Fomoria

[sector24]

Still batting .500, not bad.

[churl]

Thanks, all. I'm not totally happy with the formatting, but I'm also too lazy to go back and re-edit everything. It looks great in vi. :/

I happened to catch Micah on the IRC channel yesterday, and he mentioned a few more things:

- he never used druids in combat; only for research and forging. So, perhaps all the stuff with bows only works well in SP?
Basically, he said since you have Kings, don't waste
gems on druids. I've had good results with druids and bows in SP, but everything works in SP.

- he wouldn't cast quickness on a thug king, because of fatigue concerns.

- he doesn't use storm, because of its negative effects on precision.

- he suggested building one Nemedian Champion early on (before you have the gold to be making kings every turn).
Keep the champion in reserve so that you have someone to lead your Nemedian Warriors.

- The Nemedian Warriors work well for a one-two capitol fort capture: on the first turn, surprise attack the fort with the stealthy nemedians, to kill the province defense. On the subsequent turn, bring in the main army (kings set on thunderstrike with a wall of unmarked). This way, you avoid fighting the enemy's mages and PD together, which will cause your mages to thunderstrike his PD. I suppose all of this assumes some cooperation on the part of the opponent: that he has his capitol mages set on retreat, until he sees your army coming, and then sets them up to attack.

- Fomorian Militia are a good unit to build right before being sieged: you can crank out a ton of them quickly, and they'll rebuild the fort and delay the siege.

- Fomorian Javelinist is pretty good, if you don't have the cash for Formorian Warrior

- the real power is at evo-4: thunderstrike. It might be so good that you should just rush to evo-4 first.

[Endoperez]

The Nemedian Warriors defeating PD is more due to the fact that mages research unless they need to fight. When the stealth force attacks, the mages are still researching, or perhaps forging some last-minute items.

[LDiCesare]

I suppose all of this assumes some cooperation on the part of the opponent: that he has his capitol mages set on retreat, until he sees your army coming, and then sets them up to attack.

Why? Usually if you don't expect an attack, there's only the PD there, and mages are busy doing research, so sneaky atttacks will never face the mages (maybe just a few of them who were patrolling just in case, but that's likely a waste of mage time most often).

[churl]

Ok, I get it now. no cooperation required.

[Trumanator]

Im playing Fomoria in SP right now and it hit that owl quill spam could be really beneficial in the early game. There aren't really all that many good uses for Air gems in the early game, and setting a couple A2 druids to forging owl quills can give you a good use for them and also provide a little jumpstart to your research. I was just wondering what others thought about this.

[SlipperyJim]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Im playing Fomoria in SP right now and it hit that owl quill spam could be really beneficial in the early game. There aren't really all that many good uses for Air gems in the early game, and setting a couple A2 druids to forging owl quills can give you a good use for them and also provide a little jumpstart to your research. I was just wondering what others thought about this.

I did the same thing with MA Man. Owl Quills aren't as good as Skull Mentors, but they are cheaper.

Of course, the best way to supercharge research is to combine Owl Quills and Skull Mentors. LA Atlantis (my current game) gets enough Angakoks with Air randoms to supply me with plenty of Owl Quill Powah!

[Trumanator]

On a somewhat related note, what kind of equipment is good for your kings at cons 2. I've been making them Horror Helms since it synergizes well with their high D magic, but I just leave the rest as is. It did lead to the hilarious event of 3 of them routing ~90 barbarians after killing only about 4. In retrospect sending them against barbarians was probably dumb, but it worked this time.

[TheMenacer]

I like sending in teams of one druid set to bless a group of ten unmarked, with an E9N8 it kicks at least as much *** as you paid for the group. On top of that, I love love love gift of reasoning Morrigans. Morrigans are nasty, nasty units and everyone should use them. On that note, Dance of the Morrigans is a fantastic spell, so use that.

[Hoplosternum]

The Kings are really great and while I am sure they are worthy of a big bless personally I like a Rainbow with a multiple minor bless which will fill in some gaps in your magic. You can get better scales that way too.

You will want order and some magic. As I think Fomoria are a Thug/SC nation I don't see Production as a priority. The sacreds are good but pricy and capital only. After buying a King there is not always the money to max out on sacreds. And I certainly would not want to buy sacreds before Kings once I had Mistform and probably not before either!

Earth is a must whether its big or small one, at least E4. It opens up a lot of forging with the hammers and you will want a lot of those to cut down the cost of equiping all your Kings. Plus the Kings worst enemy is fatigue with all that fighting and casting potential. You can't really have enough earth, but whether more than E4 is worth it I'm not sure. There are plenty of reinvigoration items (and all Kings want them) plus the E9+ bonus is nice but not essential with a King who has access to many buffs, inc. mistform and has lots of hp (and regeneration).

And some nature to for some regeneration to limit afflictions, at least N4. I like Hydra skin armour for the Kings as it adds Poison immunity and Mistform is the main protection so I am not sure a heavy regeneration is necessary rather than just desirable.

S4 will allow you to forge all the Astral boosters. Plus it opens up the communion matrixes but I am not sure this is a worthy use of your pretenders time. But it can help your Kings caste the bigger battle spells if you have access to Shamans/Amazons/Sages etc. for slaves.

I like F4 which gives your kings a minor attack boost but also opens up more forging potential especially the Charcoal shields which go well with the Kings. But you could go with air, water or death instead.

The Rainbow mage can be sleeping and will forge / caste globals for most of the game. You need a huge gem income to equip the number of Kings you will have so any of the gem producing globals are worth it. There is no point in having the forge as the main goal in mp as everyone wants it. But it is a game winner for Fomoria.

Early on before you can recruit a King each turn I would build Nemedian Champions NOT Druids. Although Druids are in some ways better they can be built at any fort so you will end up with lots. The NCs are capital only and do (with stealth and decent command) fill nieche rolls. You won't want to build one instead of a King but if you can't buy a King having a few later on will be appreciated.

I think Fomoria is very powerful. It is also a great beginner power as the Kings (whatever you do) are tough and fun to play around with.