EA Pangaea strategy

[Renojustin]

I find several problems with your strategy, most of which come down to this: Maenads aren't really useful enough to base a strategy on.

-They are only worth 1/10th of a unit patrolling
-Don't they cost upkeep? If that's the case, this alone means that they barely pay for themselves even when patrolling.
-They have no armor, so it's tough to buff them with anything except Protection.
-Almost every turn with each archer shot = 1 dead Maenad, which means your tougher units are at risk of an automatic rout and become less in overall worth. You don't get Faerie Court for a good while, it's almost easier to wait for your harpy champion and give her a ring of wizardry. Till then, they get slaughtered everywhere like nobody's business if you don't blow an air gem on arrow fend.
-They're about as good as militia when you DO get them in melee... they are pretty useless against anything with good defense OR protection.
-They're just annoying - they pile up everywhere and I enjoy micromanaging as much as the next guy, but you have to draw a line somewhere. It seems like even LA Ermor isn't as bad.

I just take Order scales so I don't have to micromanage them all. When I do get maenads, I simply assign them to guard commanders, and they'll sometimes get sent out to sortie via berserk spells. Satyr warriors are superb units; you can build a massive army of them in no time at 13g/5r. They benefit nicely from armor buffs, and their high hps with good attack and spears means they can hold a line.

Maenads are fine to guard your bladewind/storm of thorns spamming Pans with. Using this strategy I just finished a medium-sized random game against 9 AIs set to Impossible. They'd be throwing 300-400 man armies at me each and every turn from midgame on.

Minotaur Warriors for early game, all the while building the fantastic Dryads... at Magic 3 you get some insane RP/upkeep. Not to mention you can get stealth dominion kills with them, or build a strategy around dominion. +20 stealth is as good as it gets and you should only see them discovered once or twice a game if you're careful.

With Order scales, your income goes absolutely off the charts once you can cast Nature's Bounty. With a third of the map that size you get about 10,000 gp income per turn. That's pretty much unbeatable.

My pretender had something like 4 astral/4 death, Order 3, Sloth 3, Growth 3, Magic 3, Luck 3, Dominion 4. Just some nice scales to go out and let your land bask in. It works well with Pangaea's 200gp temples and excellent Dryads. And you can get a nice death economy going with skelly spams or the almost frightening Nether Blast thingy. Death Cloud is also an extremely impressive and damaging tool.

Globals you want to get are Gift of Health (huge hps and very fast affliction heals for Pangaea), Nature's Bounty (a truly shocking gp income), and Mother Oak. The nice thing is that these aren't offensive in nature... they'll think twice about dispelling anything except Bounty.

A last note - Ivy Kings make very impressive SCs. 0 encumbrance, non-undead, regenerating, high MR, HP, strength, morale. Rat Tail (you can repel with whips, right?), Eye Shield, Black Steel Armor, Boots of Quickness, Flying, or resists, Cats Eye Amulet, and Amulet of Luck, set to cast Personal Regeneration and attack, and they are first rate.

[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.

[Baalz]

Dedas said:
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.

Well, I wouldn't be that sure about that. I'm herding those minotaurs that are giving DryaUnda so much trouble and he's done pretty close to what you suggest as it turns out. He's playing EA Ermor and his very capable infantry armed with tower shields, javelins and good defense just destroyed my initial reveler forces I was using for indie expansion (to save gold for fortresses). Seeing where that was going I switch to minotaur power and B-lined to enchant-4 massing up my minotaurs out of my two castles over a couple turns while my stealthy revelers raided and stalled him. It's sick how effective it's been. The really decisive battle we had was something close to 200 javelin equipped Ermorian infantry (counting PD) plus 10 or so Aurgur elders vs around 50 minotaurs backed by a few pans casting haste and then panic. (going from memory here so the numbers may be a bit off but that's about the right scale)

Round 1 - Ermor's mages cast phoenix power and the infantry advances (out of range of javelins yet)

Round 1 - Pans cast haste and minotaurs charge all the way across and into the front ranks of Ermor's infantry, causing minor casualties as they used most of their movement to close rather than trample.

Round 2 - Ermor rains down fireballs and whatnot, doing almost as much damage to his own troops as the minotaurs are now mixed into them. A seriously large javelin volly causes moderate damage, but because of the minotaur's hp few of them go down and friendly fire is significant.

Round 2 - Minotaurs trample straight through all the way to the Ermorian mages destroying close to 1/3 of the Ermorian army. Just devastating damage to deal to fairly elite infantry.

Round 3 - another volley of javelins and evocations causing most of my casualties of the fight, though again friendly fire is high as the minotaurs are now deep inside the Ermorian forces.

Round 3 - Another massive trample and cumulatively about 50% of the Ermorian army is now destroyed including several of their mages. They break and I take a few more casualties as the routing forces are trampled for a total casualty rate around 75%.

I don't really think that would have played out any differently if he'd had a large mix of archers - other than the first round pretty much every one of the javelins was launched at my minotaurs every turn, the battle was just over too fast to overcome their hitpoints. He probably could have fared a bit better if he anticipated me charging straight across and gotten another turn to rain fireballs down but those hasted minotaurs are faaaast!

I guess we'll find out though as his capital is now seiged and he massed some archers inside in anticipation.

[Renojustin]

Guess I'll just have to say it again, Order is 100% better than Turmoil/Luck for Pangaea. We're talking something along the lines of 4000gp MORE PER TURN if you own 1/3rd of a medium map. That's enough to buy every unit in every castle you own. You get MAYBE one or two 200-400gp events and a few gems from Luck, MAYBE 1000, or maybe you get a few indy attacks or curses. I know which one I choose. You have access to Nature's Bounty, and I cannot imagine not using this spell to its fullest possible capacity.

You're totally overestimating the Maenads. With Maenads in front, your real units can't engage and kill enemy. They have no armor to start with, so it's very difficult to buff their protection. And I'm not even sure that Weapons of Sharpness works with Claw. Growing Fury often causes your mages to go charging in, and even with Pans fuelling your army, you're going to have supply issues eventually with waves of Maenads. Well, good thing they die in megadroves. Which heavily increases the chance of an automatic rout. When you lose 75% of your standing army, everything else that you have left except Gone Berzerks retreats. Just not seeing where you can countenance a swarm of Maenads over a swarm of satyr infantry, with spears, shields, armor, high movement, high MR, spears, high hps... and like you said, you don't have to worry about them breaking. You DO have to worry about autorout with a maenad attack.

Patrolling: 10 commanders with 400 maenads = 50 patrol points? 1 commander with 40 harpies is at least as much for 310gp, and can be assembled in one place in one turn.

Your point on the siege is well taken and I hadn't considered that. That could be a nasty surprise for enemies trying to crush your walls, and I like the idea of naked wild ladies moving stones around and getting all dirty.

The only use I can see for Turmoil-Luck scales is for the drain it will put on an opponent's lands, except that you say that luck makes up for it. Well, it doesn't and you will hurt their economy by pushing your dominion on them.

[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.

[Renojustin]

Another thing to consider is that Order and Growth are synergistic whereas Luck and Growth isn't nearly as potent a combination. And with your order vs luck-turmoil test, you didn't take into account your Nature's Bounty... that will give you 40% more gold on an Order vs Luck-Turmoil scale, which is absolutely massive. 10,000 gold vs 6,000 gold. You are the master of the map at that point. It's so extremely difficult to make up the difference in pure production power when your units take so little resources. This allows you an amazing tactical flexibility; for instance, if your opponent doesn't have air shield, that's pretty much all she wrote right there; pump out those amazing centaur archers. If not, you can go with a vast minotaur army, or just overwhelm them with satyrs holding the line for your Pan battlemages. Pans are WONDERFUL mages, easily pumpable to 3-4 earth, 5 nature with earth boots and summon earthpower, strength of gaia. And you can get one for every castle you own as they're non-capitals.

Regarding the vast minotaur army, they're one of the best units in the game, let alone EA for their gold/resource cost. They die a lot, but they die a lot less with Gift of Health, with 50hps each, and recover nearly instantly from afflictions, one of the best things about Pangaea. They really do a number infantry right up to elites, and you get 20 per turn in a lot of castles. Imagine a 400-minotaur warrior army... they do great damage against large beings as well, and have very high attack rating when berserk; there aren't many units with 15 atk at size 3+ trample. they have trouble against high def cavalry, but then who doesn't, and they have the hps, attack, and damage to beat them. That's pretty awesome for the cost.

You're right to want to get everything you can out of the Pans, but Luck 0, Order 3 is more than worth the 120 point difference from Luck 3, Turmoil 3, because of Nature's Bounty.

Sloth also does decent damage to resource hungry nations, and stealth preaching is the best thing you can have your dryads doing besides research.

The spellsongs are pretty tough to implement with 15 range, for me personally, and aren't as useful as even, say, Storm of Thorns, which hits and discomfits units regardless of Air Shield or MR. Sure your dryads can do them too but Sermon of Courage is more useful.

The heroes are almost not worth a mention, with the A2N2 harpy being your best one. That basically allows you to search air sites a little faster, and maybe Wind Guide one army if you have a lot of archers... meh.