EA Pangaea strategy

[Dedas]

Whom are you referring to? I'm not basing my strategy around maenads, if you read what I wrote you will see this. What I'm saying is that maenads could be used for various roles including patrolling.

[OmikronWarrior]

Just did a quick check, Maeneads DO NOT cost upkeep. Hence, they're free chaff, other than the supplies they consume, that is.

[AlgaeNymph]

From my experience in the Feohtan game, a minotaur rush works wonders...

[Dedas]

Yes, but they are a quite easy prey for massed archers with the "fire at large creature" command. Combine them with javelin equipped skirmishers with shields to damage and fatigue them some and you will see the critical hits rack up. Also, as they cost 40-50gp a piece you can't afford that many and still have a chance at building fortresses to expand your research and economy. Practically you only got one shot, if you fail that you will be far behind the competition and also wide open for an attack. Another thing, if you rush, go all way, you don't want to sit with a plentorae of high upkeep units that you can't effectively attack with.

[Endoperez]

Going from turn 10 onwards, with 9 provinces, Dedas' Pangaea got:

21: 10 000 gold, with starting income 970 and 10 random gems, 1 +15 PD event, one +temple event and a random constr 4 item (Dwarven Hammer). Pangaea's upkeep was 44 on turn 21, increase of 11 from turn 10.

30: 22 000 gold with income of 970 (same), total of 51 random gems from events, another +15 PD event, and items from Constr 4 (Winged Helmet) and Constr 2 (Lightning Rod, Hammer of the Mountains). Ended up with upkeep of 99, thanks to some militia.


Order 3 Sloth 3 Heat 1 Growth 2 Misfortune 2 Magic 3 Bandar Log with similar pretender (125 point, 2/1 path titan with starting dom 3 upped to 6) got:

21: 10 000 gold with starting income 1000, 3 random gems, +15 PD. Upkeep 29, same as on turn 10.

30: 18 000 gold with final income of 955, due to losing one province for barbarians. Got total of 8 random gems, no items, no further PD events.

Final numbers: Luck got 4k more gold, 43 more gems, 2 Constr 4 and 2 Constr 2 items, lots of militia and some flagellants than Order. Ended up with upkeep of 56. Also, Luck nation had 1 more hero, but she appeared before turn 10.

Notes:
Order nation started with two wastes, while Luck had none. If the 10g income Wastes had been 60 income Forests, Order nation would have netted 100 more gold/turn (without unrest from events), so +2000 more gold, evening the difference into just 2k. The loss of one province doesn't matter, because Luck 3 Pangaea's upkeep made up for it - Pangaea's upkeep was higher throughout the test.
Both nations had PD 21 in all of their 9 provinces, so weaker event attacks were repelled if any happened. I didn't count any gems/gold from before turn 10, because dominion wouldn't have spread to all 9 controlled provinces.

In my earlier tests, most builds had 30k gold on turn 30, whether they had Order or Luck. Starting income 200 gold higher wins, whether or not good scales add ~+17 % to it or not. Notable exceptions started with either much higher or much lower income than the norm. I think that means that successful initial conquest is more important than scales as far as early economy goes. The extra gold from Order or maenads from Turmoil might help in this conquest, but the provinces conquered define the amount of gold you get. Fast expansion -> more gold. I do my all tests by setting each nation to 9 provinces and amount of sites to 0.

[Dedas]

Very good test, kudos Endoperez!

Based on your test it seems to me that in Pangaeas case it would be better to go with turmoil and put those 240 points on something useful instead, maybe a good pretender or boosting other scales. That would boost early expansion even further.

[Ylvali]

I am currently testing a variant of this strategy. Same approach on patrol/fortress building.

But using awake gorgon dom 10 instead. N4/E4 (could possibly be switched to magic scales or a third magic path, I took them for the blessing.) Same scales exept no magic.

Awe and petrification works great together. Also tune of fear and the gorgons fear ability makes most indys rout on round two

scripted attack(to get in range)/tune of fear(stacks with fear +5, so far all indys routed here)/attack rear(just to make sure she doesnt start casting stupid spells)

So far so good. I guess that with a few protective items she will be taking out most anything.

Going to try dryads with dual cheap shields singing spell songs in front of my armies. I dunno but I think it could work.

[Renojustin]

Dedas said:
Whom are you referring to? I'm not basing my strategy around maenads, if you read what I wrote you will see this. What I'm saying is that maenads could be used for various roles including patrolling.

Taking Turmoil 3 gives you something like, what, 15% more random events? Really doesn't make up for the 40% or more difference in gold. Especially when you can still jack up your taxes to 200% with Order and patrol with harpies.

The issue I had with the maenads patrolling is that they are worth 1/10th of a unit when they do so, and they need a commander to even be that bad. So say you use a Dryad or indy commander with 40 leadership, you've got effectively 4 patrol points there for the use of your commander and his upkeep cost, instead of using them for a cheap and highly effective harpy patrol. (due to flight bonus)

So if you can afford the scales, Order helps a lot more than turmoil, obviously, even for Pangaea. Even luck isn't all that great when compared to Order effects, and you can still get your leaders (who aren't very good in EA), so sacrifice that if anything.

You don't really need Luck for gem income either - with a death and astral pretender, the gem income you'll be lacking is Fire, Air, and Water... Water you can get with 25% of amazon sorceresses (and I think water bracelets only take W1 to build), astral pearls are easy because it only takes lizard shamans with 1 astral to Astral Probe, you get air with Faerie Court and your harpy commander, but fire is very problematic so don't expect to be hurling flaming spheres of death or making any fire items with EA Pangaea.

So I think your best bet would be to drop the luck and go for more gold on your Order/Turmoil scale. Nature's Bounty is freaking amazing if you have Order scales and you're missing out on a heck of a lot of gold without it. It's so powerful you'll find yourself recasting it as soon as possible after a dispel.

I admit that the idea of armies of naked wild women is pretty much one of the reasons people like us play games like this to begin with, and for that reason alone it should definitely be considered valuable. Just not enough for me to put my scales into Turmoil with Bounty jacking your income about 400%.

[kasnavada]

Turmoil is worth it, even more so for pangaea than others.

First of all, you will miss the large amount of maenads. You obviously underestimate them. Yes, they get beaten fast by units with high protection / defence and arrows, but with spells to protect from arrows, they litterally tear any low protection-unit with their bare hands with they do get in range. Furthermore, they work really well with the battlefield-wide spells like mass protection and growing fury that your pans are naturally able to cast.

When a few pans generate 60 - 80 (an army) every few months, you don't need to buy arrow catchers, enabling you to cut down on something that crucial for pangaea : maintenance costs. More money ? good, but if you need it to buy even more of the really expensive few good troops that can make a difference, you'll spend it in maintenance... But then, you'll be playing pangaea like ulm : forgetting that most of those good troops are stealthy. Being stealthy, you don't need those troops in large number, you need them to be strong enough to beat up PD, lone mages, and the commanders that (try to) bring reinforcements to your main opponent armies.

Yes, the point of maenads isn't to be the frontal attack unit. They are meant to be a distraction while your other units do the work. A way to make your opponent(s) believe your strength in number is much more than it seems. And thankfully, they make a wonderful distraction, since they are powerful, in their own way. Also, since they are not mindless, it means that as long as there is pans in a castle (they can leave that castle when they want), your opponents need to bring a few more troops every turn, because a dozen more of your units are repairing the walls every turn.

However, making them patrol sure doesn't sound useful when you speak about 40 of them. But you will have hundreds of them if you have turmoil. Given the choice, I'll have 400 maenads with 10 indy basic 30 gold commander in a few choice provinces (total cost / turn : 20 gold) than lots of armies of 40 harpies (I believe the cost is rounded up ?) that cost me 42 gold per turn, and costed 310 initial gold instead of the 300 gold with maenads + commanders, that is completly useless outside of gold collection purposes, and easily beaten by guerrilla tactics.

Routing with pangaea is really a non-problem. The dryad can spam sermon of courage, and I rarely see maenads retreat, especially when they are berserk.

Luck, well, luck is a vast subject. It brings in a lot more than a few gems. It brings you untracable wealth (not shown on the graphs), castles, free troops, castles, magic items...).

Finally, you will look much more vulnerable with a high order scale than with a turmoil one : lots of maenads are intimidating, and rightly so.

The point being, going for turmoil works very well. But it's another way to play that work probably more in MP than SP, since it rely on surprises, stealth, luck.

[Dedas]

Thanks for writing that comeback, kasnavada! Very well put, and in my opinion all valid points.