Earth and Magic Item strategy?

[Saxon]

Howdy!

I was thinking of starting up a game with an earth based pretender and play with all the magic items. My thought was that if I am going to research to the top of the construction tree, I may as well get to use the big ritual spells along the way.

Now, I am going to need lots of gems to make the pretty toys and I want a race with fairly beefy commanders, as they will be using many of the items in combat.

Ulm looks interesting with the forging bonus and Johnteim with the high hit point leaders.

I am very open to suggestions and strategies, so please let me know whatever you think. And yes, I know I could search, but a fresh conversation with all the people who are lurking here is much more interesting!

[Saber Cherry]

Earth items are pretty weak. For forging, there is the Dwarven Hammer, and... most good Earth things have another path, like Charcoal Shield, Blood Stone, Summer Sword, Firebrand or Crystal Shield. I suggest you play a rainbow mage if you like forging.

[Daynarr]

Or just cast Forge of Ancients with powerfull Earth pretender.

[thejeff]

Iron Faith Ulm with a rainbow mage to forge boosters so your Balck Priests can actually use their forge bonus to make the good items?

[Endoperez]

I understood he aims for good items and construction 8, and is going to choose a high-Earth pretender to be able to cast the summons and rituals Construction makes available.

Arcoscephale's Mystics can come close to a rainbow pretender, especially once you hit Constr. 8 and have had time to find all kinds of gems and make some boosters. With Arco, you would already have Earth/Astral access, so Shedu wouldn't be that good. You don't have much Nature, Death or Blood, so any of those might do it... You need powerful beings to wield the weapons; death has some low-level things and better summons, from Black Servants to Bane Lords. I think Nature only has Firbolgs. Blood has many uniques, but you'd also need other paths to get access to them, and you would probably lose the race against human players.

Maybe Earth/Death pretender for Arcoscephale? You might want some Thaumaturgy for early-ish combat support. Even Mind Burn helps a lot. Sailors' Death would is a nice Thaum spell, so Earth/Water could also be interesting. Earth/Air would give you easy access to the Staves of Elemental Mastery. Earth/Fire would be very offensive combination.

[Saxon]

Arco earth death it is! Thanks for your input all, Endoperez has understood what I am thinking best, so I shall give it a whirl. In addition, Forge of the Ancients is good advice and the pointer on needing more paths than just earth is well taken. I am playing single player. We just had a baby and the turn based, slow action of Dominions is just what I need. Baby cries, I leave the room and don’t worry about getting eaten by something in a realtime game.

The construction summons can be pretty decent and it will be fun to try out many of the magic items that I have never used before. With baby in the other room, this will not be too serious of a game, so I aim to have as much fun as I can. I will turn up the special site frequency and play!

Also, it is great to see some of the old timers still here after so long!

[Nerfix]

The trinket level Earth weapons are actually pretty good.

[Saxon]

I just got a national hero who is a rainbow, all level one. It is right up the alley I want to go, so I will have some fun with him.

Reserach was off to a slow start, but found a library in a strategic location, so lab, temple and fort were all dropped in place. Decent position in the rankings and on the map, so all is shaping up well. I took a Cyclops with earth five and death four. The Lesser fear for the sacred troops is a nice touch, as heavy infantry has to get up close and personal for some time with most enemies. Having the enemy rout a turn earlier is always nice!

I also took order and some magic, as I always find a use for money and research is needed to get the fun toys.

Finally, the Arco leaders tend to have heavy armour, so they are fairly durable to start. If I can boost them up with magic items, I think they are going to do well with this strategy. I have tended to find the gap between SC god and thug commander hard to bridge, perhaps I will learn some tricks.

[Agrajag]

Saxon said:
Having the enemy rout a turn earlier is always nice!

Not always. Often I just want to inflict as many casualties as possible (or kill off everyone), so runnin away can be really annoying. (This is especially true for long-range-summoning-spells, because you don't really care for the summoned units anyway)

[Saxon]

True enough, often I prefer killing them all off, particularly strong spell casting commanders. At this stage in my current game, I am dealing only with independents and militias, so I am very happy to run them off. However, I now need to start worrying about Mitlan and Pyrithum.

Caelum is particularly good at killing off everyone. When they fly in front of the retreating units, the fleeing troops have to run around or fight. Either way, they get hammered. Cavalry are also good at running the enemy down after a rout.

Still, the scattering of the enemy after a rout tends to disperse their forces well. You can then do a piecemeal clean up. Late game, some seeking arrows to hit the scattered commanders can really disrupt their reorganization. While it does take a couple of turns, cleaning up the broken pieces can turn the won battle into a won war. After a close battle where my troops have been badly reduced, I want to be sure I capitalize on the victory.

Needless to say, a rout when the enemy can not retreat and is eliminated is even more satisfying!