A new, different approach to :LA Pythium

[chrispedersen]

Ironhawks guide is probably the seminal guide to LA pyth. But if you want a different approach.....

What stands out about LaPythium.... Tons of low class mages, with a lot of variety of magic paths, and no depth.

Which a lot of... *kill* dominion.

Hydras... and .. fire resistant troops, that cost a boatload.

Now, you do have two approaches to this - renatas at 5 rp, costing 110 is a pretty fair dinkum, if you have forts to keep up the magical research.

So how about this...

Lets set up perfectly AWEFUL dominion - and use our priests to kill it in our capitol, and wherever else we have it. Yes, you heard me right.. we're going to kill dominion in our capitol.

So since your god starts out with a couple of automatic dominion increases - it follows that we want to get him out of the capitol ...quick.. how quick? Turn 2.

So how do we make our pretender useful? By maximizing his research and site searching.

Soooo Something like...

O3P3H3D2M-2M-3.
F4A4W4E4S4N4B2.. Dom 2!!!! Great sage.
All told your sage is going to hit damn near every site but blood - and gives you access to critical A4 and E4.

You are basically going to go scorched earth and magic drain.

So here's the general idea: You want to attack away from your nearest neighbor.. don't forget you want *his* dominion. First turn build a mage of some kind. Prophetize. Second turn attack away from neighbor. While your pretender searches, have the mage you build turn 1 build a lab. You can wait a turn or two if you like on this. The farther you get from your capitol the better. You're really looking for air and earth gems, so mountains do well.

Build your first few turns your cheapest troops within a couple of turns you're going to be building all fire resistant troops.
Yes.. the map move one sucks.... Wait grasshopper!

So while this is going on.. your pretender has roughly 45 rp.
Which means that he has fireballs researched 5 turns whenever you start him working on it.

In the mean time.. I build heliodromes.. both for their dominion killing properties.. and their enemy killing properties. But you don't have to wait till fire ball.. 4 heliodromes.. and 20 or so primanis or limitanes take all indies except cav.

Believe it or not .. through about 4-5 games of testing the number of friendlies these guys have killed is less than a dozen.
Nice little side effect: Heliodromes are +heat units. Ie, all that heat helps their stats a bit AND makes putting out the flames from their fireballs that much harder.

Con 2 gets you your next research target, followed by con4 and then alteration 1.

Eyes of aiming - for those fireball flingers. Followed by fireboosters... and ... flying carpets.

You didn't *really* thing we were going to stay with troops the whole game did ya?

So ya remember I said that we take 4 in nearly every path? Ya know how terrorizing a hydra is.. now imagine it with minor blessings. Being air dropped by magic carpets. See the big weakness of Hydras is they are SLOOOOOOOOOOW.

Give a Theurg wings so you don't get two hurt by mind hunts...
And of course serpent priests to lead the hydras.

Now half of those heliodromes are F/N, not F2s... Now in vanilla they are just perfect for fever fetishes. But if you're playing CBM.. never fear... give em a fire booster, and head over to Alteration 1.. for eagle eyes.

Ya remember I said you rarely miss with these babies.. between heat provinces, a fireballs natural precision, eyes of aiming and eagle eyes... why.. its like toasting marshmallows at a weenie roast.

Now a few more things about all that drain.. and death. In your territory, forts within a certain range will boost your supplies - so even if your countryside is denuded.. you'll be fine due to all those forts popping out those cheap mages.

By the way.. this is why I don't recommend hydras first.. you need the cash for popping out forts....

So this is enough of a guide to get you to mid game. Try not to kill neighbors that have favorable dominion - at least at first.

A few more things - since you're going to crank out revelers to kill dominion - you might as well have them do something while their remaking dominion to your liking... and that something is .. blood hunting.

You're never going to be a blood nation.. but... you should plan on popping out a couple of orgies from turn 18 or so.

EVERY time your opponent tries to raid you they should be subject to an assassination attempt.

Sooo the typical endgame for most nations is Tarts.. 2-3 of your buffed hydras should be able to take out most tarts... and by the turn 50 or so you should have at least 70 of them.

Miscellaneous points: Drain sucks. Best way to get around it? Lots and lots of trinkets. Boots of speed, pearls, whatever your choice of blaster is.

Beware of someone finding your pocket of dominion and killing you. But ya rarely see anyone doing that in Dom 3 anyway.
And have fun out there...