Tartarian factory

[Torvak]

It's a nice strategy. I'm on turn 45 right now, started summoning on turn 36. World Map with fixed starting locations, all AI's on impossible, indies at 9.
Right now it's a bit messy, fighting Jotun in the north, Caelum to the east, Abyssia south and west but. I was lucky to have some gold mines in my starting provinces and cheap 6/3 archers at the other castle.

Gem income is very low. I can't see how you could have researched everything you said, also searched the countryside for magic sites, created the items and got a mage that could cast gift of reason (how that btw) and all that by turn 31.

[ February 15, 2004, 21:53: Message edited by: Torvak ]

[Strages Sanctus]

I was thinking the same thing about turn 31...
Tried doing the math but even when I was hiring a mage every turn and non stop researching just conjuration it took almost 30 turns. Don't remember the exact amount.

[Torvak]

Tried doing the math but even when I was hiring a mage every turn and non stop researching just conjuration it took almost 30 turns.

Well that's possible. You get to construction 4 very fast and can build a skull mentor for every researcher.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Torvak:
Well that's possible. You get to construction 4 very fast and can build a skull mentor for every researcher.

If you have a death gem income good enough to build a skull mentor every turn, then you've done an awful lot of site searching.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Torvak:
I can't see how you could have researched everything you said,

3 Castles and labs to recruit more mages. I also had a a Sage site. And I forged some lanterns after Const 6. No Mentors.

[Edit: 3 castles, including my starting one]

also searched the countryside for magic sites, created the items and got a mage that could cast gift of reason (how that btw) and all that by turn 31.

He was GoR-capable at turn 31, but GoR came a bit later. Astrologer with a random in nature + Ring of Sorc -> Thistle Mace -> Moonvine Bracelet -> nature-4 for GoR.

[ February 16, 2004, 01:11: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]

[ywl]

I think the strategy is abusive and would like to see the exploit removed.

But I have the suspicion that the effects you saw was because of high research and large gem income, rather than specifically because of Tartarian Gate. It doesn't seem to be too much more powerful than some other strategies, if you could get to level 9 on Conjurations or Construction and have the right gem income.

Examples:
1) Tarrasque. 25 Nature a piece. In my test, most tartarian zombie needs GoR. So, the gem cost is about the same.
2) Juggernaut. 25 Astral. They're powerful tramplers, holy and can spread your dominion.
3) Heck, if you have GoR, you could even use it on Gargoyle. Use Vanheim and a Nature 3 pretender. Research for Enchantment 5 and high Construction (4 or 6). GoR the Gargoyle and pile items on them. They'll be quite decent combatants, though their basic MR is just 12.

Of course, most Tartarian summons are powerful magic Users. Your strategy still has an significant advantage over these three examples, even though it's harder to pull of.

What bug me more is actually seeing an whole army of dead gods running around. Does it make sense to have tens of imprisoned ancient gods available for summon? Personally, I'd rather see all of the Tartarian summons unique like the Demons, and the cost of the spell and chance of feeble-mind decreased to increase their power.

I agree with Ywl's suggestion. Even though it takes a large amount of death to cast Tartarian Gate, it should not be any less limited than Demon Lords or Elemental King/Queens. Even with it limited you'd see players recasting their Tartarians every turn as they die. The Monstrum is particularly abusive, since he flies.

There are 7 Different types of Tartarians so the number fits nicely.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by ywl:
I think the strategy is abusive and would like to see the exploit removed.

Maybe I didn't put it explicitely enough, but that's exactly what I wanted to demonstrate.

[Torvak]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ywl:
I think the strategy is abusive and would like to see the exploit removed.

Maybe I didn't put it explicitely enough, but that's exactly what I wanted to demonstrate.

---

I wouldn't say it's abusive or even an exploit. It probably balances Arco a bit. Right now i'm desperatly trying to survive fighting Jotun, Caelum and Abyssia at once. Even with casting a Tartarian every round it's hard enough.
In the game you describe with your high death and nature gem income you were incredibly lucky.

[ywl]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

---

In the game you describe with your high death and nature gem income you were incredibly lucky.

I searched for death and nature sites very aggressively, and I don't think +13 and +19 out of ~30 provinces is so incredibly lucky even with the default setting. I got +5 nature from Pangaea's capital BTW, +1 from mine, so actually it's only +13 from random sites. So that's less than .5 death and .5 nature per province from non-capital provinces. [/QB]

---

I think it is. Assuming the chance for site is 50% and the number of nature or death gems for each site is 2. For a rough estimation:
30 * 0.5 * 1/8 * 2 ~= 4
1/8 because I assume that there are equal chance for each type of site (not true) and I haven't counted holy or unholy sites. But even if we increase the number to 1/4, it'd still only about 8. And you're talking Arco, who has no native access to nature or death. Search by spell will be slow.

And it's Conjuration 9, Construction 6 and Thaumaturgy 4 (low). This is a lot of research. As I said, with such research and gem, you could probably do equally well with Juggernaut, Tarrasque or even 9+ ghosts per turn. Also, since Tartarian summons are undeads, you could in theory counter them with "Holy Pyre" or "Control the Dead"

But still, all these cann't disprove the fact that 10 gems (or 30 with GoR) for 100+ hp, undead mage is too much of a good deal; the funny, if not ridiculous, sight of tens of dead gods in an army.

I have the suspicion that the same trick is equally abusable for C'tis, Man or Pan. These nations have the advantage of a high nature gem income, the major bottleneck of the production line. Faery Queen is expensive but it's just 40 gems, merely the price of two GoR. They're also powerful air mage and generate free sprites. I won't mind having one or two of them just lying around.