Looking for help from all the Pros!

[quantum_mechani]

FrankTrollman said:
It really depends upon what you want your God to do.

But one thing you don't want your god to do is to bother with Nature or Death magic, you've got that sown up pretty well with your Pans. So while the Carrion Dragon is totally hardcore (and it has recuperation, so it's actually a very reasonable SC chasis from the beginning), the fact remains that it invests heavily in magic you don't care about.

I suggest a god who does absolutely anything else, such as a Phoenix. Fire and Air magic, both at least 4. It can wander around searching for those sites and eventually surprise your opponents by popping out an air queen or something. Or a Cyclops. Or really anything at all, because the Carrion Woods pyramid scheme doesn't actually need a god for anything.

As to your scales, yeah Sloth and Turmoil are your friends. You get better Manikin troops with Growth, Luck, and Magic, so max those out. You have no need for supplies, resources, or gold, so consider taking a pile of Heat. It will make your Fire Spells better and give you extra points to spread around.

-Frank

Luck does not help carrion growth, AFAK. While taking added growth does indeed add slightly to your carrion growth rate, it also kills pop faster and you pay points for it, so I would not recommend it. One thing that I forgot to mention that does help a a lot: high dominion. There is a massive difference in carrion growth rate between a dom 3 province and a dom 10 one.

And CW pan does, in fact, have a great need for a particular type of pretender. Since you do not want to waste gold on troops, and the undead take a good while to get rolling, a pretender that can expand for you is vital. The phoenix is ok, but it is not really optimal either for expanding your provinces or your magic versatility.

Here is an example of the kind of build I'm talking about:

Carrion Dragon: 2fire 3air 2water 3earth 2death 2nature
Turmoil 3, sloth 3, heat 3, growth 1, misfortune 3, magic 3 dom 10, watch tower

His dominion generates carrion at a rapid rate, he is a good combatant from turn 2 all the way to the end game, and greatly enhances your paths of magic.

[Molog]

The carrion lord is most efficient in reanimating carrion critters. 25 nature gems for 3 vine critters pro turn.

You don't need a dominion of 10 as carrion woods, as the chance to reanimate a carrion thing is 10*(dominion+1+growth+magic). As you are forced to take growth 1 and magic 1 anyway, a dominion of 7 would do.
Both growth and magic scale increase the chance to recieve a strong carrion creature by 1. Growth isn't really needed, magic scale is nice for research.

I suggest sloth 3 and turmoil 3 and cold/heat 3 because your people are dieing anyway. Take luck 2 or 3, or you'll suffer from lots of bad events.

The free carrion reanimations aren't all that nice. The manikin and mandragora only spawn if unburied corpses are present in a province. Additional the carrion beasts can spawn once a turn in forests.

If you take 5 nature on your pretender you could cast mother oak around turn 15. But the berserk+1 is nasty on sacred mages.

Satyr hoplites with protection cast on them become very durable.

[quantum_mechani]

Molog said:
The carrion lord is most efficient in reanimating carrion critters. 25 nature gems for 3 vine critters pro turn.

You don't need a dominion of 10 as carrion woods, as the chance to reanimate a carrion thing is 10*(dominion+1+growth+magic). As you are forced to take growth 1 and magic 1 anyway, a dominion of 7 would do.
Both growth and magic scale increase the chance to recieve a strong carrion creature by 1. Growth isn't really needed, magic scale is nice for research.

First, carrion lords would be the most efficient if they did 3 creatures a turn. However, that is just the max they will do, most turns they will produce 2 or even only 1 beasts. And since you are guaranteed to get at least 1 beast per tun with any animator, carrion centaurs seem like the surest bet. Carrion ladies still have a niche though due to the fact you can switch them back and forth to research, and can both carrion ladies and lord have useful battle magic.

And there is, in fact, a reason to have higher dominion. The chance for carrion growth is province by province, you will have more provinces in more dominion faster with dom 10 than with 7.

[Molog]

Carrion lords reanimate 3 vine creatures a turn. No more, no less. Test it out if you don't believe me.

The free carrions spawns aren't all that. And with dominion 7 instead of 10 you could afford a nicer combat pretender.

[quantum_mechani]

Molog said:
Carrion lords reanimate 3 vine creatures a turn. No more, no less. Test it out if you don't believe me.

I did just test it. About half of time carrion ladies only produced 1 and carrion lords 1 or 2.

It is debatable whether more paths or more dominion is better, I suppose it is a matter of playstyle.

[Molog]

quantum_mechani said:

I did just test it. About half of time carrion ladies only produced 1 and carrion lords 1 or 2.

It is debatable whether more paths or more dominion is better, I suppose it is a matter of playstyle.

What version of dominions 2 are you using? Carrion wood reanimating was changed with one of the patches.

[Alneyan]

If you are planning on using national troops (especially capital units), you might wish to consider getting a Stone Idol as soon as possible, and drop *your* Dominion from your capital. 1,000 population is the absolute minimum you can go to and keep a working capital (with 100% resources), though finding gold will be another matter altogether.

Growth past 1 will virtually do nothing to stop population loss: Growth 3 gives +0.6% population per turn, while you lose 1% population per level of Dominion in all provinces. So unless you have a very low Dominion (not your best notion), you will lose population too quickly for Growth to matter. On another note, high Dominion will have an unfortunate downside: it will make it easier for your Dominion to spread around, especially in enemy territories. And not everybody will like your Turmoil/Sloth/Misfortune/Heat + population loss Dominion.

[quantum_mechani]

Molog said:
What version of dominions 2 are you using? Carrion wood reanimating was changed with one of the patches.

I am using version 2.16, and I can tell you that some turns, you get less than 3 a turn with carrion lords (and less than 2 with ladies). Also, the carrion centaurs have the advantage that you can afford to set one reanimating every province, thus providing undead leadership for your spawns if they get attacked.

EDIT: After some more testing, it seems the effect of growth
either way on pop loss is negligible.

[Jurri]

Molog said:
The carrion lord is most efficient in reanimating carrion critters. 25 nature gems for 3 vine critters pro turn.

Isn't the Carrion lady a tad more cost-effective? 3 of them costs 48 gems and yields 6 per turn, whereas 2 lords costs 50 gems for the same yield.

[Molog]

You're right.

The carrion ladies are somewhat better at reanimating.

The carrion lords die less easily and can cast better spells.