EA Pangaea strategy

[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.

[sector24]

I think both Order and Turmoil have merit. Also if you take Order 3/Misfortune 2 you cut the scale gap down to just 40 points.

I think the weakest part of renojustin's argument (if anything) is the reliance on Nature's Bounty to supercharge Pangaea's economy. You never know if all the global slots are going to be full or if Astral Corruption is going to be up or something. Pangaea doesn't really have the astral income to fight for a spot on the list.

But even without Nature's Bounty, Pangaea and Order is a valid strategy. It's part of what makes it a cool nation.

[Renojustin]

It's true that dispelling is often problematic for Pangaea, but with your huge nature gem income, you can often overpower other globals, get yours up first, and/or recast if necessary. Still, astral gems are easier to come by than any other except perhaps Death, because you only need Astral 1 which is easily achievable with many indy mages, so your territory should be covered by Astral Probes in relatively short order... and you definitely need a pretender with Astral 4 or better for starters just to construct necessary items and cast Dispel.

Just a few turns of Bounty puts you way ahead of the competition. Way, way ahead, with Order scales. With the amount of gems you camp pump it with, it often becomes tough-to-ruinous to dispel. Think 200 nature gems or more on a cast.

And you should probably have Growth with Pangaea, which Order goes very well with indeed, even without Bounty as you say.

[kasnavada]

With all due respect renojustin, I think you need to learn basic statistics, and not to repeat things that have been proven wrong...

6000 + 40% = 10000 ? Woah. In case you do not know, A has 40% more income than B means B got 29% income less than A, not 40%. Then again, you are considering you've already won, since your assumptions take into account 1/3 of the map under your control. By that point most of the game is past and luck can't keep up, only because of the limit of 3 random events per nations. Some other thread about luck had shown that you needed about 15 to 20 provinces for the event to "max out" on most turn, if I recall correctly. That's plenty enough to have a decent magic economy that reduces the influence of gold in the game. Magic can and will reduce armies to rubble, no matter what they cost, in late game.

If that limit of 3 events was raised, however, the results of a test would probably be around what endoperez has shown : there is not much difference, no "better way" : the game is meant to be balanced after all, as much as it can be, and scales are fairly easy to balance...

Another thing, you keep repeating 40% ? Nope, it's more than that actually. Yeah, basic math again... (100 + 21) / (100 - 21) ~= 153%, that's 53% more income. At least, if you're going to say the same argument over and over again, at least check that it's true. Same for events, it's not 15% more events you have, but (100+15) / (100 - 15) = 135% : 35% more events (only considering order / turmoil, not adding 15% more from luck, since I don't know if they add or multiply).

Your failure to recognize turmoil / luck as a more or less equal path than order in my opinion caused by that you either fail to recognise the effects of luck and events, or that you need a predictable environment to play. Both of which are fine, but in that case, say "it's the way I enjoy playing most", not "it's the best way".

For high level magic, especially nature's bounty, a spell that I can't see ever working in a MP game (for several reasons, one of them being that it's a lvl 9 spell, the other one being that no one is going to leave this spell for long). And there are much better uses for 70 nature gems than a spell dispelled in 2 turns, especially since you already seem to think you can easily have others...

You're probably right in thinking that your strategy work, but I can't stand seeing blatant lies like "it's the best strategy", when that statement is just an "educated" guess, based on nothing but some personnal opinions.

Now, if you really want to prove your point, either test completely it and prove it, or just do like all other participants to this post have : show one or more ways to play, the strategies you've thought of, and let them decide whether it's effective or not.

Thank you in advance.

[vfb]

There is no limit of 3 events. I have gotten 5 good random events per turn with Turmoil-3/Luck-3. Has anyone ever had 6?

In games where I have Order-3/Luck-3, I've only gotten a max of 3 random events per turn. Has anyone ever had more than 3 with these scales?

Perhaps the max number of events is linked to the order scales?

[Valandil]

Kasnavada:
Often I must speak other than I think. That is called diplomacy.
* Stilgar

Wasn't that Javid?

[Shovah32]

vfb, could those events have been in provinces you took ownership of on that turn? Whoever owned them would have had the events taken from their 3/turn limit, but you would have recieved the events.

[vfb]

I no longer have a save game with 5 events I think, but I do have one with 4. I do remember getting 5.

In the save game with 4 good events in a month, there were no battles or change of ownership in the provinces receiving events, I owned them at the start of the turn and at the end of the turn. All 4 of the the events were good. Turmoil-3/Luck-3 scales.

Edit: Attached save file with 6 random events in one turn for one nation (Caelum). 4 events per turn were somewhat common, 5 were very rare, and this is the only one with 6. No battles or provinces changing hands at all.

Edit Again: Damned mods starting themselves without my permission again! You need the Kitchen Sink to view the turn, it can be found here:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...ev=#Post582302

[kasnavada]

Valandil said:
Kasnavada:
Often I must speak other than I think. That is called diplomacy.
* Stilgar

Wasn't that Javid?

Wiki

Oh yeah, and I forgot. Some events give permanent bonus to gold production in a province... in the long run, it also amounts for a lot. I just love those.