Guide: a difficult Pangaean strategy

[B0rsuk]

Then something is seriously wrong, don't you agree ? I guess both developers should've spent more time making sure that existing options are viable and interesting. Why keep an order that is, esentially, unnecessary clutter ? It's like these spells no one ever bothers with. For example, I searched both Dom2 and Dom3 forums for hellpower and found only several results. No one ever commented on hellpower, either. Which is a shame, because it looks like a great fun on paper.

[Gandalf Parker]

B0rsuk you seem very quick to take one opinion as an extreme fact. he didnt say it was worthless, just that it had drawbacks.

But to answer the question, there are times that I recommend pillage. Also blood search. Both can be part of a "salting the earth" tactic. Such as any of these:
A) Im far away from my home territories
B) Im unlikely to get long-term use of the province I took
C) he is likely to take it back and use it against me
D) he is exceptionally stronger than I am and makes strong use of local units
E) he is the last enemy

Then using "burning the fields and salting the earth" tactics can be very useful. If you drive the unrest over 100 then he cant recruit there even if he gets it back. Forcing him to chase you with his one original army or stop to patrol is handy.

And doing it to his capital can be devastating. Even if he gets it back, he cant recuit for long enough to let you return with another army? And his taxes dont yield much? Very useful. And if you gain his castle for a short time, raze his lab so he cant even summon for awhile.

[Endoperez]

B0rsuk said:
Then something is seriously wrong, don't you agree ? I guess both developers should've spent more time making sure that existing options are viable and interesting. Why keep an order that is, esentially, unnecessary clutter ? It's like these spells no one ever bothers with. For example, I searched both Dom2 and Dom3 forums for hellpower and found only several results. No one ever commented on hellpower, either. Which is a shame, because it looks like a great fun on paper.

Pillage is useful. Only for killing population fast, when you can afford a turn or two, but for that it works very well. It's situational, but some nations and strategies benefit more from it than others. Good raiders and death nations come to mind.


Re: Hellpower.
It was used. I've seen few HUGE battles, with dozens of tartarians and other nasty things against huge force of demons, big battlefield-wide spells being cast on both sides - and Hellpower used to power up.

Hellpower comes with a risk. There are many situations in which casting it could be worth the risk. LA Ulm with few communicants comes to mind. +2 Astral VERY nice, especially as it allows the casting of Light of the Northern Star. Mictlan could also use it to get access to some nice spells. Mass Protection, perhaps. Of course, it might also be possible to have some mages casting Horror Mark, and hope that the appearing horrors will attack the ENEMY first, and the Hellpowered mage only after that.

There are lots of other spells that haven't seen much use, and perhaps won't see much use in Dom3 either, but are still good. Hand of Death is deadly; you can't really script or plan for it, but when your mages decide to cast it, it can be devastating.
Then there are those that aren't worth the mage-time or cost. There's been some discussion about Eater of the Dead. He might be one such creature. Of course, it has been mentioned that he is currently slightly bugged.

[Arameyan]

I'm a big fan of Pangaea, and there's many interesting points in your strategy Gandalf.

With maenads I think alteration is a priority (mass protection et Mother oak). Swarm and ants could be fun I think with a Pan assassin (or in a deathmatch).

I think there is many ways to play Pangaea:

1 - High bless white centaurs: centaur warriors are awesome, white centaurs are even better. Many high bless (not nature) suit them well. They can even fight in a more classical way against other nations (not using stealth, expanding around capital).

2 - Death woods: take a Carrion dragon, reasearch enchantment, spwan carrions, cast Haunted forest and/or carrion woods... Use Banes with items as thugs. Very nice thematic, reminds me Princess Mononoke I prefer to use this strategy with late era, as undead-boosting holy spells are available and D2 Pans.

3 - Blood nation : Lord of the wild, many *cheap* temples with sacrifices, mix of nature summons with blood leaders. Take turmoil so your blood slaves hunters will spawn free maenads while searching. Access to blood magic also gives you interesting items to use leaders (pans, minotaurs, pretender, blood summons, firbolgs) more offensively.

4 - Lamias! I use a N7W2D2 Mother of monsters. W2 allow her to summon bog beast before lamias (to have a poisoned battlefield). Put poison ring on firbolgs and/or pans. Take high dominion, cast Gift of Health, Haunted forest, research mass protection.

I also use kithaironic lions in games with Demo players. On the first turn I like to recruit just minotaurs to power up my firts army. The trample skill gives an edge over non-cavarly indies.

I think I dont use enough the stealth abitity of Pangaea. I like the idea to have a strong dominion to use the Globals spells (haunted forest, GOH, etc) with high growth to cast tune of growth in battle.

I dont use entaur archers with turmoil 3 as they are gold intensive. I prefer minotaurs or centaur warriors. I should try fire and flee tactics with centaur archers... I got the idea to put air magic on my pretender to create many flying minotaurs. These trampling flyers could be fun (backed with harpies) with the Hold and attack rearmost ennemies order.

I have some questions about your strategy:

- With set tne taxes to 0 in the beachhead option?
- Do you use minotaurs? I find them very useful mixed with maenads.
- Do you use Charm? Is this spell very useful in late game MP? can it be easily countered?
- How do you use Blood magic?
- What evocation spells do you use? why use vine arrow instead of tangle vines?
- Do you use tune of growth?
- How do you use maenads in late game? How can they face larges armies of archers? the blade wind spell?

Thank you

[Gandalf Parker]

OK this is kindof a parting shot. Probably the last little tidbit to throw this direction.

The Carrion Dragon's alternate form is a Carrion Pan. Which is stealth, and leads 40 (also 10 magic and 140 undead).

In the right game for this tactic (not too crowded) you can try this just for the surprise. Load the carrion pan with stealth followers. Maybe use a fast leader to add more support to the marching army. Then stealth-march straight to the enemy. Change the form of your pan to dragon and it will automatically unstealth meaning it will attack along with all of its followers on the following turn. This saves you using one of the scripted lines for form change which can mess some people up. And, its kindof funny when the other guy complains that you cant have snuck up on him with an unflying dragon.

If you put lots of dominion into your build then you can often keep him as your strong frontline buffer for quite a distance as your dominion keeps up with your movements. You can pay for it with things that dont affect EA and MA Pangaea much such as -3 order, -3 productivity, a touch of heat or even death. Centaur archers back him up nicely, and black harpies with harpy followers can be a steady stream of flack-troops to keep archers and infantry from surrounding him.

The standard guerrilla tactics apply to this strategy. Maybe surprise him with an attack on his castle. Crank the taxes, pillage, blood hunt, whatever to drive up his unrest over 100. Then if he takes it back he still cant build for awhile. Your god, heck your entire army, can go stealth immediately or after the unrest is high enough. Let him take it back then immediately attack again. Or not. Make him nervous.

Or, take a province right next to his castle. Crank the PD, purchase troops and mercs. Make him nervous wondering when you are coming.

This action during the initial "expansion and get comfortable" stage can vastly change the game for one or two of your neighbors. However, like most of this thread its very hard to maintain to a winning strategy. It can however be an important factor along with other Pangaean skills in making you a worthy addition to an alliance.

As always, just my humble opinion.