Diabolic Marignon Pretender

Spacepain · #1 April 26th, 2006, 02:12 AM

"Spectres, Lamia Queens, and one each of Ice Devils and Arch Devils have Astral. Unmodded Clams are the best source of pearls. I can't believe you play without any patches or mods! The patch is *essential*; it adds and fixes tons of stuff. "

Haha, well, its silly for me to play with the patch, if all my games must be done with people w/o the patch.

However, I just began wondering what exactly I should be summoning blood wise....

Marignon has harlequins, however, they would really need to be made in mass to be useful, me thinks. There's spine devils, and plain old devils too... What should I be looking to use for armies?

quantum_mechani · #2 April 26th, 2006, 03:13 AM

Quote:

Spacepain said:
Haha, well, its silly for me to play with the patch, if all my games must be done with people w/o the patch.

hehe, playing without any patch... ditch Mari and beat them silly with VQs until they agree to patch.

Saber Cherry · #3 April 26th, 2006, 07:42 AM

As Marignon, just make Soul Contracts and summon Arch Devils. Lifelong Protection is nice too.

PDF · #4 April 26th, 2006, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Saber Cherry said:
As Marignon, just make Soul Contracts and summon Arch Devils. Lifelong Protection is nice too.

As any blood-nation, or even non-blood one, this is an obvious strategy ...

Vicious Love · #5 April 26th, 2006, 01:26 PM

Quote:

quantum_mechani said:
hehe, playing without any patch... ditch Mari and beat them silly with VQs until they agree to patch.

I'm with QM. Also, find or summon a water mage and churn out as many clams as possible, alchemizing astral pearls into water gems when possible. And spend all your blood income on Soul Contracts, forged with Dwarven Hammers. That'll learn 'em to play unpatched.

shovah · #6 April 26th, 2006, 03:10 PM

agrees with others, play vrs them with a VQ and any nation with decent water magic (even mictain might be good, they also have the bonus of being able to churn out blood uniques with only a few boosters)

Spacepain · #7 April 27th, 2006, 12:59 AM

"agrees with others, play vrs them with a VQ and any nation with decent water magic (even mictain might be good, they also have the bonus of being able to churn out blood uniques with only a few boosters)"

Haha, well I play pythium a lot, too, I'll try that out on them one of these nights. (I'm guessing you use VQ to make SC for early expansion?)

--------------------------

On a more relevant note:

I've been implementing all the suggestsions here, and a few new questions have arised.

First off, higher level blood magic tends to have more than the 2blood most all goetic masters have. How should I go about producing stronger blood wizards? Empowerment is awfully expensive.

Secondly, does SDR effects stack if you place two on one wizard? Is it worth is to place two SDR on one wizard?

Third, in unpatched dominions 2, does the Astral 9 blessing work on sacred units? Or is it bugged? It certainly doesn't to seem to work, because my flagellants still constantly fall to the first arrow fired at them, despite the description that lucky blessing saves them from their first hit.

Fourth and finally, although flagellants make up almost near all of my armies, there is still the tiny sliver that is comprised of those super-duper demonic sorts. On that note, are mass harlquins, or MUCH fewer of their stronger & 5-6 times more expensive counter parts better. i.e. 30 Harlequins (30 blood slaves) or 4 devils (28 blood slaves?)

shovah · #8 April 27th, 2006, 04:28 AM

sdr dosnt stack, i dont think anything does. to get a stronger blood mage use your pretender or use boosters (in my test game with DF marignon i had a blood7 fire 4 goetic master).feel free to empower and level or 2 when possible and get your blood economy running fast (standard should be 3 diabolists with SDR's in a 5000+ population province with 0 taxes, try to repeat this set-up 3-4 times.
make soul contracts with you stronger mage(s) when possible as the 1 devil per turn is alot better when you have 5 of them (all traveling with your army to make up losses). i personally dont like harlequins unless you need to mass fodder quickly, 4 devils will probably be better in alot of cases due to higher stats and heat radiation.
casting the looming hell with alot of slaves gives you a nasty little global that can be very annoying to say the least and a very nasty tactic ive discovered is 10 (or more if you want) assasins with lifelong protections and possibly amulets of luck and robe of shadows if the enemy has lots of crossbows or something. while 1 lifelong protection is weak in battle, 10 of them produces a huge number of imps EVERY TURN, with each of them having 2 attacks per turn they are very good at engulfing your foe in a tide of red midgits. the assasins add mobility with their stealth and utility with assasinations but they are by no means neccisary, its perfectly possible to do this with any commander (the bonus of this way being that you have arrow catchers)

Saber Cherry · #9 April 27th, 2006, 06:17 AM

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shovah said:
sdr dosnt stack, i dont think anything does.

Weapons and shields (and helmets, for 2-headed) stack for their stat bonuses, but not special bonuses (like resistance). I can't think of anything else that stacks with identical items.

Vicious Love · #10 April 27th, 2006, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Spacepain said:
Haha, well I play pythium a lot, too, I'll try that out on them one of these nights. (I'm guessing you use VQ to make SC for early expansion?)

Well, yeah. And late expansion. And pretty much anything else. Unpatched VQs are just plain deadly. A true VQ uber-SC requires either costly empowerment or the kind of points you can usually only spare while playing a dead Ermorian theme, but the results are dizzying. And she's immortal, to boot. And ethereal, so that immortality really counts for something, as your opponent can't just Wind Ride her into a province with hostile dominion.

Quote:

First off, higher level blood magic tends to have more than the 2blood most all goetic masters have. How should I go about producing stronger blood wizards? Empowerment is awfully expensive.

Research Construction. Secure(either through empowerment, Pretender design, Blood boosting items, recruitment at a special site, or some combination of the above) at least one Blood-4 mage, and at least one Blood-X, Earth-Y mage(don't recall the numbers at the moment). If possible, complement them with a Blood-X, Nature-Y mage. Have them forge Brazen Vessels, Blood Thorns, Blood Stones, Armor of Souls, and that cursed Blood/Nature armor thing, whatever it's called. Allocate these items as necessary, and have a nice day.
For the really high-level juju, you might also want to secure a few Rings of Sorcery/Wizardry and Robes of the Magi.

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Third, in unpatched dominions 2, does the Astral 9 blessing work on sacred units? Or is it bugged?

Pretty sure it works. You didn't empower your Pretender or something, did you? Your blessing is only affected by your starting path levels, boosters and empowerments don't count. Nor do afflictions or other path losses, thankfully.