MA Pythium

[OmikronWarrior]

So, I'm working on a strategy for this nation and was wondering if anyone had any observations/advice/links to previous threads. I've already skimmed the ones linked in the strategy index, but I've always found the search function on this forum worthless.

[OmikronWarrior]

Anyone have ANYTHING to say about this nation? How about what infantry is the best? I've been going with the principe and they seem to do a pretty good job. How about best spells to research first? Right now, Thau seems to offer them the most with search spell, teleportation, commonunion, and paralyze.

[sum1lost]

Principes are absurdly good infantry, though they are more expensive than hastiti, who are plenty good for most jobs when mixed with standard bearers. Still, I prefer principe too.

Thau is good, but evocation and conjuration also have their strengths. Thunderstrike Spam can't be beat. It slaughters anything not outright immune. And they have very good angelic summons.

Stick with theurgs until you have gold ramped up, and then start on arch theurgs. There isn't much they can do at first that theurgs can't, and later on there still isn't much that can't be done with a communion.

Hydras are your trampler stoppers while your mages kill kill kill.

[SsSam]

Omikron...

Last week I wrote a fairly long detailed description of how to clean up the CP's with Pythia in a thread called the pythia prescription. Most of it will work well in multiplayer. I skipped communions, but there is a very good seperate thread on communions that you may want to dig up.

Principes and standards in your regular armies. Hydra's are certainly valuable for expansion and to counter rushes.

As pythium you probably want to get Paralyze quickly then race to Harbingers and up construction to outfit the Harbingers. A well outfitted Angel or three can really dominate in the mid game.

Paralyze, Soul Slay, Enslave mind are very effective thrown from a communion with a banner of the northern star and power of the spheres.

Oh, yeah, Communion also affects the holy paths so a decent communion will really help if you happen to run into Ermer. Using FAM is certainly an option too.

[Agema]

Okay. For non-hydra units:

Slingers are rubbish. Just buy independent archers if you want missile troops. However, as an air nation you'll probably want to look at casting storm and storm power, which makes any archers a bit of a waste of time.

Principes should be the backbone of your army. They are good quality troops, quite capable of taking on good quality infantry of other human-sized nations, and should smash weaker, basic infantry.

All your three 'basic' (stats of about 10) units are pretty effective, and have javelins for a bit more punch. Velites are your best "chaff" units, but because of their okay armour and huge shield can still hold up reasonably well in melee. Alae legionaries and hastati are better armoured so more durable, but basically the same, and the res cost means if you need a lot of troops quickly, go for velites. When facing better armoured opponents, favour hastati over alae as their short swords do more damage than spears. They have better morale as well, but not by much.

Emerald Guard and Serpent Cataphracts are shock troops. Emerald Guard have magnificent stats, but their slowness (stratmove 1) means they're best suited to defensive actions where you want some great troops to hold up as long as possible and soak up plenty of punishment. If you want to take an army somewhere, you'll want the cataphracts in order to be able to move at a decent speed. On the battlefield, for the extra cost of cataphracts, compared to emerald guard you have similar stats, get two attacks, half the encumbrance, and the lizard carries on fighting after the rider dies. They're not great cavalry in terms of them not being particularly fast, but they're still decent for putting on the flanks with attack rear orders.

Gladiators and battle vestals are a waste of space. Gladiators are powerful but as they disappear after one fight, they're a bad waste of money unless the situation is really urgent. Battle Vestals I guess could fulfill the role of "chaff", except that as sacreds you can't possibly build them fast enough.

* * *

Magic. Pythium is basically an air/water/astral communion race. Only your arch-theurgs can fire good mid-level spells out of the box. Even then, it's only in astral they're really useful unless with communions (They'll generally be A2W1S4, A3W1S3, or A2W2S3.) Astral has useful BF uses like paralyze, but it's not good at wholesale army devastation until late on. Theurgs are also handy BF mages with enough slaves. Bear in mind most mid-level communion spells require A/W/S 3: if you're using theurg acolytes you want 8 for the +3 (otherwise they take additional fatigue from stuff like thunderstrike), or otherwise cast power of the spheres for the extra +1.

Pythium is a very good research race. Your magic users are sacred so have half upkeep costs, and theurgs and theurg acolytes are deliciously cheap. You want Arch-theurgs mostly for battles and casting rituals, not researching. Start your hiring with theurgs to get research ticking quickly.

There's one big problem: theurgs are old, arch-theurgs severely old, so they die, regularly. Later on as the midgame approaches and you have multiple castles, you probably want to think about hiring theurg acolytes (3 research). This is purely because they don't die of old age, they're still cheap, and they're the main slaves for your communions. Make sure you always have theurgs and arch-theurgs around, though, as the acolytes will be not much use without the better mages to cast better spells.

[llamabeast]

Battle vestals can be pretty powerful I think with e.g. a W9S9 bless.

[VedalkenBear]

As far as units go in MA Pythium, I'd definitely go with Principe. I would skip Hydras and others, since they're not really needed.

Something to definitely consider is taking Nature on your Pretender, especially high enough to cast Gift of Health. That definitely tones down the old age issues on your mages. Also highly consider Earth on your Pretender to take advantage of Reinvigoration for your mages.

[calmon]

llamabeast said:
Battle vestals can be pretty powerful I think with e.g. a W9S9 bless.

I really liked to use a F9W9S9 tripple bless with them in the old dominion 2 days. Its was a very good duel option because of a very fast early game expanding.

However never tested in in dom3, maybe just because of that many other nations and an awe pretender alternative here.

[Agema]

Mm, Vestals are definitely worth it if you've taken a good combat bless, although I expect if that's been done it's because the player is eyeing up the bless for the sacred angelic summons.

Yeah, I've done without hydras. You get over 20 velites/alaes/hastatii (or 16 principes) per hydra in gold. Instead of 5 hydra, buy 50-60 alae and you'll have about 600-700 gold left over to put towards a new castle, better mages or whatever, and you'll still be able to smash independents. Although you probably won't have enough res to buy that many units until you've conquered a few provinces around the capital.

[Ironhawk]

Omikron, a common early Pythium tactic which I dont believe has been mentioned in this thread yet is casting Body Ethereal on your Principes.