Guide: a difficult Pangaean strategy

[B0rsuk]

Gandalf Parker said:

Growth 0
No change but thats up to individuals.

Sounds like it would help greatly with maenad hordes. You could postpone researching Construction, perhaps.

Dominion Strength of 3. Strong enough to make sure that I get the scale effects at home but not so strong that it spreads ahead of me. I want to be able to purchase troops outside of the dominion so I can get money and resource benefits.

Strong dominion would probably be terribly annoying for all the Order lovers. Good synergy with cheap temples and Turmoil. Just thinking aloud.

There are two choices for what to do with a province once taken.
A) Raze
B) Beachhead

With Raze you expect it to be taken back. You set the taxes to 200%, purchase minimal PD, any units which can help hold it or at least make it a problem to take back.

With Beachhead you turn taxes to 0%, put lots of money into PD, purchase as many local units as possible.

Either way, your stealth army should disappear into the wilderness.

Just wondering... does anyone EVER bother to pillage ? I'm a long-time forum lurker, and I can't seem to find anyone considering Pillage order. Is it so much unplayable ? I know it slows you down because you need an additional month, which makes you easy target for artillery spells. But still..
How about units with Pillage bonus ? Does it make the situation better ? And in general, how much (gold, I assume) do you get for pillaging ?

[Endoperez]

Pillage kills people. You also get a little gold. Usually, when you wage war, you want to have your raiders survive, and while momentarily crippling your enemy is nice, getting to enjoy from his 30000+ pop capital's income is even better. 200% taxes rises unrest quite fast, doesn't risk your own men, and gives you more gold than pillage would.

[B0rsuk]

Then something is seriously wrong, don't you agree ? I guess both developers should've spent more time making sure that existing options are viable and interesting. Why keep an order that is, esentially, unnecessary clutter ? It's like these spells no one ever bothers with. For example, I searched both Dom2 and Dom3 forums for hellpower and found only several results. No one ever commented on hellpower, either. Which is a shame, because it looks like a great fun on paper.

[Gandalf Parker]

B0rsuk you seem very quick to take one opinion as an extreme fact. he didnt say it was worthless, just that it had drawbacks.

But to answer the question, there are times that I recommend pillage. Also blood search. Both can be part of a "salting the earth" tactic. Such as any of these:
A) Im far away from my home territories
B) Im unlikely to get long-term use of the province I took
C) he is likely to take it back and use it against me
D) he is exceptionally stronger than I am and makes strong use of local units
E) he is the last enemy

Then using "burning the fields and salting the earth" tactics can be very useful. If you drive the unrest over 100 then he cant recruit there even if he gets it back. Forcing him to chase you with his one original army or stop to patrol is handy.

And doing it to his capital can be devastating. Even if he gets it back, he cant recuit for long enough to let you return with another army? And his taxes dont yield much? Very useful. And if you gain his castle for a short time, raze his lab so he cant even summon for awhile.

[Endoperez]

B0rsuk said:
Then something is seriously wrong, don't you agree ? I guess both developers should've spent more time making sure that existing options are viable and interesting. Why keep an order that is, esentially, unnecessary clutter ? It's like these spells no one ever bothers with. For example, I searched both Dom2 and Dom3 forums for hellpower and found only several results. No one ever commented on hellpower, either. Which is a shame, because it looks like a great fun on paper.

Pillage is useful. Only for killing population fast, when you can afford a turn or two, but for that it works very well. It's situational, but some nations and strategies benefit more from it than others. Good raiders and death nations come to mind.


Re: Hellpower.
It was used. I've seen few HUGE battles, with dozens of tartarians and other nasty things against huge force of demons, big battlefield-wide spells being cast on both sides - and Hellpower used to power up.

Hellpower comes with a risk. There are many situations in which casting it could be worth the risk. LA Ulm with few communicants comes to mind. +2 Astral VERY nice, especially as it allows the casting of Light of the Northern Star. Mictlan could also use it to get access to some nice spells. Mass Protection, perhaps. Of course, it might also be possible to have some mages casting Horror Mark, and hope that the appearing horrors will attack the ENEMY first, and the Hellpowered mage only after that.

There are lots of other spells that haven't seen much use, and perhaps won't see much use in Dom3 either, but are still good. Hand of Death is deadly; you can't really script or plan for it, but when your mages decide to cast it, it can be devastating.
Then there are those that aren't worth the mage-time or cost. There's been some discussion about Eater of the Dead. He might be one such creature. Of course, it has been mentioned that he is currently slightly bugged.

[Arameyan]

I'm a big fan of Pangaea, and there's many interesting points in your strategy Gandalf.

With maenads I think alteration is a priority (mass protection et Mother oak). Swarm and ants could be fun I think with a Pan assassin (or in a deathmatch).

I think there is many ways to play Pangaea:

1 - High bless white centaurs: centaur warriors are awesome, white centaurs are even better. Many high bless (not nature) suit them well. They can even fight in a more classical way against other nations (not using stealth, expanding around capital).

2 - Death woods: take a Carrion dragon, reasearch enchantment, spwan carrions, cast Haunted forest and/or carrion woods... Use Banes with items as thugs. Very nice thematic, reminds me Princess Mononoke I prefer to use this strategy with late era, as undead-boosting holy spells are available and D2 Pans.

3 - Blood nation : Lord of the wild, many *cheap* temples with sacrifices, mix of nature summons with blood leaders. Take turmoil so your blood slaves hunters will spawn free maenads while searching. Access to blood magic also gives you interesting items to use leaders (pans, minotaurs, pretender, blood summons, firbolgs) more offensively.

4 - Lamias! I use a N7W2D2 Mother of monsters. W2 allow her to summon bog beast before lamias (to have a poisoned battlefield). Put poison ring on firbolgs and/or pans. Take high dominion, cast Gift of Health, Haunted forest, research mass protection.

I also use kithaironic lions in games with Demo players. On the first turn I like to recruit just minotaurs to power up my firts army. The trample skill gives an edge over non-cavarly indies.

I think I dont use enough the stealth abitity of Pangaea. I like the idea to have a strong dominion to use the Globals spells (haunted forest, GOH, etc) with high growth to cast tune of growth in battle.

I dont use entaur archers with turmoil 3 as they are gold intensive. I prefer minotaurs or centaur warriors. I should try fire and flee tactics with centaur archers... I got the idea to put air magic on my pretender to create many flying minotaurs. These trampling flyers could be fun (backed with harpies) with the Hold and attack rearmost ennemies order.

I have some questions about your strategy:

- With set tne taxes to 0 in the beachhead option?
- Do you use minotaurs? I find them very useful mixed with maenads.
- Do you use Charm? Is this spell very useful in late game MP? can it be easily countered?
- How do you use Blood magic?
- What evocation spells do you use? why use vine arrow instead of tangle vines?
- Do you use tune of growth?
- How do you use maenads in late game? How can they face larges armies of archers? the blade wind spell?

Thank you

[Cainehill]

Arameyan said:
2 - Death woods: take a Carrion dragon, reasearch enchantment, spwan carrions, cast Haunted forest and/or carrion woods...

Only to see someone dispel your Carrion Woods, or simply accidentally overwrite it because all global spots were full. As someone who _loved_ playing CW Pangaea, I'll be very curious to see if anyone, ever, uses it in MP. And if it's successful, or simply gets wiped out rapidly.

[Gandalf Parker]

*bump*
But for a reason. In light of a mega-scenario concept I have in mind Im curious if anyone has any other hints about Pangaea