I suck with Pythium ... please help!

[archaeolept]

well, even a minimally equiped banelord will be
20 death + 10 astral +10 water and that's w/out lightning or fire resist.

for 50 astrals you get an archangel + 6 angels, each holy, armed w/ flambeaus which are vicious against demons and moderately tough undead, flying, and w/ some innate fire and lightning resist (only 50%, but more commonly needed than the banelord's poison and cold immunity). The archangel has F3 and H4, both nice and useful in their own right.

If you're running a blessing, and fighting abyssia or mictlan for instance, you might rather want to go for them...

I bought a bunch as marignon once, running an F9 S9 dual bless. Also as Jot fighting ermor, running an F4 W9 bless.

[Huzurdaddi]

What's a "mobile wrather"?

A flying unit that is equipped with a staff of storms and with enough gems to cast Wrathful Skies where needed. An awesomely powerful battlefield spell.

And air magics aside, they are also quite useful in their role as holy-4 priests.

I think you are getting the powers of the two units a little confused. Harbringer: 2A 3H, Arch Angel 3F 4H. But in any case it's a little bit of a stretch to say that a 50 gem summon is worth it for just Holy-4. There may be isolated cases, Ulm comes to mind, but in general that would be a huge waste of gems.

archangel + 6 angels, each holy, armed w/ flambeaus which are vicious against demons and moderately tough undead

Again I'll be honest here. I have never used them against devils. No wait that's not true I now remember trying them out against devils in one of my "what the heck can beat devils" tests. They got, as you would guess from the stats, spanked by devils. Now that was with no bless effect. With a seriously bless effect ( like F9S9 or F9W9 ) maybe they could hold their own.

I was actually thinking that they would do better.

Speaking of better, what the heck is up with the harbringers horn? I have tested them in huge numbers against devils and the horn, which looks deadly, does very little if any damage. Does it perhaps have a MR check?

It's too bad so much of the discussion on this forum is focused on what makes the best hammer ...

I think this is mostly due to the fact that SC's are quite effective in combat and are very mobile. The combination is quite deadly in a strategy game.

[Arryn]

Huzurdaddi said:
I think you are getting the powers of the two units a little confused. Harbringer: 2A 3H, Arch Angel 3F 4H.

Oops. You're right. I did get the path of the two mixed up. (When playing R'leyh I tend to summon both in quantity.) My bad. 3F is even more useful than 3A (IMO), but that's a separate discussion.

Huzurdaddi said:
But in any case it's a little bit of a stretch to say that a 50 gem summon is worth it for just Holy-4. There may be isolated cases, Ulm comes to mind, but in general that would be a huge waste of gems.

Naturally I disagree. A nation like R'leyh can easily afford the gems (by the time I can summon them I generally produce that many astrals each turn thanks to clams) and in this case it's a relatively cheap way to quickly get casters that can bLast your foes with Fires From Afar (and other nice fire spells). To me, the H4 is just icing on the cake.

BTW, as R'leyh, I of course have much better means at hand to deal with devils than trying to face them with kitted-out archangels, which while not a bad tool, isn't the best tool available for such a task. I think it's safe to say that we all consider the AA a "suboptimal" choice for that purpose. OTOH, part of the fun of Dominions is in playing around and seeing how some battles unfold. What's the fun in predictable outcomes of lopsided combats (when you know that your uber-SC is going to slaughter its opponent? Isn't it more exciting to watch an archangel girded for battle with the minions of Hell struggle to overcome powerful foes? Any such victories achieved will taste sweet indeed.

They may not be particularly cost-effective, but as I mentioned earlier, archangels do have their uses, especially under the right circumstances and nations.

[Boron]

Arryn said:

Naturally I disagree. A nation like R'leyh can easily afford the gems (by the time I can summon them I generally produce that many astrals each turn thanks to clams) and in this case it's a relatively cheap way to quickly get casters that can bLast your foes with Fires From Afar (and other nice fire spells). To me, the H4 is just icing on the cake.

BTW, as R'leyh, I of course have much better means at hand to deal with devils than trying to face them with kitted-out archangels, which while not a bad tool, isn't the best tool available for such a task. I think it's safe to say that we all consider the AA a "suboptimal" choice for that purpose. OTOH, part of the fun of Dominions is in playing around and seeing how some battles unfold. What's the fun in predictable outcomes of lopsided combats (when you know that your uber-SC is going to slaughter its opponent? Isn't it more exciting to watch an archangel girded for battle with the minions of Hell struggle to overcome powerful foes? Any such victories achieved will taste sweet indeed.

They may not be particularly cost-effective, but as I mentioned earlier, archangels do have their uses, especially under the right circumstances and nations.

What better means do you have as Ryleh to deal with devils ?
A soul slay / enslave mind etc. starspawn brigade is good too and i think you have something like this in mind .
And you need a staff of storms .
I guess vanheim is the "best" anti-devil nation cause they have good airmagic , can use a few storm demons on their own + a staff of storms is easy to get for them too .

But arch angels have definitive their uses and they are not that overpriced i think too . Especially for ermor they are probably attractive

[Huzurdaddi]

A soul slay / enslave mind etc. starspawn brigade is good too and i think you have something like this in mind .

Actually that is a suboptimal way to deal with devils. Devils have a very good MR. The only way to win that battle is with far more forces than he has.

The only really cost effective way of beating devils is to use an SC that can tank them. This is not super easy to acheive, but is possible. You will need an actual SC, mini-SC's need not apply.

Mechanical men+wrathful skies also works against devils.

Telestic animations become unholy with broken empire ermor. 5 astral gems for a level 3 unholy reanimator who can still preach isn't bad, I think.

That's really good!

[Boron]

Huzurdaddi said:
Actually that is a suboptimal way to deal with devils. Devils have a very good MR. The only way to win that battle is with far more forces than he has.

The only really cost effective way of beating devils is to use an SC that can tank them. This is not super easy to acheive, but is possible. You will need an actual SC, mini-SC's need not apply.

Mechanical men+wrathful skies also works against devils.

Yeah devils are special . They struggle with mechanical men / living statues and storm demons for the title most useful troop for offense i think . In defense you can add vampires .

I think the savest way to kill them is by a SC as you suggested . By mages is difficult because if you mix them with storm demons then the mages have a really hard time to chose the right spell to kill both .
Only banefire / gifts from heaven may work but these spells are so hard to get casters for that you can't count on them . Only ctis desert tombs has natural Banefirecasters but they pay 150 dominiondesignpoints for this .

[Huzurdaddi]

So getting back to Pythium ....

I want to hear from people that successfully used Communion. It is supposed to be the bread and butter of Pythium but when I use it the communicants almost always die.

What ratios do people use? I have even gone so far as to give the communicants an Earth Blessing ( for Rejuv ) and this does not help as the Thurges still murder them ( generally by casting ghost wolves at the end of battle that will never reach the front ).

I'll run some tests with ratios and see what I get. I know that there is no ratio once you get a silly number of thurges into the combat ( around 12 or so will kill any number of communicants if the battle goes on for any length of time ).

I'll see how it works for more sane numbers of thurges ( like 4 or so ). I have a feeling that 8 will be insufficient. Yeah just ran some tests. Sometimes they will not kill the communicants, but if the battle goes over like 10 rounds those communciants are toast. Clearly you can add more communicants and the amount of time that you can survive will increase ( if you keep the number of thurges constant ).

Probably 12 comunicants will survive 4 thurges.

Another problem I am realizing now is that having to cast communion master consumes one of the precious 5 spells that you can cast. After those 5 spells random things are going to happen. Which also limits it's power.

It is slowly comming back to me why I really use the etherial principes too much. They are brain dead easy to use, very effective, and cheap and not prone to disaster.

Communion OTOH is expensive, very difficult to use, costly, and prone to huge disasters if something outside of your planning occurs. However it can be very useful for boosting the power of your mages for a particular spell. I suppose it is not a bread and butter tactic but rather a tactic to be pulled out only for very special occasions.

Interesting.

Ok given that communion is not for everyday use and that pythium has a lack of summons what is one to do? Perhaps Pythium should fall back on the age old false horror spam? Not a bad tactic I suppose.

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
Only banefire / gifts from heaven may work but these spells are so hard to get casters for that you can't count on them.

Thunder strike, astral fires, falling frost, frozen heart, raise skeletons + drain life or drain life + raise skeletons depending on what order you want them in, bladewind etc. Those are all effective spells against Devils.