Devil Review

[Cainehill]

Gandalf Parker said:
I think a bind-heart assassin is an ultimate strategy ...
You follow [enemy armies] and snatch commanders one by one chopping his army into

Problem is that you have to snatch a commander; move the next turn, guessing which way the enemy is going; if lucky, snatch a commander, else guess which way the enemy is going and try again.

Does Bind-Heart leave the target as a commander, or does it steal the willpower? I haven't played enough blood to know, but I find that Nature's Charm is somewhat superior to the Astral Version for that reason. In which case, one of Pangaea's big stealthy mages with flying boots and the black heart might be even more effective than the demon, since you get (for instance) fully equipped banelords and such on your side.

[Gandalf Parker]

Cainehill said:
Does Bind-Heart leave the target as a commander, or does it steal the willpower? I haven't played enough blood to know, but I find that Nature's Charm is somewhat superior to the Astral Version for that reason. In which case, one of Pangaea's big stealthy mages with flying boots and the black heart might be even more effective than the demon, since you get (for instance) fully equipped banelords and such on your side.

Bind Heart does leave him as a commander. And seems to work more often than some of the others. Pangaea has stealthy gods which make for a fun assassin. Pandemoniacs make good bind-heart assassins also.

Another advantage with Pangaea for assassins is that even without a charm they speed up taking provinces ALOT! A Pan assassin tosses Maenads each turn. So you assassinate a commander then there is an attack by 3 or 4 loose maenads. It makes it easy to know when you get the Last commander, and the province is yours automatically without having to take another turn to do an attack.

[Boron]

Gandalf Parker said:

Bind Heart does leave him as a commander. And seems to work more often than some of the others. Pangaea has stealthy gods which make for a fun assassin. Pandemoniacs make good bind-heart assassins also.

Another advantage with Pangaea for assassins is that even without a charm they speed up taking provinces ALOT! A Pan assassin tosses Maenads each turn. So you assassinate a commander then there is an attack by 3 or 4 loose maenads. It makes it easy to know when you get the Last commander, and the province is yours automatically without having to take another turn to do an attack.

The black heart is construction 6 . So to make your Pans assasins you need construction 6 but by that time there won't be too many indy provinces left on not too big maps or other very special settings .

So you mean using them against other players ?
This is very nasty i think because the pan should be not easy to kill during an assasination . I didn't play pangenea often can you give the pan a few FoDs as bodyguard and they participate the assasination ?

What happens if you are in enemy lands , no way to retreat and you charm an SC ? Does he then attack the defenders of the province as well or does he die because of nowhere to retreat ?

[Gandalf Parker]

Boron said:
This is very nasty i think because the pan should be not easy to kill during an assasination . I didn't play pangenea often can you give the pan a few FoDs as bodyguard and they participate the assasination ?

Yes they arent weak and the magic helps alot. Given the right items they Last in the field well which is good considering they are very expensive. Pandemoniacs are capital only but Pans can be made in cheap towers. I love playing Pangaea as sneak armies. Seank them in, take some small province off in the corner, no dominion push to draw attention to your location, crank out sneak units and spread them all over the map. A few spots like that can wreak havoc on some of these "unbeatable strategies".

FoD? bodyguards dont help in assassination but are nice in case you are spotted. Trinkets that summon do assist in assinations such as that skull talisman. Self-fighting items like the stone dove help also.

What happens if you are in enemy lands , no way to retreat and you charm an SC ? Does he then attack the defenders of the province as well or does he die because of nowhere to retreat ?

He attacks the defenders but I think its a seperate battle. I dont remember.

[Boron]

FoD should be fiend of darkness because he is stealthy too and Pan can bloodhunt a bit .

I would love to see your strat once in a mp game because it is really great but i am curious about the time by when you achieve your special strats :
-Pan is a very bad researcher , Charm is Thaum 7 , Black heart is Con 6 , hellbind heart is B5 .
-350 gold for a Pan is very much , 23 1/3 upkeep , for a Pandemoniac 320 gold , 21 1/3 upkeep .

Scales + a SC are so a problem . Your dryads cost only 110 gold + are sacred but they only net you 3 research .
So if you don't want to rely on sages you should take Magic 3 and use dryads as main researchers .
Your Pans are so expensive that you almost should take Growth 3 + Order 3 imo .
Ok you can free points by sloth 3 + misfortune 2 + watchtower .
Then you have 340 points left for pretender + dominion .
Hm would be enough for a decent Ghostking though he is not very thematic .

Would you please post your favourite pretenderdesign for Pangenea fitting your strat ?

[Gandalf Parker]

Boron said:
I would love to see your strat once in a mp game because it is really great but i am curious about the time by when you achieve your special strats

Oh I know my stuff is very inefficient. I play almost entirely solo and on larger maps than Illwinter has for download.

I like the Lord of the Hunt (he sneaks and tosses LOTS of Maenads). And have had fun with Carrion Dragon using the CW theme.

In MP games I dont play to win so I tend to stay out of the discussions about "winning strategies". I have a number of choices. I play to be an indispensable ally providing tons of info on other players, harassing them, jumping up as a surprise to ruin their well laid plans, things like that. Or I play the breaking-dam game. Long buildup waiting for someone to decide to attack me then washing over them like a flood keeping us both from winning.

In one game I actually held out as a major pain for a long time after losing my provinces and later even my god. I kept my units sneaking around the map taking undefended provinces, jacking the taxes to 200%, building defense, and sneaking on. I forced the player to completely rework his strategy of large armies, SC god and units, and no money on PD. He had to take time to revamp just to get rid of me.

Think of Data in that episode where he is forced to challenge a guy in StratGema. He changes his strategy from trying to win, to remaining in the game instead.

If you cant beath them, then join them.
If you cant beat or join them, then try to be a surprise.

Some play to win or lose, others to stay in the game.
Are we talking about games? Or life in general?
EXACTLY!

[Boron]

I play now again SP too .
I had the idea of playing a good scale pretender like an oracle to make it a bit harder and to try nations like Serpent Cult .

I played Cradle of Zen with 16 players ( Ermor left out ) , all Ais to impossible .

You may laugh now but i lost my games because the Ai's numbers overwhelmed me . I always had the luck that either Vanheim or Marignon or Jotunheim went to war with me soon .
The Ai hordes even defeated sometimes my Mini-Sc banelords .

Has the Ai gotten improved a bit in 2.14 or is it only because i play at rather crazy settings ?


Do you play against impossible Ai's too on crowded maps ?

Even my new try with madcastling + VQ is interesting cause i don't get everywhere good enough SCs or Armies to hold of the various 200-500 men AI armies

[Cainehill]

Gandalf Parker said:
Another advantage with Pangaea for assassins is that even without a charm they speed up taking provinces ALOT! A Pan assassin tosses Maenads each turn. So you assassinate a commander then there is an attack by 3 or 4 loose maenads. It makes it easy to know when you get the Last commander, and the province is yours automatically without having to take another turn to do an attack.

Hrm. I'm watching the maenads spawned by the Lord of the Wild just now - they attack the province, and immediately rout despite being berserk. I had thought that berserkers kept fighting without any commanders, but it seems not.

This tends to make the maenads less than useful when spawned in hostile territory, since they can probably rout quicker than even leaderless troops in a province.

[Graeme Dice]

Cainehill said:
I'm watching the maenads spawned by the Lord of the Wild just now - they attack the province, and immediately rout despite being berserk.

Maenads don't start out berserk, they have to be damaged and succeed a morale check to go berserk.