EA Pangaea strategy

[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.

[llamabeast]

If order cost the same as turmoil then probably noone would go turmoil. But the difference is 240 pretender points!

[Baalz]

renojustin said:
Guess I'll just have to say it again, Order is 100% better than Turmoil/Luck for Pangaea.

This is a longstanding and fairly widely held belief, so much so that I'd say the majority of experience players almost always take order-3 and some level of misfortune. I think luck is fairly underrated though.

With luck you:

Get an income boost regardless of the population of your provinces. The gold bump from luck scales starts looking a lot better if you're stuck with mostly wasteland and mountain provinces.

Barbarian/knight attacks can be strategically crippling on top of the gold impact.

With Luck you can also take a death scale - something that isn't usually a realistic choice if you're taking misfortune.

You get bonus gems, bonus items, and bonus chaff. The usefulness of this is generally marginal, but can be quite good if...er...luck is with you.

National heroes can be quite good from giving you much needed magic diversity to giving some solid thug chasises.

Anway, I have to disagree that order is 100% better...

[Dedas]

Don't forget things like cross breeding that Pangaea is good at, as luck also governs its success.

Another thing, if you are going to patrol the *beep* out of your country when playing Pangaea, you don't want:

*Death, because it will kill your population too quickly.

*Order, because it is too expensive. Plus, when your population is low enough it won't give you that much in return as the gold bonus is based on a percentage.

What you do want however, is this:

*Luck, as you can both patrol happily AND get nice rewards like extra gold when you are lucky. Plus, it is cheap.

You might want:

*Growth, because it will feed your ever growing armies (very high supply bonus) in the provinces where you do not patrol (why not in the forests to stay thematic?), and it also goes well with several Pangaean spells and songs. As a bonus to this you can also patrol longer, and the forests where you dwell in will grow in size more rapidly to support the ever increasing size of your army.