LA Pythium

[Kuritza]

Man... just tell me, how are you going to cast bone melter without a water bracelet, which is construction 6?

[Zenzei]

I said it is hard to make well formatted.
But you are right, construction 6 should be in fact researched before alteration 5 because you want the bracelets. So let's try this again, assuming a decent water gem income: alteration 3 -> construction 4 -> enchantment 5 -> construction 6 -> more alteration & enchantment. Make quick dips into other schools when you have enough research points to get the first two or three levels in one turn.

[vfb]

Here's what I tried with LA Pythium:

Awake Prince of Death, Dom 10, E4D5,
Order 3, Sloth 3, Heat 1, Misfortune 2, Growth 0, Magic 1

Heat and Sloth are for Hydras. Neutral growth is for blood hunting. You could try a Dom9 PoD instead, with Growth 1.

E4D5 gives you hammers, early site searching, and a little reinvigoration for your Hydras, plus all the benefits of pretty good death for the late game.

Hydras or the PoD will kill everything except undead. Use H2S1 priests and 8 H1S1 theurgs in communions for killing undead with Banshment. Use Milites and Comitats for catching arrows with their tower shields. Use the Guard Commander order, plus Hold x 5/Attack Rear on the commanders, and strategic commander placement, to keep your tower shields from getting poisoned. Indy commanders with shields are best because archers continue to target your tower shields even after they have retreated past your hydras.

Holdx5, Attack Rear is critical (and place the commanders at the very top or bottom). Commanders on 'Stay behind troops' will end up in the poison cloud. That's okay for them if they've got a ring, but the tower shields will die.

Early research goals:
Const 2 (PoD gear), Thaum 1 (communion), Evo 2 (arcane probing), Const 4 (rods, more PoD gear, and path boosters),
Alt-4 (body ethereal, luck, quickness).

Turn 1:
Tax at 150, Patrol, research with the PoD.
Hire a Serpent Acolyte, 4 Milites.
Don't hire Hydras yet, to save upkeep.
Prophet scout.

Turn 2:
Forge a Hide Shield.
Tax at 150, Patrol.
Hire a Serpent Acolyte, 4 Milites.
Don't hire Hydras yet, to save upkeep.
Preach with prophet.
Attack with PoD and one skelly archer chaff.

Turn 3:
Alchemise 2 S to N and forge a Serpent Ring.
Move an Acolyte with Shield to PoD.
Search with PoD, recruit an indy commander with a shield.
Tax at 150, Patrol.
Hire 5 Hydras, 110 Gold D1 or N1 mage, Comitats.
Preach with prophet.

Turn 4:
PoD wields Shield, continues attacks.
Centurion wields Serpent Ring just in case.
Start hiring Theurgs, or the 110 Gold mages.
Don't use the Comitats, they can patrol, expand into weak indies or handle barbarian invasions if the PoD is busy.
Attack with 5 Hydras and Milites, prophet and Centurion.

Hydras in the center on hold and attack. Centurion in the top left on hold x 5, attack rear. Milities at the top right on Guard Commander. The Milites will run away from the enemy to the Centurion, the indies will follow and be killed. Archers will fire at range at the Milites.

Turns 5 and up:

Build another squad of 5 Hydras, then a cheap castle with temple and lab. Continue taking provinces with the PoD, and searching for earth/death sites. Make gear for the PoD as it becomes available, and have him craft a hammer as soon as you have enough earth. Cast Arcane Probing at Evo 2.

You've got 2 armies of 5 Hydras, 1 army of Comitats, and 1 PoD to expand or fight a war with.

At Const 4 hire some Revelers to get into blood, and make Earth boots with your PoD so he can stop wasting his time site searching. Revelers without blood can all research at your second castle, so that your dominion is only negatively impacted in one province. Revelers with blood should make thorns armour for better hunting and toads.

What you do next depends on who your neighbors are and your state of war. Don't forget to build lots of Serpent Priests and Theurgs for Banishment communions if Ermor is on the map.

Your Theurgs can also cast Body Ethereal and Luck on your hydras if you give them a serpent ring. Forge lots.

[Lingchih]

Wow, you just wrote the definitive guide for LA Pythium. Someone should add this to the strategy guide post.

Thanks vfb

[vfb]

Ha ha ha Sorry, but I only played one game in SP, and didn't even hire a bunch of units available to the nation.

There's so many other things LA Pythium can do, like make Fever Fetishes with a Heliodromus, cast an early Mother Oak with a N3 Serpent Priest, actually use your Epoptes healers (they can't heal the PoD! And since they are heretics, they either belong on your front lines or in one of your quarantine labs), etc.

A definitive guide should mention all that and more.

[Lingchih]

Well, I can add a few things then. From playing several builds now.

The Epoptes are rather poor healers. I had an afflicted dragon in one game (limp), and he had never healed after more than 10 turns trying to heal him. They do not really cause much unrest though, unless you have a bunch. I kept a few in my capitol for a long time, and unrest never climbed above 0, with no patrolling.

I am curious about your choice of sloth? All of Pythiums elite troops, which are awesome, have a very high cost in resources? How could you build enough with Sloth3?

[vfb]

I don't. I build Hydras as my main force. The only other troops I hired were Comitats and Milites.

I'm still playing that game and am thinking of branching out with indy archers (yay, tribals in LA) and Flaming Arrows from F2 Heliodromes, with fever fetishes on scouts.

I hate taking production scales. Just my personal preference . It always seems a waste later on in the game.

I don't like map-move 1 units either, that's why I stick with Comitats. I prefer them to Palatines because of the javelins. I can't recruit a lot, but that's good, because I need the cash for new forts with labs, and hydras. Hydras are mapmove-1 so it's good to have something faster.

Epoptes don't cause unrest. They are heretics, so they lower your dominion (or your enemy dominion).

Edit: Is there a quickfix for the "U 1856 Hydra Wrong secondshape" bug? I searched but couldn't find one. If you're going to do a Pythium MP game with a Hydra strategy, you should really use a patch for this.