An intial try at a Pythium strategy guide

[Firebreath]

Ahh, and here I was thinking that 'body ethereal' was a 'self' spell.

I tried a slight variation of that, using arco's heart compagnions (along with a fire 9 bless and healing of afflictions). It seems to work rather well, even if the wiz are expensive. With cheap pythium casters, no doubt it's more effective.

Now, I wonder how ethereal elephants will perform...or how about ethereal fire 9 hydras, if I can forge some poison immune item...

Apart from that - nice post.

[ April 30, 2004, 22:58: Message edited by: Firebreath ]

[Huzurdaddi]

Now, I wonder how ethereal elephants will perform

Indeed this is how I started with this tactic. I tried it on Arcosphale elephants and was quite happy with the results! The only problem was that the elephants would break once in a while and squish my expensive casters. It was also expensive as both the casters for Arcosphale and the elephants cost a nice amount of coin.

But other that the money consideration it was amazing to watch!

I also tried it with chariots. Seeing as the only problem with chariots is the lack of decent protection I figured this would work nicely. And indeed it did.

Ahh, and here I was thinking that 'body ethereal' was a 'self' spell.

Shocked me too!

[PDF]

I made a few test runs, Ethereal Elephants aren'that good, their ever-crappy morale makes them rout pretty easily even if Ethereal . Hoplites are a better choice.
Apart from Pythium and Arco, a good Ethereal candidate is Abysia, with their strong, human-sized infantry.
Beware Etherealizing Nature blessed troops, the regen effect is nice but you also get Berserk, and it makes units charge uncontrollably.. Bless them after the mages are finished with Body Ethereal !

[tinkthank]

By the way, has anyone noticed this "bug"?

I noticed it when building wizard towers and communicants: Recruiting a communicant *does not require a temple*. Communicants are sacred, however, and normally you need a temple to recruit sacred units. Not so for communicants.

Odd, no?

[Teraswaerto]

Sacred units can be recruited without a temple. Only priests require a temple.

[Chris Byler]

Sacred *units* require a temple.

Priests require a temple.

Sacred commanders that are not priests don't require a temple.

There aren't very many sacred commanders that aren't priests, but there are a couple.

I just had another interesting thought about communions: you know that Blood spell that allows you to sacrifice a blood slave to remove the caster's fatigue? If you cast that as a communion master, does it also remove your slaves' fatigue (following the general rule about self-only spells and communion slaves)?

[tinkthank]

Thanks for the heads-up on sacred commanders, me stupid.

That blood spell you are referring to is currently broken. It does not even restore fatigue to the caster himself. I believe this is a known bug for quite some time.