I suck with Pythium ... please help!

[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.

[Thufir]

And, while we're on the subject of communion, is it common to run more than one communion master at a time? If so, is it necessary that one of the communion masters are continuously casting relief?

[archaeolept]

relief is the key; hence the vital importance of an adjutant nature mage like a lizard shaman. that, and expecting any serious battle to kill of your (cheap) communicants. W/ relief I'm generally happy w/ 2 to 1 ratio, or even smaller for battles that look to be short. Castle assaults, otoh, will usually kill off all your communicants.

[Thufir]

archaeolept said:
relief is the key; hence the vital importance of an adjutant nature mage like a lizard shaman. that, and expecting any serious battle to kill of your (cheap) communicants. W/ relief I'm generally happy w/ 2 to 1 ratio, or even smaller for battles that look to be short. Castle assaults, otoh, will usually kill off all your communicants.

So, are you saying that with castle assaults, even if you have relief, you still expect to kill all your communicants?

Let's set up a specific example:
3 theurgs
1 shaman
8 communicants

In this case, if it is expected that all communicants die, I would've guessed that adding another shaman or two wouldn't be that hard, and would be well worth saving 8 communicants. Or is it truely that problematic that simply adding relief casters doesn't suffice?

[Huzurdaddi]

relief is the key

Releif buys you exactly 5 turns. This can be huge with communion since your mages can deal great damage in those turns. However it is not a panacea. Further in large battles with many Thurges one releif caster is no where near sufficient. Even massive numbers of communicants can accumulate huge amounts of fatigue per turn when there are 12+ thurges casting.

And in a shocker to me it is actually more effective to go for evocation than for Thaumaturgy when it comes to Thurges. I was trapped in the Pythium is an astral nation hence go for Thaumaturgy for battle magic. With a good number of communicants ( and you will need a good number ) some of the early Evocation spells ( and the computer will even cast them! ) do a great job.

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
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.

You'll probably want about 4-5 communicants per theurg when you have 4 or so theurgs.

After those 5 spells random things are going to happen. Which also limits it's power.

These spells will usually be things like thunderstrike, paralyze, soul slay, and such, plus body ethereal, so they aren't that useless.

[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.