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| -> Early: put 2-3 Theurgs in the middle of a squad - set on hold & attack, Theurgs cast 3x Body Ethereal.
Can they still cast Falling Frost? That was another battlefield staple in dom2. -> Astral Fires is a biggie. That spell is normally a bit sad against anything but low-MR chaff because of its MR check, but communion and items can easily raise an Arch Theurge's penetration totals way way higher True, only 1/4 arch theurges can cast it... but you only need one per army! Fog Warriors is also beautiful for Pythium, especially in combo with hydras. Also, when playing with large-scale communions, there are a few tricks to help protect your mages. All buff spells are shared throughout the communion, so have two Masters, one casting your attack spells and the other dropping stuff like Air Shield and Personal Luck. Give a Crystal Shield to one too. If you have an S/E pretender, forge a few Crystal Matrices to save precious time in combat. And finally, don't just use communicants as communion slaves, if you're going to use high-path Astral spells. Fatigue is divided between people before it's divided by path levels, and those poor communicants aren't getting any path-boosting buffs since they have no paths. The little S1 guys, however, will benefit from a Banner of the Northern Star and Crystal Shield, so they take 1/3 the fatigue from astral spells. Finally, never forget their national summons. I was lately playing pythium in SP, and used a sleeping Oracle with S6F4E4N4, with S/F so I can eventually summon the seraphim (Arch Theurges never get enough F to do it alone), E for the piles of sacred mages, and N for the sacred angels. -> Arch-thuergs are there for heavy-lifting, not day to day battlefield spells. They should be casting things like Will of the Fates, Doom, Solar Brilliance, Storm, Light of the Northern Star, etc. Stuff that your mages-of-the-line just arent able to cast. In addition, your arch-theurgs should be doing all your summoning and ritual work as well. Getting those Angels in play and Mind Hunting your enemy to death. The regular battlefield spells should be left to your Theurgs. Commune them up and just let loose with Falling Frosts (for normal troops), Lightning Bolts/Orb Lightning (for heavy armored troops), and Soul Slays (for SCs). If you really insist on using an arch theurg for battle spells, they are great for Falling Frost of course but if you get a strong Air mage, they can just repeat cast Thunderstrike till the end of time which is really great. Dont forget enslave mind ironhawk, its useful vrs all but the chaff-iest units. -> does anyone make any use out of the Battle Vestals? Seems that if they could be massed, with a decent light bless, they could do some damage (they're plenty cheap). But is it worth it going that route, with pretender design and all? Even if you could, I wouldn't recommend it; get a bless that fits your angels, not one that fits your vestals. Vestals make good front-liners against low-archer empires; beyond that, they're just a way to round off your resources. -> When you want to deal damage you have two spells: Thunderstrike ( which is great ), and Falling Frost ( decent ) and that is about it. Enslave mind is decent aginst SC's but not usually worth it when you are facing larger armies. OTOH you can buff your army with quite a few spells: Anti-magic, Astral Healing ( which your theurges will cast by themselves, and quite often in some battles. Leading to some comical communicants ), Arrow Fend, Mass Flight, Doom, Will of the Fates, Fog Warriors. -> And of course dont forget the suicidal F2 mage with crystal matrix casting phoenix power with multiple communicants attacking closest If its a F2 arch theurg you could cast flight second turn too(and feel free to add in a screen for protection while buffing) -> Thunderstrikes are not exhausting if you power them via a communion. Take your 3A arch-theurgs and give them just two communion slaves. This boosts them to 4A which cuts the fatigue for the spell to 25. Then, since you are communed, each member gets only 1/3rd of the fatigue so we are talking 8.333 fatigue per casting. Not exhausting at all. But I would like to re-iterate that in anything but the smallest maps, your Theurgs are really what should be your default combat mage. Harbingers make excellent thugs. If you have a decent bless you can have them bless themselves before buffing Mistform/Mirror Image. An easy equipment loadout (for base Pythium paths) for them is a standard set of "living" sc gear: Sword of Swiftness, Lucky Coin, Starshine Skullcap, Chainmail of Displacement, Boots of Quickness, AMA, RoR. Angels of Wrath are awesome anti-personel thugs, but unlike the Harbingers they cannot cloud trapezee which makes them a touch harder to deploy. -> With pythium i always try to take good scales including good growth since pythiums real strength comes into play i mainly plan for then(+good scales means large, well supplied expansion armies) but i also try to get 4 nature on my pretender. The nature magic on the pretender not only helps with magic versatility but it also gives a minor regeneration bless that stops units taking damage from disease if you give them a shroud of the battlesaint(5 pearls and fairly low construction iirc). It also means you dont HAVE to give your angel thugs/SCs regeneration if your just using it to avoid the occasional affliction(if you expect them to take a fair amount of damage they need either more regeneration or a new build). -> Just wanted to note that spell fatigue gets split *before* adjusting for path costs. So that's 17 points to the theurg and both communion slaves. The theurg still takes 17/2 = 8 + encumbrance fatigue because he's A4, and the slaves take 17*3 + fatigue because they're A1 (IIRC). However, if you use communicants, which have no paths, the slaves will just take the base 17. Generally communicants are better than mages as communion slaves. 8.29.1.2 MA Pythium thread -> Principes are absurdly good infantry, though they are more expensive than hastiti, who are plenty good for most jobs when mixed with standard bearers. Still, I prefer principe too. Thau is good, but evocation and conjuration also have their strengths. Thunderstrike Spam can't be beat. It slaughters anything not outright immune. And they have very good angelic summons. Stick with theurgs until you have gold ramped up, and then start on arch theurgs. There isn't much they can do at first that theurgs can't, and later on there still isn't much that can't be done with a communion. Hydras are your trampler stoppers while your mages kill kill kill. -> Principes and standards in your regular armies. Hydra's are certainly valuable for expansion and to counter rushes. As pythium you probably want to get Paralyze quickly then race to Harbingers and up construction to outfit the Harbingers. A well outfitted Angel or three can really dominate in the mid game. Paralyze, Soul Slay, Enslave mind are very effective thrown from a communion with a banner of the northern star and power of the spheres. Oh, yeah, Communion also affects the holy paths so a decent communion will really help if you happen to run into Ermer. Using FAM is certainly an option too. -> Slingers are rubbish. Just buy independent archers if you want missile troops. However, as an air nation you'll probably want to look at casting storm and storm power, which makes any archers a bit of a waste of time. Principes should be the backbone of your army. They are good quality troops, quite capable of taking on good quality infantry of other human-sized nations, and should smash weaker, basic infantry. All your three 'basic' (stats of about 10) units are pretty effective, and have javelins for a bit more punch. Velites are your best "chaff" units, but because of their okay armour and huge shield can still hold up reasonably well in melee. Alae legionaries and hastati are better armoured so more durable, but basically the same, and the res cost means if you need a lot of troops quickly, go for velites. When facing better armoured opponents, favour hastati over alae as their short swords do more damage than spears. They have better morale as well, but not by much. Emerald Guard and Serpent Cataphracts are shock troops. Emerald Guard have magnificent stats, but their slowness (stratmove 1) means they're best suited to defensive actions where you want some great troops to hold up as long as possible and soak up plenty of punishment. If you want to take an army somewhere, you'll want the cataphracts in order to be able to move at a decent speed. On the battlefield, for the extra cost of cataphracts, compared to emerald guard you have similar stats, get two attacks, half the encumbrance, and the lizard carries on fighting after the rider dies. They're not great cavalry in terms of them not being particularly fast, but they're still decent for putting on the flanks with attack rear orders. Gladiators and battle vestals are a waste of space. Gladiators are powerful but as they disappear after one fight, they're a bad waste of money unless the situation is really urgent. Battle Vestals I guess could fulfill the role of "chaff", except that as sacreds you can't possibly build them fast enough. * * * Magic. Pythium is basically an air/water/astral communion race. Only your arch-theurgs can fire good mid-level spells out of the box. Even then, it's only in astral they're really useful unless with communions (They'll generally be A2W1S4, A3W1S3, or A2W2S3.) Astral has useful BF uses like paralyze, but it's not good at wholesale army devastation until late on. Theurgs are also handy BF mages with enough slaves. Bear in mind most mid-level communion spells require A/W/S 3: if you're using theurg acolytes you want 8 for the +3 (otherwise they take additional fatigue from stuff like thunderstrike), or otherwise cast power of the spheres for the extra +1. Pythium is a very good research race. Your magic users are sacred so have half upkeep costs, and theurgs and theurg acolytes are deliciously cheap. You want Arch-theurgs mostly for battles and casting rituals, not researching. Start your hiring with theurgs to get research ticking quickly. There's one big problem: theurgs are old, arch-theurgs severely old, so they die, regularly. Later on as the midgame approaches and you have multiple castles, you probably want to think about hiring theurg acolytes (3 research). This is purely because they don't die of old age, they're still cheap, and they're the main slaves for your communions. Make sure you always have theurgs and arch-theurgs around, though, as the acolytes will be not much use without the better mages to cast better spells. -> Battle vestals can be pretty powerful I think with e.g. a W9S9 bless. -> Something to definitely consider is taking Nature on your Pretender, especially high enough to cast Gift of Health. That definitely tones down the old age issues on your mages. Also highly consider Earth on your Pretender to take advantage of Reinvigoration for your mages. -> early game, castBody Ethereal on your Principes 8.29.1.3 The pythian prescription (A newb guide) The Pythia prescription. Dominions can be a bear to learn. Browsing the forum and reading the tales of veteran players can make you wonder¿¿How do they do that?¿ I¿m hoping that this guide can help new player bridge SOME of the gap between the tutorial in the manual and the experience of a multiplayer veteran. It¿s designed to show you some of the holes in the CPs (computer players) game and some of the things you are likely to run into when you play in a multiplayer game. This prescription is for a specific nation in a specific age. It isn¿t going to work with every nation and every age. I chose Pythia because they have broad access to many magic paths as well as some very nice early expansion and late game thugs. Please be aware that it is certainly possible that this prescription can fail. That¿s the nature of the game.
To create your pretender, use a dormant Crone. For magic use 1-Fire 1-Water 4-Earth 1-Astral 3-Death and 4-Nature. Use a dominion (the candles) of four and scales of 3-Order 1-Productivity 1-Heat 3-Growth. This pretender is a rainbow mage meant to supplement magic paths that your nation usually has trouble getting into. That¿s exactly what¿s been built here. Broadly there are three types of pretenders. The first are pretenders meant to act as tanks in the early expansion part of the game. Middle age Pythia already has some units that fill that role quite well. The second type of pretender is the Bless pretender whose magic paths bestow special bless powers on sacred troops that have received a blessing in combat. The sacred units that pythia starts with are light unarmored troops that cannot take much damage. Going with a Bless pretender and Pythia is a stretch. The rainbow pretender is the third type of pretender, (although there is slight bless here for later in the game). Very heavy scales allows for tremendous income. A side advantage to the extreme Growth scale is that it should help reduce the old age afflictions that Pythium¿s best mages suffer from. The slight negative from the heat scale isn¿t going to hurt you. Set the Special Site Frequency to 75. Set the supply multiple to 300. The special site frequency controls the number of gem producing sites. Setting it to an artificially high number does cater to this strategy, but this is meant as a play game. The same strategy will work with fewer magic sites. When playing the CP¿s, setting the supply multiple to 300 gives them a slight boost. Early Game. Expanding your second castle - Hydra¿s the secret to early expansion Hopefully now you are looking at your map. I always like to go to Map Filters and turn on Neighbors. That helps me to understand where on the map you can move to from each province. Look around the map. Most dominion games are decided by two things, who expands the fastest at the beginning of the game and who has the best troops at the end of the game. For multiplayer games with other humans you can add in diplomacy as the third deciding factor, but since you¿re playing against the computer, you don¿t need to worry about that. Right now, let¿s focus on who expands the fastest (you) and how you are going to expand the fastest. For Pythia (and many other nations) building a second castle allowing you to build two mages a turn (or a mage and something else) is the first goal of early expansion. So where should you build it? Look at the provinces that are two moves away from your home. Look for a land province that is two moves away from your home province and connects to a lot of other provinces. You want the target province to connect to a lot of other provinces so it will gather a good number of resources. If the target province is a forest or swamp province, that¿s even better because that means the fort constructed there will be cheap to build. Remember the purpose behind this second castle isn¿t about dominating the landscape, it¿s about being able to recruit more national mages/scouts/commanders faster. Perhaps you have more than one province that looks like a decent target. That¿s OK. That means you now have the location for your third(and perhaps fourth) castle. What you want to do is build an interlocking supporting network of 4-5 castles as quickly as you can. Now that you know where you want to go, you need to decide how to get there. There are a couple ways to fuel early expansion. There¿s a pretender SC or blessed sacred units with a bless that will overpower independents. You spend money to recruit expendable mercenaries. You could try throwing your initial army and hope that works out. You could build an army of Princepes. Or you can go the easy way. See those big units at the end of the list? Those expensive Hydras? That¿s your boy. They emit a poison cloud that kills most indies and better yet, they regenerate, so most damage will heal and they will be ready to go next turn. They don¿t cost anything in the way of resources, but the down side is that they are expensive to recruit and expensive to support. With your initial allotment of money, you can only recruit one Hydra! You¿ll need five in order to get going, but by the time you wait five turns to recruit what you need, you won¿t be leaping out to an early expansion lead. What to do? Set your starting army on patrol and crank your tax income to 200%. Send your initial scout out towards your target province. Add together your expected income from next turn and what you have right now. To construct your hydra army you will need 1290 gold pieces. If you will have enough gold to buy your hydra army on turn two and buy a second scout now, go ahead and do it. If you can¿t, don¿t. Press next turn. Send your first scout to your target province. Recruit your Hydra army of five hydra¿s and a hydra tamer. If you have a second scout. Send him out exploring. Press next turn. Go to army setup. Form the five hydra¿s in a squad under the hydra tamer at the front of the battle field and set them to attack closest. Put your hydra tamer at the back of the battle field and set him on hold/hold/hold/hold/hold stay behind troops. Send them on a line towards your target second province. AVOID provinces with heavy cavalry or elephants (truly strong indies), provinces with flyers (they may kill your commander which will route the hydras), provinces with shamans (curses), but this force will take out pretty much anything else AND be ready to do it again next turn without reinforcing. Buy an arch-theurg. (You can make either this guy or your second scout your prophet) Buy a few standards and a couple princepes to bulk up your initial army. When your hydra force conquers your target province, you should have the cash available to start building your second castle. Your hydra tamer doesn¿t stick around to build the castle, that¿s the scout¿s job. The hydras are out clearing indy provinces around your home castle making a path for castle 3. At this point you can probably lower your tax income to lower levels which will release your patrolling army (which you¿ve added a couple units to in turn 3 and 4) to take on other weak indies nearby. This second army will require a bit more care, but you¿ll get the hang of it. Each turn you should be recruiting an arch-theurg and princepes. On turn 8 or so, build a theurg to move to your target province and build a lab and a temple in your second castle. Things to think about¿maybe building a second force of Hydra¿s to double your expansion rate. Build a 4-5 castle supporting network. You will want a legatus legionus or an emerald lord, but for the most part you can usually scrounge commanders from indy provinces, building scouts and mages at your castles. Your mages want Evocation-2 (Arcane Probing), Thaum-2 (communion master/slave, Auspex) Conj-3 (Voice of Apsu) Alteration level 3 (mistform/Body Ethereal) and depending on threat levelThaum-4 (Paralyze). If you encounter CP¿s, don¿t provoke them. If they decide to declare war. Have them meet your Hydra¿s.
Around turn 12 your pretender comes on line. Attach a couple of troops as bodyguards. Set her to retreat and send her out searching for magic sites. As soon as you get Arcane Probing, Auspex and Voice of Apsu, find a mage that can cast them and use shift m to have them autocast them. Gems are the key to having the best troops at the end of the game. Gems turn into spells cast, units summoned and items forged. You want to research Alteration 3, Construction 6 and Conjuration 6. At that point, you have effectively won the game. The computer players just don¿t know it yet. The End fun things to do. if you have been recruiting an arch-theurg every turn, several of them are probably suffer afflictions and a couple are diseased, wasting away a hp each turn. If you happen to like the magic paths on those arch-theurgs, after construction 4 have one of them build a Shroud of the Battle Saint and put it on the diseased arch-theurg. This halts the disease and your arch theurg isn¿t going to die. This is a nice side effect of your pretender¿s weak regenerating bless from her N4 path. At Conjuration 6 Pythia has a national spell to contact a harbinger. You¿ll need to find an astral 4 mage to cast it, but if you have been recruiting an arch-theurg every turn that won¿t be a problem. Also forge the following items a Frost Brand, a Lucky Coin, A Dragon Helmet, ChainMail of Displacement, Birch Boots or Brimstone Boots, An Amulet of antimagic, and an Amulet of missle protection. Set these items on your Harbinger. Script him to start near the back. Cast Mistform, Mirror Image, Blessing, and attack rear. You can also use Boots of quickness, Spirit Helm, Cat Charm, Rings of protection, Ring of water breathing and several other items and combinations. There are few Computer Player armies that will be able to stand against him. Script and kit him a bit different and human players will not much care for him either. Fly him around solo and watch him beat up on stuff. Play around have fun. You should have plenty of air/water and astral gems by now. Hopefully your pretender has found fire/earth/death and nature sites to really set you lose. If you have the ability to recruit a nature-1mage and an income of 2 nature gems a turn, you can forge a thistle mace and to give to the nature-1 mage and have them cast haruspex. Likewise if you can recruit a death 1 mage (or have your pretender summon a spectre) and have an income of 3 death gems, they can cast dark knowledge. Earth 1 mages are a bit harder to find, but your pretender can forge earth boots and the Troll King¿s court is within reach. Fire will require some luck with indy mages, empowerment or a flaming skull from higher up the construction path and an Arch-theurg with a fire path. Pythia is rich in astral mages. Astral and Blood mages have access to the powerful Communion spells. Get a communion going and watch what these guys can do. Experiment around. You can run communions to enhance a couple of masters to cast insanely high level spells OR you can run a communion to buff a bunch of slaves who become impossible to hit on the battlefield because of all of the buffs they¿ve received. Either way, when you¿re in Pythia, you¿ll want to experiment with this technique on the battlefield. Non-pythian things to try. FAM F*in Air Magic. Pythia has nice access to air magic. Put some air mages with an army. Script them to cast Lightning, Orb Lightning and Thunder Strike. Air 3 mages are just deadly. Skelly Spaming. Get a trio or more of death 2 mages. Set them to cast Raise Dead and Raise Skeleton. Enough Death 2 mages and your opponent won¿t stand a chance.
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