Fomoria - Where is your God now? (AKA - The Other Giant Meat)

[Baalz]

A couple extra things I've dug up on this nation playing around with it.

Conj 6 is such a huge game changer that it can be well worth making it a very early target even at the expense of some of the other stuff that is nice to have. You've got plenty of muscle to carry you through the early game with no magic support. Get some N1 druids out site searching to drum up a small N income, it doesn't have to be much.

Conj 2 - dark knowledge. Work it like you mean it and hope you've lined up a solid D income by the time you hit conj-6.

Conj 4 - Summon Niad. If you've managed to squeeze in a sleeping lady of rivers (who generates W gems) you can probably pump one out the turn its researched. Send the niad out site searching (just be careful to bring her back to her home province every so often) and you'll fairly rapidly build up a decent N/W income. Your W income is pretty much going to all go into more niads because you've got a bunch of regenerating giants and undead love to play in foul vapors, relief takes a lot of the sting from not having an E bless, and later on quickening just folds extremely nicely on the who tear your face off strategy.

Conj - 5. Air elementals. Can be a tremendous surprise and have won an important battle or two for me.

Conj - 6. Morrigans, yeah, of course. They're the primary justification, but you already knew that. You also get:

Summon valkyrie which is damn nice with your bless, it's like swarm on unbelievable steroids, if you can bless them they've got 20D, along with regen and modest protection, and of course fly so for big fights they tie up the enemy extremely well while you presumably pound the crap out of them with lightning. They make a great way to stretch your Morrigans out for raiding squads as just a couple Morrigans will generate that nice fear aura so even if you don't kill the PD fast enough they'll probably route being unable to hit anybody.

Summon specter. This has already been mentioned, but there's another angle which wasn't - Specters get you S/E, which is something you have to otherwise get very luck to land. S/E gives you crystal/slave matrixes which Jim lays out some suggestions for, but even better it gives you crystal shields. Crystal shields get you a couple nice things, but maybe the biggest is an easy way to get H3 guys to reasonably bless all the stuff you've got zooming around. It also turns A/D druids into valkyrie casters, so no need to have your kings doing that.

Enchanted forest. Hey, your pretender can cast that! Now, this isn't the strongest global around, but if you've pushed up to conj-6 early it can be a substantial boost, particularly in an area Fomoria can struggle with - sieging castles. Oh, vinemen like foul vapors. Just sayin... Your niads probably haven't had time to contribute much to your N gems, but this global only costs 35 so it's pretty likely a N1 druid or two site searching can build that up over 20 turns pretty easily. If you took a growth scale (instead of order), it may even be worthwhile recasting it later with more gems as your N income kicks in, its nice to have upkeep free chaff. And of course, you're headed to fog warriors...

Llamia queen. A 50D empowerment of your pretender (plus a staff) puts this into your pretender's reach. 50D is expensive, no doubt, but at that point you're using N gems which you don't have too much else competing for (hopefully those niads have lined you up a supply). Llamia queens get you - among other things, into blood. Not heavily into blood, to be sure, but enough that you should be able to mint a steady supply of flesheater axes and warrior rings to help outfit those unmarked champions you're pumping out (which seem likely to be constantly short of forged gear). Pulling into late game you should be able to pile up slaves for awhile and empower your way up to robes of the magi - which may be well worth it since you're gonna have a tough time making your way into rings of wizardry. Tarts are pretty hard with no rings. You could also get into vamps, which seem like they'd fit your whole flying, stealthy, undead thing. Finally they give you more foul vapors casters, along with more heavy D mages to take some of the load off the kings.

Streams from hades. Well, as long as you're empowering your pretender, these chicks also open up. I don't have anything particularly sneaky in mind, but strong D mages are always welcome.

[Foodstamp]

I've really been enjoying this guide. I have been using it in single player and I am at a phase now where I can summon Morrigans in combat. I don't like the Lady of the springs with water/nature. The next time I try it I am going to shoot for high water/earth with bad scales. I've made a bit more use out of the Nemedians than this guide suggests using the Kings a bit more sparingly.