Fun with Arco Astrologers

[Boron]

Originally posted by Kel:
[

Eh ? Not sure what you mean, mystics are commonly elemental 2 in one element. And, in any case, I wasn't necessarily saying they should go out and physically site search, site searching spells all find up to lvl 9.

- Kel

you have some good points but i have still some questions /wonderings: all based at research difficulty not higher than normal :
ihmo best accashic Users are pythium , arco/ryhleh

arco has 4 astral , 1 nature gem base income .
pyhtium 5 astral , 2 air , 1 water .
ryhleh i think 3 astral , 2 water .

expect the dark knowlegde spell all the one kind of magic finding rituals are traumaturgy lvl 2 .
so you have to go traumaturgy 2 instead but this are only 60 rp so not very long .
but now my real problems :
according to the manual you need lvl 2 in the ritual + 2 gems of this path .

ok some of the lvl 2's you get on your mystics .
but how do you get the 2 gems of that colour ?
so as arco e.g. you could only search nature sites with your regular gem income . but since priestresses have only nature 1 and mystics can't get it you have to have it on your pretender in order to search it .

if you search by such a spell you find about ~1/8 of the possible sites in the province .
(holy/unholy sites you do not find at all , according to the excel graph they are about 20/4xx so ~5% , additional ~5% since you never will use the blood search ritual )

but with your nice 4/5 astral pearl income as pythium at turn 5 you can cast 1 accashic , turn 10 2 and so on.
if you find a sage province early you boost your research and can cast your first accashic at ~turn 12-20 . at this time you get 2-4 once

every ritual like dark knowlegde used and later accaishing is quite a waste .

but you only find about 1/8 of the sides so normally at setting 50% in a province are 2 sites . roughly estimated i think you have about 25% success in finding one site with one of the "find all sites of one colour" spells .
but since many sites are sites like gold mines , the sage recruting side and so on which you discover immediately and with luck you discover a lvl 1 site even without a mage the chance of success with this spells is even down to 10-15%.


the "best" method of site searching i have in mind at the moment is the following :
either :
make a rainbowish mage 2 in every colour ( expect blood ) .
search your first provinces with him until accaish record is researched . then first search the provinces which weren't searched by your rainbow . first moutains , swamps , forests .
or : search every province manually with a good astral mage ---> your astral income will become quite high .
then accaish everything .

but for pythium / ryhleh / arco the most valuable spell seems to be accaish record ihmo and the 8 find one element spells are total crap .

for almost every other nation this is a different story though

[Kel]

but how do you get the 2 gems of that colour ?

Either through regular site searching or alchemy. Once you have the ball rolling, you can site search with spells. For death, I usually alchemize for the first couple of site searches. Site search for death in provinces that have a high death scale already for an improved chance of finding death sites, specifically.

so as arco e.g. you could only search nature sites with your regular gem income. but since priestresses have only nature 1 and mystics can't get it you have to have it on your pretender in order to search it.

I usually put some nature on my pretender, as Arcos, but not for site searching. I make one thistle mace and then let a priestess haruspex for them. This is a bit slower than I would like, admittedly...but one nice thing is that you already have nature income to make up, somewhat, for having to wait for a thistle mace.

I hate to assume that I will ever find certain indies, especially in the early game. However, that said, another point is that N2 indie mages are *quite* easy to come by. I don't know the whole list but druids, for example, seem quite common. Again, I wouldn't plan on this but if it happens early enough, it's an added bonus.

but with your nice 4/5 astral pearl income as pythium at turn 5 you can cast 1 accashic , turn 10 2 and so on.

If Pythium started with acashic, that might have some nasty potential.

every ritual like dark knowlegde used and later accaishing is quite a waste .

I agree. I don't tend to acashic a lot, especially in the early game, but when I do, I usually do it only on territories I haven't searched, either newly conquered ones, or ones that had low income and I didn't bother with them in the early part of the game when I needed gold income more.

but you only find about 1/8 of the sides

This is the case at first glance. However, there are some factors that modify those odds in your favor:
1) All sites are not created equal. For example, glancing at the site chart shows that blood sites can give me ~20 gems total where astral is in the 90-100 range. The numbers are probably off but it's still something to consider.
2) You can concentrate on finding the gems you need.
3) You often aren't searching blindly so it's not a straight random chance. Scales can tip you off to the existence of sites, particularly death. Certain terrain is also more likely to contain certain sites, further improving your odds.

All this said, the biggest point for acashic, as opposed to physical/individual spell searching is the loss of research from individual site searchers. That's why I am intrigued to try out a rush strategy in conj. with Pythium.

make a rainbowish mage 2 in every colour ( expect blood ).
search your first provinces with him until accaish record is researched

I would generally rather have the provinces from an SC geared towards early expansion, than a rainbow who can search the few provinces I have.

Also, this seems to assume that you don't need gold from farmland/plains, that you don't need specific gems at certain times, that you have no aggressive neighbors and you need no spells outside of acashic in the early game. Which could be true, with unusual settings and/or SP games.

but for pythium / ryhleh / arco the most valuable spell seems to be accaish record ihmo and the 8 find one element spells are total crap .

That's pretty strong sentiments

Arcos has a lot of flexibility in their mages and, in some ways, can individually site search better than most nations.
Rlyeh isn't particularly good at individual site searches in the early game but they can astral search early and a bit later use Voice Of Tiamat(conj-4, 8 water gems), which is quite nice.
If acashic is good for any of those 3 nations, I would say it would be pythium, since their provinces are likely to be mostly land and they don't have the elemental flexibility of mystics.

- Kel

[ July 02, 2004, 21:30: Message edited by: Kel ]

[Boron]

Originally posted by Kel:
3) You often aren't searching blindly so it's not a straight random chance. Scales can tip you off to the existence of sites, particularly death. Certain terrain is also more likely to contain certain sites, further improving your odds.

All this said, the biggest point for acashic, as opposed to physical/individual spell searching is the loss of research from individual site searchers. That's why I am intrigued to try out a rush strategy in conj. with Pythium.


- Kel [/QB]

all in all you are right i think .

in theory pythium is really good and with normal research you can get quite quick ( turn 12-15 ) at conjuration 5 but the problem is that you need time to benefit from this potential.

my main problems are : either i have a very bad economy ( by turn 10-15 you should have 1 better 2 grand theurgs + some theurgs to quick research ) . if you take a weak pretender you can get nice dominion scales but then you can accashic but there are no good summons even for the arch theurgs in the beginning and so on .

but on the other way if you make a good pretender i have such incomeproblems and since the principles / legionaires cost both 19 resources i can't take sloth and productivity would be a good idea .

so at the moment i am either a quite good accaish caster but very fragile in early game or i have such a weak economy that i can't research fast enough and so on


arco is really much more flexible i think since e.g. elephants are nice for early expansion ihmo but are not very expensive and thaumaturgy with the one kind of site find spells is a good path anyway with mind burn and soul slay as early / midpath battle spells .

so perhaps a good use of accashic is for ryhleh then but only for some of his land provinces since underwater probably voice of tiamat is more cost effective ( almost 50% of all sites for the cost of 9 water gems right ) ?

[Kel]

probably voice of tiamat is more cost effective ( almost 50% of all sites for the cost of 9 water gems right ) ?

8 water gems, even better. Not sure what % of sites, exactly. All elemental, in any case.

Btw, while I don't think acashic is normally all that good, at 25 astral, but as i mentioned, you have inspired me to try out a Pythium conj rush so thanks for the idea, in any case =)

- Kel

[ July 02, 2004, 22:08: Message edited by: Kel ]

[Norfleet]

Tiamat is great underwater, since it hits 4 out of the 7 site types available to you: I don't think there are blood sites underwater, all for the cost of 8 water gems that would probably have otherwise become a clam anyway, and the payoff for Tiamating is usually better unless site frequency is crud.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Kel:

quote:

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probably voice of tiamat is more cost effective ( almost 50% of all sites for the cost of 9 water gems right ) ?

8 water gems, even better. Not sure what % of sites, exactly. All elemental, in any case.

Btw, while I don't think acashic is normally all that good, at 25 astral, but as i mentioned, you have inspired me to try out a Pythium conj rush so thanks for the idea, in any case =)

- Kel

---

thnx for opening my mind against accashic too

if you are successful with pyhtium would you say me what pretender you took and the scales ?

because my main problem with pythium is they are a bit unflexible
principles are good but at the moment i see no use for any other pythium unit
serpent cataphracts are very expensive with ~60 resource costs , for the same you get 3 principles which are better

emerald guards have ~30 resource costs + strat movement of 1

the hydras i consider as too expensive


so in conclusion at least for early-midgame my army mainly consists of principles .
they take out indies very well and are only a bit vulnerable for crossbowfire .
but they are not very quick so flanking units are a real problem

i guess i either focus on ryhleh now or a blood nation first

[Blitz]

but for pythium / ryhleh / arco the most valuable spell seems to be accaish record ihmo and the 8 find one element spells are total crap .

I can't even begin to tell you how much I disagree with this.