I suck with Pythium ... please help!

[Zen]

First ulmish archers , sappers and arlabests can be easy damaged by bladewind .

I don't want to be a wet blanket, but if your sappers, archers and artlabests are in the way of a blade wind, you are probably losing for reasons that have nothing to do with fatigue. Even with crazy placement of mages vs troops and fighting flying units that attack archers, blade wind becomes very, very accurate when it's close.

So very nice , even investing 10 earthgems in earthboots you probably still lose .

It's actually 5 gems, you don't start forging Earth Boots without using a Smith + Hammer except for your first pair.

[Zen]

Boron said:
Well please post your opinions . I will perhaps ask a lot of questions then about your viewpoints but in the end you probably convince me .

Well if you want my opinion, which it always has been, that Air is the most powerful of school with all the goodies. Now with that said, do I think False Horrors is overpowered because you can spam them? Or because 2 Seraphs or even Harab Seraphs can cause havok and make it frustrating to play with/against.

My answer is no. I do however feel that False Horrors is not true to the game dynamic for only the reason that Air already has multiple summons along it's path. I don't know why Air has to have A.) Cheap Reusable Battle Summons B.) Cheapest Potent Battlewide Magic (Armor Piercing for your pleasure!) C.) High-strength individual battle attacks and individual/battlefield buffs and D.) Universally usable Summons E.) Artifacts that totally negate entire types of units (Archers AND Fliers) at a markedly lower cost than others.

My feeling is that Death (and to a limited extent Nature) should but as good, if not better at A.). So any feelings on 'nerfing' False Horrors falls in line with the magical definition and strength of Paths of magic.

I have been swarmed by False Horrors, I have swarmed with False Horrors, I have been successful and have been unsucessful. In the end it doesn't make as much difference. People who tend to complain about these things in this manner are 'tired' of that strategy because of it's effecitveness and having to mold a defense for it for every nation/pretender.

Caleum is weaker than it was previous to the 2.12 patch, so it's hardly overpowered now more than it was previous. While very decent (I'd place it in the top 5 nations, easily, but not the top) there is no reason it shouldn't be based on the mechanic of flying and it's very obvious advantages in the game that cannot be changed.

[Cainehill]

Huzurdaddi said:

It started out as a 5 star thread.

And it may have dropped, not because of 'rudeness and insults', but because of the quality (or lack thereof) of a bunch of Posts written by people who haven't thought about strategies much less tried playing them.

Edit: Or because the rating for a thread about Pythium that contains mostly debate about Caelum doesn't deserve five stars. And sorry, but it wasn't I (who I expect am the alleged rudester) who perverted the thread's content.

As to false horrors. I find it weird that the spell breaks indeps so well ( I mean, try it it take 10 minutes to set up a game and get to the stage where you can try it ). With a handfull of Serphas you can take any indep. You can grow at an amazing rate. It SEEMS to me to be faster than any other nation. And it is also great for busting PD.

Independents are broken just about as fast via a handful of quickened seraphs using lightning. Frankly, I find lightning more effective against many of the independents, and also against any PD that includes archers.

I think Caelum does not win most games since this strategy takes TIME to develop ( like turn 12 or so on normal research maybe a little earlier ) and on a somewhat small map with a few players conflict happens before this time. However on a big map with a good amount of space my money is on Caelum. It's not 100% alliances can be made stuff like that.

Most of my games are on moderately large maps - Cradle, Karan, etc. And still, I don't see Caelum winning even a simple majority of the games that it's in. This, without "OMG! We gotta get Caelum!" alliances - which just a few months ago, were "OMG! We gotta get Ermor!" alliances. It's simply the panic du jour.

How about this. Take a decent sized map ( something a little bigger than Aran ) with 2 players one takes Caelum one takes something else. Set indpes to let's say 9. My money is on Caelum.

My money would be on Caelum if the "something else" was T'ien C'hi, maybe. Otherwise, it's fairly trivial to come up with a solid counter-Caelum strategy, given that it's only indies and Caelum.

Any of the undead nations / themes would have good odds; all in all, I'd say that about half the nations could get at least 50/50 odds, if you predicate players of equal skill. And any nation could lose against any other nation in this scenario, simply because of luck with magic sites. If you have Atlantis and it only finds 2 water sites in its first 20 provinces, a lot of its usual strategies are shot.

And I can name a handful of prominent posters who would raise the odds of the other nation winning to 75%, if they were playing Caelum.

[Kel]

Cainehill said:
Most of my games are on moderately large maps - Cradle, Karan, etc. And still, I don't see Caelum winning even a simple majority of the games that it's in. This, without "OMG! We gotta get Caelum!" alliances - which just a few months ago, were "OMG! We gotta get Ermor!" alliances. It's simply the panic du jour.

Not that I am agreeing or disagreeing with your sentiments on Caelum but I just wanted to note that Ermor did get a slight nerf when they lost the VQ. Personally, I still hate playing with Ermor while I am pretty neutral about Caelum

- Kel

[Soapyfrog]

Cainehill said:
My money would be on Caelum if the "something else" was T'ien C'hi, maybe.

So you are saying Tien Chi is too weak?

[BigDaddy]

I use hordes of emerald guards because they die far less against indies and rarely rout (better armor, morale, hps, attack, weapon). They are slow though, use lots or resources and carry no javelins. They can often take lance attacks. I often select fortified city and prod 3 so i can churn more out by turn 5-6 when i have all my neighbors. I find my extreme growth rate to compensate for the lack of sites to hire communicants. Has anyone else tried this?

Emerald Lords have 17 defence skill (15 attack) and rarely die when spells aren't involved. Arm them, give them a small guard, and have them kill rear mages.

Rainbow mages rock with pytium becuase a 4S arch theurg with an astral cap can make a ring of wizardry. Then you shouldn't have any trouble making items or casting spells with your well thought out rainbow. I ussually just take 4S on my rainbow pretender for this reason.

From what i can tell Pythium is about rapid early expansion, even the computer expands rapidly. Against independent 9's emerald guards are the best, except that pythium has assasins.

I've only played against 1 human opponent is several MP games, and I wouldn't use emerald guards to actually attack enemy players with mages, but i wouldn't advise principes for this either. If i was going to attack enemy mages with normal units i would prefer emerald guards though, because of their higher prot, hp, and morale.

[Endoperez]

Emerald guards are good, but expensive. I personally prefer Principes (atleast with Broken Empire Ermor). Fast, have javelin, still good morale, att and defence, good prot for move-2 unit, considerably cheaper...

And as Ermor, even Broken Empire, lances are only a loss of a longdead.

Emerald Guards are excellent when they can be used: that is, when speed isn't needed but you need someone tough on the frontline. Most people in this forum seem to prefer not use frontline at all, but few SCs, and some summons might be more cost effective, but Emerald Guards are very good at what they do.

[BigDaddy]

Right, I use the emerald guard strategy i outlined to take hordes of provinces early. Drive to another good castle site and repeat once or twice. You'll easily have the most provinces. Often you can have 40 or more by turn 30. That kind of income is a huge boost to research, and you get tons gems with AR. Speed is not neccessary, because you are just taking one province and the next, etc.

[T77]

EGs are good against tough independents, like Knights. I find that Principes take heavy casualties against Knights. So early on I build EGs and then I switch to Principes once I've cleared out my area. Then I just use the existing EGs as garrisons.