[Arralen]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:

.. suggestion by Arralen:
Frost Father
Fire - 4
Water - 4
Death - 4
_plus_Earth - 4 or Air - 4

Turmoil 1*Sloth 1
Growth 2Luck 1
Magic 1**=preset

Watchtower
1pt left

... makes interesting bless for Celestial "Ogers" _and_ the mages...

Hmm. Interesting, but can't summon celestials. I'd rather not have to rely on the 250 gold CM to summon celestials in the early game.

Acutally, you simply have enough gems to summon exactly 1 "Oger" one turn and 1 "Discthrower" the other turn, so you could get along the first few turns with a CM bought on the first turn.

IMHO it would be a waste of ress. - the pretender should either be doing research (19pts vs. CM 10pts) or go searching sites (Fire, Water to boost the somming). By the time you get the gems for more summons, you should have either a second CM or a "lower" mage with astral ability.

Added death because the low-level MDs could use them not only for summoning undead, but for skeleton med.(for themselves, so they are of some use in combat after doing the initial blessing) and Horror Helmets for the chariots.
Plus the lesser fear might be nice on the River Demons.

Also, I don't think the reinvig blessing is all that good. 2 fatigue per turn is just not that much if you are frequently casting spells that cost 20+. It might give you one extra cast in a long battle (of course you have to bless first, I usually wouldn't bother unless celestial demons are present). It seems to me that air blessings would be more useful for both the celestials and the mages.

My fault. Accidently postet my first idea (w. earth), not what I actually settled with.
But I'm not shure what would work better, especially if you get your mages some more reinv. from items.

Than I found them to be real arrow magnets, so maybe air shield is the better option...

Would you really take sloth? I have enough resource problems without it... those leather armors seem to cost a lot of resources for the protection they provide.

That's the point:
Do not use the standard footmen, use the heavy ones and archers in even numbers (hold and attack/ fire xy; placed just left to the center so the archers can get in 3 rounds against normal inf).
While ress.cost is roughly doubled so you get only 66% of the numbers, losses to the front line will be drastically reduced.

Build watchtowers in ressource-rich provinces (hills, forest) and you'll end up with 60..90 ress. Those ressources should be enough to build 1 chariot or a mage plus some troops each turn.
Interestingly enough, in 4 of the 5 testgames I have started with this or a similar layout my home province was forest, the 5th was hills..

By the way - 4 Demons of Fire with "fire at closest" are _really_ devasting - and surprisingly accurat, so friendly fire is negligible ...

yours,
A.

[ November 24, 2003, 07:44: Message edited by: Arralen ]