[-Storm-]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Well, I played kind of sillilly. I went Machaka because they have virtually every path, and put Earth 6 Air 4 Nature 4 on my cyclops. And first I researched Alteration and Enchantment for personal regeneration, air shield, mirror image, and stoneskin (which I later found is not useful). I gave him a Black Iron Shield, Black Iron Plate, Thorn Spear, Boots of Behemoth, Burning Pearl, and Cat Charm.

Then, with my cyclops running around, I researched construction and eventually (by turn 20 or so) gave him a Shield of Valor (for Air Shield), Ring of Regeneration, Pendant of Luck, Battle Shroud (5 prot, no encumbrance, and I wrongly thught it would make him blessed - also, I had no astral-2 mages for robe of shadows), Horror Helm, and he kept the boots and spear.

With this combo, he started with regeneration, protection 30, air shield, luck, and had a length-4 poisonous weapon. So in battle he cast Mirror Image and Mistform and then just ran around trampling things=) The only time he ever got hurt was from a hydra poison cloud or bite (and only survived by casting heal on himself a lot - the poison did about 15 damage per turn), but he could wade through scores of knights, heavy cavs, heavy infantry, longbows, and take out 150+ size javelin-tossing LI/MI armies with no problem. Even when he passed out from fatigue, nothing could hurt him.

Eventually, I got Summon Earthpower (good for reinvigoration) and Blade Wind, and Strength of Gaia (reduces encumbrance, I think, and also increases HP regeneration speed - maybe). So, once I got blade wind he was already 4-star with 200+ kills, but it was still fun to watch him annihilate armies much faster. And if they got too close, he cast shock wave and everything near him just vaporized=) With Eagle Eyes his precision went to 20 so blade wind was awesome at long range, but at close range, it only lands on a single square (there should be a minimum spread for spells).

If I had it to do over, I'd give him a robe of shadows, and give him fire instead of nature or air, to get Fire Shield. Not that he needed any improvements... the main problems were fatigue and elemental/poison resistances, but against AI weaknessess aren't as critical. It was quite funny to watch him pass out from fatigue, and have that never be any sort of problem... except he had to pause in his slaughter until he dropped to 99 or 98 fatigue again=)

This is the only thing what I HATE in Dominions. The UBER supercombattants.