LA Pythium questions

[Coldshard]

New to the game and information is well hidden for this game ;/

Are LA Pythium unable to summon their national angels? If so, why not? Is it a bug?

In the dom3 database file hydras are listed as having 2 misc item slots but I dont see them in the game. Is the db wrong or is this a bug?

Any general suggestions on playing LA pythium? Any other hidden surprises for things that dont work?

[Professor_Dyar]

I can't answer your last question, however:

1. the angels of MA Pythium represent the Eastern Orthodox-inspired religion of the Byzantine-derived nation. LA Pythium has been taken over by the Serpent Cult, and it is to be presumed that the deity and corresponding divine servants that protected MA Pythium have left as well. So no, LA Pythium cannot summon angels. They can summon the Daughter of Typhon instead.

2. Are you referring to hydra commanders (e.g. the Daughter of Typhon named Hydra), or are you referring to recruitable hydras? Non-commander units have item slots, but you cannot see them and cannot use them unless you make them into commanders somehow (e.g. Gift of Reason).

[Ironhawk]

LA Pythium does not have access to the angels. No clue if this is WAD or a bug tho.

The Hydras you recruit are troops, not commanders. Only commanders have equipment slots. If you want a hydra commander you must cast Gift of Reason on one or wait until the Hydra hero for LA pyth shows up.

General suggestions: use blessed hydras to expand early, then switch over to regular troops once you encounter other players. Build Serpent Priests early and Theurgs late at your cap. The sacred death mage is your best researcher. Site search like its going out of style.

[sector24]

I don't think LA Pythium gets angels unfortunately.

Only Hydra commanders would have 2 slots. LA Pythium gets a national hero Hydra, or you could Gift of Reason a Hydra, but you can't recruit them as commanders.

Some notes:
Awake SC pretender is preferable, all your infantry are resource intensive, your hydras are 250g each, and they don't mix well at all. E4D5 Prince of Death is a good choice.

Order 3, Sloth 2, Misfortune 2, Magic 1 would probably be ideal, I don't recall if you can afford that with the PoD above. You can always take Heat 1 if you need points, but Sloth 3 is very hard on you (you can only recruit 1 infantry unit on turn 1).

Heretics are annoying. They're great offensive mages for reducing enemy dominion, but LA Pythium has awful paths for combat magic. You want 1 F2 Heliodromus, then you'll probably never recruit them ever again. Epoptes are poor healers, but better than nothing. It would be really nice to get a N1B1 Reveler, but it's a crapshoot. In one game I recruited 50 Revelers without blood magic before I quit out of disgust, in another game my 2nd Reveler had blood. Most of your mages will be Serpent Acolytes, Renati(?), and Serpent Priests, and Thuergs for late game communions.

The national spell Orgy is very nice. You get a 15HP satyr with 40 leadership and seduction for 1 blood slave. They cannot seduce male commanders, but it turns into an assassination attempt. Equip them with the skeleton earring and send them out en masse. Your investment is 3 death gems and a blood slave, so you are almost guaranteed to win from an economic perspective. You force the opponent to use bodyguards, or possibly even Mind Hunt you.

For indys, place your commander in the bottom left corner, with 8-10 infantry in the bottom right corner set to guard commander. Place 4 or 5 Hydras in the middle right with orders to attack rear. Your infantry will suck up the arrows and stay out of the poison and you should come out of it with no losses. However, if you're fighting really large armies (80+) the enemy may bleed around your hydras and kill your commander, so be careful.

Serpent Priests with W1N3 can cast Foul Vapors (Enchantment 5) and have innate poison immunity. For whittling down large armies, I like to set a handful of Hydras all the way to the right set on Guard Commander with the Serpent Priest all the way left set to cast Foul Vapors. The Hydras will retreat very slowly, but the way turns are resolved, the poison will hang in the air on a 1 turn delay, poisoning all the infantry chasing you to the backfield.

In particular, I like to leave my satyrs in the path of attacking armies and pick off all their commanders, then attack with the poison strategy above. It's annoying to have your hydras strewn all over the map, but recruiting large amounts of regular commanders to corral them works for me.

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There's a more extensive post where vfb wrote a very detailed walkthrough for LA Pythium if you want to search for it. Personally, I find it one of the least enjoyable nations in the game. Hydras and infantry have no synergy, (including Hydras killing your own PD) and 90% of the commanders are made obselete if you find a magic site that lets you recruit enchantresses.

[Aezeal]

sector.. similar tips for MA are appreciated too

[sector24]

LA and MA is like night and day. I haven't played them in about 6 months, but try something like this:

Awake PoD 4E5D
Order 3, Sloth 3, Growth 1, Misfortune 2, Magic 3

Personally I like the value of the Velites. I hate that the capital only Emerald Guard have map move 1, and yes the other infantry are better but even with sloth 3 you can crank out 20 Velites a turn; instant meatshield. I'll recruit Alae Legionnaires if there's no pressing need for troops, but I usually stay away from the Hastati, Principes, and Triarii because I don't like to waste the extra gold on them.

Arch Theurgs are exceptional mages. You can easily get S4 mages to forge rings of sorcery/wizardry (with Starshine Skullcap), mind hunt, etc. The rare but not impossible to get S4F1 Arch Theurg can wear a Starshine Skullcap, Ring of Sorcery, and Ring of Wizardry to cast Heavenly Choir. No need to create an angel factory pretender, which is nice. You can also get an A4 Arch Theurg rarely, but with the ease of Rings of Wizardry, you don't have to wait for one to show up.

MA Pythium has great communions because your communion masters can cast mistform and mirror image on all the slaves with a single spell. It's not too difficult to get Solar Brilliance and Master Enslave, which are always key spells.

So basically your have 10g 10r units that crush indys, great magic paths and a good shot at air queens, powerful communions, and the PoD (arguably the most powerful SC in the game) has 2 paths that your nation doesn't normally get. The only thing you're missing is nature and blood, but MA Pythium has more than enough strengths to make up for that. Oh, and I forgot to mention you get an insane 5 astral pearls per turn from the capital.

[Ironhawk]

I dont agree about the Heliodromus, sector. Unless you get access to another fire mage from a site, this guy is your best bet at wielding any kind of battlefield magic. They can fairly reliably get 2F and thats all you really need. Keep the rest in the backfield as researchers or kill them off casting close range fire spells if you like.

[sector24]

I prefer the Nether Bolting Renatus to the Heliodromus, but I do admit that sometimes I don't have enough of them. There's also a slim time period in which you don't have Nether Bolt, but that depends on if you get into an early war and have to lower your research to go slay pagan unbelievers.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah I concur, the Renatus is a more suitable long term choice. But assuming diff or very diff research there will be a good stretch where fire evocation will be more accessible than Nether Darts.

[Lingchih]

I thought this post was about LA Pythium. We all know how nice MA Pythium is... the question here is how to get the most out of the ludicrous LA Pythium, which turns all Pythium strategies onto their heads.

I have been playing them in MP for a few weeks now, and have learned quite a bit about them, although they are still a bit of an enigma. They are powerful though, for all their strangeness.

I usually recruit a Serpent Priest every turn. They are your backbone mages. They can lead armies, and they can lead Hydras (100 poison immune). The comitatenses are your front line troops. You need to be able to recruit a lot of them. They are not that expensive, but are resource intensive, so plan your scales accordingly. They are the toughest, fastest heavy infantry in the late game. I will build one early expansion force with just them and my Prophet.

The second early expansion force is a Serpent Priest leading some sacred Hydras... about 5-7 is usually good (that's a lot of money, I know. Raise those taxes and patrol early to get the money). This force can take almost any indies... just take care not to let the Priest get hit by a stray arrow. I do not mix my Hydras and regular troops... way too easy to accidentally poison the regular troops. The Hydras with a blessing do just fine by themselves.

My third early expansion force is my awake pretender. As mentioned above, the Prince of Death works very nicely for this. You may want to get construction 2 and equip him a bit before sending him out... they are a bit frail unequipped. I generally go with just D4-5 on him... E4 also in nice, but your sacred Hydras don't need it, and I like to use the extra points in my scales. And be sure to take Dom 9, so that he has Awe. Very important that he has Awe, to go along with his Fear. He can also lead Hydras in a pinch (since he is poison immune). A PoD with a Hydra backing army is a terrible thing to face.

All the heretic mages allow you to branch into almost any path. Just make sure you spread them out. They do not Dominion kill very quickly, but get too many in one place and you have trouble. You are still mainly a nature/death race (strange combo), but you have good access to Astral, Water & Fire, with some Earth and Air, and even a chance at blood thrown in. None of your heretic mages will be death dealers, but you can quickly build a group that is the equivalent of a rainbow mage for site searching.

As for late game... well, you are kind of out-classed here by many other nations. But if you empower/boost your mages intelligently, you can get access to most of the late game stuff. You still have Theurgs, though they a bit weak, but can be boosted to eventually make rings of Wizardy/Sorcery. And you have great nature mages in the Serpent Priests, who can easily be boosted to cast the mid-late game globals.

I know this is kind a scatter-shoot post. I apologize that is is not more organized. Just my play style on LA Pythium.