So what is Pythium's weakness?

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Well, Pythium Prov Defense is pure crap...
You can use that to grab provinces with stealthy troops or very small armies.
I've seen a 4-men Ulm army rout a Pythium Prov Def of 21 !
As a competent Pythium player won't invest in big PDs it also eases your scouts/spies/assassins work

Note that Arco doesn't fare much better here. But hey that's a weakness !

[Wauthan]

Guess I too should pop in to offer some quick words of advice. I've gone up against Pythium tons of times as they are my friends favorite nation.

Negate their javelins and they will fall. As Zen already mentioned it's a very good idea to make a beeline for those spells that will screw up his ability to use them. Your heavily armoured infantery is resource expensive but a lot tougher than his regular units (as well as very durable against even withering javelin fire), forcing him to forgoe javelineers for the much more expensive Emerald Guards.

Masses of thightly packed infantery means your elephants and chariots will pack the largest possible damage. Group them with heart companions to up their morale and set them to hold and attack behind a screen of Hoplites.

Astral is perhaps the most devastating magic against solitary powerful units. It sucks against hordes though so if he starts leaning on mages, you start churning out the battalions.

Your Astrologers, especially a 4 astral one, can do everything his mages can. Use the Astral assassination spells to take them out without their annyoing communicant slaves.

Your mystics span the full range of magic but are vulnerable to magic duels. An astral assassination spell might also take them out. I would switch to nonastral mages as soon as could find them.

Your priestesses can cure every ailment. Milk this ability for all its worth. Draw him into battle in low supply areas, where you can cure disease but he can't. Toss disease spells at him even if it strikes your own units. Take a moment to rest your armies to cure them completely. While his veterans get chipped away with time yours will endure. Go all out SC pretender to spearhead your armies. (preferably one with high magic resistance) You can always heal it when it starts losing limbs.

He will use assassins against you, if he knows what's good for him, so stick a few bodyguards on your most valuable mages.

Take the construction path if you can. Constructs are immune to most of the things he can toss at you and pretty cheap for their punch. I remember overrunning Pythium completely with massed Lumber Constructs but that was a stroke of luck I must admit. Nevertheless it helps your armies if you can stick a few golemlike beings in the front line. You got cheap laboratories so healing them is no problem, especially since your priestesses are also skilled greasemonkeys.

[st.patrik]

The question I'd ask (which some people have already said) is not 'what is Pythium's weakness?' so much as 'what is Arco's strength?'. And Arco's strength is incredibly versatile magic - you have strong astral, and strong elemental magic - you can cast over half the spells out there. So you need to know your spells, and use them to your advantage. Pythium won't be able to stand up to the kind of battlefield enchantments that you can ward your troops against (even if it's only partial warding). Of course you do have the Achilles' heel of Mind Duel, which you'll have to watch out for.

Like others have said, watch out for the javelins - but since you don't have missile troops to speak of yourself, get yourself a staff of storms and/or cast mist to decrease their effectiveness

Plus there are lots of fun things you can do with elephants, if you plan right...

[Endoperez]

I remember someone who killed enemy's mages with Chariots: the other guy hadn't realised his mages might be in danger even during storm... And the falnkers were trampled through! That might work with elephants too, as they can get trample through lines of larger protectors.

Does Mind Duel kill all the communicants? IIRC right spells that target a communion master affect all his slaves too. Although Incinerate or Frozen Heart, heck, even Charm of Hellbind Heart could work!

[Taqwus]

Hm, have you considered using Golden Era and trying to out-research him?

[ywl]

Try if you could get "Rain of Stone" to work. It's an Evocation 7 battlefield spell, which can only be countered by armor. So, in *theory*, you could "Cloud Trapeze" or "Teleport" a few of your *armored* Mystics into his main army, scipt them to cast the spell and then leave. If hit, each casting cause 14 damage to unarmored units. Two to three is enough to kill most mages on the battlefield. But I've not seen it used often in human game. So, I don't know how effective that actuall is.

If you have access to cheap Nature 2 mage, "Howl" is another possibility. The summoned wolves might attack from behind. But I don't know how effective that is in Dom 2.

As the others said, you mages and infantries are as good as his. His mages are strong but yours are versatile. You could have access to high level earth, water and fire spells that he can't ward against. But overall, it'll be a contest of economic resource.

[ March 10, 2004, 17:02: Message edited by: ywl ]

[Huzurdaddi]

But overall, it'll be a contest of economic resource.

In general this is true. However the problem is that his mages are sacred. This effectivly doubles the number of mages he can have. Yokies! I really think that this is the crux of the problem. His costs are lower due to the sacred modifier.

Hm, have you considered using Golden Era and trying to out-research him?

While I have not checked the numbers I doubt that anyone will be able to compete with sacred researchers for price/performance.

And Arco's strength is incredibly versatile magic - you have strong astral, and strong elemental magic - you can cast over half the spells out there.

Seems that people think that Pythium has inflexable battle ground magic. I don't know if I agree. They have strong astral, decent air, and decent water. They also have a random pick. Don't forget that due to them being excellently setup for communion those little randoms can easily become level 3 or 4 in combat and then they become real power.

Normally that would not be too much of a problem. However with their reduced maintainance costs they can really pump these guys out.

Your heavily armoured infantery is resource expensive but a lot tougher than his regular units

I think in general Pythium's armies are slightly sub-standard. They are not horrible by any means but they just do not have a "killer troop" (unless you count hydras, but their maintainance is too much for my taste).

Your priestesses can cure every ailment. Milk this ability for all its worth.

A nice ability to be sure. Really helps out those supercombatants!

Well, Pythium Prov Defense is pure crap...

True enough. It goes back to their army being somewhat sub-standard. Still sacred casters ... yeash.

That is indeed the ARM Commander from Total Annihilation, the best RTS made to date. Naturally, on my site, anyone who disagrees is a heretic and must be burned at the stake.

I think that the greatness of the game grew out of the interface infinate queuing changes everything. The only faw in with the game was the unbalanced units. This was mostly fixed in uberhack (it only took them like 6 years!!) but it took a while.

Oh and the TA-Hook is something that should have been included as well! It changed the game!

A TA2 with updated graphics, uberhack level (or better!) balance, the hook, and a good matchmaking system (a-la WC3) would be the best game ever produced.