Caelum pretender design

[Kel]

Chazar said:
Oh, one question to those who suggested Air&Water on the pretender: What for?

I mean, if you use your pretender for combat, ok

I use the pretender for combat.

- Kel

[Chazar]

Kel said:
I use the pretender for combat.

As I said, I agree with that purpose, but apart from combat...?

I do not like using Close-Combat-Pretenders, since having access to foreign magic to forge nice items like DwarvenHammers and StaffsofElementalMastery or to summon creatures like StormDemons or IceDevils is much more helpful than a single strong combatant. I guess this particularly is true for Caelum, which relies on magic! I mean, how do you get those items/summons if not by your pretender?

I found that except for Death, empowering is way out of question for Caelum, whose mages eat away the gems like vanilla ice on a hot day (even during Caelian midwinter !). Or do you think that one can get along without, summon more readily accessible creatures like those AirQueens? (Even with GaleGate up, I hardly have enough air gems for summoning left. I use them mainly for staffs of storms (every army and skirmish-squad should have one), bag of winds, combat-casting like wrathful sky and storm warriors,...)

[Boron]

Chazar said:

As I said, I agree with that purpose, but apart from combat...?

I do not like using Close-Combat-Pretenders, since having access to foreign magic to forge nice items like DwarvenHammers and StaffsofElementalMastery or to summon creatures like StormDemons or IceDevils is much more helpful than a single strong combatant. I guess this particularly is true for Caelum, which relies on magic! I mean, how do you get those items/summons if not by your pretender?

I found that except for Death, empowering is way out of question for Caelum, whose mages eat away the gems like vanilla ice on a hot day (even during Caelian midwinter !). Or do you think that one can get along without, summon more readily accessible creatures like those AirQueens? (Even with GaleGate up, I hardly have enough air gems for summoning left. I use them mainly for staffs of storms (every army and skirmish-squad should have one), bag of winds, combat-casting like wrathful sky and storm warriors,...)

if you take e.g. a nataraja with f2,w2,e3,d3,a2 :
you do not intend to use her as a sc earlygame .
but if you have to defend you can use her as an earlygame sc in times of need .
she can sitesearch then earlygame , midgame she forges / summons and lategame you can equip her to a really frightening combattant .

d3 is imo a musthave for most nations , especially magically narrow nations .
then you can do 3 things :
summon spectres for magic flexibility
summon bane lords as thugs / small scs
forge a skull staff + the death+1 helmet : then you can summon wraith lords / demi lichs too

since d3 lets you cast soul vortex in combat it is useful there too .
Last but not least with death 5 ( with items ) you can armytravel via stygian path spell lategame .

oh btw my mentioned nataraja with dominion 6 costs "only" 420 points .
so you have 80 points left for scales + castle .

i like : order 3 , sloth 3 , cold 3 , growth 3 , magic 3 and misfortune 1 .

if you want another castle than a watchtower you can chose misfortune 2 for mauso and misfortune 3 for 40 admin castle .

you have exactly zero design points left so you feel "perfect" as a nice psychological sideeffect

i wish i had chosen this pretender in thufirs new game as caelum and not my lame vq

[Kel]

Chazar said:

As I said, I agree with that purpose, but apart from combat...?

I do not like using Close-Combat-Pretenders, since having access to foreign magic to forge nice items like DwarvenHammers and StaffsofElementalMastery or to summon creatures like StormDemons or IceDevils is much more helpful than a single strong combatant.

As a 3A (actually, mine might be 2A now, come to think of it) 2W 3E 3D pretender, it's not one or the other, the GK is beautiful for fulfilling multiple roles, that's specifically why I would use the GK and not, say, a Wyrm. If you are going to have 3E for hammer forging, why not have it be useful when you aren't hammer forging, by using it for Invulnerability ? How do you get the earth gems for forging hammers ? You use the same 3E to site search when it's convenient. I use the GK for all functions (except scouting, I guess )

You are 100% right that being able to cover the weaknesses in your summoning and forging is important when considering a pretender. However, the GK will be your first SC, by far, if you research alteration-3 and will give you a lot of early expansion, getting you to the point where you can make hammers or summon 'wicked fun things'(tm) that much faster.

Note 1: False horror is Alt-6, just one more level past Alt-5 for invulnerability so there is a research synergy, you aren't sidetracking your research by having a multi role pretender. Sometimes I go straight to alt-6 before sending seraphs out, sometimes I just go to alt-3 and switch back later on. Depends on game variables. If my national research took me down completely different paths (like Ctis does), I wouldn't use a GK.

Note 2: in my experience, an ethereal, chilled, air shielded, ironskinned, mistformed, mirrored, quickened (all available by Alt-3), fear producing pretender can be a lump of play-doh and pretty well take any normal indie province. Soul vortex is more of a bonus since it isn't as readily available, research wise. If you are fearful of losing him, keep him inside the highest dominion you can.

Like I said, I am not an expert and my ideas haven't been certified by any of the resident experts, that's just my take on it

- Kel

[Chazar]

I am not arguing against using a GK as SC, but I just feel that I have time using him in battle, so I dont want to waste my design points in Air & Water.

Sure, my GK is site-searching to get me those earth gems (since Bloodslaves for bloodstones are only available until I get enough blood-sages and I only forge a few clams (4-8) to help with immediate gem shortage and to enable my astral-sages to cast probing). But since my mammoth occupy a province a turn and since my scouts usually find some easy targets for some windguided archers, my GK is heavily overstrained with site searching and as soon as I got enough earth gems for a hammer, he will barely be able to leave the lab. So I rather ensure good scales and never waste much thought in using him anywhere on the front. He might be of some use in defense, but I did that once (in hostile dominion - yes I had overextended) and immediately gathered two affilictions, which encourages me to stick im in a lab...

[Kel]

I don't remember the exact numbers but adding A2W2 to a GK is only like what, 50-60 points ? Shouldn't hurt your scales too much, makes him more viable as an SC, gives him better site searching and access to more rituals, like ID's. All for 50-60 points.

Chazar said:
and as soon as I got enough earth gems for a hammer, he will barely be able to leave the lab.

Just curious, what does he do in the lab after forging the hammer ? I use him to forge a couple key items but I usually take a province, search the province while a lab is being built, forge something like a hammer or a path enhancer, and then move on and take another province.

If you don't intend to use him as an SC very much, you are right, water and air (especially) aren't that useful. You said you aren't arguing against using him as an SC but it really sounds to me like you are or, at least, you don't use him as an SC or a site searcher *as much* as I would in the early/middle game. Which is fine, of course...but that probably explains the difference in how we would build them.

- Kel

[Chazar]

I dont build a lab everywhere, so I need to move to lab (no big deal with winged shoes, but still a turn to go). If I have noting to forge, I usually return to site searching, but there is plenty to forge: Dwarven Hammers, EarthBloodStones (one for every earth high seraph, and once for an earth sage to create the earth boots), BrazenSkull (just one for a blood seraph to bind StormDemons), Deathmagic enhancement items, Hellswords. Apart from that, he summons death & blood creatures as needed. This usually kept him pretty occupied in the games I have tried him so far (which are only three). In the case that he bores himself to Death, I use him to bloodhunt for a turn, which gets him going again in the next...

This seems to keep him occupied - but my experience with the GhostKing is rather limited to three MP-games (and some unfinished SP-Games), and each configuration was a bit different, but I recall that I must have given him water to summon frost fiends and ice devil, which I am missing now in the Last game (D3E3B3) as it approaches turn 40...

[Chazar]

Another thing on human pretenders: Are they any good for Caelum? Nice scales require a high dominion to pay off. Thats my specific thing, ok, but in addition Caelum's economy depends on cold weather, which also demands a high dominion! So there is a combined benefit from high dominion which makes me think that dom-strength 7 is an absolute minimum for Caelum! I dont think that HeartOfWinter is worth it, but maybe that is different with a lower dominion strength, is it?

So human pretenders or the ArchSeraph are simply to expensive to get that dominion strength in my opinion, since even an increased path cost rarely outweighs the cost for boosting the dominion. This is why I dont use the VQ anymore (and I did not use her much in combat either).

So what is the cheapest chassis if you desire Death, Blood, Earth and a high dominion like 8? Which chassis leaves most points for scales & castle? I think the GhostKing and the Fountain of Blood are the only choices there...