Help Design my EA TC Setup?.(CBM 1.71)

[rdonj]

How about w9/s9? That would be a pretty all around useful bless, and give them and all your other sacreds quite some offensive power. W5E are actually *very* powerful sacreds, and can be quite effective even when they're in the low hp part of the year. And if you really want to play with some heavy lightning shenanigans later, you can go up enchantment until you get the thunder ward spell. The elemental resist spells have been buffed nicely in cbm as I recall, and while that obviously means taking longer to ramp up to it, you'll probably be considering enchantment strongly anyway. My suggestion is just to play around with blesses for them until you're happy. And use some arrow catchers.

[Warhammer]

Do not underestimate the W5E. They are one of the few units that get better as the game goes on. You have the mage power to make them immune to everything! You can have the mages to give them Legions of Steel, Strength of Giants (don't really need it, but it helps), fire ward, thunder ward, etc.

The water bless is also synergistic with several of your pretender options. I would save the points on the water bless and put it into dominion to get more of the W5E.

Your two questions should be:

1) Should I have another major bless?

2) What scales should I take?

Note on the scales, you don't NEED great scales. You can take sloth or turmoil. The only scale I can't justify with TC is death. Even drain, I can at least justify if I need points (you've got great cap researchers and can forge quills and lanterns).

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Don't the demons of heavenly fires have 0 prot? Everytime I used them, they dropped like flies. Or are they supposed to sit back like archers?

Yes, they are supposed to sit back like archers. They shoot flame wheels that have a good range and can be quite devastating.

[rdonj]

And if you need them to be melee-capable, that's what protection buffs are for.

[Baalz]

I had pretty good success with a W9 lady of rivers and good scales. With a dom of 9 and awe she can clear indies using an encanted shield and breath of winter giving a brutal initial expansion alongside all thos w5e your high dominion and scales let you dump out. All those water gems she generates let you spit out heavenly rivers early for an absolutly brutal opening. Watch for any flavor of amazon indies, they've all got (I think) good sacreds that do well with a W9 bless, and just one extra province curning out good sacreds will let you fairly dominate up into mid game, where god dominion and fast expansion culminates in absurd castles and research and saceds that are nigh unstopable when buffed.

[rabelais]

Been playing with various setups. I agree that the w9 bless is nice, but to take advantage of the MoR (who has been nerfed from 6 gems to 4 in cbm1.71) you have to take her awake which means her total cost is 75+224+dominion assuming 4 bumps for 70 that means you are looking at 369 points minimum. given you only have 350 to work with that puts you at -1 or -2 scales depending on how you want to push the dom. So I guess it depends what you mean by good scales. also the only shield you can make out of the box is a enc 2 black steel tower. (no nature income to start). did enchanted shield get buffed to con 2? it didnt seem to be there.

I suppose one could take her dormant and assume you can still reap some expansive benefit when she arrives, but it seems unlikely in a crowded game.

an imprisoned lady of fortune w9s9 isnt that much worse scales-wise and gives you significantly better sacreds.

Given score graphs are on I wonder what the optimal play is? a huge expansion huge gem income no research start is likely to get piled on....

same problem with lord of plenty if I wanted the earth bless for the sacred mages although 9-->13 protection on the Wot5E is unlikely to help survivability much. also I assume the LoP and LoR now only give 1 of each gem a turn.

If I had access to the sphinx s9e4 would be a no brainer as you get that with +8 scales. But I dont.

Does anyone know HOW MUCH better the size six pretender chasses spread dominion? If it's 10+ extra temple check it might be worth it, but that seems unlikely.

Also given my scales are probably going to bite should I not be afraid of turmoil? both t3 and o3(L3) have the big gold event right?

Too many choices. also I'm not sure what unique in the hammer change means. does it mean they are now con 8 and can only have one in the entire game? Is that the case for all the gemgens as well?

Thanks for all replies. Been enjoying reimmersing in Dom3, even if I'm a quick kill in the game.

[Baalz]

Ooops, was speaking from memory and misremembered the scales, also left a part out - cold 3 scale works very well for the build I suggested. Breath of winter is brutal with W9 in cold, cold dominion turns water elementals into ice elementals (much better for many things), a lot of water evo works better in cold (numbness, ice mist, grip of winter), your W5E don't take an enc hit naturally and are easy to get to 100% CR for things like fighting inside frozen mist, grip of winter, etc. Lots of synergy for cold-3 scales. This does give you an income hit, but you can still have reasonable scales with something like O3, P0, C3, D3, Mf1, Ma1, Dom9. A matter of preference, but I like C3/D3 scales where appropriate as they really kill supply chains for anybody invading you (your castles generally keep you supplied inside your dominion). Enchanted shield (the S1 one) is const-0.

[rabelais]

I have (finally!) made my pretender. Thank you to all those who read / participated.

here are the options I seriously considered. Let me know which you think closest to optimal. Also guess which I actually chose.

Map is AsiaTwist 19 nations site freq 60.

Wyrm no magic. awake. for waterstomping regenerating poison immune goodness.

Phoenix f4a4 dormant. just in time for fire arrow rush.

Oracle: always popular for scalewhoring efficiency. s4 imp gives +13 scales s6 +12 s9 +9 scales all at Dom8!

Sacred statue. one scale less than oracle, in exchange for better stats (though not slots) and amphibious.

Mother of rivers, w9 Dom5 imp leaves you +7 scales. Awake is -1/-2 scales but expands shockingly well.

Lady of fortune considered several imp setups. w9s9 dom 10 (-4 scales) to w9s4 dom 7 (+4 scales)

Jade Emperor considered several imp configs from a4s4w4 dom 6 (+9 scales) to a9s9w9 (don't ask)

Cyclops for e9 for sacred mages. he needs either f1 or dom3 back, or a price reduction to be competitive IMHO

Lord of Plenty everything from s4e4 to s9e9 (curiously the nerf of his gem production made him much less attractive even with *much* less to do with earth gems.)

Does he have a luck effect similar to the Lady of Fortune?

Crone, various setup based around s4d4n4(?1) for endgame options and site searching/path expanding fun. +6 scales Dom 6 dormant, before further adds.

Titan a9s4 dom7 dormant for lightning immune sacreds with a little something for the magery.

Looked at the dragons, but Dom1 really hurts them. I think they may need a buff.


I am impressed with the way 1.7 always leaves you a tiny bit short of further synergy. With 3 more points to spend I would have chosen differently.

[rabelais]

How would you folks take out a prov with 16 heavy cav, 19 light cav (shortbows) and 27 light infantry (shield + jav) using EA TC national troops and no prophet?

Everything I try in the battle simulator fails until I have massive numerical superiority. Really impressive actually.

Also assume availabilty of indy archers if you like. Even a noble rush doesn't work well, as if I had the resources for that.


Thanks.

[Fantomen]

I'd use a normal priest to bless the sacreds, or give a celestial master two astral gems for PoS/divine blessing

But assuming you mean how to do it under a no bless strat with only recruit everywhere units... Perhaps spamming some lesser water elementals with a bunch of masters of the way? Or assuming no magic, perhaps a few shielded arrow catchers for the javelins + lots of pikes to soak the lances and then horsemen flankers to punch through the armor.