LA Pythium - Much more than you were expecting

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by DeadlyShoe

I'm curious how you protect against double protection assassins. I've been using that as Abyssia as well and it seems extraordinarily difficult to counter without a first turn kill on the assassin.

Remote assassin spells (mind hunt etc), heavy patrolling and decoy commanders.

The goal should be to invalidate the investment in assassins rather than trying to make commanders that can kill them.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

Remote assassin spells (mind hunt etc), heavy patrolling and decoy commanders.

The goal should be to invalidate the investment in assassins rather than trying to make commanders that can kill them.

Yeah, several decoy commanders that *can* kill them on the first turn sitting around the real targets fairly rapidly bring the cost of lost assassins over the cost of lost targets. Put some flying boots or boots of long stride on whatever toughish cheap guys you've got (bane lords, sleepers, etc.) An outfitted assassin corps does still have considerable teeth on the defense though even if it's expected, as guys running/flying forward on the first turn don't have a long life expectancy marching into enemy territory and most remote spells won't hit hiding guys.

[sector24]

My least favorite part of LA Pythium is the commander with the blood random. In one game I recruited 40 of them before I got one. That pretty much kills the blood strategy when the RNG does not cooperate.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by sector24

My least favorite part of LA Pythium is the commander with the blood random. In one game I recruited 40 of them before I got one. That pretty much kills the blood strategy when the RNG does not cooperate.

That's unlikely to happen if the RNG is actually working randomly. If 25% of them get a blood random then you've got a 97% chance of landing at least one blood random after recruiting 12. Sounds buggy unless you're exaggerating.

[WraithLord]

Thank you Baalz. What a lovely way to pass the evening, armed with a cup of cool beer, reading your guide for my favorite nation

[WraithLord]

I've read the guide. It's good stuff as expected

some comments:
- 2nd Fantomen's comment re. Forge lord. Not sure it's worth it. I'd perhaps go for awake high dom SC pretender. I know pyth can expand w/o one but this can super charge their early expansion and with a few key paths that SC can later retire to forge or cast while high dom mitigates heretic's influence.

- What's wrong with hydra only expansion. Say with A9 bless?

- What's wrong with legion only based expansion. Say with monster scales pretender?

- w/o high dom the heretics can be really counter productive. I once played LA Pyth MP and preferred to stay away from them.

- The overall strategy sounds promising but I wonder how the broad spectrum strat. would work out in real MP games where every cent counts. Beside the high competence level required for this specific guide, some guides (like Caelum) just sound good in theory but having trouble delivering in real MP games. I'm not being controversial, I'm frankly curios and would love to hear back in this thread from players who actually gave it a try.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

I've read the guide. It's good stuff as expected

some comments:
- 2nd Fantomen's comment re. Forge lord. Not sure it's worth it. I'd perhaps go for awake high dom SC pretender. I know pyth can expand w/o one but this can super charge their early expansion and with a few key paths that SC can later retire to forge or cast while high dom mitigates heretic's influence.

- What's wrong with hydra only expansion. Say with A9 bless?

- What's wrong with legion only based expansion. Say with monster scales pretender?

- w/o high dom the heretics can be really counter productive. I once played LA Pyth MP and preferred to stay away from them.

- The overall strategy sounds promising but I wonder how the broad spectrum strat. would work out in real MP games where every cent counts. Beside the high competence level required for this specific guide, some guides (like Caelum) just sound good in theory but having trouble delivering in real MP games. I'm not being controversial, I'm frankly curios and would love to hear back in this thread from players who actually gave it a try.

A Hydra only expansion tends to be very gold intensive. You need about 4 to keep routing from being an issue which is the same amount of gold as a new castle. I played a game awhile ago with a double N/W bless, and indeed the berzerking got rid of the routing problem and the defense plus extra regen allowed single hydra expansion parties. That was fun and a crazy opening, though it stalled out later because of the scales I had to take to afford it. You really need production scales as the game wears on.

Re: Broad spectrum, I take a bit of artistic licence to make things more interesting to read, you're unlikely to be fielding 8 differently set up armies at once. You can, however, shift strategies to take advantage of the specific weaknesses of whoever you're fighting at the time. If you successfully get up several castles up early on (shouldn't be difficult), and steadily recruit a good spectrum of your different cheap mages then there isn't much I suggest that can't be fielded in a couple turns. The trick is you have to have your prep work done ahead of time - you're gonna be sucking air if you are trying to recruit the mages with the randoms you want right when you need them. Have a couple of everything you might want and a variety of boosters sitting in your lab though and by the time your opponent adjusts to fighting under heat from hell you're dropping foul vapors on him from behind skellispam, and by the time his poison immune stuff gets to the front line you're dropping weapons of sharpness and mass protection on your guys who were previously fighting under fire fend and heat from hell, the guys sent to deal with that get a couple heavily buffed sirrush and hydras fighting under wrathful skies. Assuming you've got the research all that can be done with the same 100 troops, a handful of mages and under 100 gems worth of forgings & summonings. Investing in maenads and assassins, vengeance of the dead spam and lamia queens are all powerful side strategies options swhich are not strictly necessary.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by Baalz

That's unlikely to happen if the RNG is actually working randomly. If 25% of them get a blood random then you've got a 97% chance of landing at least one blood random after recruiting 12. Sounds buggy unless you're exaggerating.

The chance of a random was only 10% base, and in CB versions before 1.7.

Also, does anyone have any suggestions about giving the Mystes a niche?

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by quantum_mechani

The chance of a random was only 10% base, and in CB versions before 1.7.

Also, does anyone have any suggestions about giving the Mystes a niche?

Maybe move the healer ability from the Epoptes to the Mystes?

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by quantum_mechani

The chance of a random was only 10% base, and in CB versions before 1.7.

Also, does anyone have any suggestions about giving the Mystes a niche?

Thematically, Mystes are supposed to be lesser initiates on the same path of initiation that later leads to Epoptes, so it's hard to justify them not being subsets of Epoptes.

If you look at the Greek mystery cults that these are based on, the Mystes are initiated into the mysteries of Persephone (goddess of the underworld) and then Epoptes are additionally initiated to the mysteries of Demeter (goddess of the hearth/fertility). There is also a focus on duality of soul/body, and on transitions (the basic draw of the cult was apparently that it promised insights into the afterlife or some form of immortality for the initiated, though it's clearly not straightforward "stay alive forever just as you are" immortality.) So, based on that, you could fairly reasonably extend them something death/underworld related.

Perhaps some undead leadership? Minor death magic itself is already reliably filled by the Renata/Renatus, though. It would still be hard to thematically justify *not* giving whatever you gave the Mystes to the Epoptes, though, except via some sort of "transition/transformation" explanation. I suppose you could give them some kind of magical "reaper" or banishment attack, but it's hard to imagine them thugging out too much.

Maybe you could just make them even cheaper so they improve as (non-heretical) research factories? A lesser supply bonus?