Pretender concept: Messianic Figurehead

[SlipperyJim]

Using #summon or #domsummon instead of #makemonsters would cause the troops to flock to him automatically. I don't think I'd spend a turn of "Pretender Time" to summon five puny Woodsmen unless I was really desperate....

[Poopsi]

hm, thing is, I hate domsummons. What if I changed it from poxy archers to some sort of heavy cavalry? (as in his household knights)

[JimMorrison]

I'd think it would be pretty cool if it were freespawning light infantry of some kind. You know, random guys with not much going on, who throw themselves at his feet - they're not the best soldiers, but he can't get away from it once it started.

But, if you want it to be something deliberate, I would agree that some nice heavy cav or knights would pretty sweet. Or perhaps some really heavy men-at-arms. Something he could at least make use of in the start of the game by doing Summon Allies for a few turns, and then having a nice little force to clear indies with.

He just needs a draw somewhere - he has to either be good enough at combat, or good enough at magic to justify his existence. Otherwise the only niche he has at all, is as an imprisoned scales god. Giving him a healthy bit of Awe helps, it justifies going Dom10 to get a really high Awe score - but I think if you want him to be taken awake, and not to be very magical, you need to bump the starting dominion to 3 probably. I mean, he is a legend to his own people - he's their Maximus Aurelius, they absolutely love the guy. And with starting dom of 1, it costs wayyyyy too much to get to Dom10, so no one will bother.

[Poopsi]

Hm, you have a point there. In fact, in my play attempts I ended up having to take bad scales to manage a decent dominion (which was not the point)

Besides, it fits ICly. This is no mere upstart lich befuddling the masses, this is the messiah. He ought to get some status due to that

I´m going to try him out with dominion 4, summon knights (aka, monster 21), 2 awe, and 8 reinvirgoration(actually, scratch that, I´m removing reinvirgoration and reducing encumbrance to 0. Which in theory should work the same and scratch armor penalties).

[Poopsi]

k, I revamped him. Now he´s a knight as well, and not stealthy. He can summon five heavy cavalry by turn, and can heal afflictions (thus avoiding moving around an army of cripples). He has also high hp, good combat stats, and a nice awe aura. I expect him to perform well in the early game. I hope he´s not too overpowered. (Then again, despite the early normal troops advantage, the magic handicap will likely mean that everyone will have the good summons before you do...)
Trying it now..

Code:

---

#newmonster 2906

#name "Warrior of Prophecy"

#copyspr 377

#descr "The Prophesied Warrior has been heralded as the one foretold to save the nation from certain destruction. He is a 



mighty warrior, versed in the arts of healing, and has proven to be a charismatic battle commander. Knights will flock to him 



when he raises his banner. However, his magical abilities are rather limited, relying on his companions to do his 



spellcasting"

#mapmove 3

#ap 20

#hp 40

#size 3

#prot 0

#str 18

#enc 0

#att 18

#def 18

#prec 14

#mr 16

#gcost 0

#rcost 1

#pathcost 120

#startdom 4

#ambidextrous 3

#mounted

#weapon 4

#weapon 56

#weapon 8

#armor "Full Plate Mail"

#armor "Full Helmet"

#armor "Kite Shield"

#forestsurvival

#mountainsurvival

#wastesurvival

#startage 22

#maxage 200

#older 6

#healer 5

#heal

#awe 2

#standard 20

#makemonster5 21

#superiorleader

#itemslots 64646

#nametype 100

#eyes 2

#end  

---

[JimMorrison]

He's starting to look pretty interesting, I'm curious to hear how your next tests go!

He's definitely very thuggish now, without quite crossing the line to SC. You could probably raise knights for 2 turns, then go off into the country and start putting down those uncouth rebels in style.

[Poopsi]

A good thing you told me to tone the guy up. I was fearing that if I added all those things it might come around as unbeatable, but after testing it, I think it´s more balanced than I thought. Maybe still leaning on weak.
To put it into situation, I put him in a late age Ulm game. (This was a matter of practicality, as since I would need to beef up national magicians to get summons going, I´d need lots of gems, and the cheapest "gem" around are blood slaves).
I had him build up a l0-l5 cavalry force, which in battle he would lead from a side of the map down onto the enemy commanders. Heavy infantry would stay at the middle of the map, around an Ulm Commander using a skull talisman over and over, and behind them would be the crossbowmen. This combat set performed amazingly well against independents, as the heavy infantry usually cut through the lesser troops, down to the commanders, and induced mass routs, with little casualties.
Later, I beefed up all formations, throwing in more heavy infantry, more cavalry to the pretender´s cavalry force, and some more archers divisions, plus a wizard (a black priest with Earth l). It's perfomance wasn´t exactly overwhelming, but it kept some big enemy armies from bypassing my frontiers. Plus, I *did* achieve some significative victories against... Vanheim, I think (through I stopped short of their capital). And for some reason, Arcocesphale had it´s Cyclops pretender lovemaking around in a border province, with one some poxy militias as bodyguard, and got killed.
However, that´s when the good times ended. While I was performing cyclopicide, the not-çuite done in Vanheimians came down at me, slaughtered some blood harvesters, and besieged my capital, all in call cutting through two 30+ defense provinces, which usually prove enough to keep back raiding parties (BTW: at this time I had already beefed up a gypsy sorceress to blood 3 death 3, which allowed me to summon my first vampire lord.). My army was able to defeat the besiegers... with losses. I rebeefed him up, so that he had a bigger army, again. I also threw in that vampire count with a bunch of blood slaves so that he could cast imps at the enemy. While I was doing this, Man had invaded the west, and had a not-huge-but-not-disregardable army. In the following engagement, I won, but suffered staggering losses (as in, only five knights survived, about one third of the heavy infantry, and NONE of the archers. Plus a black priest and a good archer hero got killed. I have re-refitted the army again (drawing on the troops which were going to go to the second army, which I need to take care of the Eastern Front). Battling it up without summons is more challenging than it seemed at first, cavalry far less overwhelming than I thought, and building up decent wizards for summons is costly (not that much with blood magic, but it still reçuires several hunters, and to get the blood magic levels which the good stuff reçuires you still need to economize your slaves)

[Aezeal]

I'd say a battlewide buffspell as onebattle spell might be nice. Early on with smaller armies it's not that strong (don't use army of lead or gold or that sort of way powerfull spells) with big armies it will be increasingly stronger as the game progresses.