MP: Apotheosis [Running]

[Verjigorm]

I don't generally go for the "Early Rush" because it has a tendency to gimp your early research and expansion. The "path of least resistance" is generally the best way to go when you're looking to maximize outcomes, and is also the natural tendency of human civilization. People will generally take open land before they take occupied land because it costs less to do so. In fact, they will only take occupied land (as a function of natural population growth) when they need it to sustain/grow their society.

In Dominions, however, there are strategies that utilize early war as a basic strategy--generally these are bless nations. MA Pythium is not a Bless nation. In fact, they don't have any good sacreds until late game which makes a bless strategy a poor choice. A wyrm pretender attack on any nation seems a bit reckless considering the extreme loss of hps in enemy territory--SC pretenders generally take a defensive posture wrt other nations and are not carelessly thrown into enemy territory where they usually die (which is what happened here). A pathless wyrm can be used in this way, but even though such a beast can be recalled easily by a nation with good priests such as Pythium, there is an inherent cost in Castle-Turns for the necessary priest production and takes priest-mages off of research and puts them on Call duty which costs research turns.

In general, early wars result in degradation of the defensive capabilities of both nations. The defending nation usually gets an advantage as long as the playing field is level (i.e. no bless troops) because the path of attack is known and intelligence in enemy territory is generally limited early on, so unless a nation is built from the start to use a rush strategy, it usually doesn't pan out for the attacker in the long game. Rushes are powerful in 1v1's but in MP, you watch the non-aggressive nations grow strong as they are not using up resources on early wars. Then when your war is finally over, you find that your growth acceleration is off (because it's much harder to capture and keep enemy territory than it is to capture indie territory, and you will probably need to deploy or utilize mages in tasks other than research) and there is little hope of catching up.

Of course, to each his own. Loss of an SC pretender in the first year is crippling to expansion though especially considering how much they cost. The next question is... With Pythium weakened, who will be the nation who possesses their gem-encrusted capitol? With an alliance arrayed against them... it is doubtful they will survive even a 2 on 1 without their pretender.