New Player Questions, EAPangaea, Rainbow Mage, Etc

[Sombre]

Total coincidence the AI using a single mage with mind duel.

[kasnavada]

Giving her air instead of astral also make her more vulnerable to mind hunt. In my opinion, it doesn't matter much, the point is the petrification ability, all the rest is mainly stuff you give her to increase her life expectancy, and both air and astral work quite well for that.

Another build I gave her was a dormant gorgon with 3 turmoil, 1 growth, 3 luck, 1 magic, dom5, A4W2E4N4. The point was to give her easy access to water breathing item and invade the seas early.

[Vellon]

I played another game with a Turmoil 3 scale and ended up with a never-ending supply of maenids pouring out from my research base. Indie commanders filled with maenids proved effective for capturing lightly defended territories without forcing me to divert my main army.

I am having a problem with my upkeep though with the turmoil scales. Should I be patrolling harder to make up for the lost income? I found myself going many turns without gold, albeit I was in a very exposed location and next to an aggressive AI playing Vanheim.

[OmikronWarrior]

Tumoil three gives you a -21% gold income, and most players go for ORder-3 for +21% income. When they do go Turmoil, its usually matched with Luck-2 or 3 and Magic-1 for income and gem generating events. There is no trick though, you're just going to have less gold unless you do a lot of expansion.

Also, keep in mind that the upkeep for Pans is quite high.

[Renojustin]

The upkeep for Pans is very high, but at the same time they generate Maenads, so taking Turmoil 3 allows you to make the most of them.

If you use Turmoil-3, use Luck-3. It's synergistic. And you don't necessarily have to expand greatly, just get some good dominion spread going, and your Luck tends to take care of the rest. Once you have around 10 provinces with Luck 3 on them, you'll be very pleasantly surprised at your income.

Luck-Turmoil is actually more conducive to a smaller map than a larger one, and a smaller territory than a larger one. Once you pass 20 provinces or so, it's quite obvious that Order is the real money maker. BUT... upkeepless, freespawn Maenads are definitely worth it in my opinion, with the added benefit of having 120 more points to work with. Especially if you're playing in a smaller game and those points go straight into your Gorgon.

You can do some fairly heavy patrolling if you've got Growth scales if you find you're hurting on funds. Harpies are quite good at patrol. Avoid patrolling with Maenads. They are easily bribed with raw meat and sexual favors.

And from earlier, Ewierl is absolutely right about the Trapeze-Teleport abilities over Fly... being able to hurl your Gorgon into battle before the enemy has time to move is completely invaluable. This way you know exactly what he's going to be fielding on the other end, especially if they just attacked one of your provinces, and script accordingly. This becomes even more obvious if you're using her alone and can never push back the enemy force so as to attack their greatest concentrations instead of just tagging behind them like a forlorn camp prostitute.

[kasnavada]

About maenad generation : I did one test in another thread about EA pangaea (it is referenced in the strategy index) and found out the ratio for maenad generation between order 3 and turmoil 3 is 3 to 1. That is, you generate 3 times more maenads with turmoil 3 than with order 3.

I haven't made the test for order / turmoil 0.

[Renojustin]

It seems kind of odd... I used to take Order 3 with Pangaea just to AVOID the Maenads. In that game, I remember that I got very, very few Maenads, and only when my Pans wandered out of my Dominion. Are you sure that Pans generate them at all in an Order dominion?

Edit: Just played 10 turns with about 6-7 Pans and didn't get a single Maenad in EA with Order 3. Looks like Pans don't generate Maenads without Turmoil.