Pretender, awake, dormant or imprisoned?

Boron · #1 October 7th, 2006, 04:16 AM

Eh dragons seem to suck maybe, but Kiss and Caine, keep in mind the doubled research costs and how difficult it is to get your 2nd castle.

So the dragon is i think the only pretender that can go on expansion on turn 2.

Fireshield is enchantment 3 now. For a GK you need imho fireshield and ironskin, that is 2x level 3 research, that takes quite a bit to be researched, 2x 200 rp.
Also the GK is a bit nerfed, only 2 dominion and 120 points.

Also taking the lvl 9 bless for your dragon is somewhat affordable.
Imho the dragon is a good chassis.

DominionsFan · #2 October 7th, 2006, 06:29 AM

Quote:

Boron said:
Eh dragons seem to suck maybe, but Kiss and Caine, keep in mind the doubled research costs and how difficult it is to get your 2nd castle.

So the dragon is i think the only pretender that can go on expansion on turn 2.

Fireshield is enchantment 3 now. For a GK you need imho fireshield and ironskin, that is 2x level 3 research, that takes quite a bit to be researched, 2x 200 rp.
Also the GK is a bit nerfed, only 2 dominion and 120 points.

Also taking the lvl 9 bless for your dragon is somewhat affordable.
Imho the dragon is a good chassis.

Hm, I've never used dragon pretenders in Doms 2. tbh, but Im gonna try them out in Doms 3.

Boron · #3 October 7th, 2006, 07:01 AM

Quote:

DominionsFan said:
Hm, I've never used dragon pretenders in Doms 2. tbh, but Im gonna try them out in Doms 3.

They work best with "weak" indies.
In my Dom2-Blitzes in the channel indy 6 was normally the default setting.
Now we take either indy 6 or leave it on the dom3 default, which is indy 5.

If you play with indy 8-9 dragons do probably not work well.

But with indy 5-6 they very often rout the indy melee troops with their breath attack

.

In yesterdays blitz i used a w9 dragon and he did conquer 1 province per turn for me from turn 2-12 ca., then i ran into opponents.
The dragon helped me a lot there imho, i was able to conquer the most indy provinces in this 7 player blitz. So i could afford to make naps with my 2 neighbors and could comfortably build up and start blood hunting (i took mictlan EA).

With the dragon you usually get more indy provinces. And after that for raiding he is somewhat useful too.

A dragon usually means 5-15 more provinces then your enemy if he did not also take a dragon.
But some nations are better at expanding as others.
So the above statement is only true if you both have a nation that can expand about as well as your opponents nation.

If you want to try a lvl 9 bless strat the dragon is optimal normally imho.

Cainehill · #4 October 7th, 2006, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Boron said:
Eh dragons seem to suck maybe, but Kiss and Caine, keep in mind the doubled research costs and how difficult it is to get your 2nd castle.

So the dragon is i think the only pretender that can go on expansion on turn 2.

Nope. Not even close, even looking only at the pretenders available in the demo's five nations. Wyrm, Mother of Monsters, Drakaina, Manticore, possibly Father of Serpents, Destroyer of Worlds, White Bull, Earth Momma.

Some may not be perfect for turn 2 - but by turn 4 or 5, definately. (And I've had a Wyrm take 15 provinces by turn 20.)

Nerfix · #5 October 7th, 2006, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Cainehill said:Some may not be perfect for turn 2 - but by turn 4 or 5, definately. (And I've had a Wyrm take 15 provinces by turn 20.)

Dagon too. If you are lucky and your first Mage of the Deep is 2E you can give him a Black Steel fullplate and off you go!

Boron · #6 October 7th, 2006, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Cainehill said:

Quote:

Boron said:
Eh dragons seem to suck maybe, but Kiss and Caine, keep in mind the doubled research costs and how difficult it is to get your 2nd castle.

So the dragon is i think the only pretender that can go on expansion on turn 2.

Nope. Not even close, even looking only at the pretenders available in the demo's five nations. Wyrm, Mother of Monsters, Drakaina, Manticore, possibly Father of Serpents, Destroyer of Worlds, White Bull, Earth Momma.

Some may not be perfect for turn 2 - but by turn 4 or 5, definately. (And I've had a Wyrm take 15 provinces by turn 20.)

Hm the wyrm has low protection. Only 11, and only 8 defense. So you need to buff him with at least BE and personal luck imho.
But any buff adds encumberance, and unless you have a damage shield the wyrm only kills 2 enemies a turn.
And he costs more than a dragon because you have to buy him at least 1 magic path.

Mother of monsters also needs protection, but thanks to the poison she has a damage shield. And she's cold blooded.

Drakaina has similiar issues as the mother of monsters.

Manticore has no breath attack and horrible protection, so you need to buy lots of buff magic for him.

Father of serpents also has horrible protection and costs 125 already.

The earth momma works, but imho she needs ironskin + summon ep or some items to work, and that is lots of research in dom3.

White bull works i think, so does the deva and the destroyer of worlds. But none of them is imho cheaper than the dragon.

thejeff · #7 October 7th, 2006, 05:35 PM

Don't knock the magicless wyrm.

Sure, protection and defense are low, but with all those hit points and regeneration, plus fear?

He may not kill a lot, but they run away pretty quickly.

And if he dies, call him back. No paths to lose, so no worries.

Cainehill · #8 October 7th, 2006, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Boron said:

Quote:

Cainehill said:

Quote:

Boron said:
Eh dragons seem to suck maybe, but Kiss and Caine, keep in mind the doubled research costs and how difficult it is to get your 2nd castle.

So the dragon is i think the only pretender that can go on expansion on turn 2.

Nope. Not even close, even looking only at the pretenders available in the demo's five nations. Wyrm, Mother of Monsters, Drakaina, Manticore, possibly Father of Serpents, Destroyer of Worlds, White Bull, Earth Momma.

Some may not be perfect for turn 2 - but by turn 4 or 5, definately. (And I've had a Wyrm take 15 provinces by turn 20.)

Hm the wyrm has low protection. Only 11, and only 8 defense. So you need to buff him with at least BE and personal luck imho. But any buff adds encumberance, and unless you have a damage shield the wyrm only kills 2 enemies a turn.
And he costs more than a dragon because you have to buy him at least 1 magic path.

Read what I said about my Wyrm taking 15 provinces. That was with indies _6_, and no magic paths. No items until turn 10 or so, when I researched Construction and got some things on him. "Only" killing 2 enemies a turn wasn't a problem, given that the defenders break morale.

Frankly, I didn't expect him to do so well, but figured it didn't matter much if he died. Spent about 2 turns healing him with priestesses, and other than that, used only a single "trick" to help him do so well. Again, I suspect a number of other pretenders could do nearly as well, certainly as well as the dragon once you equip them with a few items or research a few turns.

Boron · #9 October 7th, 2006, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Cainehill said:
Read what I said about my Wyrm taking 15 provinces. That was with indies _6_, and no magic paths. No items until turn 10 or so, when I researched Construction and got some things on him. "Only" killing 2 enemies a turn wasn't a problem, given that the defenders break morale.

Frankly, I didn't expect him to do so well, but figured it didn't matter much if he died. Spent about 2 turns healing him with priestesses, and other than that, used only a single "trick" to help him do so well. Again, I suspect a number of other pretenders could do nearly as well, certainly as well as the dragon once you equip them with a few items or research a few turns.

Which trick did you use?
Something as cute as your poor mans SC black servant?

Shovah32 · #10 October 7th, 2006, 10:09 PM

How dare you diss black servants!! They are my litle ulmish babies, ulms forging abilities+various items and site searching from a rainbow mage= 3 or so stealthy, ethereal, 16-20 strength, life stealing, fear causing, great prot and/or defence thugs by turn 20 (in dom2, in 3 life stealing and, in the case of this build shield, are nerfed).