Understanding D2 strategy - help!

[Cainehill]

Blood? Well, even on a non-blood nation, having a bit of blood on the pretender can be great for forging a couple of very nice items - blood thorn (only single handed weapon in the game with lifestealing), or blood stones.

Other than that, since I tend to play non-blood nations, I don't plan on using a lot of blood. However! There are magic sites that can easily make it worthwhile to go with blood. For instance - if you find the site that gives a blood-60 bonus (60% fewer blood slaves required for each summoning there), or a site that gives cheap powerful blood mages, it can be well worth cranking up a blood economy.

About the themes - most simply change the units and commanders the nation gets; some modify the gem income and required scales, and a very few (death themes mostly) heavily modify other things. But mostly, they change the units.

Some themes play very similarly to the base nation; others are wildly different. Conquerors of the Sea Marignon, for instance, is very different from standard Marignon, with very different magic strengths and with sailing instead of stealth.

Niefelheim theme for Jotunheim gives honking huge combat monsters, both commanders and troops, all very expensive and all sacred, great with a strong bless effect. On the other paw, Niefelheim loses the cheap researchers base Jotunheim has, but still plays fairly similarly to the base.

[Calistas]

Ahh, ok that explains it
How do you lot match up pretender with nation/theme? Anything around to help me understand this process?

Peter

[Cainehill]

For me, how I match up the pretender is different for different nations and themes (plus I still like occasionally trying something experimental in MP). It also varies according to game settings - what I want for a very difficult research game with Indy Strength 9 can be very different from normal research, Indies 5 or 6.

If a nation has very strong (or very cheap sacred troops ( Vanheim, Man's Last of the Tuatha, Marignon ) I may try to pick a pretender that will give a cost-effective strong blessing.

Mostly though, I want a pretender that can act as either a SC or an artillery platform, while having magic strengths that are different from what the theme's national mages have. For instance, making sure I have earth or death on the pretender, if the theme doesn't have easy access. Broken-rainbows - 3 or 4 paths between 3 and 5, for instance.

Other people have very different desires / intentions for their pretenders, but generally you want to play to the strengths of a pretender-chassis, while compensating for a nation / theme's weakness.

Or you play to the theme's strengths, as Zen mentioned - a high earth magic Cyclops for Ulm is pretty potent in combat, and with research can chain-cast some potent battlefield magics like Bladewind with low fatigue costs. Add some fire to that Cyclops, it can do all the nifty magma spells. Or add some water, and it becomes a fair tank, with quickness and breath of winter cast. Of course - that also gets it all kinds of afflictions, so maybe you want nature as well, for regeneration and hopefully forging or summoning some things that can heal wounds.

Hundreds of different ways to pick and design the pretender, according to what you want to try with it. You just have to try and avoid some of the ... decidely sub-optimal pretender chassis's at the moment.

[Calistas]

Oh, only just saw Zen's post, good stuff, and thanks again Cain, more to think about

Peter