Guide: a difficult Pangaean strategy

[Gandalf Parker]

One of the biggest parts of the Pangaean theme is natural units relying on stealth over the use of standard armored armies. Probably seeking to use more guerrila warfare and avoiding conventional head-to-head conflicts. Hit and Run tactics, strikes of opportunity, spreading their strikes to make it difficult to pinpoint their center or operations (at least early in the game). Any effort to try and use Pangaea as a head-to-head army doesnt seem to work very well except possibly for late era.

Lord of the Wild
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Death 3
Nature 4
Blood 3
These allow for casting some important national spells. Also for forging some level boosting items for later on.


Turmoil 3
Same as Order -3. This raises the number of events, and increases the the number of maenads which will appear. A hit on money but thats a trade-off.

Sloth 1
Mostly these are purchase points since I dont tend to purchase heavily armored units.

Heat/Cold 0
For now I have it unchanged but it can be purchase points since Pangaea can easily take hits on income and supplies. Usually when I do I take heat since personally I hate cold. But its a topic of consideration of whether Pangaea can best stand up to cold or heat nations, and you should take the opposite scale.

Growth 0
No change but thats up to individuals.

Luck 3
Another way to cash in on the high turmoil. Increase the number of events even further (up to +30% now) and the chance of them being good (+39%). It can help offset the loss of money from Turmoil.

Magic 3
Pushing the research since there are spells that I really need to make heavy use of.

Dominion Strength of 3. Strong enough to make sure that I get the scale effects at home but not so strong that it spreads ahead of me. I want to be able to purchase troops outside of the dominion so I can get money and resource benefits.

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For the first turn I put everyone who isnt a mage on patrol and I turn taxes to 200%. Be sure to turn it back down on the turn that you move your armies out. Getting Mercs is of course very useful. Later using local units can be your front line for moving outward.
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It might be possible to use a bit of Dormancy. The large armies of maenads are more needed later on.

Initially I research Evocation, then Enchantment, then Alteration, then Evocation. This gives basic combat spells which work for the levels that most mages will operate on. The Enchantment level 1 gives access to Carrion Centaur which can create free units.

Then I pursue Conjuration, Conjuration, Conjuration. Vine men, Vine Ogres, Revive bane, and Call of the Wild.

Then Construction, Construction. By now I will need some food cauldrons and wine skins to move my large maenad armies out of my home province.

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Two types of armies are being built. Non-stealth armies just for taking and holding the local provinces. And stealth armies for deeper expansion. The maenads will help create the first one. So recruiting can concentrate on the second one. Usually its a choice between creating another Pan, or an army. The army usually consists of a Centaur Hierophant, as many Centaur archers as I can get and then I remove one to allow for, as many Harpy as I have space for. I send out scouts to find the other nations. Then I move my stealth armies in that direction.

I put my Hierophont on Bless, then fire at rearmost. I put my archers on fire at archers, and my harpys off to the right flank (low on the positioning image) with orders to Hold and Attack rearward. I find that archers tend to be assigned high on the battlefield (their right) which allows better access to the commanders from the low flanking unit (my right).

The stealth army is moving quickly to find targets of opportunity. Nations who do not put up Province Defense. Or battlegrounds between two nations where the winner might be damaged enough for you to take a province before PD goes up.

There are two choices for what to do with a province once taken.
A) Raze
B) Beachhead

With Raze you expect it to be taken back. You set the taxes to 200%, purchase minimal PD, any units which can help hold it or at least make it a problem to take back.

With Beachhead you turn taxes to 0%, put lots of money into PD, purchase as many local units as possible.

Either way, your stealth army should disappear into the wilderness. If you noticed enemy armies nearby you might want to move to the opposite side of your opponents area and attack the other side. If you are approaching that nation with your non-stealth armies then definetly attack the provinces on the far side from there in order to draw their armies that direction to handle your attacks and retake the provinces you have grabbed.

Try not to connect your provinces to theirs until you are sure that you can withstand their armies. Maintain the ability to do "free damage" for as long as possible. Hit them, ignore them for awhile, hit them again. They cant reach you without expensive battles thru indept nations until later in the game when there are no more indepts or the use of magic allows for far strikes.

You also might save your stealth army some wear and tear when you can use Call of the Wild. The stealth army or scouts can find likely weak points. Drop wolves on it to take it. Then do the recommended actions and sneak off the wolves as another stealth army in that area.

Obviously these tactics would work on a human player only as a surprise action. Their ability to change tactics to respond to it varies from person to person. It also has great benefits when used in alliance with someone who has more standard armies. They also work better vs AI's. And larger maps help it. All in all its a difficult strategy to use unless you just really like playing stealth surprise tactics.

Gandalf Parker