Guide to playing Patala competitively

[Mindi]

This thread is being locked to help tempers cool down and to preform some clean up. KissBlade has been issued a warning for his initial attitude that helped send this thread down a wrong path and Graeme has been booted for 3 days because he doesn't seem to like to listen to warnings.

When this thread reopens I hope all of you will remember to treat one another with respect. It's perfectly fine to have strong opinions and to give those opinions but other people are entitled to express their equally strong opinions as well. No character assasinations or personal attacks allowed. If you are going to debate, debate the issue, not the person.

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Okay I have been addressing this issue all morning and have cleaned up this thread. This includes deletion of some posts entirely and editing of others including any references to the deleted content.

I expect this thread to be civil from here on out. This means debating the issues, not the posters and debating in a respectful manner. If I have to lock it again, it will stay locked.

We are now back to your regularly scheduled program.

[KissBlade]

Twan said:I've not played Patala sufficiently to have a definitive opinion, and Kissblade probably has far more experience and knowledge of the subject than me, but I find strange not to have a strategy allowing to give their full efficiency to national summons and mages, at least on big maps (if the nagas are not short terms good sacred, having a bless strat or semi bless strat for long term looks better than nothing, on paper at least, when you have access to many kinds of sacred summons including ones with 4 attack in end game). It's why I've presumed the first strategy was only the best for small games.

Sacred troops' strengths are entirely determined by their early game efficiency. Simply put once evocation spells are researched, a majority of sacreds tends to die the same. There are exceptions to this but Nagahs are not one of them. Hence a semi bless or a bless for long term strategy isn't effective unless you're talking about earth bless for your mages, which even then isn't really required since your best mages get summon earthpower and you don't want to waste scripting slots (which are very important) on everyone self blessing themselves. Theoretically you can also bring in priests to bless your gurus but that's a micromanagement nightmare and you can sidestep this issue largely by simply just communioning with them to a summon earthpowered nagarishi. Your most effective sacred troops comes in at conjuration 5. And they're not even that good since you have better uses for astral gems. Also your sacreds are magical beings so ferrying them is a very big hassle and takes away from your mage time. Efficient mage time is one of the most important things in a competitive setting. Worse yet, Nagah's capital only so you won't be getting them to the frontlines too quickly anyway. AND did I mention they were cold blooded so they're dominion reliant ESPECIALLY with their HUGE encumberance. Their stats are also very subpar given their huge resource costs. As said, they're among the least cost effective sacreds in the late era. (troops are typically determined by resources as their limiting factor, not gold) I'm not even going to bother pointing out the flaws of regular nagas who don't wear armor since their crappiness speaks for itself.

Also if we're on the topic of early game, your best long term strategy is to have a strong early game. Which spending your resources recruiting Nagahs instead of your more effective archers won't get you. A Vampire Queen however can cover a somewhat laggy early game however (if you get a tough start aka next to xbows/heavy cavs, etc) because she can take on the tough indies without a problem. She's a little excessive actually I mentioned this when I said that you can take a Ghost King instead but you'll have more fun with a VQ most likely. =)

Nagahs are not short term good sacreds. They are not long term good sacreds. In short, they're not good sacreds. In fact if anyone actually really bothered reading my description about Nagah sacreds I've even specifically said,theoeritcally you can make them /decent/ (not good) with a e9/n9 bless but if you're going that route why not use an actual bless nation??

Twan said:

So my only question is (and it's a question not an arguement one more time I'm not pretending to know very well this nation) why do you find a bless strategy for Patala so bad (outside of blitzes / no diplo games) ? The way you have answered Daynarr's posts doesn't make your reasons very clear.

If it's already past 20 turns, chances are you are safe with Patala, by then you should have the evoation spells to handle any "rushes". Also a VQ still be significantly more problematic for a nation like Van to handle since not only is the hotter + higher dominion from a pretender that's awake more effective against Vans, you'll have a reusable raider / defender. Also I have no idea why some people still think Patala has very good troops, as I've mentioned, Nagahs are among the worst sacreds and your level 5 conjuration is barely at adequate level. Heck I think equal heavy infantry indies even beats out Nagah dual blessed in cost. Also you'll rare see a dual bless strategy from most MP players simply because it's not a diplomatic strategy. It relies on constant wars and as mentioned, mid game battlemagic murders sacreds. In short to answer your question, a bless strategy for Patala is bad because their sacreds are awful. The awaken pretender option is feasible but IMO has it's faults because it tends to putter out of strength around early mid which is when your toughest time with Patala is going to be.

[KissBlade]

In addition, don't take my word for it, try it out yourself. Try a Daynarr's dual bless strat and try to play twenty turns, and then try my aggressive mercenary + longbow + VQ and follow my guide for twenty turns. I guarantee you in our current metagame (default setting or indies: 6) mines will have a smoother game.

[JaydedOne]

Hey now. Why'd I merit deletion? Because I misspelled your name, Mindi?

[Mindi]

Ha ha, no because I deleted every reference to the disagreement, even the posts that just PNL (Point 'n Laugh).

But hey, I did reopen the thread.

[KissBlade]

Heh ... PnL ... that's a new one ...

[Corwin]

<counting the deleted posts>
<sigh>

Damnit, I've missed all the fun.

Easer with the delete button please Mindi! > This forum hasn't seen a flamewar for a long time AFAICT, IMHO it's a good distraction from wreaking my head on how to make a certain MP-challenged nation work.

[Boron]

Btw are Patalas troops really that crappy?
They are not good, but in late era troop quality differs quite a bit.

A main characteristic seems to be whether a nation has x-bows or at least easy access to flaming arrows.

Imho other LA nations with weak troops:

-Arco:
Arco troops are somewhat similiar to the Patala troops, only the armored elephant seems very useful. But their various hoplite troops are rather weak too for late era imho.

-TC:
Only the horsemen are useful.

-Aby:
Resource intensive and expensive, only advantage is the fire resistence.

-Ctis:
No slave warriors, likely worst LA troops of all nations.



For Patala at least the Bandars with the iron crudgel and the Elephants are somewhat useful, and the atavi stealth archers for raiding.

Finally there is the theoretic possibility to use a horde of your troops in Mid- or Lategame and buff them with nagarishis.
With buffs like mass protection, mass regeneration, weapons of sharpness, quickening, luck, marble warriors, army of lead/gold you might be able to transform them from weakish units into decent hordes in key battles.
The bandar troops have only 4-5 enc, but good strength + ok attack rating, so if you manage to give them quickness + good protection/regeneration they might be formidable.