Your Top 10 Super Combatant Builds

[Executor]

Gen generator are bigger game winners than Tartarians.
I just finished a game where I had 400 clams and blood stones, which led to me wishing for gems 6 times a turn, which is about 800 free gems.
That was 3 times more than what the score graphs showed.
Those 6 wishes enabled me 150 free death gems which I used to summon about 10 tartarians a turn.
Gem generators are VERY fearsome!!!

Not having clams means wishing is gonna be a lot harder, there most likely won't be any gem wishes, since you'll be saving those precious astral gems for a Seraph or Chayot or ??? something.

And as Dragar pointed out it takes away the rush for sceptre and chalice mostly, as there isn't so much a need for them than.

[DonCorazon]

I agree 100% with Executor. I have the misfortune to currently be stuck in 3 (well now 2) endgames. Its sad how similar they are - clamming, blood stones, etc with all the micro that entails. I spend more time rounding up gems than I do planning battles...uggh...its just not fun.

I will only join games without gem generators going forward. I don't mind Tarts as much, since they do help nations without decent national summons and open up some fun magic path combos that allow for creative scripting. They certainly don't make anyone invincible - i just lost 2 to the AIs 800HP Kraken in one game. But they do give a pretty big edge to whoever gets the Chalice.

That said, the more I play, the more I realize that just finding certain sites early on can pretty much determine who wins amongst competitive players. I am starting to wonder whether no independent mages or OP sites like Steel Ovens should also be a part of a balanced game, though that would take away a lot of the fun of site searching.

[chrispedersen]

Can't you set the map so no rare sites are used?

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by DonCorazon

I agree 100% with Executor. I have the misfortune to currently be stuck in 3 (well now 2) endgames. Its sad how similar they are - clamming, blood stones, etc with all the micro that entails. I spend more time rounding up gems than I do planning battles...uggh...its just not fun.

I will only join games without gem generators going forward. I don't mind Tarts as much, since they do help nations without decent national summons and open up some fun magic path combos that allow for creative scripting. They certainly don't make anyone invincible - i just lost 2 to the AIs 800HP Kraken in one game. But they do give a pretty big edge to whoever gets the Chalice.

That said, the more I play, the more I realize that just finding certain sites early on can pretty much determine who wins amongst competitive players. I am starting to wonder whether no independent mages or OP sites like Steel Ovens should also be a part of a balanced game, though that would take away a lot of the fun of site searching.

I see. Nevertheless, Tartarians as SCs for everyone (and they ARE better than most) look quite boring to me. Micromanagement can be reduced with just the "pool" command. And this allows an access to Astral for nations which don't have it. And, as was said, Bloodstone is one of only 2 Earth boosters if we discount RoW, Elemental Staff and artifacts - which are all not everyday items. And - it's a way for MA Oceania to really do something. Actually, I think that unless you have a strong Astral nation already (and so can Wish for gems), you just never have enough gems without these items...

[BesucherXia]

Originally Posted by Wrana

I see. Nevertheless, Tartarians as SCs for everyone (and they ARE better than most) look quite boring to me. Micromanagement can be reduced with just the "pool" command. And this allows an access to Astral for nations which don't have it. And, as was said, Bloodstone is one of only 2 Earth boosters if we discount RoW, Elemental Staff and artifacts - which are all not everyday items. And - it's a way for MA Oceania to really do something. Actually, I think that unless you have a strong Astral nation already (and so can Wish for gems), you just never have enough gems without these items...

Pool command is far from ideal. It will remove those intended gems at the same time. And pearls are very usually equipped to cast Returning.

I once thought about a solution regarding micromanagement: let any gems generated by commander himself be immoverable. Maybe we can even make all equipped gems fixed, like those carried by mercenary. Blood slaves should always be sent to treasury directly, and you should be able to give commanders gems without a local lab.

But I suspect that can not be done without rewriting the whole game.

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by BesucherXia

Pool command is far from ideal. It will remove those intended gems at the same time. And pearls are very usually equipped to cast Returning.

I once thought about a solution regarding micromanagement: let any gems generated by commander himself be immoverable. Maybe we can even make all equipped gems fixed, like those carried by mercenary. Blood slaves should always be sent to treasury directly, and you should be able to give commanders gems without a local lab.

But I suspect that can not be done without rewriting the whole game.

But! The gems for Returning are most commonly on the commanders which are deep into enemy territory. Therefore, they won't be pooled for the simple reason that these commanders aren't in labs!
And this solution is worse than useless. You equip the commander with gems he didn't generate when he needs to cast the specific spell. You equip commander with Clam/Fetish to generate gems for other commanders. Your idea will remove gems from the former, but not from latter. Making it other way around would be better, but also not ideal, as you could add or remove gem-producing item (with or without changing commander's purpose).
A possible solution could be to allow to mark commanders somehow so their gems won't be pooled - but THIS would require rewriting main files...

[BesucherXia]

Originally Posted by Wrana

But! The gems for Returning are most commonly on the commanders which are deep into enemy territory.

I dont think so. In late game you may have groups of commanders horror marked thanks to the item effect, you suspect your opponent may launch a full scaled assassin spell campaign. And believe me you will fear AC show up at any time. Will you just use Returning to run from the battlefield in enemy territory?

Originally Posted by Wrana

You equip commander with Clam/Fetish to generate gems for other commanders. Your idea will remove gems from the former, but not from latter.

I have really missed the point that we can still pass items to storage more gems. That trick would be quite popular for Returning. Thanks for the remind.

Originally Posted by Wrana

A possible solution could be to allow to mark commanders somehow so their gems won't be pooled - but THIS would require rewriting main files...

That change would be absolutly welcomed.
We all know there is so many micromanagement issues here and there, and our beloved game is hitting its limits. After all, we are all just once awhile dreaming about a new world. Hmmm.. its time now to stop hijacking the topic.

[Duncan_Frost]

Any of the four-armed guys like Rudras.
Throw on both the Axes of Rulership and the Harvest Blade.
Laugh as you turn enemy SC's into limbless torsos.

[Dragar]

The only problem with killing gem generators is the earth boost of bloodstones is worth keeping. Other than that I'm all for wiping out gem generators in all games I play - they are too powerful in the end game so most successful players will use it, and everyone will spend hours and hours of boring micro. Doing so would reduce mass tart creation anyway, so there wouldn't be so much of a need to ban them too. We'll end up with a lot more variety in the end game

[Aethyr]

Dragar, I agree with your previous post; getting rid of both gem generators & tarts would make for better and more interesting end-games.