Noob+Man/Tuatha

[RibbonBlue]

I really like the Feel of Tuatha, but am not experinced with them at all, I am looking for some tips on how to play as them.

What are some stratigies that the Tuatha Theme can use for early expansion. If your playing Tuatha should you get the same kinds as magic as if you were Man? What kind of god design should you aim for?

What are some pros/cons of using Tuatha over Man, and vice versa?

[quantum_mechani]

RibbonBlue said:
I really like the Feel of Tuatha, but am not experinced with them at all, I am looking for some tips on how to play as them.

What are some stratigies that the Tuatha Theme can use for early expansion. If your playing Tuatha should you get the same kinds as magic as if you were Man? What kind of god design should you aim for?

What are some pros/cons of using Tuatha over Man, and vice versa?

Pros of Tuatha over base: Even better sacred troops, better access to air magic, and tough recruitable mages capable of taking provinces solo.

Cons: More expensive mages, somewhat worse research, not so easy access to vine ogres hordes.

In general, tuatha pretenders are all about making use of your great sacred troops. Both water and fire are good choices for a bless. Fire 9 is easy to come by with the moloch and gives great early game power with your troops. Water 9 is not quite so good in the early game, and it is harder to get it with good dominion, but it makes your mages very good later in the game.

For early expansion, a tuatha lord prophet (casting divine blessing, then lightning bolts) with 20 or so daoine sidhe can go through almost any indies. Also, whatever pretender you choose for a bless will probably be able to take provinces with a little research.

Of course, a non-bless or lesser bless tuatha is playable too. If you were using a more multi path/good scales pretender you would probably want a minor A5 bless so you can get easily to air queens, and use a few sidhe to hold off enemies while you longbow them.

[TheSelfishGene]

I used to like Tuatha over base Man but i'm not certain anymore. Knights of Avalon are extremely good, arguably the best in the game except for Black Templars, and to get the latter you have to pick a theme with non-existant magic. The etherial-piercing Alicorn attack makes them quite versitile into the late game.

The Tuatha is better than the Crone, but the Mother and Daughter are better than the Cidhe Champion and Cidhe Lord - the Daughter, with 2 Nature, sacred and only 80 gold, is quite possibly the best bargain in the game, and with spellsongs she is a powerful early game caster (for things like Protection). With a 10 gem item, she can cast Charm later on. Neither of the Tuatha-theme lower mages can cast anything useful except some of the cheap Air spells like False Horror.

[FrankTrollman]

Well... the Tuathans can cast spells like Mist Form and Barkskin on themselves, so they can aspire to being limited SCs. Fundamentally, I'm just not impressed with a SC base that has 15 hit points, it simply lives in the realm of lucky one-hit kills from soulless warriors.

I want my mages and my SCs to be different characters. The all-in-one packages of Tuatha and Vanir are simply too expensive for what you get. With a Crone you are paying for a spellcaster, with a Lord Warden you are paying for a warrior. With the Tuatha you have the option of paying for a spellcaster and warrior in one - but it costs as much as the warrior and the spellcasting combined. And on any given turn it can still only fight or research.

No, the cost you have to pay to get a character capable of "doing it all" is way too high. Specialized leaders and troops are definately the way to go.

-Frank

[Ironhawk]

I've actually found that using longbowmen, just like you would with base Man gets you off the ground faster vs the indies. Particularly since you can basically always predict AI tactics. Then once I have a couple of good provinces under my belt I switch over to producing sidhe for use vs other human players.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Longbows + Sidhe and Air 9 Blessing work wonders, although this might not be as good as Fire 9/Water 9.
If you take fire 9, dont forget to set your sidhe to attack closest or they will stop next to the enemy hurling their spears which is much weaker than using their fireattack