Building an imprisoned immobile pretender

[lillumultipass]

Hi to all :-)

after three unsucessful games, I have finally had a good one with Ulm MA.
I am going to start a new game soon, and I would like to build an immobile and imprisoned pretender with a high dominion, strong dominion scales, and a bless strategy. I wonder which nation I should use. I think Tien Chi has strong sacred units and very diversified magic which I like. I have tried an Oracle with A4, S4, N4, D3, +3 Productivty, +2 Order, +3 Growth, -2 Misfortune, Dominion 7.
What do you think of this?

What other nation/pretender could I use also?
I think Bandar Log also has strong sacred units, or maybe Vanheim...

Thanks for the input!

[Gandalf Parker]

Immobile isnt always the best for that. Is that a role-playing thing that makes you want it?

[lillumultipass]

well, actually no!
Just that I was looking for a way to have as much points as possible for the pretender's creation and immobile seemed a good way for that. Maybe I should look for a nation which has Cold or Heat so that I could have more "free" points.

[DrPraetorious]

I've been very pleased with both of my sacred-unit heavy mid-period Ermor builds.

At first glance, the Shadow Vestel appears to be a young naked girl - appealing, but not militarily useful.

The first thing to note is that her "Shadow Spear" gives her a damage of 14, so she can hurt mid-period heavy infantry just fine. She'll have trouble hurting certain heavy cavalry units, but with a water blessing she'll manage.

The second thing is that "Power of the Sepulchre" is pre-researched and gives them a decent attack rating.

Finally, they're cheap and you buy ten per turn.

With an Astral-9 blessing and a Water-9 blessing (achievable, along with modest income scales and a dominion strength of 10, out of an imprisoned Oracle), she becomes authentically tough, in spite of her lack of a protection stat. Ignoring 3/4 of all incoming hits is even better when you get to do it twice. The combination of water-9 and power of the sepulchre gives her enough AP to not worry too much about archers, and the astral blessing makes her essentially immune to banishment.

You can live without the astral-9 blessing - a dominion-7,water-9 blue dragon gives you early expansion like crazy. But I think I prefer the imprisoned Oracle.

Kailasa (early period) has frickin' awesome sacred units - consider Death-9 or Fire-9, bless those longbowmen. Bandar Log's sacred units have never impressed me.

[FrankTrollman]

Immobility is a perfectly fine choice for an imprisoned pretender. By the time it escapes, you'll have Teleport anyway, which is what you'd have to do if you wanted to get it to the front lines anyway.

I would, however, go for an Astral of at least 6 on an Oracle - it's only 40 points and it's an additional +1 MR on your blessing and the ability to make a Ring of Wizardry or Wrath of God straight off with no equipment. That's awesome.

-Frank

[dirtywick]

The Divine Glyph isn't a bad choice if available, it's cheap and starts with Fire and Astral which are both good blesses.

The Fountain of Blood is really cheap and Blood isn't a bad bless to take, but I wouldn't take it all the way to 9, 4-6 is good. Of course, you won't get much out of it unless you're a blood nation as it'll likely be your only blood mage for a very long time, so for other nations you're just putting points in blood for the bless. You'll have points to spare with an imprisoned Fountain of Blood though and bumping it up to that is cheap.

I don't know, I don't really like immobile pretenders, they have really limited item slots so boosting is harder than normal. They get you a lot of points though, but most nations don't need super scales and a super bless (Abysia is good for immobile/imprisoned), you can usually take something more moderate and still be fine while getting a pretender that's a lot more useful. I don't think it's that much fun to wait around 30 some turns for a pretender that doesn't really do anything but the occasional ritual spell and forge a few items, but that's just me.

[Shovah32]

Holy mother of god! shadow vestals are recruitable now, i loved them in dom2 when i could only get 2 per turn but now...

[Ironhawk]

lillumultipass said:
What other nation/pretender could I use also?

I believe that Vanheim and Neifelheim are considered the most overpowered nations when it comes to blesses. So if you want an easy game you should perhaps try one of those? The traditional bless for the Vanhiem Vans is F9W9. Not sure what it is for Neifelheim.

As to your pretender, if you are just using it as a bless platform, pick one that has the highest level of magic paths you are going to push up to level 9.

[Shovah32]

Actually its vanheim and helheim then niefelheim but anyway. As ironhawk said the traditional van/hel bless is f9w9 granting outstanding attack, defence, speed, amount of attacks and damage capability to already strong, stealthy units with glamour.

For niefelheim its usually some combination of water, nature and earth (usually earth and nature). When im playing niefelheim i like this build:
Cyclops
Imprisoned
e9n6
Dom 5
order 3
prod 1
cold 3
growth 1
misfortune 2
magic 1

He has a very nice bless for them, granting my giants 18 prot, 4 reinvig(they have 4 enc), 6 or 7(cant remember which) regen while still having nice scales, good research ability, access to (very useful, especially when forging) items my nations cant forge (at turn 36 but still... ), saves slots on my jarls who suddenly dont require (but can still use) reinvig and/or regen items.
Of course, by the time he comes out you will have plenty of research so you can use the cyclops himself as a very nasty SC (29 prot, can cast summon earth power, gaias blessing, personal regen and has other very nice stats aswell)

[Forrest]

Divine Emp 35 points with magic path cost of 10, astral start and 4 misc slots. Seems a no brainer.

Imprisoned, Turmoil 1, sloth 1, Misfortune 1, Drain 2, Cold 1

Income -14, Random +10 Good -13, Rp -1

Astral 9, Water 9, Dom 8

Best I would do for Mid Ermor.

Bless: Def +4, Quickness, Mr +3, Twist of fate, +2 morale

Vestal 20g 3

Ethereal, stealthy

Att Skill 16
Mr 19
Defense 20
Move 3/24

160g per turn is easy even in the beginning. They do cross the battle field very fast. However you have to hold them for the blessings and I would advise multiple Thaumaturgs or Grand Thaumaturgs to get everyone blessed.

It takes some doing but when they get moving they do seem very effective.