What is your favorite Pythium pretender?

[Dogboy]

I'm torn between a rainbow to get the gems and communion boost or a SC with magic in non pyth areas (fire, earth, death?)

What is your strategy?

DB

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Hmmm, a death 9+ Prince o' Death... having 64 Theurg Communicants drained out in a massive communion, and raised again as 64 useless zombie leaders - that's just so hilarious!

[PDF]

With Pythium anything is good, but I like Air-9 blessings (Vestals+Staff of Storm+Wrathful Skies)
A RM is not that useful, I'd prefer a sturdier FED mage over it.
And what about a Blood pretender, to get Storm Demons ?

[WraithLord]

I usually opt for a cheap oracle with best scales possible.
This gives Pythium great economic and research boost.
Then I research quickly the summons school to get SCs.
This is because I am sick and tired of SC pretenders.

When I in the mood for SC I either take virtue with 9-10 air bless or phoenix with 9F bless in serpent cult theme.
The virtue is an awesome indie cleaner and a competent SC.
Ten Hydras with flaming weapons blessing, well that is a sight to behold.

[Tuna]

For standard pythium, definately cyclops with earth-10. The great reinv bonus for commucants, couple with reinv from summon earth power and they rarely if ever die in battle. Also, the cyclops can easily cast Enliven statues with uber efficiency to provide chaff for the mages, do driveby shootings with earthquake x3, cast the great army of gold and army of lead to protect mages in battle, wipe out early indies with impunity once you forge him a water sword or two and things like that.

[Vynd]

I favor the "SC with magic in non pyth areas" approach. My reasoning being that Pythium can afford the judicious use of Ascashic Record to find the sort of magic sites you'd be looking for with a Rainbow Mage. Also, Pythium is only so-so at summoning SCs, so its good to have one available right from the start.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Tuna said:
For standard pythium, definately cyclops with earth-10. The great reinv bonus for commucants, couple with reinv from summon earth power and they rarely if ever die in battle. Also, the cyclops can easily cast Enliven statues with uber efficiency to provide chaff for the mages, do driveby shootings with earthquake x3, cast the great army of gold and army of lead to protect mages in battle, wipe out early indies with impunity once you forge him a water sword or two and things like that.

Do you truly find the +1 reinvigoration bonus for mages and slightly reduced fatigue cost from most spells for the pretender worth the substantial 56 design points you spend going from earth 9 to earth 10? My gut instinct would be that there has got to be better uses around.

To take an example, earthquake, when including base encumbrance, goes from 52 (L9) to ~45 (L10 or L9+earthpower) to ~39 (L10+earthpower). Add in earth boots or other earth boosting armies and the difference between the fatigue from L9 or L10 grows even smaller.

For those 56 points you could get an entire scale with 16 points left over. Boosting e.g. the magic scale if not already at 3 will cause you to "save" more fatigue in almost all battles in your own dominion than the +1 extra reinvigoration would except for the very long battles, and it applies to the Cyclops and non-sacred mages as well. Alternatively, you could get an entirely new path (such as 1W for quickness) with 6 points left over.

Genuinely curious here. Given that the fatigue reduction grows proportionally less for each additional point, there really is no great difference between 9 and 10 for most spells. The only spells where it would make a major difference would be Armour of Lead/Gold, but as they are Level 9 spells you are unlikely to be using them until such time as you are boosting your earth stat by +2 to +4 from items/earthpower anyway - or even more if you give the cyclops a crystal matrix for major battles - Pythium is the master of communion, after all.

[Huzurdaddi]

Any kind of SC with both death and earth is what I go for, and the GK kind of fits the bill.

Some earth for the Rejuv bless bonus and for, well, earth which is a great school.

Death since it's like, uber, and stuff and not having it really handicaps you.

The SC to augement you already impressive expansion powers.

You'll also probably want some air on that pretender since it's great for indie smashing.

Oh and while you are at it a touch of water just for quickness.

[Tuidjy]

Just like every other night, Pinky... Uh, sorry wrong line.
Just like every other pretender, you take a ghost king.

With drastic scales, you can easily get both a rainbow and a SC. As
for those who say that Pythium cannot get Scs, what are you smoking and
how can I get some?

*walks away singing the DOOM song, and injecting 'Natajara' from time to time*

[Vynd]

I didn't say that Pythium can't get SCs. I said they were so-so at it. Meaning that there are other nations that are better, and some that are worse as well. The best magical school for summoning SCs are Blood and Death. Base Pythium is very weak in these areas. They'd need a couple of path boosting items and a random death pick on an Arch Theurg just to be able to summon a Bane Lord. They have a better shot at getting some Air Queens, but there are other nations who are better equipped to summon those, as well.

Of course all of these problems go away if you put the appropriate magic on your Pretender, but that's true for any nation you care to mention.