Golden Era Discussion

[gibson]

Lets talk about the new Arco theme. I like the thematics of it, especially the Skeptiks and the Philosophers. The Icarids are especially cool too. The Myrmidons look to be quite solid HI (and look cool to boot). Wind riders are powerful as well (if insanely expensive).

Main limitations I can see is all the good units of GA cost a lot of resources; with the mandatory 1 sloth, this makes it very difficult to levy any significant number of quality troops. The peltasts and Cardaces get destroyed in combat rather readily (I haven't played much with Arco standard so I don't know how Arco usually gets around this, with Elephants I'd suppose). The new chariots seem good but are also extremely expensive.

The 50g Philosophers with 5 base research are awesome with a 3 magic scale. Combined with the versitile and powerful mystics, GA with magic 3 can probably research faster than just about anyone. However, the unpredictability of the Sage's magic picks makes it difficult to focus on a particular research goal unless you have a pretender-based strategy. Additionally, the seemingly weak initial military choices seems to suggest to me a SC pretender approach might work well, to grab the inital provinces needed to get things going. Mercenaries might be useful too.

Feel free to contribute any thoughts on how to make the most of this cool new theme; I'll be trying them out over the next couple days.

[Coffeedragon]

Originally posted by gibson:
The 50g Philosophers with 5 base research are awesome with a 3 magic scale. Combined with the versitile and powerful mystics, GA with magic 3 can probably research faster than just about anyone. However, the unpredictability of the Sage's magic picks makes it difficult to focus on a particular research goal unless you have a pretender-based strategy. Additionally, the seemingly weak initial military choices seems to suggest to me a SC pretender approach might work well, to grab the inital provinces needed to get things going.

I´d use the Great Sage (research +10) with them. Between the Great Sage and the Philosophers, your research will be insane!

[Endoperez]

What about a Cyclops and a rush to the Riches from Beneath? Cyclops could also be used as an early-game SC.

[gibson]

Originally posted by Endoperez:
What about a Cyclops and a rush to the Riches from Beneath? Cyclops could also be used as an early-game SC.

I was considering something along these lines. Riches is a level 6 spell, which is fairly advanced but not too bad (especially with the research potential of GE). I guess the real question would be if you could find enough gems to cast it and not have it dispelled. I'll have to play with that some later.

I tried a game with a Wyrm with W4 and Order 2, Sloth 1, Growth 1, Misfortune 1 and Magic 3. Started early expansion with Wyrm mainly, and by turn three was also working with a small army of peltasts and cardaces. Even with just Order 3, the light infantry of GE is so cheap that I couldn't spend my money fast enough (generally a bad sign). So I went mercenary heavy to aid expansion and by turn 15 I have 12 provinces (had 14 but Ryleh has just taken two), 60 RP and 564 income. This is with indy str 6 btw.

While it is an alright start, it is weak in gems (1F, 2A, 4W, 2E, 1S, 1D, 0N, 0BL income) and most of those provinces are poorly defended (and thus I have an angry Ryleh maruading through my backyard). I think a strategy that focuses on getting capitol adjacent provinces and then building a decent army/researching might be safer, since the military might of GE is somewhat questionable (though hordes of cheap peltasts/cardaces work better than I'd have thought).

I just tested using Skeptics (Yes I prefer the classic spelling).

While the army may or may not have it's benefits or pains, but the Skeptics definintely fill a much needed role. About 4 Skeptics will tear down a 6 Dominion in a temple/prophet province in 2 turns and drop it to 0. A few more Skeptics in outlying provinces and a decent army and suddenly it's not a war of magic, or armies, but of keeping you dominion. Unfortunately with the easy access to patrolling and it's sheer effectiveness against Stealthy +0 units, they won't see the light of day in MP unless there is a +Stealth item you could equip them with.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Zen:
Unfortunately with the easy access to patrolling and it's sheer effectiveness against Stealthy +0 units, they won't see the light of day in MP unless there is a +Stealth item you could equip them with.

Good luck catching them with patrols when they can move around every turn.