C'tis and the Dancers of Death

[Keir Maxwell]

Carrying on with the theme of bless abuse from my previously post on Niefelheim Ice Age play here is the results of my latest look at C'tis and bless effects.

"Dancers of Death"
C'tis standard theme
Prince of Death, Water 9, Death 6, Dominion 7.
Order 3, Sloth 2, Heat 1, Misfortune 2, Drain 2.
40 admin castle (next test I'll try the fortified city)

Obvioulsy the scales are weak - but then how else to pay for all that magic?

Order +3 is a must, Sloth 2 is no big problem as the only units I built were City Guard and Serpent Dancers. Misfortune 2 could easily be misfortune 3 but I was wanting to check out the Heroes. Drain 2 helps the Undead and the Dancers magic resist and with the powerful bless effects and the Prince for research the drain makes sense early but may hurt later if you don't find sages.

The test:

Aran map, 7 impossible AI's, Inde 5, 60% sites, random events rare, 454 Dominion for victory.

Sample of how it went:
t.8 - 10 provinces 468 gps
t.9 - 13 prov 551 gps
t.10 - 16 prov 733gps
t.11 - 19 prov 873 gps
t.12 - 20 prov 961 gps

This was with all non-sea indie's gone and a border with AI's. Time for war with large amounts of troops for the job. This is a very good start by my books and it did not seem to have involved much luck - though no real bad events.

The first army is lead by your initial commander turned prophet (Bless and Sermon of Courage)accompanied by a Sauromancer (Terror - later Eagle Eyes then Terror) attacking on the second turn. Army consists of 7 Dancers (on attack closest) back slightly from base position with the commanders, a unit of ~6-12 City Guard (hold and attack) a bit forward and down a way to attract arrows, and a small unit of javelin at the rear on hold and attack to stop your quickened prophet for running madly into combat - this is a real problem when using High priests in this role (the normal option) and risky with your prophet. The commanders seem to remain behind the Last unit when running around insanely on speed so deploying a unit at the back on hold and attack does the job. I found out the dangers in my first couple of tests where I got routed by losing High Priests. In case you are wondering why I avoid guard commander orders its because your army doesn't rout when it should leading to the commanders you hoped to save dying because their bodyguard hangs around after the battle is lost - at least this was the problem in Dom 1.

The next army leaves 2 turns later (more Dancers, less CG's) and another the turn after depending on priorities and initial gains. The Sauromancers are optional but do help take down the harder provinces and keep down casualities.

The Prince of Death can do a bit of research early to get a range of useful spells - Eagle Eyes, Summon Shade Beats, Raise Dead etc or and/or go out to help speed up the advance if/when needed. I used him for expansion after ~t.5 but regretted going out so early as expansion was fast enough anyway and the Prince is the only quick source of research when you don't find Sages.

Against most independent the armies work a treat as enemy simply can't hit the Dancers in hand-to-hand with their def of 20. The key is not to get the Dancers shot at and it does happen when you get too close to the CG. The Dancers will run back to help the CG's versus units that got past them and can get badly hurt by archery. The solution is to make sure independents with alot of archers are attacked by armies with enough Dancers to catch all the enemy units.

After the test I'm wondering wether to try using Swamp Guard where possible instead of City Guard. I picked the CG because you start with some, they move 2 and don't cost many resources. At times you have the resources for SG (especially with the Fortified City) and not all of your armies need to move 2.

The other question is taking the Fortified City or not? While Dancers can only be built at the capital the limit is your dominion not resources or gold and Sauromancer can be built everywhere. It is a hard choice - Fortified City for extra gold and the ability to build Swamp Guards early (much better vs archers and more useful in the long term) or quicker to build stronghold for Sauromancers - I suspect the latter is more sound as the race is strong enough early.

Hope this of some entertainment.

cheers

Keir

[ November 19, 2003, 09:29: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[Wendigo]

Excellent stuff. Your designs are a bit extreme for my style (I guess I am a pretty conservative player), but they do indeed have potential.

Why the 6 death? do you feel the extra Fear from 4->6 is worth the cost (and the sacrifices elsewhere), or are you planing on using your pretender for ritual summoning in the later game?

[HJ]

I had great fun using dancers in combination with poison slingers. I also had water 9, to give them extra defense and to get double fanaticism, but I had air 4 to give them some protection from missiles.

[Patrik]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:

Sample of how it went:
t.8 - 10 provinces 468 gps
t.9 - 13 prov 551 gps
t.10 - 16 prov 733gps
t.11 - 19 prov 873 gps
t.12 - 20 prov 961 gps

This was with all non-sea indie's gone and a border with AI's. Time for war with large amounts of troops for the job. This is a very good start by my books and it did not seem to have involved much luck - though no real bad events.

This is indeed a very good start!! I think it makes a lot of sense to stop at about this point (i.e. t.12) when comparing different setups for starting strength. Looking at what you have at t.20 (as was suggested by Pocus) depends much more on the strengths of nearby computer AI's.

I would rarely play with drain 2 though. If you don't find those sages (and I 'never' do ) - how do you manage??

Another possible weakness is your pretender as a SC. About the only spell you can use for boosting is Quickness (Breath of Winter doesn't really go well with your dominion or your troops ). I guess Quickness - Raise Dead can be quite good though. To me it seems that taking high magic on your pretender to get good Bless effects have more obvious benefits (for the Pretender) in other Paths (Earth - increased prot, Fire - Fire darts, incr fire shield, incr attack, Air - incr. prec., mirror image, orb lightning etc.)

These extreme themes are cool though!! Have you looked anything at what can be done with Fire 9 - for example in combination with sacred cavalry? If both the normal and hoof attack hits (and with +4 to attack it's pretty likely) you get FOUR damage rolls (normal, hoof, and 2 with 8p AP damage) .

[PhilD]

OK, it's official, I suck at this game.

I tried copying the exact same setup, and at turn 12, I am now the proud owner of 14 Provinces, with a monthly income of 550 Gold. I am ahead in Provinces and in Income (barely; Arcoscephale is just behind), but my research is way behind everybody else's (I found 2 Libraries for Sages two turns ago, but don't have the cash for Labs).

And I'm being attacked by Pythium (which took two of my Provinces over the Last 2 turns). I seem to have a larger total army, but it's spread all over my empire, and I don't have much to throw in the way of the Legions. For some reason, every indy province seems full of archers, and I have way too many casualties.

Oh, and some of my Sauromancers are rebels; they keep casting Raise Dead instead of the Terrors they've been instructed.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by PhilD:
Oh, and some of my Sauromancers are rebels; they keep casting Raise Dead instead of the Terrors they've been instructed.

I've had trouble with that sort of thing too. The worst is Fanatacism, which only gets cast when my prophet wants to, regardless of being scripted. And often my stupid prophet casts Sermon of Courage instead. I mean, come on!!! A 4-holy unit should NEVER EVER cast Sermon of Courage.

Your problem COULD be a range limit on Terror; you might want to check that out and move the mages closer to the front. Against the indy archers, just build heavy infantry, or send out a lone heavy infantry up front to draw all the arrows.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Wendigo:

Why the 6 death? do you feel the extra Fear from 4->6 is worth the cost (and the sacrifices elsewhere), or are you planing on using your pretender for ritual summoning in the later game?

Its only 48 design points so its not a big cost. I find high level death magic to be one of the most rewarding in terms of spells with which are nastier the higher your magic level - especially as C'tis starts with terror which is much more effective with high death. And as you say Death gets some great high level summonings I want easy access to.

Patrik:

I'm used to high drain scales (like the MR bonus for a race like this) and rapid expansion generally leads to Sages. If not the extra gold from the start will generally make up with quantity for less effective researchers. The Princes ability to research early is another key.

Using the Prince as an SC I mainly go for the fear effects so quickness plus Terror plus fear seems plenty to play with. To be honest I don't like pretender SC's much - too many counters for my liking - but the Prince of Death is one of the best I've used for not getting afflictions due to his ability to scare many things away with casting Terror with high level death.

Cheers

Keir

[ November 19, 2003, 19:14: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[Truper]

Any nation with a starting Death gem income can get around drain scales for research purposes through the use of Skull Mentors. They rock!

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by PhilD:
OK, it's official, I suck at this game.

I tried copying the exact same setup, and at turn 12, I am now the proud owner of 14 Provinces, with a monthly income of 550 Gold. I am ahead in Provinces and in Income (barely; Arcoscephale is just behind), but my research is way behind everybody else's (I found 2 Libraries for Sages two turns ago, but don't have the cash for Labs).

That is not actually far from my results and perhaps with a few adjustments in play would be roughly the same. At the start you need to quickly develop a plan for the terrioroy you wish to take not just take whats available. You want the shortest land borders possible and to border as few AI's as possible. Its important to leave the AI with expansion routes early (hopefully straight into monster indies) and to make sure you raise defenses on border provinces to ~11 to discourage the AI from attacking. When tensions are high/peace is important a dross army stationed on the border can be enought to discourage the AI.

Play a bit with the exact positioning of your Groups vs different indies to reduce casualities. Minor deployment differences can make a big difference and nailing the start is well worth it.

Oh, and some of my Sauromancers are rebels; they keep casting Raise Dead instead of the Terrors they've been instructed.

I didn't have much magic by t.12 - just what the Prince got me as Sauromancers are needed at the front, to keep casualties down, or for searching. Being behind in research in this period is generally fine.

Tis a pain how often scripts are overridden. I find it very annoying that Sauromancers with 1 water are not much use as they use their quickness to cast a bunch of stupid spells instead of terrorizing opponnents. I think mages should have a strong bias towards casting the Last spell they were scripted to cast.

To HJ:

Slinger are good but I'm focusing on troops to attract archery and Dancers early. Later Slingers will come into their own.

I have thought about Air but to be honest find the thought of high Astral more appealing for Twist of Fate plus extra magic resist. At this point Air is low on my list of bless effects especially as I can usually trick archers into shooting at the wrong target.

I haven't tried high fire yet Patrik as most of the sacred troops I'm looking at have a good attack but need the extra defensive bonuses to make them almost unkillable when used carefully. Machakan Black Hunters have good enough stats already to look at high fire but a I feel Machaka needs decent dominon scales so I have been cautious so far.

A side point which I haven't posted on this group - try using the Lord of the Desert Sun to cast Eagle Eyes then Fireball. The results are impressive - Nature plus Fire 2 or more is pretty handy.

cheers

Keir

[ November 19, 2003, 19:52: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

[HJ]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I've had trouble with that sort of thing too. The worst is Fanatacism, which only gets cast when my prophet wants to, regardless of being scripted. And often my stupid prophet casts Sermon of Courage instead. I mean, come on!!! A 4-holy unit should NEVER EVER cast Sermon of Courage.

They tend not to cast fanaticism if all troops pass the morale check. At least that's how I interpret it, but who knows, maybe I'm giving more credit to the Ai than is due. However, it is possible that fanaticism isn't necessary, even though you took casualties and/or damage, if nobody fails the morale check, especially if LK are quickened and cast it twice. On the other hand, how will holy avenger help is beyond me...