Ah ha, a MA Pythium question...

[Agema]

I passed on Hydras. I thought 240gold and 16 upkeep apiece was a little expensive. Basic units like hastati and alae legionaries are decent enough for expansion. They're well-enough armoured and shielded that they're virtually arrow-proof and don't take much damage in melee. Quite good enough to trounce most indies.

[Aezeal]

well all those legionaires need a lot in production scale if you want to expand with them.
And after the first dozen turns that production scale is less used.

What pretender set-up and early expansion strat did you use then?

I tried a keeping the 4 earth and 4 nature that was recommended somewhere since the idea behind it so prevent disease HP losses or something and the reinvig sounded usefull. For this and to have a SC after a few turns I was busy with a dormant cyclops... but then noticed my early expansion wasn't all that.

If you get prod scales with that then you can't have an awake pretender AND you need quite some other negative scales if you want a reasonable dominion (I'm thinking MP here and I usually figure 6 dominion minimum for MP)

So I'm interested in your strat.. in anyones strat even...

[Aezeal]

Obviously I can't test a whole game anymore before my next MP game.. but is that natue 4 that important? I keep wondering how much advantage it will give me.

[Karlem]

Try an awake Cyclops with earth 9 Dom 5, O3 S2 Heat 1 Mis1 Mag1.

I think that angels are sacred, isn't it? this way you have a late game bless for thugs/Scs an early SC for indies and expansion and a wondefrul bless for mages. Use original army plus some turn 0 recruits and Pretender to expand. Third expansion army is just 3 hydras and early fort to overcome sloth 3 and then just forts. If you need troops fast use hydras.

Don't use this on aquarium pls

[Xietor]

Hydras are good at 2 things-killing elephants and discouraging a rush. In my present mp game, i bought 5 hydras early since i had a sleeping pretender. They are good for expansion, and give me peace of mind from aggressive neighbors before my pretender awakes.

4n is crucial, as it prevents your 380 gold mages from dying of old age.

It is my 1st mp game playing pythium, but my Mother of Serpents, sleeping with nature, earth, death, and air worked well. Went early for mother oak, then later goh.

The Mother of Serpents with these paths and decebt gear is a beast, and killed a gor tartarian fairly easily that ported in next to my capital. And at the time, she was my only unit that could fight tartarians. And i think she could have killed 3-4 of them alone.

[Aezeal]

Xietor.. what was your whole pretender set-up then...

I figure a lot of sloth for else I don't see how you bought all that magic..

if you go all hydra at start you can do sloth-3 I figure but 5 hydra's means either no mages first turns or only a 2nd expansion army around turn 4-5

and dormant or imprisoned?

[Xietor]

Sleeping-I did not trust evilhomer, Velusion, and other aggressive players enough to take an imprisoned pretender!

My scales were 3 order, 1 sloth, 2 heat, 2 growth, 1 magic.

4n,4e, 1d, 2a. But I traded for gems and by the time i had researched soul vortex had empowered to 3d. Eventually empowered air as well, as I like at least 3a for mirror image.