How do you beat the teleporting sphynx?

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
No, silly - once you research Enchantment 10 and get "Animate Stone", the sphinx starts walking around and kicking rear, while the oracle still sits around drooling on itself. And the sacred statue can be killed by militia. The Sphinx's walking animation ranks up with best in the game!

There's no Enchantment 10, nor is there an Animate Stone anywhere I can find.

The oracle may be sit around uselessly drooling on itself, but at least it's CHEAP, costing NO POINTS. The Sacred Statue may be killable with mere militia, but let's be serious here: Assuming that the statues were unable to teleport at all, so what if they're killable by militia? If people are regularly assaulting your capitol, I think you're SOL in ways that go beyond the fact that your God is an immobile chunk of useless masonry. Maybe if you hadn't spent 100 points on being a very TOUGH chunk of immobile masonry, you wouldn't be in that mess to begin with. Either way, if your immobile chunk of useless masonry manages to get caught in a fight with no useful magic and no defenders, it's not a fight, it's a demolitions project.

100 points for a level 3 magic, 4-dominion god isn't cheap. The fact that you're tough and hardy tends to go out the window when you have no means to leverage it. Teleportation changes this and makes having the Sphinx an actually viable option. Otherwise, you're no different from all the other useless chunks of rock.

[PvK]

Good points. One counterpoint is that it's also extremely nice to be sturdy when assassins and ritual magical attacks show up to threaten your pretender, even when enemy armies are far away.

PvK

Huh, the stomping Sphinx was an abusive SC back in the day. Also I always go for Animate Stone when I pick one. Make sure you have enough Astral to cast it. It's one of those 'if you can get the research quick enough you win' situations. Why'd you have to let the cat out of the bag Cherry?

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I wouldn't say the immobile pretenders are cheap. The sphinx is 100 points! That's comparable to some of the more high-end pretenders, and his magic power isn't THAT great: only astral-3. Without the ability to teleport, that astral 3 could prove to be a complete liability. 100 points is a pretty steep price for what would otherwise be a completely useless chunk of masonry.

When you're planning on going to Dominion 10, that Last point of Dominion increase, all by itself, costs 63 design points - which means a Pretender with starting Dominion 4 gets a 63-point discount compared to a Dominion 3; and a 119-point discount when compared to a starting Dominion 2.

Something similar goes with magic skills, only each level increase is 8 pts more for each level instead of 7.

It's all a matter of where you want to take your skills and dominions. The higher you want to go, the most the initial value is worth in points.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by PhilD:
When you're planning on going to Dominion 10, that Last point of Dominion increase, all by itself, costs 63 design points - which means a Pretender with starting Dominion 4 gets a 63-point discount compared to a Dominion 3; and a 119-point discount when compared to a starting Dominion 2.

Something similar goes with magic skills, only each level increase is 8 pts more for each level instead of 7.

It's all a matter of where you want to take your skills and dominions. The higher you want to go, the most the initial value is worth in points.

There are plenty of mobile pretenders of comparable cost that possess similar Dominion and magic power levels. Furthermore, there are comparable IMMOBILE pretenders that possess identical Dominion and magic power levels. Since the cheapest one, the Oracle, is zero points, and has the same Dominion 4 and Astral-3 as the Sphinx, that says that the entire progression from Oracle->Statue->Sphinx is purely paying for physical toughness....which is of very little value if your god is never able to move, not even by teleporting. If opponents are able to attack you in the heart of your own empire, you're already SOL.

Of course, the immobiles *CAN* teleport, hence the greatly increased value of the physically tough immobiles. But if this option were entirely removed, physical toughness would be worth far, far less.

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
There are plenty of mobile pretenders of comparable cost that possess similar Dominion and magic power levels. Furthermore, there are comparable IMMOBILE pretenders that possess identical Dominion and magic power levels. Since the cheapest one, the Oracle, is zero points, and has the same Dominion 4 and Astral-3 as the Sphinx, that says that the entire progression from Oracle->Statue->Sphinx is purely paying for physical toughness....which is of very little value if your god is never able to move, not even by teleporting. If opponents are able to attack you in the heart of your own empire, you're already SOL.

Er, having checked, I can see that you're basically correct... except that, when you take a Statue or Sphinx, you also pay to have FEWER misc slots... being easily immune to your opponents' boobytrapped assassins with lots of eyes and hearts is certainly worth 100 design points...

[Gateway103]

Hi everyone, I have been lurking for a month now, this is my first post. Anyway, I have played a few SP games, and had a comment about immobile pretenders.

In playing against Arco in the Eye of God scenario as Pythium, I made 3 assasination (Mid-Late game) attempts with a few of my very well equipped assasins at the Acro Sphynx, 2 of which were actually successful (the Sphynx maybe bugged, as it casted only a few weak not-so-fatiguing spells during 2 of the attempts, and then just sit there until my assasins slay/demolish it). Sure it took quite a while (20~30 combat turns), but I was surprised that it actually worked.

Against most recruitable leaders (didn't face many summoned ones, so can't be sure), save the Rlyeh ones, my assasins usually kill them on turn 1, occasionally turn 2, rarely does the battle go on to turn 3. As a result, I have a low fatality rate, like 1/20 or so.

While against Rlyeh and combat pretenders, their higher HP allowed them to survive longer, and thus able to retaliate more with magic or Mind BLast in the case of Ryleh. The end result is much higher loss rate, about 1/3 v.s. Rlyeh, and higher for high HP Pretenders.

So what was my point? My point is that while arguably 100 is a lot to pay for Sphynx, its increased HP is indeed an asset in such situations (the Arco sphynx had 1500 HPs in capitol... takes quite a while in replay even with the background turned off). A Fountain of Blood or Oracle would be more susceptible to Assasins and/or steahly Mage than a Sphynx would.

Just a thought

-Gateway103