Newbie questions

[Huntsman]

Finally bought the game and I'm reading like mad to prepare for my first MP game (where I am Pangaea) but I'm running into lots of vernacular here, like "SC" and "rainbow mage", etc.

Rainbow Mage I've figured out but what the heck does SC stand for, when in reference of a pretender build?

I'm also looking for advice for a *basic* Pangaea strategy. Nothing too fancy, just something to get a good foothold early on before I get squashed.

Thx!

[Arryn]

Super-Combatant

It's a pretender built for solo combat, that is, it can go into a province, alone, and beat up on whatever's there.

The Wyrm in my AAR is an example of such. The Vampire Queen (VQ) for Ermor is another example, and the Son of Niefel (Jotunheim) makes another good SC chassis. There are plenty of others.

[ July 30, 2004, 15:29: Message edited by: Arryn ]

[KroolDeath]

Could the Jotunheim Titan be considered a SC?

Krool

[Arryn]

Originally posted by KroolDeath:
Could the Jotunheim Titan be considered a SC?

It can serve in that role, just like the Son of Niefel. Basically, most of your big or physically powerful pretenders fall into the chassis model, as do those with strong attack and/or defense abilities (as long as they are mobile, of course).

[JJ_Colorado]

One more comment here. SC doesn't just mean the chassis - it also refers to a fully-kitted out chassis. In other words a naturally good combatant who is equipped with appropriate items such as:
1) a life draining weapon
2) resistance to all elements
3) fairly high magic resistance (20+)
4) somehow a good (at least 18+) attack and defense)
5) usually some kind of spell buffs like mirror image, mistform, ethereal, fire shield, astral fire shield, etc

[Arryn]

Originally posted by JJ_Colorado:
In other words a naturally good combatant who is equipped with appropriate items such as:

Two other, highly important, items that an SC should have are something that grants Quickness, and something that adds Flying. So, Boots of Flying and scripting the Quickness spell would work. Another combo is Boots of Quickness and Stymphalian Wings (an armor that gives Flying).

[Boron]

Originally posted by GuildBoss:
Finally bought the game and I'm reading like mad to prepare for my first MP game (where I am Pangaea) but I'm running into lots of vernacular here, like "SC" and "rainbow mage", etc.

Rainbow Mage I've figured out but what the heck does SC stand for, when in reference of a pretender build?

I'm also looking for advice for a *basic* Pangaea strategy. Nothing too fancy, just something to get a good foothold early on before I get squashed.

Thx!

if you are still interested in a pangenea guide you could read my pangenea cw guide .
because djtool requested i added my own current vq build for pan cw in my Last post there too .
if you have some time because it has gotten rather large you can read all .

pan cw is ihmo a good starting race because you can try out a sc ( the vq ) , don't need to care about population and it is very straightforward .
so far i can think of no more straightforward race . even ulm is ihmo more complicated .
if you have any questions left then you can post them in my pan cw guide of course and i will do my best to answer .

[Boron]

Originally posted by Arryn:

The Vampire Queen (VQ) for Ermor is another example

sorry couldn't resist
that info is pre 2.12

so far imho pan cw , pythium and abysia are very worth being built around a vq
others of course too but these 3 fit extremely well for a vq because of different reasons .

[ July 31, 2004, 23:09: Message edited by: Boron ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Boron:
so far imho pan cw , pythium and abysia are very worth being built around a vq

CW Pan is basically the successor to the Ermor VQ since it's the nation that still has a buttload of points to spend. Pythium is a somewhat more dubious choice due to the scale demands: As VQs are horrifically expensive, you have to give up a lot of scales to use one with Pythium, as Pythium tends to want decent scales to pay for the legionaires, which have moderate resource costs, ruling out the ability to get points from excessive sloth, and the neutral temperature preference, which means you don't have anywhere to really dump points. Abysia can work if you dump points into Death scale, and the innate Heat scale.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boron:
so far imho pan cw , pythium and abysia are very worth being built around a vq

CW Pan is basically the successor to the Ermor VQ since it's the nation that still has a buttload of points to spend. Pythium is a somewhat more dubious choice due to the scale demands: As VQs are horrifically expensive, you have to give up a lot of scales to use one with Pythium, as Pythium tends to want decent scales to pay for the legionaires, which have moderate resource costs, ruling out the ability to get points from excessive sloth, and the neutral temperature preference, which means you don't have anywhere to really dump points. Abysia can work if you dump points into Death scale, and the innate Heat scale.

---

a basic vq is quite cheap with pythium .
something like order 3 , sloth 3 , cold 1 , death 3 , misfortune 2 , magic 3 ( if you cancel magic 3 +120 points so better scales ) .
dominion 6-8 .
castle watchtower .

this works great so far . 2 provinces / turn .
1 per vq , 1 per body etheralized principles .

then accashic everything , swamps first .

i have to figure out some good midgame strats still .

but really good early game expander . if you pick the tough provinces ( knights etc. ) with your vq the principles take out the weak provinces without losses ( maximum 1-2 lost through bad dice luck ) .

so you get almost 2 provinces / turn and can then castle everything quick because of order 3 you have quite good income still .

[ August 01, 2004, 00:20: Message edited by: Boron ]