[rabelais]

Originally posted by Zen:
Well if you are going to go S&A I'd stay away from Bless Effects as a mentality. S&A is very limited in it's use of it's sacreds and your armies will not be primarily comprised of them, neither can they sustain themselves against SC's by a blessing alone.

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And I'd pick Productivity over Growth, because no matter how much you don't want to use the standard troops of TC, you will be forced to, in order to keep your elite units free of attrition. Early game I'd suspect you are going to be relying heavily on Flaming Arrows regardless, so you need to be able to get as many bowman as you can.

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I don't envy you that game. While I love S&A, it is far from competitive. Better break out the Courtesans and send them to anyone near Pythium, Rlyeh, or Arco soften up diplomacy so you don't have to work uphill, both ways

I agree that initially bowmen will be critical, but as a practical matter, starting with 5 clustered provs, it didn't seem to increase output so enormously as to be worth the trouble.

I was looking at the water blessing since all the mages are sacred, and earth, because it makes for a better SC, I don't otherwise really get the path... and reinvig isn't a bad thing with the high enc of TC's mages. But I agree the +4 defense is not as attractive as usual.

I do have a pure scale option in the poll, but S+A stardard units beg for a radical strategy.

And I understand that S+A is a risky theme, just seems like a nearly optimal place to try it, since some expansion has already been done for you...

Pity Courtesans can't assasinate, you'd think they'd be able to get between the target and bodyguards pretty easily.

Thanks for your continued thoughts,


Rabe the Mandarin-Elect