[Boron]

Thufir said:

Boron,

I'm doing some tests with a fire 9 moloch, using fire darts in an Indy 9 setup, and it isn't looking good. Have you tested this against indies in turn 1? Or does this not work against strong indies? Also with Abysia, I'd think flare would be a better choice than fire darts, correct? Are you assuming any other equipment/spells?

- Thufir

PS Hope you don't mind assisting me knowing that I'll use this in our Casual Carnage game. After all, it will only contribute to making it a better game for you

no i don't mind

you may not attack anything with knights / heavy cav .
but in another game i play as mictlan with f9 moloch .
i think indies are on 7 there .
he + mictlans starting troops +10 more because mictlan has so low morale conquer indeps well .

normally the imps fly into the enemy , delay him and before the enemy arrives to me my moloch has time enough to cast 4-5 turns 1 fire darts / turn .
he casts about 8-10 of them .
most indies are scared away already and the few that don't rout sometimes are routed by my small army then .

the army is only that the moloch doesn't rout after the imps have gone .
otherwise he would be a perfect sc .

fire darts is much better than flare against indies because flare has only area of effect 1 .
and it has not high precision so it misses often indeps .

from my 8-10 fire darts at least half almost always hit so they do much more damage .




i don't know what the coward moloch mod does but i think it removes the imps .

if this is true forget what i have said and use a standard bufflist .

i would probably use the following :
quickness , fireshield , mistform , you can add mirror image since it is air too .
if you take nature magic you can add personal regeneration.
with D3 later ( alteration 6 ) you can add soul vortex which is great .
for the above mentioned you only need enchantment 1 + alteration 3 .
paths :
fire 1 , air 2 , water 1


but moloch is risky as sc :
he has base protection of 15
you get this with stoneskin : E( alteration 2 ) too .
with ironskin : E(alteration 3 ) you get prot 20 .
with invulnerability : EEE (alteration 5 ) you get prot 30.

my indy conquering vq survives against most indies with prot 15 already .
with prot 20 she wins normally against knights too.
with prot 30 no indy can damage her .


with your moloch now the decision is : are 15 prot enough ?
getting prot 20 is not that much more and you need alteration 3 for that plus earth 1.
for prot 30 you need earth 3 with invulnerability + you don't reserach that in the first 10 turns probably.

the problem with abysia + moloch is that abysia has almost no chance to ever get healing items .
so when you are unlucky and get afflictions your moloch gets more and more useless.


Conclusion :
if the moloch mod from graeme really removes the imps i would not use a moloch with abysia .
i would use him with arco since after conquering indies i can put him into a province with a lab , assign priestesses healing him and he can meanwhile forge / summon / research .

but with abysia + moloch sc you have always to care about afflictions and if you take earth 3 or not for the additional protection .