Tips for first full game...Arco

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Zen:
Also a favorite strategy is to teleport in an Astrologer, cast Doom, then either let him die or have him cast Returning. It's a little high on the chain, but something worth noting for such cheap Astrologers.

It's more fun to do hit-and-run Master Enslaves.

Teleport in a huge mass of astrologers with crystal matrices so they'll start out communioned, pop off a master enslave or two, and then Vortex out. Cursing everyone is merely a nuisance.

Well Norfleet, the Doom strategy you can cast by turn ~25-30 with Arco, and can potentially devastate an elite army. Where as the Master Enslave is something you do for ****s and giggles.

In Dom1 it was used alot with Golems, but Arco has a hand up because of Astrologers.

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
What opponents you might use? In Soviet Russia, your opponents use you! You don't "pick which opponents you use", except possibly at random. That's just not how it's done, picking your opponents as if this makes for an easier game. You pick the hugest map possible, then jam all 17, or maybe just not including Ermor, because they kill all of the other AIs and pretty much guarantee that you'll always be fighting them, or at least make sure they're not AE/SG. After the first 5 games or so where it was always me and them, it started getting a tad old.

Heh. Yes, I definitely didn't word that well.

Anyway, the one problem with the Nataraja is that he has the endurance in combat of a wet noodle. With an base encumberance of 3, it takes a lot of reinvigoration to keep him kicking, or at least a Wraith Sword, which will fail utterly against anything which is lifeless or undead, and he'll pass out like a big wuss again. If you can equip him with the items that'll give him the reinvigoration he needs, though, he can be a right mean fellow.

Great! Thank you for the advice.

[fahdiz]

After a couple of really good Pythium games (well, as good as only 40 turns of a Pythium game can be...) I think I've decided to try Pythium instead of Arco for my first full game.

I won't ask for strats, though...I'll poke around the forums unless of course someone has a never-before-shared Pythian gem they're dying to get off their chest.

I tend (in the demo) to use SC pretenders more often than not, and I think it's because I'm underconfident in my research/ritual/global enchantment skills right now, and the SC pretenders give me a little morale boost. But I was wondering a bit about the Divine Emperor as a Pythium pretender. Does he make a better stay-at-home pretender than most of the other rainbow mages?

[ February 08, 2004, 16:46: Message edited by: fahdiz ]

He's a Rainbow Variety of Pretender. It would be best to only choose him if you plan on going rainbow with a significant level in Astral (5+).

Otherwise you are better off using something with a little more physical strength and survivability.

[fahdiz]

I'm very interested to see how things look *after* turn 40 in any of these games. Last night I played as Machaka, and I was doing well (Desert Sun was really wreaking havoc on my closest opponents, namely Caelum and Vanaheim, and I had several very good assassinations followed by Black Lord/Black Hunters military victories) but I could sense that in a few turns I was going to get squeezed really badly since they were concentrating their troops.

One good thing about the 40-turn limit: you can almost always end on a decent note.