Awaken Tarrasque?

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, but if you GoR a Tarrasque you can Empower it, too. I'm going to try this in my current SP game (I'm winning but it's grindingly slow because the map is so big). Maybe I'll Prophetize him, too, for kicks. (Idea from HoneyBadger.)

-Max

[Jazzepi]

What item slots does he have?

Jazzepi

[Ballbarian]

2 misc item slots.

[SlipperyJim]

MaxWilson said:
Yeah, but if you GoR a Tarrasque you can Empower it, too. I'm going to try this in my current SP game (I'm winning but it's grindingly slow because the map is so big). Maybe I'll Prophetize him, too, for kicks. (Idea from HoneyBadger.)

Heh. I'm in the middle of building just such an army. One GoR'ed Tarrasque who has been empowered in Sorcery will lead a small(ish) swarm of other Tarrasques on beautiful raids against the diabolical forces of the TC Barbarian Kings....

I chose to empower in Sorcery for rapid transportation. Tarrasques have a map move of 1, and my Tarrasque factory is way inside my own territory. (In Pangaea's former home province. Heh!) By the time that Team Tarrasque can walk to the front lines, the war will be over. (It's basically over now, or I wouldn't be indulging in such disgusting overkill, but the silly Khans haven't recognized my divinity yet!) With a few levels of Sorcery, I can Gateway my reptilian mob to a friendly lab near the front lines. The carnage should be satisfying.

Another bonus to Sorcery is the battlefield magics. How do ethereal Tarrasques sound to you? I'm considering a script of (Body Ethereal) * 3, then Attack Closest. Meanwhile, the other Tarrasques are set to Hold & Attack Closest.

Commander Tarrasques do indeed get two misc slots and nothing else. I plan to fill one slot with a freshly-forged Amulet of Resilience for fatigue recovery. The other slot will get ... um ... I don't know yet. I'll think of something. Krupp's Bracers, maybe? Antimagic Amulet?

Anyway, I'm about two or three turns from unleashing Team Tarrasque in my current game. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Ironhawk]

Another bonus to "Sorcery" as you call it is being vulnerable to losing your investment to a Mind Duel

[SlipperyJim]

Uh, yeah. Substitute "Astral" for "Sorcery" in my above post....

(Man, was I asleep when I wrote that?)

I know about the Mind Duel vulnerability, but I'm not really worried about it. Late-Age TC aren't the kings of Astral magic, really. As long as I keep Team Tarrasque away from their pretender (who is a high-powered Astral mage, but fortunately immobile), I'm not too worried.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm playing against the AI?

To be clear: I'm not pretending that Team Tarrasque is an efficient or optimized strategy. But frankly, I think that any strategy involving GoR'ed & empowered Tarrasques is likely to be an exercise in overkill anyway. I mean, if you have that much gem income to spare, haven't you already won the game?

[MaxWilson]

I was also contemplating empowering in Astral magic, for the transportation, Luck, Etherealness, and Astral Shield. Astral Shield seems like a particularly good choice for a Tarrasque given the poison aura. (Normally you'd rather have e.g. Fire Shield so that chaff units kill themselves on your fire shield, and paralyzing the chaff just slows that process down.) I'm rolling in pearls anyway in my current endgame, so empowering to S2 and then using a Crystal Coin and Ring of Sorcery should let me Gateway to the front lines; then I'll probably stick with a Ring of Sorcery and an Amulet of Resilience.

As you said, not efficient at all, but perhaps tremendously fun.

-Max

[Shovah32]

even level 1 astral mages will be able to take out an empowered tarrasque unless he's 6+ iirc.

[Nick_K]

I don't think I've ever seen the AI use astral duel, so I don't think it'll be a real danger.