10 Turn Challenge!

[quantum_mechani]

Pretender: Pangaea New Era, Medusa 9E4N, 3 order, 1 prod., 3 death, 3 misfortune, 3 magic, 80 point/40 admin castle

Research(86 points): Enchantment 2, Conj. 3, Thaum. 1
Gems: 44+6 nature, 2+1 water, 2+1 death
Income 481, upkeep 132
17 provinces

Though light on site searching, this setup could still work very well for a 2 person (or 1 person 1 AI game). While seeming somewhat weak later game, having a lot of provinces early means a great chance of finding indie mages (I found Amazons, Sages and Lizard Shamen). Also nature magic can branch off in a lot of directions with a bit of reseach.

[alexti]

Explosive C'tis (Turn 11) - don't try in MP with more than 1 opponent

Pretender: Scorpion King 6F7E, 3 order, sloth 2, heat 1, misfortune 2, magic 3, fortified city.

Research: Ench 3 (total 138RP)
Gems: 5+1 air, 3 earth, 33+3 death, 37+5 nature
Gold: 2278, income 865, upkeep 143
20 provinces

Fast start is supposed to compensate for lack of certain magic paths. More fortresses, temples and lans should be coming soon, sauromancers busy in the field (fighting and searching) should soon settle and boost research.

[Turin]

whoa that´s twice my income. Does c´tis start in the upper half, or is that income boost explained by miasma domain and the 5 extra provinces?

[sushiboat]

Wow! Now I have some idea of how far I have to go.

Would anyone care to give a turn-by-turn summary? Even if I won't always want 15+ provinces by Turn 11, knowing how to accomplish that seems important.

[Turin]

Well I just researched alteration 2 and sent the gk out on turn 3. A force consisting of one high seraph/your starting commander and your starting troops + ~25 built blizzard warriors gets also sent out.(with some air gems for wind guide) that nets you 2 provinces per turn, so you come up with 15 at the start of turn 11.

[quantum_mechani]

Turn 1: I set my medusa to research (enchantment, to get to personal regeneration), and made my starting commander my prophet. Recruited a dryad commander and 3 dryad hoplites, and a satyr hoplite.

Turn 2: Put my new troops under the command of my prophet, and sent him toward a plains province whithout knights (most nations need to avoid knight provinces early). The battle orders set a single satyr hoplite in the front and a ways away from the seat of my troops (to attract arrow fire). The rest of the dryad and satyr hoplites were set to attack closest. The none-hoplite troops I started with were set to hold and attack closest, to avoid them being killed right away and forming a sort of reserve. The prophet was set to cast blessing fot two turns to get the most out of the dryad hoplites, then he would attack closest. Meanwhile, I recruited more dryad commanders and hopilites.

Turn 3: As long as the army I described befor avoids hard provinces (knights, barbarians, amazons, lizards), it con keep taking provinces for a long time without adding more troops. By now I have my pretender and 2 dryads reseaching, I set one of them to forgeing a thorn spear for my Medusa. And again I recruit more dryads and dryade hopilites.

Turn 4: The thorn spear is ready and personal regeneration is reseached, and the medusa is ready to start taking provinces. I give her the thorn spear and script her to sit in the back casting personal regeneration, cast panic a few times, then attack archers. This is only a good strat if you can find indies with archers or crossbowmen, but she can fly so it is very likely she can reach one, and again avoid knights. Meanwile a lot of dryad hopilits have piled up at the capital, so I set them under the command of a dryad commander, and they can start expanding as well (very simple orders, troops attack closest while commander blesses). Finally, I continue to recruit dryads of both kinds and switch research to conj. (lots of nature spells).

Turn 5: By now I have 3 forces taking provinces (Mendusa, starting army, dryad army), if none of them run into problems, they will have conquered 15 provinces by turn 11, plus whatever I had before turn 5. And every 3 turns or so you have another dryad army ready to go. At this point I will probably have found a province or two with indie mages (the best would be amazons, lizard shamen and sages), go ahead and send a dryad to build a lab there and start recruiting them for reseach and site seaching. This may mean not having enough gold for dryad production for a little while though.

Turn 6-9: Simply keep taking provinces and building armies and reseachers. After I get to conj. 3 or 4 I may want to switch to thoum., to start remote site seaching.

Turn 10: By turn ten, using this strat you should have a lot provinces and research, and a big pile of nature gems. You may want to recruit a Panii for casting call of the wild to disrupt your opponent, or you may want to save the gems for mother oak or lamia queens.

Anyway, I hope it's helpful

[alexti]

Turin said:
whoa that´s twice my income. Does c´tis start in the upper half, or is that income boost explained by miasma domain and the 5 extra provinces?

Yep, I've started in the upper half. I didn't have miasma domain. I think that besides 5 extra provinces the difference mainly came because Caelum needs Cold-3 and at that rate of expansion most of your provinces were probably far off of that optimal value

[alexti]

My plan was very simple, just plain old rush. I've set Scorpion King (SK) to research enchantment, until I've learned what was in the next provinces. So on turn 2 I've sent him to conquer indies. He was taking one province per turn going by perimeter (and avoiding things like knights). On every turn I was hiring a sauromance and set him to research enchantment. When the ench-3 was about to be ready I've sent extra sauromancers with few guards forward, so that I could expand not from the capital. After that everybody went into the battle with raise dead, 2 Groups went right away, 3rd couple of turns later, after that freshly hired sauromancers were searching for sites. By turn 8 or so Jotunheim has attacked me (trying to take provinces with some remote spells). And along the way I was hiring all mercenaries in sight, it wasn't very successfyul though, 2 companies has perished achieving nothing and only one company has taken few provinces.

[sushiboat]

Thanks for the details! They really help. I think I have the basic idea of how to use a SC pretender in the early game.

Does anyone regularly use a pretender that isn't SC? If so, I would love to see how you spend your first 10 turns.

[quantum_mechani]

I very rarely use a pretender without use in combat, but there are still more intersting things to do than a standard SC. For instance a Van F9W4 moloch makes awesome artillery (quickness + fire darts), while making your sacred troops and commanders fighting machines. Also a different tactic is to use a monolith with 9S4W3N; research teleport, body ethereal, astral shield, and breath of winter (note: add fire for fire shield when facing undead nations). While it has some obvious drawbacks, it can be very powerful when used correctly.