Understanding D2 strategy - help!

[Calistas]

Hi all, my copy is in the mail and I've been playing the demo a lot!

However, one thing I don't really get is the kinds of strategies to use for each empire (available in the demo), even if I have played them a lot.

Eg, so far I have done very well with Pythium (that comes down to the great units!) and Juntheim (same) but a lot less well with others.

I've created blood economies with Abysinia (but for what purpose I'm not sure, those fiends and devils seem to die quite quickly to me!).

I've created rainbow mages to find all the sites in an area, but I think that Acashic Record would end up more efficient. But on the other hand, don't you just 'empower' any rainbow you have to the levels you need for the late game??

I made a bless army based on someone's tips for Juntheim..

I made a huge SC pretender and used him to take out independents..

But what I'm not getting is matching pretenders to empires. What kind of strategies are there? Match your empire's powers? Chose different ones? When to go for blood (and why?!).. that sort of thing.

Oh, I didn't even get into talking about matching your dominion scales to your pretender to your empire to your strategy! Eek!

Help!

Calistas

[Yossar]

Some of the best units in the game are blood units. I don't know why yours are dying. Maybe you aren't using enough? With devils and fiends of darkness, I find you need at the very least 5 or 6 to do anything useful, ideally more. Devils are some of the best units in the game and Fiends of Darkness are good until you can get Devils. Two of the toughest commanders in the game are ice devils and arch devils.

For pretenders, you can never go wrong with just making a tough pretender with any nation. A ghost king with at least air and water for quickness and mirror image/mistform is the "overpowered pretender of the moment". Or you can use your pretender to cast spells your nation normally can't. If you don't get mages with earth, take an earth pretender, etc.

[Zen]

Calistas said:
Hi all, my copy is in the mail and I've been playing the demo a lot!

Addiction be damned!

But what I'm not getting is matching pretenders to empires. What kind of strategies are there? Match your empire's powers? Chose different ones? When to go for blood (and why?!).. that sort of thing.

These are big questions. And they are the types of things that are hard to answer.

Match a Pretender to your Empire (Same Paths as your mages)

This is a good strategy for Nations that either have weaker mages (Ulm springs immediately to mind, Jotunheim is another example) that would be best suited to using their Gem Income. The only problem with this, is you can't handicap your nation or your national armies by doing this (leaving them without support from other magical paths). A good example of a nation that can do reasonable with this is Atlantis or Arcosephale because their mages having randoms they can use to get those other paths of magic.

Example of using a Pretender with a Nation's Strengths: Use a Cyclops with Ulm. Give your Cyclops a few more levels of Earth (up to 6) and he will be able to cast all the neato super-hyper cool Earth spells as early in the game as can be done. You will probably have the first Earth Blood Deep Well in the game, solidifying your power in Earth. Or you might have the only longstanding Forge of Ancients, early enough in the game to really take advantage of it. Things of this nature.

Choose a Pretender's Magic to fill in the weaknesses of the nation. This way you can use your Nation's Strengths and fill in the gaps of their national armies/limitations. Any nation can do this, and it is the most prefered way to utilize your Pretender at least with consideration to it when deciding how you are going to use your Pretender's Paths.

Example: Use a Frost Father with Ulm. With heavy picks in Nature, Death and Air. Then using your Frost Father to search out your provinces in Nature, Death, Air. Using Ulm's forge bonus to make hammers, and pass them around to mages that you get from other paths. Using Nature to summon Ivy Kings or Couatles (for Nature/Astral), Death for Undead to complement your armies and give you the capability to use Life Drain, etc.

When to go for blood and why.

There are a few reasons to go for blood

1.) Unique Summons
2.) Upkeepless, elite magical troops
3.) Forging

Everyone but Ermor/Carrion Woods can possibly go for blood and this is mostly accomplished by using mages with Randoms (Sages for example). Then creating an Economy to support any (or maybe all) of those three. Blood is universal in it doesn't require anything but blood mages to start because of the uniqueness of Blood Hunting.

Blood is a little more advanced and filled with micromanagement traps that take a little time to get under control.

[Calistas]

Hmm, good tips. Yes, perhaps not enough fiends and sending them in too early

Another thing I don't get is the themes. I took Niefelheim with Jutheim and I didn't notice anything different about the game? I am reading hte manual adendum and it's not giving me much clues as to what the themes do either.. well, other than the largely obvious stuff, I don't see the up side of themes I guess?

Anyway, thanks.. and keep posting anyone who has something to contribute!

Peter

[Graeme Dice]

Calistas said:
I took Niefelheim with Jutheim and I didn't notice anything different about the game?

Compare the units you have with Niefelheim to those with the other two themes.

[Calistas]

I see it, no giants. So that's the only change? I guess giants are quite nice compared to those little pixies

Erm, blood economy.. who suits setting on up? Should you only bother if you've pretty much chosen a blood-style empire and theme?

Peter

[Cainehill]

Blood? Well, even on a non-blood nation, having a bit of blood on the pretender can be great for forging a couple of very nice items - blood thorn (only single handed weapon in the game with lifestealing), or blood stones.

Other than that, since I tend to play non-blood nations, I don't plan on using a lot of blood. However! There are magic sites that can easily make it worthwhile to go with blood. For instance - if you find the site that gives a blood-60 bonus (60% fewer blood slaves required for each summoning there), or a site that gives cheap powerful blood mages, it can be well worth cranking up a blood economy.

About the themes - most simply change the units and commanders the nation gets; some modify the gem income and required scales, and a very few (death themes mostly) heavily modify other things. But mostly, they change the units.

Some themes play very similarly to the base nation; others are wildly different. Conquerors of the Sea Marignon, for instance, is very different from standard Marignon, with very different magic strengths and with sailing instead of stealth.

Niefelheim theme for Jotunheim gives honking huge combat monsters, both commanders and troops, all very expensive and all sacred, great with a strong bless effect. On the other paw, Niefelheim loses the cheap researchers base Jotunheim has, but still plays fairly similarly to the base.

[Calistas]

Ahh, ok that explains it
How do you lot match up pretender with nation/theme? Anything around to help me understand this process?

Peter

[Cainehill]

For me, how I match up the pretender is different for different nations and themes (plus I still like occasionally trying something experimental in MP). It also varies according to game settings - what I want for a very difficult research game with Indy Strength 9 can be very different from normal research, Indies 5 or 6.

If a nation has very strong (or very cheap sacred troops ( Vanheim, Man's Last of the Tuatha, Marignon ) I may try to pick a pretender that will give a cost-effective strong blessing.

Mostly though, I want a pretender that can act as either a SC or an artillery platform, while having magic strengths that are different from what the theme's national mages have. For instance, making sure I have earth or death on the pretender, if the theme doesn't have easy access. Broken-rainbows - 3 or 4 paths between 3 and 5, for instance.

Other people have very different desires / intentions for their pretenders, but generally you want to play to the strengths of a pretender-chassis, while compensating for a nation / theme's weakness.

Or you play to the theme's strengths, as Zen mentioned - a high earth magic Cyclops for Ulm is pretty potent in combat, and with research can chain-cast some potent battlefield magics like Bladewind with low fatigue costs. Add some fire to that Cyclops, it can do all the nifty magma spells. Or add some water, and it becomes a fair tank, with quickness and breath of winter cast. Of course - that also gets it all kinds of afflictions, so maybe you want nature as well, for regeneration and hopefully forging or summoning some things that can heal wounds.

Hundreds of different ways to pick and design the pretender, according to what you want to try with it. You just have to try and avoid some of the ... decidely sub-optimal pretender chassis's at the moment.

[Calistas]

Oh, only just saw Zen's post, good stuff, and thanks again Cain, more to think about

Peter