MP: STACKERS, newbie game, (started)

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by otic

Could I get an extension until 2PM US Central time, Tuesday?

Granted

[otic]

Thanks for the extension

unfortunately, I drove to the nearest wifi (a bar with probably more taxidermy than I've seen outside of a museum) and found that their router and my laptop can't get past second base. I really don't have any other Internet access this week without doing an awful lot of driving.

Very sorry about this, but you will have to replace shinuyama

[cwkjc]

Originally Posted by otic

a bar with probably more taxidermy than I've seen outside of a museum

And you're defintively out ? there's no solution ?

[otic]

Originally Posted by cwkjc

And you're defintively out ? there's no solution ?

Well, I'm back in town now and I have regular Internet again. I can continue to take turns, as it doesn't look like anyone has taken over shinuyama yet.

Unfortunately, my northern neighbor grew to about twice my size in the time I was gone. I will need a bit of luck to be anything more than a speed bump.

[Greyjoy]

Best of luck to you then, since I'm pretty sure I'm not your northern neighbor and therefore I want you to cause him as much trouble as possible.

(Jotunheim? Man? Yeah, I know, you'd be silly to say, gotta be nervous enough about both your neighbors already. I'm just idly guessing based on the explicably scary and inexplicably scary on the scorechart.)

The squids definitely have a lot of gems. I mean, yeah, okay, we all saw that coming, voice of tiamat + astral probe, but it's still scary to be on the other end of it. Especially with my first sitesearcher being completely incompetent.

I don't think he's found a single site. All the growth you see on my graph? Yeah, that's from the later employees or my pretender. Some dedicated scout HE turned out to be.

Lastly and minorly: I finally got around to mucking with Ashdod in SP, and sweet Jesus I'm glad we're playing CBM. Turns them from hellishly overpowered to... er... hellishly overpowered but with a bit of a gold bottleneck? Mages running from 200g (gotta love guaranteed lv2 in a path, though) to rather a whole lot more.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Greyjoy

Best of luck to you then, since I'm pretty sure I'm not your northern neighbor and therefore I want you to cause him as much trouble as possible.

(Jotunheim? Man? Yeah, I know, you'd be silly to say, gotta be nervous enough about both your neighbors already. I'm just idly guessing based on the explicably scary and inexplicably scary on the scorechart.)

The squids definitely have a lot of gems. I mean, yeah, okay, we all saw that coming, voice of tiamat + astral probe, but it's still scary to be on the other end of it. Especially with my first sitesearcher being completely incompetent.

I don't think he's found a single site. All the growth you see on my graph? Yeah, that's from the later employees or my pretender. Some dedicated scout HE turned out to be.

Lastly and minorly: I finally got around to mucking with Ashdod in SP, and sweet Jesus I'm glad we're playing CBM. Turns them from hellishly overpowered to... er... hellishly overpowered but with a bit of a gold bottleneck? Mages running from 200g (gotta love guaranteed lv2 in a path, though) to rather a whole lot more.

Pythium, Ashdod and their relatives are the nations I never play because, if I win, I always feel like I've cheated somehow....

Ashdod is lovely because it's mages are so powerful, you can easily take an imprisoned Bless pretender build, and your Bless doesn't even have to be top notch, so you can take fabulous scales too (because you need them anyway), the +2 Heat requirement also gives you a lovely extra 80 DPs just because Ashdod really needs that boost. My second favorite power mage being the joined-path King of the Deep from Atlantis. 3W plus a 2-linked that can make 1/5 a 5W mage which is nothing to sneeze at on the land and completely deadly underwater--easily summoning masses of regenerating water elementals... just lovely.

Giants, once they are outfitted with appropriate gear, become, not just thugs, but recruitable SCs. They are incredibly powerful. On top of all the awesome stats they have, they can also wear 3 pieces of jewelry. Also note:

They have hideously cheap slinger slaves (and you know you have to take at minimum production 0 or you'll have crap for an army for a very long time) and 1/3 Talmai Elder can easily cast Flaming arrows, so you have Fire-immune SCs stomping around with swarms of deadly chaff.


I have found Pythium (and especially Sauromatia) to be similar. My brother is fond of using Emerald Lords as thugs in MA, and they are quite tough little units especially when backed up by some lovely buffs like Body Ethereal, Luck and Quickness.

[Greyjoy]

Pythium I'd say dances on the line. It's not as conspicuously overpowered as Hinnom/Ashdod - Gath is somewhat closer to sanity just because there are so many other LA nations with decent conventionals, thugs, or vampires - but there isn't much in the way of obvious weaknesses and they have a lot of decent strengths. They do fall a little short in magic diversity, but with very strong air and astral and okay water, I'm not sure they need it. Extremely decent infantry, an absolutely insane early game, mages that are purpose-built for communions, some pretty good thugs, and the lower levels of angels are GREAT.

So are the Seraphs, obviously, but in endgame anybody with astral's going to wish them up anyway, so them being Pythium "nationals" doesn't really count in my book.

I hadn't really thought of the emerald dudes as a thug chassis. You're right, they're really pretty good. More importantly, they're incredibly cost-effective. A nice thing to segue to if you get carried away with the early-game hydra rush and someone pulls poison immunes out of their bum.

Pythium's really more on the level of Van, Jotun, and so on. Whether that's "overpowered" or just "top tier" depends on your point of view, I suppose.