MP questions

[Skirmisher]

What do people prefer for pretender status?

Awake,Dormant,Imprisoned ?

I have always used Awake, but Dormant is tempting because of the extra build points.

Does anybody actually use Imprisoned?

[Skirmisher]

Omnirizon said:
you need to give your Wyrm Dominion strength 9 or 10 so it will have Awe, then it will obliterate most armies with ease.

Now that's what I was looking for. Time to rework that pretender god.

[Tichy]

The decision about dormant or imprisoned depends on the nation and the strategy. If your initial army and recruitable troops are effective for expanding, and you believe that your recruitables can stave off a rush, dormant or imprisoned might be useful. How you use the extra design points is also dependent on your nation and strategy.

For example, you might use them to improve your scales if your recruitable troops are expensive in gold or resources, you might use them to get more paths on your pretender to make up for some that your recruitables lack, or you might use them to get a good bless for your sacred troops.

Whether to go dormant or imprisoned depends on when you expect your pretender to be most useful. If s/he has paths you will need for summons, searching, or forging relatively early on, go dormant. If the pretender itself is just a vehicle for a bless, or only needed for heavy end-game spellcasting, go imprisoned.

Disclaimer: I stink of newb, so take my thoughts with grains of salt.

[Renojustin]

Smells like chicken.

[MaxWilson]

Skirmisher said:
My Wyrm pretender was killed easily in a battle. The description said something about dragons even fearing combat with them. So how did a small army take mine out so fast?

Fatigue, most likely. Cast Summon Earthpower first to keep fatigue down.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

Omnirizon said:
Flavor text such as "...dragons fear..." is just flavor text. Underneath it all this is still a numbers game, so you need to learn them and know how to min/max.

Except that frequently, flavor text has an effect. Not always, but if it says that Naiads weaken and die away from their native lands it means they lose HP, and if it says the enemies a Mandaha is fighting will soon succumb to sleep it means he has a Sleep cloud around him. Not all unit abilities show up in the number/icons, although more of them do now that icons for Healer, Coldpower, etc. have been added.

-Max

[Lingchih]

Skirmisher said:
My Wyrm pretender was killed easily in a battle. The description said something about dragons even fearing combat with them. So how did a small army take mine out so fast?

Dragons suck. I used to take one every once in a while for flavor, but they just suck so bad I had to stop. There have been requests posted for a long time to make them more "Dragonlike", ie: powerful. But nothing has been done so far.

But yes, as has been said, take Dom 9 or 10 on your Wyrm for the crowd control factor, and a good bit of Earth magic for natural armor. Then they are one of the best early game expansion pretender super combatants.

[Omnirizon]

I would say pick whatever magic path you need for diversity; they all add something to the already fearsome Wyrm (except maybe Fire, Water, or Blood).

Earth will give prot and access to some buff spells
Air gives access to Air Shield which is perfect compliment to Awe
Astral gives access to Personal Luck and Ethereal
Death boosts natural fear
Nature boosts natural regen

The flexibility of the Wyrm to take whatever magic you need to diversify and be made an even better SC by it makes it my fave pretender.

[Wrana]

On Wyrm:
Fire will allow Fire Shield+<heat-producing one>
Water will allow Quickness+<chill-producing one> (+Water Shield for underwater expansion)
Blood... this, I fear, is really useless on an SC... but hey! - he can be used for bloodhunting then!
ON Dragons:
They are useful. Just a different from Wyrm, namely, they allow cheaper bless and are flying, which allows better raiding possiblity later in the game.
And yes, flavor text is usually explaining something besides being fun to read. It should just be remembered that it remains just developers' view on USUAL situation. You may still got lucky/unlucky - or items/spells used by one party can change a situation completely...

[MaxWilson]

Omnirizon said:
Nature boosts natural regen

Unless this changed recently, it does not boost natural regen. (It only boosts the effectiveness of the spell Personal Regen or Strength of Gaia.) However, it may have changed recently because I just saw an arena combat where an N1 14 HP caster was getting 3 HP of regen from an N6 bless.

BTW, I haven't seen any pretenders in the arena in a while. I wonder if the AI has been patched to not send in uniques?

-Max