Joys of EA Abysia

[Baalz]

No way, death scale is free points for EA Aby. You don't suffer the supply penalty, your best capital mage and your best non-capital research mage are not old, and you've got a blood economy to slap boots of youth on the relatively small number of old guys you do recruit, and easy shrouds with a nature bless for those that get diseased before you can leverage that. Plus, death 3 + heat 3 makes it murder for invading armies....

[Xietor]

Death is not as good to me as 2 drain for 2 reasons:

1. 2 drain is free points once i hit constr 6, and I like the extra point of mr,

2. Death does hurt your income, and it also affects your ability to blood hunt. Blood hunting kills people in the provinces, and with a 3 death scale, you are going to take a double hit to income and blood hunting being less optimal. Unless you get lucky and have tons provinces around your capital area with lots of population.

I also like to think that when players invade my lands feeding their armies is the least of their worries.

That does not make me right, and Baalz wrong. just a matter of personal preference. Baalz knows what he is about.

[Baalz]

Well, I tend to disagree with you about drain because your most cost effective researchers are the salamanders @ 130 gold with holy upkeep. They have 4 RP, but really we're talking about 3 (drain 2) or 5 (magic 1). That's almost a doubling of your research and even if you do make a B line to const-6 you'll get there nearly twice as fast! You're certainly not going to be recruiting exclusively the ruinously expensive Anoninteds for your early game (the part where you're trying to scrabble up to const-6), so you're gonna be relying overwhelmingly on the poor little 3 RP guys spinning their wheels..or dumping an obscene amount of gold for a small bump up in research with your expensive mages.

At any rate, magic and growth scales are not really tied together so it's a separate decision. I don't really think you get hit all that hard on the bloodhunting, because lets face it with your only blood mages being capital only and competing with the Anointed for recruit turns you're not going to be doing massive amounts of bloodhunting. You only need a few provinces to hunt in, I find its not hard at all to balance a death scale with a modest blood economy.

But, as you say its all a matter of preference, that's just my opinion. I wouldn't discount the synergy of starving armies and blood magic though, hostile dominion + starving + blood rain = big problems even for high moral troops as soon as the agonies start dropping. Horrors are also greatly more effective and your heat aura keeps them from really doing much if they turn on you.

[Xietor]

I have just started playing ea abysia. cost effective or not, I do use the expensive mages. With 3 order, 3 production 1 growth, and converting fire gems to gold, you can do it. But I also use the warlocks who at 140 gold still give 4 research with drain 2.

But I would be fearful of going straight to constr 6. likely go evoc 2, conj 3, then constr 6.

At constr 4 you can thug out the anointed ones and they are pretty tough with the e9n4 bless.

[Tifone]

Excuse me...
why the stop at conj3?
You don't really need more firepower to cast evoc2 battlespells with your mages imho.
You can of course use it but if you really feel rushed to get to constr 6 I'd rather suggest to take that stop after const-6 or even after evoc-4 (for the firepower needed for fire cloud and then falling fires at evo5)
I'd rather suggest thau-2 before taking const, - you can actually start remote site searching so you don't need to stop your expensive armies for the search, but just a salamander in the cap (iirc), so you can alchemize more and have more gems for when you reach const-4/6

[Xietor]

because if you castle is under siege you can summon fire drakes at conj 2, and in battle, at times, summon lesser fire elemental is necessary.


fire drakes are also good to put on flanks to intercept enemy cavalry trying to kill your casters.