[SPOILER]What's in italics is actually
After Action. What's not is notes written on the spot. Therefore, italics may disagree with plain text as I've made a lot of mistakes, some of which were immediately clear, some which showed only later.[/SPOILER]
Thorion is my pretender. He is a Lich, ruler of Pangaea.
My idea is to have a strong dominion with bad scales, which is obviously a bad idea.
So... Why?
Well, Pangaea has Pan wizards, who bring forth tons of Maenads around them provided there's enough turmoil. So I want Turmoil 3 to get
lots of maenads, and a big enough dominion to actually have turmoil 3 everywhere my Pans will go.
Having Turmoil 3, Luck 3 is a no-brainer. Anything else would be suicide in my opinion.
Now, I want a high dominion in order for it to spread, but what good is a high dominion score?
Well, it accomplishes two things:
1/ Immortal units don't die in friendly dominion.
I do mean friendly
2/ Some global enchantments work better (or only) inside your dominion.
So, I so much want Gift of Health to turn skinny maenads into fat-hit-point maenads. And I've found out that immortal pretenders can be fun. Therefore, let's have a look at Thorion.
He's a Lich. Liches are death wizards with immortality inside. They don't have much else to go for them, but an actual test shows that a lich is actually a fairly good SC. He can single-handedly take out indie provinces, with no equipment, and even archer provinces provided he gets a raw-hide shield. With some more death, he's got both Fear and Awe. With some expensive magic diversity, he can even be useful later on, and let me out of E/N/B.
In order to get an awake, Dom 9 pretender, I pick utterly poor scales: sloth 3 and Heat 3. I take Growth because I will have to patrol, and Magic 1 because I so need it. I mean, seriously, look at Pangaean mages. Pans cost more gold than you can have, and dryads are so bad at research that it's pitiful.
the heat scale was an either/or. Heat was bad if I fell against Abysia, cold against Caelum. I actually fear Caelum far more. Their thunderstrike teleporters leading tons of Frankenstein monster armies are scary. Turns out my two neighbours woul be Abysia and Caelum and I picked the wrong scale seeing which of these was most aggressive.
It's important to point out that I have never played Pangaea in MP, and very rarely in SP either. I also never played a Lich, and picked him just because it looked actually cool and was surprisingly efficient at early expansion in my tests. I fancied using it for Carrion Woods, but I think it's not a good idea trying to go that route with EA Pangaea.
I'll also point out that I picked Pangaea precisely for the reason I rarelly play them. They require patience, which is something I clearly lack, as will be shown in later turns.
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My starting position is in the south east. I should have easy access to Tir na n'Og, which has a nice chokepoint to reach it, so this is huge. Unless there's someone close to the bog in the south, I can't think of a better starting position.
First thing, however, is that renaming id Off
So long for good names, I won't be able to rename my prophet, so she'll be Graia the harpy. The good news is we won't see the infamous wizards named S2NA2 and such.
Actually it seems to be on, but I must have mistyped R when trying to give a cool name to my prophet. Don't expect much of me if I can't even rename a commander!
Peiroos the minotaur immediately starts patrolling while I raise taxes to 200% on first turn. I buy a batch of harpies for patrol duty, along with a minotaur to lead them. I would have gone for a dryad, but since they'll be patrolling all game long, the 40 gold upkeep is cheaper than the 120 holy upkeep, and I'll need the money to buy Pans next turn. And then dryads, depending on income.
Research starts on construction. Depending on where my dominion spreads, Thorion and the satyrs will attack next turn. Hopefully Citala/Rath Chimbalth and Renthale (north) will not be too heavily protected. Citala would be great for a fort but Tir na n'Og's farmland would be good too, although I prefer forests.
Let's check the other pretenders:
Arcoscephale has 6 titles which look like a high astral goddess.
Marverni has 5 titles, looks like astral/air/death.
Abysia : 2 titles? What dominion score does that mean? I know he can blood sac, but still.
It's certainly a good move of him to have attacked me by the way because in a dominion war, I could dom-kill him if I had enough temples, or at least force him to blood sac too with more expensive temples and priests than mine. Lots of wishful thinking here.
Caelum also has only 2 titles, and no blood sac. Dominion dead. Looks like nature, maybe earth. A great mother?
Fomoria has 3 titles, nature and earth. Well, surprising giant bless isn't it?
Helheim has 3 titles, probably astral and death, maybe earth?
R'lyeh has 4 titles, looking like astral.
I forgot there was a stinking fish in this game. I HATE water nations. So long for the good chokepoints of Tir na'n Og. Hopefully his home province is the norhtwestern sea on the other side of the map.
Yes, I didn't think of checking the starting provinces before the game by running a test game or jsut looking at the map file.