EA arcosephele - bless strategy?

[Frostmourne27]

Wick said:

I've done a stupid amount of testing of "How many of a vast hoard of heavy infantry (ID 40) can 600g of <unit_type> kill before dying." In a four battle trial the Wind Riders scored a total of 19. The median for recruitable sacred troops (57 types, null blessed) is 63. The Heavy Infantry got 79 against themselves, which was a slightly better then the overall median. Basically, the implication is if you have a strong bless multiplying the Wind Riders 400% then they are as strong as independent infantry.

Certainly, the test is pretty simplistic. It's biased against archers and in favor of tramplers and poison. However, the results tend to be stable and to approximate the conventional wisdom -- which includes, Wind Riders aren't worth a bless strategy.

Well, I'm not necessarily going to argue with conventional wisdom, but sacreds are occasionally used against something other than heavy infantry, and some sacreds benefit from blesses more than others do, IMHO. Especially since in the early era, heavy infantry is comparatively less common. I would, however, still agree that EA Arco isn't a bless nation. Just compare Wind Riders to what is established as good sacreds - they aren't terrible, but three of them probably won't beat most indiy provinces.

As a somewhat OT note, what do people think of Hinom's sacred giant? The Melqart is awesome, able to solo most EA poptypes no proeblem, and Hinom can eaven heal it, but what about the units? There doesn't really seem to be a whole lot of point to them...

[MaxWilson]

The Rephaelite is a good unit, equivalent in almost every way that I can see to (a pair of) Palankashas except there's no head armor vulnerability and the resource cost is slightly higher than two Palankashas. The difference is that Lanka is likely to have a good bless because of all their blood sacreds, and Hinnom is perhaps less likely. But the base unit is pretty good--it's just that the Melqart is so much better that the Rephaelite is overshadowed. It's as if you could recruit both Niefel Jarls and Agarthan Seal Guards. Sure you could buy them both, but why would you unless you had extra resources?

-Max

Edited for clarity.

[Kuritza]

Rephaelite costs more than two Palankashas, but doesnt have as much offense as two Palankashas (or staying power, for that matter). Also, their summons are inferior to Lanka's (with the exception of Gregori), and their mages arent as good for research and crafting equipment.

I'm really qurious where are strengths of EA Arco btw. Sure, research is there. But their troops are simply bad, and mages, while nice in their own way, have no endgame paths (weak astral, no death, no blood). And no national summons... Of all things, ancient Greece has no summons - its just not fair in my opinion.

[MaxWilson]

Kuritza said:
Rephaelite costs more than two Palankashas, but doesnt have as much offense as two Palankashas (or staying power, for that matter). Also, their summons are inferior to Lanka's (with the exception of Gregori), and their mages arent as good for research and crafting equipment.

IIRC Palankashas have 1 Falchion attack at 12 and 1 defense at 13, and 30 HP. A Rephaelite has 1 Dawn Sword attack at 15 and a horn attack at 12. The Dawn Sword does 30-odd damage and the horn does 22. Palankasha falchions do 26 (this is all IIRC). It looks to me like Rephaelites have at least as much attack as Palankashas. Staying-power-wise, they have as many hit points as two Palankashas, probably worse Enc, a higher defense by 3 but a larger size (which means worse defense than 2 Palankashas against swarms). They also regenerate twice as fast. There are ways in which Palankashas are superior (cost) but Rephaelite <=> Palankasha is IMHO a fair analogy.

When I get home I'll try Wick's heavy-inf rule-of-thumb test and see if the Palankashas can beat more heavy inf and/or Steel Maidens than the Rephaelite.

-Max

[Baalz]

Kuritza said:

I'm really qurious where are strengths of EA Arco btw. Sure, research is there. But their troops are simply bad, and mages, while nice in their own way, have no endgame paths (weak astral, no death, no blood). And no national summons... Of all things, ancient Greece has no summons - its just not fair in my opinion.

They've got good recruitable thugs (Onead <sp> with natural awe + mistform + personal regeneration properly outfitted is a threat to most anything) and they're the communion posterchildren with some of the best research in the game to power some of the best communion mages in the game (mystics). Their troops are decent for what they should be used for - meat shields while the damage is laid down from mages. True, nations with weak astral, blood and death (of which Arco is hardly alone) can have a hard time in the end game if you don't plan ahead (starting with pretender design), but Arco is a very solid nation in all eras.

[Kuritza]

Give me a break. Onead, good thug? With 10 hp, attack and defense, 9 str, capitol-only and 400 g. cost? Ouch.

Communion is nice, but with astral 1, it just asks for a few magic duels. Had it done against me by Kailasa recently. Astral 2 monkeys vs Astral 1 mystics - 16 mages lost by Arco, 6 mages lost by Kailasa.

>> True, nations with weak astral, blood and death.
Its worse. Asco is a nation with weak astral, NO blood and NO death.

As for troops, SO many troops are much better at being meat shields AND still deal damage, I think it may be safely commented that EA Arco's troops are bad.

Regarding summons, Greek myths have one peculiarity that can be speculated upon - they had loads of demigods walking the earth. Perhaps if they are so plentiful, they can make a good and unique summon, hmm?
'Awaken divine blood'
Unlocks the dormant powers of God's ichor in a worthy individual's blood, improving his stats and giving him (random) abilities and spell paths.
Maybe several spells of this type - starting with awakening the dormant Blood and ending up with summoning epic heroes who are almost gods themselves.

[Zenzei]

Give me a break. Onead, good thug? With 10 hp, attack and defense, 9 str, capitol-only and 400 g. cost? Ouch.

This is what I thought too so I went and tested it a bit. My test oreaid had frostbrand, vine shield, rainbow armor and no bless of any kind. Buff sequence was summon earthpower+ironskin+mistform+personal regen+air shield+attack. I then pitted her against blocks of 40-100 troops of varying difficulty, probably around 500 units in total. The oreaid won all fights easily, in fact I think she won most fights without taking even a single point of damage. Awe +5 combined with ability to self buff into stratosphere is a massive defensive barrier, which does make oreaid a good thug.

Of course mages will kill oreaid thug easily enough but that is the fate of any thug really.

Also, I think EA Arco is good enough in astral magic without help from pretender because they can forge crystal coins. S2 mystic empowered once into S3(45 gems)+coin+skullcap->RoS->RoW is pretty much all the astral nation needs. For combat astral magic, communions are the key.

[Kuritza]

That makes her a raider. Thug (in my opinion anyway) should be able to kill things in major battles too, like a Sea troll king, for example.

But thanks for a tip, thats rather interesting.