best way to get a non astral nation to s9

mighty_scoop · #1 October 16th, 2008, 08:35 AM

Hi together,

just got a question to you ... is there a best way (or easy way) to get a non astral nation to s9 ?
corresponding ... which are the appropriate astral mage summonings preferable with 4 misc slots) ?
I do not plan to use a pretender with astral magic.

Thx in advance

Gregstrom · #2 October 16th, 2008, 11:48 AM

There aren't really any helpful summons. If you have Death then spectral mages have some chance of S1 or perhaps even S2 turning up. Tartarians can get at least S2, I believe. Blood nations can summon (with luck) an Ice Devil or Arch Devil with some levels in Astral.

Basically, Astral doesn't ramp up with summons in the way Death does. The nearest you get are Ether Lords (S3, 1 in 4 are S4), an S4D1 summon for 90 pearls, and Golem who are S2 and need S3E2 to summon. Neither is much help in ramping upwards.

Site searching is a better bet, as there are sites providing Astral mages that can be found without an Astral site search. 1 in 4 metal order adepts have S3, which is as good a start as you'll probably find.

Failing that, there are Crystal Amazons (10% get S2) or lizards (all N1S1).

You can in theory use item boosts to go from S3-S9: Dimensional Rod + Skullcap + Robe of the Magi + Ring/Crystal Coin + Forbidden Light = 6 levels in S. However, you'd have to be starting with an F2S3 mage and already have Blood/Air mages and a sizeable lead in Con research to get this. And of course the recipient of these items would suffer from rapidly mounting insanity and quite a bit of horror marking.

If you did this, you would be well advised to make your first wish for a Seraph (or maybe a Stargazer - a R'lyeh hero with S5) and then empower them up to S6 so they can spam wishes without having to equip unpleasant artefacts.

To be honest, as long as you've been clamming heavily enough to get an Astral income of 100/turn it's more a matter of time than anything else. If you've saved up 250 pearls over the game, have an income of 10/turn and a couple of lizard shamans, then you aren't going to get very far. Thus, the most reliable (and possibly easiest) way is to try and clam constantly from the moment you research Con 2.

thejeff · #3 October 16th, 2008, 12:23 PM

Take a look at the Magic Path Booster Guide, linked from the Strategy Index.

In short:
Spectres can get you up to S4. (S2D1 spectre + Crystal Coin & Skullcap. A S1E1D1 spectre can make the coin with Earth Boots and the Skullcap.)
If you've got Blood, one of the ArchDevils has S3, which gets you to 5 and lets you make the Rings, for S6.

The S4 Ether Lord would get you to 7, but getting him might be more expensive than just empowering.

Tartarians can get up to 7 in any path, but you'll have to summon and GoR a lot of them to get it.

Beyond that, you'll need to empower or use the artifact boosters.

As Gregstrom said, if you've got the gems to make use of Wish effectively, you've probably got lots of clams and empowering up part way won't be that bad.

mighty_scoop · #4 October 17th, 2008, 03:54 PM

Thx ... both answers helped me a lot !

Illuminated One · #5 October 17th, 2008, 05:43 PM

How can you ever get 100 clams?!

They cost 20 gems each. When I reach Con 2 I wouldn't even have enough gems to forge them with dwareven hammers.

thejeff · #6 October 17th, 2008, 05:53 PM

You start with a decent water income, dump all your water gems to clams, as you start building up Astral from clams you alchemize them to water for more clams and it becomes self-perpetuating.

It's an early/mid game investment that can pay off big in the late game. Assuming you're not killed early on because you've dumped all those gems into clams.

Illuminated One · #7 October 17th, 2008, 06:15 PM

Ah, I see. But you have really to be big on water to get a start.

Executor · #8 October 18th, 2008, 05:35 AM

You don't really use water gems much anyway, and you'll always be forging with dwarwen hammer, although clamming always left me with no nature gems.
I find it good to take a strong astral pretender if you're going for clams, more clams=more astral, more astral=more wishing for gems, more wishing=more gems for clams, and so on.
If you start with a nation with no astral income and become the absolute astral powerhouse than that really something.

Gregstrom · #9 October 18th, 2008, 05:48 AM

Well... You need W3N1 mages if you want to start clamming the moment you hit Con 2. Some nations can take a Mother of Springs pretender to guarantee this. If you have good access to W1N1 mages (and at least one W2N1 mage), rushing to Con 6 lets you forge the boosters you'll need to start the clamming process. Jade Amazons and Enchantresses are your target indy recruits if you don't have suitable national mages.

After the first 10 or so clams the strain on your resources eases somewhat, but you shouldn't expect to be doing much else with water gems for quite a while.

Edit: Executor's point about N gems is a good one - there are always things you want to be doing with N gems.

Xietor · #10 October 18th, 2008, 09:42 AM

many mp games really make clams quite expensive though.

I think that is one of the reasons many mp nations in such games start with a monolith, even if they are not looking for a bless.

I know that does not answer the question. But clam nerfing has become popular with mods
in bigger mp games. So that is something to be aware of in the pretender design phase if you are entering a game with such a mod.