Joys of EA Abysia

[Xietor]

While I typically only play MA(my theory being that the game is too complex to effectively learn all 3 eras and be the best mp possible with limited time), and I am way too competitive to play at less than full throttle, I am on self imposed exile from MP to check out many of the mods and some of the races that interest me outside of the middle era.

Having fought EA Abysia in Kingmaker, I was intrigued by their pd, which i found to be INSANE. And I saw some interesting possibilities with their sacred troops and mages as well.

So I have played a sp game and a couple of blitz mp games with an imprisoned Cyclops,
and a e10 n4 3o 3p 3h 1growth 2 drain 5 dominion with impressive results. One issue I do see with my set up is my troops fight too much in cold provinces with the weak 5 dominion.

But when you are invading, even with a strong dominion, you likely are going to be fighting in hostile dominion anyway. The Anointed Rhuax, properly equipped, is not a bad thug.

I do see issues on a larger map. 1s mages will not cut it, and lack of travel power will hurt as your empire expands. If you can conquer an astral or air nation early, by the time your Cyclops breaks free you can empower him with air.

Or if you conquer an astral nation early you may find find a good mage to empower to give you gateway and lead communions.

In any event they are a fun race to play if you like BURN things!

[Psycho]

Why do you want a bless as Abysia, it's not like you'll be buying many burning ones? I believe that their heat aura and insane pd are enough to deter a rush. I'd rather go with a rainbow instead.

I agree on other points.

Edit: You can blood sacrifice, so strong dominion isn't a must.

[Tifone]

Yay, I also would go for good scales instead of a bless. You won't have many burning ones anyway (even with full scales you can't fill all the spots usually unless with extremely good capitol placement and/or the global which boosts the resources), and your normal troops are very good anyway. I won't go with drain either, the mages are good and you need to climb the evo/thaum/constr/blood trees fast with an already unexceptional research ability.
Also, you will probably need a rainbow to help with the poor diversity or the top blood summons/rituals.
PD is so good you can get some points going with misfortune IMHO too, the PD mage can fireball teh barbarianz!!
A good dominion is IMHO needed to get the most from your high Heat scale in battle (makes heat aura and some spells/summons somewhat more effective, and cold nations sad)

But that's just my opinion, and you know, if that works for you, it's ok

[Psycho]

Yes, with such good pd misfortune is a must. With the cyclops build above I would swap drain 2 for magic 1 and add misfortune 2 and lower production to 2. But, I wouldn't take such a build in the first place.

[Tifone]

Me too, I don't feel the need of an SC Pretender chassis for Abysia, surely not in the early game (good starting army and durable units)... And instead of an imprisoned one, you could go for blood instead and have no problems summoning those nice infernal thugs and royalties (you could decide to go for higher growth so, not very thematic but it would help both your heavy blood hunting and your old mages, wink-wink )
Well, looks like the abundance of ways dom3 nations can be played strikes again

[Xietor]

Agreed. It is a point of pride with me not to take 3order 2 misfortune. Certainly cannot argue against it from a strategic standpoint.

Why take a bless? Because it is FUN! And you can get some magic diversity easy enough with indy mages. Especially with nature(early on before pretender breaks free) and death. I typically find a wolf tribe shamen and make them until i get one with death magic.

You need to focus on mercenaries and hire the mages that have air or other paths you lack.

Besides you do not need many Burning Ones to win key battles. Why not take a bless? Your best mages are sacred as well. The Earth Bless means they can cast all day. So the main bless, the 10 earth, is for your mages. You add 4 nature for your Burning ones, plus it gives you magical diversity in nature. 4n also means you can slap a shroud on your old diseased mages and they will not die(regeneration).

In any event, I am sure there are much better Pretender set ups than the one I devised. Mine was primarily for sp and I used it for 2 blitz games. Much thought would have to go into it if I decided to play the race in a big mp game. Especially since without a d/f combo, you cannot get your national summons or make one of the fire boosters.

In addition to blood sacrifice, you also have level 3 priests for dominion raising, and strong income scales for building temples(guarded by insane pd).

But it is an enjoyable race to play. Especially if you like to play with matches.

[Tifone]

Originally Posted by Xietor

Why take a bless? Because it is FUN!

This is the only very important thing, being this a game, I like ppl who play for fun my humble considerations were just to enter a bit a minmaxing way of thinking, but the "let's have fun" attitude is the one I use the most too

Originally Posted by Xietor

Besides you do not need many Burning Ones to win key battles. Why not take a bless?

I only find un-funny to have to rely on so slow, capital only troops. With that bless they will be durable, true, but to replace some it will take a long time for you, and not sure how worthy it would be not to skip their long travel and just recruit some tough axe/morningstar wielders in a border fortress.

Originally Posted by Xietor

Your best mages are sacred as well. The Earth Bless means they can cast all day. So the main bless, the 10 earth, is for your mages.

But they have even higher Fire magic than they usually need for spells, access to Phoenix Power and lots of F gems, so they can usually greatly reduce their casting fatigue with that
Also E10 seems a bit of an overkill compared to E9, you get 1 point of reinvig on troops and 1 of prot on your pretender for 56 points.. You could instead buy 1 more point of Growth for less problems of old age on your expensive mages and more bloodhuntable (lol) provinces, and still have something left Or one more Magic and your mages will fatigue 10% less, which is usually more than 1 fatigue point.

Originally Posted by Xietor

4n also means you can slap a shroud on your old diseased mages and they will not die(regeneration).

That's a very nice idea

Originally Posted by Xietor

But it is an enjoyable race to play. Especially if you like to play with matches.

Agreed. I'm also a naturally warm guy so it comes natural to play them

[Xietor]

Actually the 10e may be overkill. And if i used the extra points, it would be to give my cyclops air magic.

One thing about Air magic sites is they can all be found with just 2a. That is not true of many magic paths. In fact with Earth, Death, and others, you are wasting many gems not to do level 3 searches. But not air. I think there may be 1 or 2 air sites that take 3a to find, and they are rare.

Cyclops has only 1 eye. Bummer that(: One air he can cast air shield, resist lighting, and forge a key artifacts rainbow armor(air/nature combo) as well as robes missile protection.

If i was not playing sp, or a blitz on a small map, almost certainly the Cyclops would have to have at least 1 air, and I would empower him to 2 as soon as possible for cloud trapeze after he awoke.

About the 2 drain. Lightless lanterns are easy to make. Also since EA Abysia is not an Astral race, that extra mr from the drain scale is useful. I do not mind giving up 1 research point for 80 design points and gaining a free mr point for my mages against mind hunts etc.

I typically take 2 drain when playing MA Pangaea in mp games, and just resign myself going in to being dead last in research and working my strategy around the lower level spells. EA Abysia is better off than MA Pangaea because of the lanterns.

[Psycho]

Yes, lanterns are great, Abysia should be forging those in abundance, but even so I wouldn't take drain with them. I always think of taking drain 2 as of giving up 2 research points, because everyone else will take magic 1. Being last in research with Pangaea is less bad than with Abysia, because Pangaea has some anti-SC capability. Against Abysia you just slap a ring of fire resistance on your guy and he's untouchable.

[Tifone]

Lightless lanterns aren't so fast to reach at constr-6 imho... Maybe with your build you can do a lot without mages in battles, so you don't need to rush up evoc and thaum, and you can afford that drain-2 with which your mages fatigue 20% more in battlefield spells But if you went to evo-5 instead, you would have had mages casting Flares and Fireballs and Fire Clouds and Falling Fires on enemies and around your fire-immune troops soon