New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage, Etc

[Renojustin]

Regeneration on dryads isn't so great: they have rejuvenation and lowish hps to begin with. And the main use of the harpies will be for patrolling with high taxes, MAYBE an attack on some light rear PD. Even against dagger-wielding leather-armored archers with the bare rudiments of melee training, they do not fare well at all.

Protection/Wooden Warriors works very well, as does Army of Steel.

The problem with Minotaur Warriors in EA is that they don't wear much armor compared to MA and LA, BUT you can use this to your advantage as they don't have as much encumbrance.

Here's a tip: take Sloth scales. Pangaea in no way needs production. While you're at it, take another look at Maenads and Turmoil/Luck; I did, and I'm very glad of it. Freespawn, upkeepless average troops (albeit no armor) makes full use of your Pans. These two changes will give you TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY POINTS more AND Maenad freespawns. While Maenads might not look too impressive at first glance, Pangaea has great access to the two best protection buff paths in the game: Earth and Nature. They have very good morale as a bonus.

So place a heavy emphasis on Alteration school for research, for sure... that will help you protect all your troops, those nice Minotaur Warriors included. And for arrow catchers, go ahead and throw in your Satyr Warriors... you are going to miss them a lot in MA and LA. Still, opponents can script Fire Large Monsters on their archers, which is why I don't use them in pvp until I can buff them, unless against a rushable foe.

Mostly I just recruit full blocks of Satyr Warriors and Pans, and once I've researched a bit, throw in buffed Minos. Luck is a great relief to have in games after taking Misfortune scales, and the Turmoil/Sloth dominion can hurt an opponent's economy badly, especially with your stealthy H2 preachers, adding yet another weapon to your arsenal.

[kasnavada]

Regeneration on dryads isn't so great: they have rejuvenation and lowish hps to begin with. And the main use of the harpies will be for patrolling with high taxes, MAYBE an attack on some light rear PD. Even against dagger-wielding leather-armored archers with the bare rudiments of melee training, they do not fare well at all.

Regeneration on dryad works great if you give them mistform with some item. Otherwise, they do tend to die in 1 turn when a blow strucks them, so it's not that great I agree, but giving your rainbow pretender 4 nature is not that mch of a cost anyway.

About harpies, I've been misunderstood. The point is not to kill the archers with the harpies, but to send them to die so other troops are not shot by arrows !

Here is the reasoning behind my logic : archers shoot my army. They would kill dozens of my units per turn ! By giving them an alternate melee target, the units I save are : maybe satyrs, maenads, centaurs and minotaurs (worth more than 30 gold each).

In EA, your troops are very weak to archery. I'd rather decide myself which of my troops die from them. Furthermore, if you do get the harpy hero, she generates harpies every turn, reducing their "cost".

As a bonus, if the opponent meatshield is set on
- attack closest, his entire close-range units will actually move back toward the archers to go kill the harpies, desorganising the ennemy ranks. If your opponent army is not too large, your attacking minotaurs or centaurs will find some archers on the "front" and dispose of them quickly.
- hold and attack : they won't move for the first 2 turns, then some will move back as you attacking force engage them in their back. That make your opponent close range and archers close to each other, which in turn boosts a lot the efficiency of the offensive spells Pangaea has access to : the poison and sleep clouds, vire arrows, breath of the dragon, destruction, panic, banishment (in case of undeads), which are all much more powerful if the ennemies are grouped.

[Renojustin]

The archers on the inside of the block still fire and wipe out your harpies in one turn, resulting in much gold (and troops for that combat towards autorout) lost for one turn of archer soak. I mean, yeah I use a VERY light screen of harpies (like the ones generated from the harpy hero) from time to time for just that purpose (maybe even getting opponent to shoot themselves) but I personally won't be spending too much on them outside of patrolling. They're not even good for sneak attacks on PD; your other troops can do that with a much higher degree of proficiency. Harpy leaders, on the other hand, are a totally different story. They are scary good for moving many items and scouting.

Satyr Warriors can take arrows and you don't even have to worry about afflictions afterwards. Mix them up with Revelers and you have a bonus to enemy archer fire, even... higher offense from that group of units when they berserk.

If you're really all that worried about archers just get some Centaurs, they are superior to even Man's archers, just more expensive, but they'll win archer duels against them if they're not outnumbered more than 2:1 with their great hps and higher morale. Of course when you look at the costs, it's entirely possible you WILL be outnumbered by that much... but if they're shooting up your minos, the centaurs will have time to work.

Gold for gold and resource for resource, I think Satyr Warriors are probably the best non-sacred unit in EA. They can take hits; they can hold a line; they're very mobile, strong, and skilled. And cheap as all get out.

The only time I could see you using totally unbuffed Minotaur Warriors against archers would be in a rush, and I definitely wouldn't want to be blowing gold on harpies there. With Protection, they can soak up the archer fire just fine. JUST FINE, I say!

But... I like the two waves model when you're just looking to distract their archers. That's a nice trick.

[kasnavada]

Rereading your comment, I find I use them exactly as you say : a very light screen of harpies, so I don't cause auto-rout and in order not to spend too much. It's far from begin the ultimate strategy that will win the day anyway !

I'll have to try Satyrs too.

Anyone else has any other ideas that could work ?

PS : I'll recommend this thread in the strategy index.

[Renojustin]

Oh man those Satyr Warriors, you don't even get anything like them in MA or LA... you actually LOSE army strength there because of it. EA is the best age for Pangaea's troops, barring the weakly-armored Minotaur Warriors, simply because of them. (The lesser encumbrance just doesn't make up for the punishment-taking capability of the armored Minotaurs, even when buffed)

Welll.... LA Dryads are pretty nice too. Awe on recruitable troops? Wow. They're good to go right out of the box without a strong bless. Still, pretty sure they're capital-only so they would be an underwhelming strategy. Satyr Warriors are recruitable everywhere and you can really get an asston of them between their low resource cost, rejuvenation, and heavy nature provisioning.

[Renojustin]

Ah just did a run-through and came up with the following:

Dormant Gorgon with E9, N8. Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Heat 2 (Your troops have very little encumbrance), Luck 3, Growth 3, Magic 1, Dominion 5, 0 points left over!

While this doesn't give you a whole lot of magic diversity, which can really come back to bite you bigtime, it plays to your strengths, really buffs your Dryads and Centaurs, and gives you a great SC. Too bad there's no way to get Air or Astral in there without really bombing your scales. If anything, drop your Nature bless to N4 and try for as much Astral as you can manage. Looks like a VERY solid build.

Edit: hm, E9N4S6 with Growth 1 works too. That lets you add Ethereal and some other nice endgame stuff. Still you're paying for it bigtime with 2 less growth (your income will be quite low with the temperature scales even considering 3 Luck) and 10% less regeneration... eh, it's worth it.

Ok that gives away a little much but hey, Pangaea is pretty strong however you play her I think.

[kasnavada]

I did some testing with the gorgon too but I prefer those magic path to the one you use : awake with A4E4N4. Any build with E9 works quite well too, since sending her "naked" and is enough to take care of most indies !

The reason is I find her much more powerful with some air magic is because she can cast cloud trapeze, mistform, and invulnerability, and you have easier access to air items. Which are great for the gorgon, since they improve defense by a lot, and high protection can be taken care of with invulnerability. That gives her easily 30 or more defence and protection. I usually use her to search for the few necessary air sites that you will need to forge the air items though, and take her awake.

The gorgon is a very strong pretender, and there is little you can do to get a wrong build with her. The downside is that she locks your magic diversity.