Late game EA Abyisa. Where is the on button?

[Saxon]

EA Abysia is all about fire. Fair enough, I have set up the damage spells and enemies armies tend to turn into giant bonfires. I summoned the two Fire Kings and they do their thing, thought fire based construction items are not that exciting. Second Sun is too subtle for me to figure out the big advantage for 80 gems. Late game, I don’t see the “kick butt” strategy. What am I missing?

Every other nation I have played has a range of different strategies and in late game can do many interesting things. All Abysia seems to do is get more and more fire damage spells. There has been no sudden “look what I just got, my nation rocks” moment that you get when you GOR an Otherness or finally cast Astral Corruption. Just more and more fire mages tossing more and more forms of fire over the heads

Also, the national summons spells, Spectral Infantry and Scorpion Man, both rely on empowerment and gems that you have to get independents or mercenaries to create. Maybe I am missing something (I usually am) but these units can not make up the heart of a strategy for this nation.

So, yes, a strong but slow nation, but it seems unusually shallow. You have to diversify your magic. Am I missing something? Have I not explored blood and astral enough?

[Jazzepi]

I got absolutely destroyed by a guy playing Abysia who used astral magic to setup a giant communion army. They had one leader who would communion master and then cast firestorm. Or whatever the name of the AoE battlefield wide nuke was.

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

Doesn't have to be communion either - you have the blood there for sabbaths too.

[Micah]

Flame storm is F5, any Anointed can cast it with a simple Phoenix Power casting, I don't see all the fuss with communions.

They can also summon Scorpion Men with base paths, contrary to what the OP seems to imply.

The demon lords have all of the paths except water and astral between them, but they're expensive and pretty late game. It is a last-resort option for diversification though. Astral magic is really good also, but the EA Warlocks are fairly weak in both.

Nature is always an option via indies, at worst, and then you can start site searching for enchantresses, which open up much better nature and all the elements and seem to be fairly common.

Playing the mid-era version of Aby in MP I found that establishing a good trade partner early on will greatly aid your attempts at diversifying. Hellbind heart mage-trades are especially good for you if you can get a trade arranged. Negotiating for an air mage is especially fun because you can trade with anyone on the map with cloud trapeze, so you can afford to shop around a bit in a large game. Try some of those ideas, see if it helps.

[Jazzepi]

Micah said:
Flame storm is F5, any Anointed can cast it with a simple Phoenix Power casting, I don't see all the fuss with communions.

They can also summon Scorpion Men with base paths, contrary to what the OP seems to imply.

The demon lords have all of the paths except water and astral between them, but they're expensive and pretty late game. It is a last-resort option for diversification though. Astral magic is really good also, but the EA Warlocks are fairly weak in both.

Nature is always an option via indies, at worst, and then you can start site searching for enchantresses, which open up much better nature and all the elements and seem to be fairly common.

Playing the mid-era version of Aby in MP I found that establishing a good trade partner early on will greatly aid your attempts at diversifying. Hellbind heart mage-trades are especially good for you if you can get a trade arranged. Negotiating for an air mage is especially fun because you can trade with anyone on the map with cloud trapeze, so you can afford to shop around a bit in a large game. Try some of those ideas, see if it helps.

Fire storm, the spell I was talking about, is a battlefield wide AoE enchantment spell. It's absolutely nuts. Unfortunately you can not simply empower yourself to F5 to cast it. It costs 500 fatigue, so you need some form of communicants to distribute the fatigue.

I don't know, maybe the game lets you expend commanders to single cast it and let them die to the fatigue?

Jazzepi

[Jazzepi]

In retrospect, it doesn't matter. The spell ends if the mage dies, so it would be useless to do a suicidal casting of it if it is even possible.

Jazzepi

[AreWeInsaneYet]

Jazzepi said:
Unfortunately you can not simply empower yourself to F5 to cast it. It costs 500 fatigue, so you need some form of communicants to distribute the fatigue.

Jazzepi

hey bro, take the extra-gems-for-the-fatigue-purpose factor into consider. read p89 of your manual.

[Saxon]

Heat From Hell also turns out to be nicer than expected in large battles. It is not fast, nor is it a killer, but it adds up over time. Tied in with the heat effect of your units and a possible Inner Furnace, enemy troops start to evaporate pretty quickly as fatigue spikes up. It also seems to slows the enemy spell casting down, making them rest one turn earlier than normal. It is a bit subtle, but something worth looking at if you are playing with this nation.

Fire Storm is as powerful as advertised. However, it does take some time, so make sure you have troops to slow down the enemy and build up the damage.

[Saxon]

I like that idea of the middle path pretender, designed to lift those paths (ESB) that are weakly available in the national mages. I had been playing with a water blessing to speed up and boost defense on the sacreds, but it was not helping my magic situation much. I will use this set up to ensure I have a better game next time.

In the short term, I will experiment with Fire Storm. Thank you for pointing it out, I had overlooked it. I expect C’tis is about to evaporate! With Phoenix Power it is easy to reach and Flaming Skulls are useful, so I have a few around.

Point taken Micah, the 440 gold mage does have E and can cast Scorpion Men. However, he can not forge items to boost his E skill, so he can not cast Gnome Lore. Getting enough gems to summon any significant number of Scorpion Men is tough and I don’t generally like having such expensive units doing site searching with their time. Good thing most of the mages are sacred for upkeep. You have to take E on the pretender if you plan to summon any real number of these guys, I don’t think you can argue that Abysia is ready to use them much otherwise.

The same with the D magic needed for Spectral Infantry. Now, Death summons are good, but any nation can build a pretender to take advantage of it. It seems odd that the low level national summons needs D, but for this nation it is not much of an option.

Anyway, thank you for pointing out the “on switch!”

[SlipperyJim]

Um, yeah. Scorpion Men rock hard. They're late-game only, and quite a bit expensive, but they're very nice.

Burning Ones are great units, but cap-only and very resource-heavy. And the strategic move of 1 will limit your options until you can get the Gateway thing going. Therefore, I wouldn't really play EA Abysia as a bless nation. Not that you said you were going to do so, but anyway....

Here's a fun thing to do with Fire magic: Race up the Evocation tree to Fires from Afar. Start toasting enemy armies before they can engage with you. Continue researching to Flames from the Sky. Now your toaster is extra-toasty.

Fire construction items aren't great, true, but they aren't useless. A Warlord with two Fire Bolas (one in each hand!) can be fun. Demonbred assassins with Rods of the Phoenix are a hoot. And ... um ... I'll think of something else really soon.

And did I mention Scorpion Men?