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tinkthank said:
NEW ERA
- Who is going to research? Yikes. I seem hard pressed with NE to afford a magic scale, but even with magic1 I feel like I am crushed without a sage. I cant make any research-boosters either.
- No random. Ouch! I have never played a nation with no randoms before. None whatsoever, it's like Ulm. (Which I dont play...) I think e2n2?1 would make more sense (less tree-hugging, more steel), but c'est la vie -- this just seems to force me to take a rainbow. But I really dont want to, that just seems so unthematic.
- No centaur bowmen. Why not? I think they would fit very well thematically, but who cares what I think. I dislike recruit indies, because I that just bugs me from a RPG standpoint, but so what. What do you do? Since I dont see myself with big damage-dealing battlefield spells as NE (which ones?), unlike Abysia, I feel I need some archer power. What do you do? Alternatively, a Staff of Storms would be nice -- but then I need a bunch of air for that and a forger of at least a3.
- Magic. See above. I cant figure it out. No randoms, e2n3. What are some good goals, on and off the b-field?
Basically, I want to really like New Era (I like tree hugging and minotaurs), but I just cant find the groove. Can you help me?
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I have been playing a lot of new era lately, and here is what I've come up with.
Troops:
My NE games revolve around dryad hopilites, even without bless, 5 of these with a dryad leading them can often take indies with no losses. A quick expansion greatly increases your chances of finding independants that will open up your magic. In other castles, I go for saytr hopilites most of the time, unless I somehow didn't find any indie mages, so use the gold on grove gaurds. When you say they should have centaur bowman, I assume you mean the priest commanders, as the troops are sadly so overpriced that I would not even consider them.
Magic:
Even if you don't find sages, dryds make fine researchers,
on par with most other nations. If it is a very small map (like urgaia)you can often mostly ignore magic, just getting to call of the wild to spend your gems. If you do want to go magic, I would advise taking 5 nature on your pretender and rushing for alteration 5. This can lead to casting Mother Oak on turn 15; with site searching you should end up with plenty of gems for your mages to work with. As someones else mentioned, you can go a lot of places with nature, lamia queens get you access to sorcery, fairy queens get you air (a long way off though, may want to put some on your pretender instead). Your mages have earth, so the only thing missing is fire and water (the weakest paths) which you can still get if you want through pretender or indies.
Quote:
tinkthank said:
DEFAULT
- With a bit of Turmoil, I feel that I can afford a magic scale easier, but not too much easier. Still, who does the researching?
- How much Turmoil, if any, do you take?
- What do you do with Pandemoniacs? I want to use them, but a unsacred 350-gold Bloodhunter is a bit steep, and I need blood to be able to do anything with him, it seems. Or am I missing something?
- Default pan is even sneakier than NE -- it would be great to see some nice stealthy-tips, especially from people like Gandalf, who is obviously a Pan-sneaky-Pro. What do you say to sharing the wisdom?!?
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I'm afraid that unless you are using Zen's scale mod, turmoil is still not worth it for maenads. If you have your Panii out in about on the edge o your dominion (or really luck out and find a site causing turmoil), you will still get some. The dryads are an even better buy than NE, still average researchers and stealth leaders, now also good stealth priests. I should also note the 15-turns-to mother-oak-strategy works well for base too. Pandomoniacs are not something you make a lot of most of the time, but 2 or 3 of them are good for your blood forging needs. The best stealth troops are centaur warriors and revelers, the best stealth leader is hard to say, Panii, Dryads, and Hierophants are all good choices depending on your strategy and enemy.