EA Pangaea strategy

[Torin]

Oh. so I see, the maenad factory.

[Humakty]

I think the gorgon is the must have pretender if you plan to have her awake. If I remember correctly, you have access to the centaur warrior in EA, and they are able to trash most of the opposition early on, and later on with buff spells (even in MA, CW are a force to reckoned).
I usually don't take turmoil or order, so as to have enougth gold to buy CW, and enougth maenads to end sieges quickly (in EA, you'll have ton's of pans (they're your only mage!)so you'll have lots of maenads)
I never tried it, but are maenads strong enougth to win battles alone ? It seems to me a big group of archers would trash them, even with mass protection (no shields+ low armor).

[Dedas]

Humakty said:
I think the gorgon is the must have pretender if you plan to have her awake. If I remember correctly, you have access to the centaur warrior in EA, and they are able to trash most of the opposition early on, and later on with buff spells (even in MA, CW are a force to reckoned).
I usually don't take turmoil or order, so as to have enougth gold to buy CW, and enougth maenads to end sieges quickly (in EA, you'll have ton's of pans (they're your only mage!)so you'll have lots of maenads)
I never tried it, but are maenads strong enougth to win battles alone ? It seems to me a big group of archers would trash them, even with mass protection (no shields+ low armor).

Yes, archers, fireballs and the like is Pangaeas worst enemies. Therefore you need a strong research base to get protection. Using pans as that base is powerful but expensive. Using centaurs at the same time as your main military unit is even more expensive. So how are you going to get the cash for that? Order? Not effective enough, and you will miss out on a lot of needed chaff from all your pans. So how can you both maximize chaff and get enough money for everything else you want? The answer is heavy patrolling.
But do you want to invest lots and lots in upkeep on common commanders on patrol duty? Of course not, you want a flexible, dynamic unit that can take any role, help in defense, research and offense, and you want it cheap in both upkeep and price. The name of that unit is dryad.
And also, heavy patrolling means loss of lives and thus loss of income, so you want the growth scale, which also goes hand in hand with the overlooked but powerful spell songs (that the dryad can use).

[Humakty]

What you say makes sense, but I wouldn't try it on anything but a small map, as my lazyness makes me fear the micro your strategy implies. I think your strategy more than compensates the loss of money from bad scales.

Oh, I do use dryads as researchers, what I meant is that you need lots of pans for forging/spells/rituals, and that in EA basic pans are your only mages for this purpose, which means you'll get lots of maenads. But I do relly massively on dryads for research/preach/army commanders.

Why do you use lady of love ? Spell songs are efficient, no doubt about it, but it seems to me the gorgon is so much whatever as an awake pretender, earth 9 is a possibility, for nice rituals and a limited use of white centaurs, would require to abandon magic and maybe luck (I'm at work, so I can't verify rigth now). I'm sure dryads can carry on the spell song casting, while your gorgon is taking provinces alone. (petrify...)

[Dedas]

Torin said:
Oh. so I see, the maenad factory.

No, not really. As wrote above the maenads are mostly for free patrolling. This strategy isn't depending on any one unit. Instead you have to use all units (some more in different stages of the game) to build up a strong empire. When you have laid the foundation you can start pumping out any units you need from your many fortresses and with your excellent income.
In short:
Effective patrolling -> funneling cash into fortress building -> increasing commander recruitment -> driving your research -> plugging your units vulnerabilities (like low protection).

[cleveland]

Dedas, I like where this all is going, good work.

As you explore Pangaea, keep in mind that its a LA Ermor-type nation: both get lots-and-lots of free, crappy units.

Then remember that LA Ermor armies are (a) huge, (b) mostly chaff, and (c) heavily buffed...at least the successful ones.

So a successful Pan strat CAN focus on the same, with a few subtle differences.

First, Pan doesn't get the numbers of freespawn that Ermor does. Pan armies, therefore, need to be supplemented with a larger fraction of front-line thugs & thuggish troops than Ermor armies. A 10:1 maenad:minotaur ratio seems to be the sweet-spot, supported by your singing dryads. This means more $ spent on troops, but that's OK, because...

Second, Pan's freespawn is inherently superior to Ermor's. They're unbanishable, fast (makes archers unhappy), and can reliably hit opponents. Additionally, they aren't mindless, so they make GREAT fort defenders, and laugh at mind-burn/soul-slay spamming. They aren't poison-resistant, but feel free to Breath of Dragon all over them regardless, because...

Third, Pan is ready-made for the Whole-Battlefield Nature & Earth buffs. Mass protection early on, Army of Lead/Gold later. Serpent's Blessing opens poison evocations. Later, Mass Regeneration & Gaia's Blessing. And repeat after me: "Darkness is to Ermor what Growing Fury is to Pangaea;" throw it down, and your maenads & minotaurs become an unroutable offensive tidal wave.

Like Ermor, archers will be a problem. Unlike Ermor, you can readily cast Faerie Court, and voila, Air Fend.

Similarly, like Ermor, raid the crap out of everyone, take terrible scales to make your lands undesirable (+3 heat/cold especially, as your troops wear no armor), and spam (cheap) temples. Splash some Blood in there for good measure, spam blood stones, & think Forge of the Ancients (instead of Utterdark).

Like Ermor, be ready for a tough endgame, though you don't have to fear Purgatory.

Cheers,
cleveland

[kasnavada]

Another thing that's great / not so great for pans. They are not the same in EA than in MA.

They have a guaranteed blood and slightly lower earth magic. That means easy sabbath !

As far as chaff is concerned, I see a lot of ways for pangaea to make a lot. First is maenads. Second is carrions. However, you don't really have a lot of pans than can call them. Third is blood magic and cross-breed. Since it takes only a few blood slaves to make them I think it's worth it. Another one is going for wine men and wine ogres (not very practical in large numbers since they are magic beings). Finally, if you are desperate for even more chaff, you can summon animals.

The only problem for this strategy is that an army of 200 buffed armored units backed-up by magic can defeat an army of 1000 chaff. That's where I don't really know what would be better :
- concentrate on buffing my troops with spellwide spells ? especially since sabbath gives any of your mages (if empowered to 1) enough magic skill to cast nearly everything you need.
- creating SC / thugs to make up for the relative weakness of your chaff troops ? Does that work ? Easy access to regeneration, reinvigorisation will probably help in doing so.

[Dedas]

Thank your interesting feedback!
I will ponder what you've said and try to add it when time permits (hopefully tomorrow).

[kasnavada]

Actually, now that I look for it, there is no native death casters in EA for pangaea. Which makes their national summons rather hard to get. Well, you could use a pretender with 3 (or more) nature and 2 death especially for them and all those nature / death spells.

About the feedback : it's only educated guess from 20 - 30 turn long games in SP... I'm still a newbie !

[sector24]

Can't you use the indy tribal shamans with Death/Nature? Although some of them are only like 10% which is not worth the effort.