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Frostmourne27 said:
I'm curious as to why both of your example pretenders are awake. Some pretender designs that I have considered/tryed (since I'm stuck with the bloody effing demo - where is the mailman!?!?!) are imprisonned bless god - you can go prety crazy, especially if you settle for sub-optimal scales. Turmoil 2, Sloth 3, Heat 3, Luck 2, Dom Strength 7, Phoenix with Fire 9, Air 7 (Air shield is great, since Yavanas have to armour to speak of) Nature 6 (Regneration is fun!) Admitedly, I wouldn't play that in a multiplayer game, but it's tons of fun for single player. Higher difficulty computers can do quite well against it, since the scales aren't too great (for better multiplayer/more tradiotal style you could swap turmoil and luck for order and misfortune) I feel that a powerfull bless is incredibly important for Kalisa. I usually use nature, air, fire or water. Also note that dragons are considered to be abjectly useless. They are same as stock Dom2, and really alost certainly not owrth it, except for early expansion. Since you will want a high dominion strength to build lots of sacreds, they are especially bad, since dominion, like magic, increases in cost exponentially. I HATE dragons, they are so cliché. even if they were good, I wouldn't take one, so I may not be spot on about their worth, but I think I'm fairly close.
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I went with an awake dragon for precisely the reason you stated: Early expansion. The demo is only 40 turns max and it can effectively double your expansion speed and it's easy to put to F9 so it's a big research boost (18 points) in the beginning if you want that instead. On Indy 7 I find that you could take a small risk and attack on turn one if you want as there's not many indys that can take a dragon, they're pretty tough with no gem investment. Initial dominion is a bit of a problem, however with the scales I have set building temples is pretty easy with spare cash after a few turns.
I actually just got my full copy today, so I might rethink the pretender for a longer game, but the dragon isn't too bad. You don't have to trash your scales or leave it dormant or imprisoned to get a decent awake pretender with a good bless that can research or attack with low risk as needed immediately. Later in the game you can shape change it into a mage with all slots and a heck of a lot of hit points if you want. I don't think they're as bad as people make them out to be. Especially with a 40 turn cap.
Your suggestions aren't bad either, they're certainly an option. I wanted to keep it as basic as possible though as it's written for new players mostly who are having trouble understanding the game and a bless strategy that gives them a hard time fielding troops because of bad scales would, I feel, give them a tougher time.