensive role. Only being able to defend one castle... or heaven forbid my capital doesn't really interest me much. The enemy will just move and I can't catch them with the engineers. So I try to get a lot of engineers - well there goes my research advantage from the philosophers and since the engineers are resource heavy they also significantly cut down on my fliers. What are they making those pocket protectors out of anyway? I mean I'm an engineer in real life and I have yet to carry my own catapult to a siege http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif.

So then I think lets try out these fliers. They can't really be used in initial expansion too well as getting enough of them takes too long. They are good for raiding though, if a tad expensive in that role. Once my raiding party has been caught by a trapezing SC though they are very expensive and time consuming to replace. The wind rider is a good bless troop but again scarcity and inability to use them in early expansion limits their role until they are practically made obsolete by magical troops. They are marginally useful in their roles to augment normal troops (which negates their strategic movement bonus) or raiding - though no where near as cheap as Caelum raiding parties (not that I expect them to be either as that would be insane). So I tend to stray away from them when I can't use them till mid-game and then spend 10 turns and potentially 1500 gold just to lose them to an SC or mage team.

That leaves me with my philosophers and yes they are great - no complaints. But do I really want to give up my elephants and astrologers to gain a philosopher and maybe the occasional raiding party, or maybe defend a castle with engineers? When I'm forced to choose only 1 (maybe 1.5 depending on how you look at it) of the benefits of GE Arco I just can't give up my astrologers anymore (and arguably better gem income from default arco).

Has anyone found a way to use more than one type of these new units truly effectively? I've read the other topics on the forum about this but mostly just found complaints about the wind riders price or people talking about using just the engineers.

As I like to be constructive, my proposed solution to this problem would be to allow the icarids (and champions) to be recruitable everywhere. This would have to be tested of course but it seems to me it would allow you to alternate between recruiting engineers and philosophers in the capitol while still being able to use mixed parties of fliers earlier in the game. What do people think of this change? Comments and suggestions are always welcome!

Re: A thought on GE Arco
 

Comments:

Give engineers boots of flying for much more mobility. This make them very excellent for both offense and defense.

Always take magic 3 to get the most out of philosophers.

Don't rely on your troops, use mercs and your pretender for expansion.

Skeptics are almost always a worse buy than a philosopher or engineer. IMO they should either have much more effect, or not be capital only.

Re: A thought on GE Arco
 

Additional Comments:
If you are blitzing on the weekends regularly, you and your friends should just join the rest of us in the irc channel:

Server: irc.gamesurge.net
Channel: dominions

Re: A thought on GE Arco
 

I am having a great time playing Arco GE with the Zen mods and SC's mod. With a Shedu or a Mantacore + a good flock of wind riders, I find I can spread very fast.

Re: A thought on GE Arco
 

er, isn't the server gamesurge?

Re: A thought on GE Arco
 

Indeed it is. Sorry that was an old irc server I used to haunt many moons ago. The correct info is:

Server: irc.gamesurge.net
Channel: dominions

:}

I'll edit my original post too, now....

Re: A thought on GE Arco
 

How do I set up this IRC thing, on a Mac? When are the bliztz, I want to try a new build for the coolest+funnest+awesomesest nation ever: Man

Re: A thought on GE Arco
 

Thanks for the comments and we (my friends and I) may take you up on that offer ironhawk.

@quantum_mechani
The flying boots are certainly a good idea that I hadn't played around with much for the engineers at least.

I almost always take Magic +2/3.

I guess the argument I was trying to make earlier was essentially what you said in your third point - don't use the troops. I agree - to expand you really cant use your troops too well. Since mages dominate the mid and late game, why did I give up my astrologer to get troops I'll never use? IMO the engineer and the philosopher aren't worth it on their own when you factor in the loses. Recruiting mystics / astrologers for research in the default is very fast anyway with magic +3. Yes it is more expensive per RP but I get a useful mage out of the deal that allows me to find those desired randoms as well. Without being able to utilize the flying troops to a greater extent than their being capital only, I just don't see myself ever picking GE Arco and that is really a shame if many feel this way as they have some interesting troops. I guess I'm one of these people who likes national troops though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif.

About mercs - Personally I find them very unreliable in a competitive game and to rely on them as a primary method for expansion besides my pretender concerns me. If others outbid me early on, or no good ones show up, that could be as devastating as an early earthquake.

@PashaDawg

I find the Shedu interesting as well and have had no problem expanding solo with it. It would be better without trampling but that's another rant... Anyway using a Shedu alone in default Arco, I can expand with both my Shedu and my elephant / hypaptist teams very quickly.

My experience with competitive multiplayer games show that a player can usually take 1 province between turns 2-5, and then 2 a turn afterwards ever ramping upwards after that. On indep 6 I can often be taking three provinces a turn in default arco by turn 8-10 as I find I only need 4 elephants per team. Comparatively you tend to need a lot more wind riders - around 10 - and that drastically slows expansion to the point that I'm still only taking 2 provinces a turn by turn 10.

Perhaps I need to just play around with them more as I find them fun too... just not as competitive as default.

Re: A thought on GE Arco
 

Good to hear, Paladin! The games are always quick and fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif You can test out all your strategies and whatnot. Also, for RibbonBlue and anyone else who is not familiar with IRC, I found this quote of quantum's which is a good brief intro:

Looking forward to playing with you and your friends!