The Virtue

[Amorphous]

Originally Posted by Micah

That being said, MA Mari might still be justified in going for a fear build, since they don't have any SC chassis with innate D magic. The Cyclops is still likely a better choice, but a D virtue could at least be considered.

I experimented with it some time ago and it worked decently, but I have not had any opportunity to test it in a real game, so take it for what its worth.

Based on my experiments I recommend having her asleep. As mentioned earlier I just cannot get the performance I need out of her for indie expansion purposes without dom 10. And an awake dom 10 A4D5 Virtue is point-intensive enough that I had real troubles a bit into the game.
The pretender is powerful enough herself, but she cannot be everywhere and she really does not help winning fights when she is not there. You need her to start a death economy and summon chain, which may take quite some time. In all probability she will also need to help with developing an air economy and since you have nothing but the occasional mage with a single earth pick you have to pay premium for everything you forge if you are not able to trade for a hammer. Essentially I was playing Marignon with crappy scales and an absent SC for stretches of the game. Late mid-game or so everything came on-line nicely, but I very much doubt I would have gotten that far against real opponents.

Having her asleep saves me from having to take too much of a hit in the scales-department and though indie expansion is slower, it is no catastrophe, as Marignon can do decently without pretender help against indies.

I would be very much interested to see what a better player could do with it, though.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

They're crap for their high resource cost. Might as well get the free 120 points for Sl3 and buy the much more reasonable indies who may be less effective, but also don't require tons of resources to build. I mean, its not like your national troops are going to win you any mid-game wars, and you have an indie expansion unit, so they fill no niche except chaff. Indies are perfectly acceptable as chaff.

I really do not understand this.

First off, nothing prevents you from going for S3 and buying national troops. Sure, you will get less of them, but you will get less indies also.
And if you just want a lot of cheap bodies, your Peltasts are light infantry with shields and javelins for 6 resources. If you want something heavier in MA or LA you have the Hypaspists. They are like indie heavy infantry only with better stats all around - including mapmove 2 and insanely high morale for a non-sacred unit. They are expensive gold-wise, but you were complaining about resources, so that should not be a problem.
In EA there are the Icarid warriors that you have a hard time finding something equivalent to in indie provinces. They do cost a hefty amount of resources, but then again, they are hardly just chaff.

My point here is that resource-wise Arcoscephalean units are not especially expensive for what you get. Of course, if you just look at Myrmidons and Hoplites everything seems to cost a tonne of resources, but those are elite heavy infantry units without widespread equivalents in independent provinces. You do not have to buy those if you do not want them, as there are lower resource national troops to buy.

[vfb]

Nah, MA Mari needs a Dom-10 D5 Wyrm!

[vfb]

According to this http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/events.html, Death-3 makes plagues common, so if you do get a random bad event, your chances of it being a plague are much higher.

[Psycho]

In Momentum2 Mictlan had unrest in capital on first turn. Bad things happen.

[atul]

Every bad event can happen on early turns. There was a wish to disable worst events for early turns, but I don't think it was ever granted.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by atul

Every bad event can happen on early turns. There was a wish to disable worst events for early turns, but I don't think it was ever granted.

But there are 'early' turns, and then there are turns 1-3. Bad events in the 'early' turns are rarely game ending, but getting one in the first 1-3 turns can be.

KO has stated that no really bad event can happen before turn 3-4, as linked and referenced by myself in one of the above posts. But it would be useful to establish if there are any potentially crippling events that don't follow KO's statement, or if KO's staement is just incorrect. For example, I am 99% certain that in three years of playing, I have not ever had my capital attacked by Indy's at the start of turn 2. Which does follow KO's statement.

What Squirrelloid has attempted to do with his attached save game is show that there is at least one exception to KO's statement. And it is something I am interested in seeing once he attaches everything required to access it.

Unfortunately, I am not someone who readily believes statements about the game mechanics unless I can be shown my understanding is incorrect. So just saying "Every bad event can happen on early turns" means almost nothing to me personally. No offence intended to anyone of course, I just always like things backed-up if they go against my knowledge

[vfb]

I tested turn 2 (the very first hosting of the game) events in EA and MA for a bit with some bad scales and saw:

- Brigands (30 unrest)
- Hurricane (30 unrest)
- Ill Omen (30 unrest)
- Gadite rebel set your slaves free
- Frost has destroyed the crops. -80 gold, 10 unrest
- An assassin has tried to eliminate one of your commanders
- People are restless and on fifth left (-20% pop), 0 unrest
- Famine struck the land (-20% pop, -100 gold, 100 unrest) <--- Ooh, nice!
- Plague struck the land (-50% pop, 10 unrest)
- People led astray (-dom)
- Heavy snowfalls (-100 gold)
- Blight (-5% pop, -80 gold, 10 unrest)
- Magic is fading
- Lab destroyed
- Demon possessed a herd of swine (30 unrest)
- Sharks caused panic (30 unrest)
- Thief stole gems
- Trolls ate some travelers (-50 gold, 10 unrest)
- Vampire Count attacked province <-- he killed Ashdod's PD

So, it looks like barbarians and knights are out, I would have noticed them. Caspar is pretty rare, so I probably need to test more. Same with the Ancient Presence.

But on the very first hosting, you can get the (-20% pop, -100 gold, 100 unrest) famine event, and also the Vampire Count can attack your home province, and your lab can burn down.

[Alpine Joe]

Originally Posted by vfb

I tested turn 2 (the very first hosting of the game) events in EA and MA for a bit with some bad scales and saw:

- Brigands (30 unrest)
- Hurricane (30 unrest)
- Ill Omen (30 unrest)
- Gadite rebel set your slaves free
- Frost has destroyed the crops. -80 gold, 10 unrest
- An assassin has tried to eliminate one of your commanders
- People are restless and on fifth left (-20% pop), 0 unrest
- Famine struck the land (-20% pop, -100 gold, 100 unrest) <--- Ooh, nice!
- Plague struck the land (-50% pop, 10 unrest)
- People led astray (-dom)
- Heavy snowfalls (-100 gold)
- Blight (-5% pop, -80 gold, 10 unrest)
- Magic is fading
- Lab destroyed
- Demon possessed a herd of swine (30 unrest)
- Sharks caused panic (30 unrest)
- Thief stole gems
- Trolls ate some travelers (-50 gold, 10 unrest)
- Vampire Count attacked province <-- he killed Ashdod's PD

So, it looks like barbarians and knights are out, I would have noticed them. Caspar is pretty rare, so I probably need to test more. Same with the Ancient Presence.

But on the very first hosting, you can get the (-20% pop, -100 gold, 100 unrest) famine event, and also the Vampire Count can attack your home province, and your lab can burn down.

Or get reduced to half pop in your capital. In mists of time, i was hit by the half pop plague event on turns 2,3, and 5, all in my capital. That slowed me down a bit.

[Calahan]

Many thanks for the turn 2 event list vfb. I knew most of the unrest and minor pop killings events were possible on turn 2 (although I don't consider them game ending), but the Plague, Lab Fire and especially Vampire Count event are new to me I must say. Since I thought all of those were only possible from turn 3 onwards. One day someone (me if I get time) will nail down a precise list of just what scales are related to allowing specific events to happen. Since I've never seen a complete/accurate list of this anywhere.

And I guess all those posts I've seen in the past advocating to always recruit a mage on turn 1 are right then Unless you gamble on Merc mages to re-build your lab.

[vfb]

Yes, half pop is the plague, and it's in my list.

But just to let you know, the list is by no means complete, it's just a sample of bad events I got on the first turn hosting.