MA Abysia tips?

[Starshine_Monarch]

MA Abysia is one of the nations I haven't really worked with much. I was wondering if any of you had any advice for them, particularly in the area of overall strategy.

Here's what I have so far:

My first inclination was to go with a Rainbow pretender to make up for their somewhat lacking magic diversity, as well as to provide quick research so my mages will be free to go out and support my armies or blood hunt.

Using CBM, my first pick was an Awake Great Sage with F4,W4,E4,S4,D2,N4,B4. Scales set at Order 3, Heat 3, Death 3, Misfortune 1, Dominion 4.

I'd tossed around the idea of a Death scale before and decided to try it out. It's probably not a great idea for longer games, but I needed more points to put more magic on my pretender.

The Death will severly cut into the supplies when my enemies start invading while my own armies remain well fed inside the dominion.

My old mages will only suffer until I can get Boots of Youth for them, but until then, the diseased Warlocks can have Sacred Shrouds and heal themselves in battle with the N4 bless. The shroud will also give them some reinvigoration since only a very few Warlocks will be able to Earthpower themselves.

Also, I was considering Drain 2 as well. Abysia's national mages are all kind of expensive, but Warlocks have pretty high Research points anyway. With my pretender researching with them, we can probably pull a good amount of research before we get Lightless Lanterns to pull more of the weight for them. Drain would free me up to take a D4 bless if I shave one level off of Fire and replace it with A1. D4 would be more useful to blessed Anathemants or Shrouded Warlocks laying down battle spells on enemy troops. 2x chance for afflictions will definitely hurt anything not immune to their spells.


So far that's all I've thought of. Any tips, comments and advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Meglobob]

I have played Ma Abysia once and I think death is a very, very bad idea even if you intend to research straight for boots of youth. I would have 0 in the death/growth scale. Personally, I think death scale is only for La Ermor and blitz games, not long term 60+ turn MP games.

Besides that I am not sure what to say, I struggled with Ma Abysia myself. I did go with a N4 pretender which was useful, a awake dragon, it was a very, very small map that particular MP game. So unsafe to go with a dormant or imprisioned pretender. On a bigger map I may have gone with a dormant pretender instead.

[vfb]

I took Death-3, Drain-2 as MA Aby in a small (6-nation) game and it worked well enough that I'm now in a Mexican standoff with the other two remaining nations (Pythium and C'tis). Here's the strategy I used:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=41952

Larger maps will make this strategy less effective. It's also a pain micro'ing almost everything: blood hunting, lanterns, and diseased mages.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Meglobob

Personally, I think death scale is only for La Ermor and blitz games, not long term 60+ turn MP games.

I think that is a pretty hard statement, personally.

I used to have a terrible phobia of Death scale as well, but in my testing I have found that certain nations, MA Abysia included, can take Death2, and if they have a cohesive strategy, and make good use of those 80 points, it works out well. Just as an example, if you said you wouldn't ever take Production OR Death with MA Abysia, I would think you are missing out on the brute force possible through taking 2D and pumping those points into 2Prod. But, I suppose it can't be said enough "playstyle playstyle playstyle".

I do avoid 3Death like the plague (haha!) though, as it seems to dramatically increase the rate and severity of pop killing events, not to mention the -growth% seems to compound at a far faster rate. But 2Death is simply very manageable under the right circumstances - part of the key generally being an early game strat that gives you just a few more provinces, which is why I like Production, as with proper care and a little luck, your infantry should be feared across the globe.

[KissBlade]

Try a sleeping or awake rainbow warlock pretender. He can actually clear indies/small armies once you give him some buffs. =) Spam send horror to cut off retreat path and evo your way through. Also in CBm, they're a great pick for Turmoil luck since most of your good mages are cap only and you also have a plethora of fire gems to alch when need be.

[JimMorrison]

I honestly can't imagine what you need an awake pretender for, Abysian infantry make short work of indies, so that's 4 scales for something you don't particularly need. A Dormant rainbow isn't the worst idea for them, but you're going to need that extra 150 points to make it all worthwhile.

[KissBlade]

Awake is really just to help your research get started. I think I picked a dormant dom 9!!! Great Warlock in the MA Abysia game I won. My strategy was mostly just sending horrors mixed with fire remotes and then moving in infantry + evo's the next turn. Flaming arrows are nice too if you secure enough indies.

[Dragar]

I'm trialling D3 (with luck 3) with LA abysia atm in Madness, I'll let you know how it pans out - the pop decline is starting to mount up, but abysuan troops are so resource expensive that it isn't bothering me too much as yet. We'll see what happens as the turns progress