Guide to MA C’tis.
Many thing apply to both EA and MA C’tis so I also recommend reading RamsHead guide to EA C’tis. The link is here.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=33786
I will not go on about troops much, the main point is because C’tissian troops become obsolete by mid-late game and you can find all this in RamsHead guide also.
The C’tissian are different in stats from humans. slightly more hit points, some natural protection, lower morale, greater magic resistance, slightly higher encumbrance, and slower battlefield movement, 50% resistance to poison, swamp survival, and cold-bloodedness.
Militia: Bad like all militia.
Light Infantry: Never used them efficiently. Low moral, bad protection, die too fast.
Have javelins, if your national mages had air, fire and earth they’d be worth considering with strength of giants, wind guide and flaming arrows.
City Guard: No helmet, also slightly lower moral (9), but fairly good protection, 12, can mass them easily enough with only 10 gold 10 resources per head. Also have castle defense bonus 1.
Heavy Infantry: Weaker version of swamp guard. Very good protection for absorbing arrows and such. Hold the line fairly good, but also have 9 moral and only 1 map movement, so if your going for heavy infantry better to go for swamp guards.
Falchioneer: They have two falchions, but using two weapons reduces the units attack skill. This can be negated by ambidexterity, but Falchioneers only have an ambidexterity value of 2. This means that their attack skill for each falchion is only 8, but with two strikes each this increases the odds to strike a bit. No shield so watch out for archers.
It’s good to have some but not too many Falchoneers.
Slave Warrior: Good stats, bad protection, watch where you put them. Higher moral than average (11) and two attacks with the value of 11, very good. I never use them, prefer elite warriors.
Elite Warrior: Probably the best C’tis unit to buy. Even better attack than slave warrior, 12, also two attacks, bust most importantly they have armor, so this makes them rather hard to kill. Also very vulnerable to archers.
Runner: Pretty much same stats like slave warrior but faster. Only good for archers.
Sacred Serpent, Sacred:
Not worth using a bless for, main use is to boots the low C’tis moral with a standard of 10. Bad defense, get killed easily, a little higher MR than other C’tis troops, 14.
Swamp Guard: Excellent heavy infantry, the only unit worth buying beside elite warrior.
Put a couple of sacred serpents to boots morale and they can last very long, but watch out for encumbrance, 8, that’s even higher in heat 3! Good for keeping the line while your mages cast poison cloud, skelly spam…
Poison slinger:
Bad stats but can be used efficiently with the C’tissina special. Watch where you put them so you don’t poison your troops or them. They would work best if there were an order fire and hold.
Commanders
Taskmaster: leads 40 troops
Never once bought them, never will.
Commander of C’tis: leads 40 Troops
Stats of heavy infantry. More difficult to kill than Taskmasters.
Lizard Lord: leads 80 Troops
Even better than Commander and taskmaster, better stats also, but you just want his for his 80 troops leadership.
Hierodule: level 1 Priest
Never found a use for them.
High Priest of C’tis: leads 40 Troops, Level 2 Priest
Leads troops, casts sermon of courage, very important for C’tis. Good against undead and demons, can be recruited everywhere. Sometimes I cast life after death and auto-kill them with rime hauberk so they can reanimate.
Shaman: Leads 10 Troops, Level 1 Astral Level 1 Nature Mage
Cheap, recruitable everywhere, sacred. Can cast arcane probing and summon national units like Sirrush and Couatl. Good for research, good for battle. Best used in reversed communion with power of the spheres, light of the northern star and soul slay. Summon a Couatl for master enslave and some heavy astral, or nature spells. They can cast magic duel to eliminate some SC and dangerous astral mages. Can cast great buffs like luck, body ethereal, protection, which works best on Behemonts. Also curse for giants and SC and communion for panic or sleep cloud. There are just so many uses for them.
Marshmaster: 1W2D2N 110% WSDN, leads 10 troops.
Marshmasters are what make C’tis so dangerous. With them recrutable anywhere, no other MA nation can match them in death magic, no not even Ermor because Arch Thourgs are Cap.only. You will have MANY marshmasters with 3 death and some with even 4. They are mainly used for darkness+skelly spam. If you get a random astral pick you can cast nether darts, excellent spell, can also communion with shamans for large battlefield spells like soul drain. But the most dreadful thing you can do is:
Have your N3W1 marshamaster cast foul vapors, give another marshmaster a thistle mace to cast serpents blessing for 100 PR ( marshmaster are not 100 PR like sauromansers ) equip a W2 marshmaster with a robe of the sea and a water bracelet to cast quagmire and make the battlefield a swamp to slow down the enemy and to lower the stats a little, no effect on you since all your troops have swamp survival , and start casting poison cloud to make the battlefield as unpleasant as possible for your enemy, and also cast storm of thorns, raise skeleton, nether darts, shadow blast to slow them down as much as possible. End result, devastating.
Cast Lichcraft and empower them so they can summon tartarians, give marchmasters skull staff and skull face to cast ghost rider and manifestation. Summon Bane Lords and Wrath Lords, legion of wights.
Marshamaster are also good against thungs/SC with frozen hearth and tangle wines if used properly. One of the best mages in the games in my opinion.
Lizard Kind: holy 3, capital only. can lead 120 troops,
Can cast divine blessing and smite. It’s very interesting the damage 4-5 can do with smite, but your really want them to defend against undead, demons and dominion kill.
Very strong priests, buy a couple of them when you build a second fort, if nothing use them to site search for holy sites.
Empoisoner: Assassin, capital only. D1 N1
Can raise skeleton during assassination. Not bad to have a couple of them laying around. They would be incredible good if not capital only, another slight problem with C’tis is that they have no national spies.
The main problem with MA C’tis is their disease dominion. While it does hurt your enemy when he invades, and reduces his income by 5% for every dominion point, it hurt you the most. This means it is very hard to use indie mages and to summon Elemental Royalty and such and almost impossible to use indie troops. That’s the reason you DON’T want a strong dominion, other players feel threatened by it and will attack you, you also don’t want too week dominion either so you don’t get dominion killed. C’tis requires careful-dominion-planning, you need to relay on both your and enemy dominion. Dominion 6 or 7 would be best probably.
Another thing to keep in mind, Stone Idols can selectively reduce your dominion in provinces with useful indies, that's astral and earth again.
Pretender choices:
Although MA C’tis has a variety of pretender to choose, half of them are useless.
They can only use lifeless, cold blooded and swamp survival pretenders.
My suggestion would be to take a strong astral pretender, one that can cast wish, and the reason is this. MA C’tis has a capacity to clam forge like crazy. You only need to give a W2 marshmaster a water bracelet. By mid-late game you should be the absolute magic powerhouse casting several wishes and summoning several tartarians per turn.
But you need to be careful, clamming will leave you with little nature gems and that means no GOR for tarts. So don’t waste gems on Monster Toads and other useless stuff.
Besides astral take earth for crystal coin ( a step closer to mind hunt ) and summon golem, a very rare SC that isn’t affected by your disease dominion, also cutting on heat/sloth should give you enough points to diversify your magic, so air, fire, earth and astral are the paths you want. The only rainbow pretender to chose is the serpent king, can go with that useful for site searching , but I prefer the Oracle, my favorite pretender. You can also afford a SC pretender to help you expand quickly.
Also another reason to go heavy on astral is to be able to wish for the chalice if you don’t forge it first.You NEED the chalice for tartarians., and to forge ring of sorcery and wizardry, you’ll need those for summoning tartarians.
As for the paths you don’t have, astral you need, earth you need, air is useful, fire not so much. You can get a small blood economy going with tartarains also, small.
National Summons
Sirrush: Sacred, Conjuration level 5 astral 1 nature 1, 10 astral pearls
I wouldn’t waste astral gems on them, for EA C’tis they are worth considering but you most likely will not have a bless strategy with MA C’tis, and besides that you don’t have any astral income to begin with. But water bless would be the best probably with their 3 attacks.
Monster Toads: sacred unit conjuration level 5 nature 2, 8 nature gems for 3 toads.
Again, work better with EA C’tis and a water 9 bless. Save your nature gems don’t waste them on monster toads, you WILL need them for items and GOR.
Monster Toads can trample, work good with the C’tis special ( mentioned above with the marshmasters ), have poison cloud so watch where you place them, while your troops have poison resistance it is not 100 so you are vulnerable to that also. They have terrible defense protection and magic resistance so watch out for disintegrate soul slay, paralyze… My opinion, not worth it.
Couatl: level 3 nature level 3 astral mage, level 2 priest, conjuration level 6 nature 1 astral 1 Summon needs 40 Nature Gems!!! But worth it.
Their main use if for heavy lifting via communion and the most important thing, TO FORGE THE CHALICE, give them a moonvine bracelet for that.
Scorpion Man: sacred unit conjuration level 8 earth 1 fire 1 summon, 12 earth gems
Fairly good units, a little hard to summon with C’tis, but you have your pretender to do it if needed. They have a plague bow and a gaze of fear for ranged weapons, and in melee they have a pincer, a stinger, and an enchanted sword. EA C’tis is better with them again.
I think they are actually better than the scorpion king pretender.
Devourer of Souls: sacred unit conjuration level 9 death 6 summon, 30 death gems
Main use, to kill SC. All it takes is one strike and the unlucky enemy is dead, so a burning pearl would be a good thing to give, also don’t send him alone against anyone, that’s a quick way to lose 30 death gems, send some shamans to cast tangle wines luck and body ethereal.
Devourer is a unique summon, once he dies you can summon him again. Again a bless works good, nature, or water or even fire bless.
SCALES:
Order/Turmoil
C'tis income is increased by 1% per level of dominion, and your main mage force, marshmasters, will need a lot of gold for upkeep, so it it's a good choice to go order 3, but I personally like turmoil more. It's useful because if brings you a lot of gems that help diversify your magic
Productivity/Sloth
Not good to go heavy on productivity, is becomes less useful as the game goes on, but sloth 3 can make it very dificult to expand quickly. This really depends on the map size in my opinion, on a big map I recommend sloth 2-3, on a smaller map productivity 1.
Heat/Cold
Go with a minimum of heat two, because that is your default, but best to go 3 heat because of two reasons, scales are rarely exactly the same everywhere so you will have many provinces with 2 or 3 heat either way, and more points for other scales and pretender, and it affect you less than your enemy.
Growth/Death:
C'tis doesn’t really need growth, they have no problems with old age and don't need the supplies, so you should probably take a little death. This scale also depends somewhat on your order/turmoil-luck/misfortune scale. Taking death with misfortune is very bad, and death is very damaging in the long run, so take death but not too much. I personally never go over death 2 and I prefer growth for long games.
Luck/Misfortune:
This depends on your order/turmoil scales. But DO NOT TAKE death 3 misfortune 3 under any circumstances, this opens some devastating events.
Magic/Drain:
You can go either way here. C'tis is very good with research and a very strong death nation, thus able to forge a lot of skull mentors, taking drain 2 won't slow you down much and it really gives a lot of extra points, but taking magic 1 will make you the best research nation in the game, no need for magic 3, people rarely take that. I recommend drain 2.
Diversifying your magic:
A hard thing to do with MA C’tis. That’s why you need to plan ahead with your dominion, all the indie mages will get diseased in your dominion so keep them elsewhere.
Using a rainbow pretender is another way to go. You can summon spectres also, maybe lamia queens for blood magic but they are expensive.
Expanding:
Somewhat harder to do with C’tis. You should use elite warriors for early expansion and back them up with swamp gurads. Can also use the empoisener to take out indie commander and take a province. Research to enc. 3 fast, both for protection and expanding. Your priorities should be Evocation, thaumaturgy and conjuration 2 for site searching and after that enchantment3 for skeletons and alteration 6 for drain life, soul vortex, frozen hearth, mother oak, luck, body ethereal.
Later on when darkness, rigor mortis, and life after death are researched, use them for hard battles with a combination of C’tis special and soul drain, nether darts and such. Don’t forget to keep a scout packed up with death, nature, water and astral gems. Terrorize is a great spell also ( careful affects you also so use it with raise skeleton ), but be sure to cut off any provinces the enemy might retreat to.
Use cheap battlefield summons like swarm to tie up cavalry for the couple rounds you need
Your main strategy should be tartarian oriented. You will have a somewhat hard middle game, but once you get to tartarains you’ll be a force to be reckoned with.
Well of misery, mother oak and gift of health are the global spells you want, not all of them of course, you wouldn’t last much.
Use stygian paths and feary trod to surprise your enemy. Leprosy for large armies.
Arcain Nexus is the end game spell if you take my advice on astral magic, maybe even cast utherdark since it doesn’t hurt you as much as other. Your main force will be tartarians and potentially soulless marshmasters and shamans with life after death and thus 100 darkvision.
Having golems besides tartarians is good, they are mindless, not undead and not shattered soul 25. Not to mention unaffected by your dominion. But it’s somewhat an investment to make a SC from a golem. Use them for destroying temples and trampling armies with boots of Behemot, and when you’re done just cast returning, don’t forget to keep those two extra astral gems for the spell. 3E2A Tartarians are the once you want and the once with the enchanted sickle since they have 3 2 2 radnom paths. If your lucky a 5 water or fire for artillery spells, or maybe even 5 or 7 astral!!! That’s a master enslave in the first turn if you have a crystal coin and a astral cap.
Anti SC tactic:
Drain life is a great spell for SC, so is frozen hearth, and disintegrate also. All these spells can be cast by marshmaster. Don’t forget the Devourer of Souls. Charm is only nature 3, you will have many N3 mages. A lucky marshmaster can cast vengeance of the dead with a starshine cap ( +1 astral ) or with a crystal coin.
-added-
Getting into water:
You shouldn’t be considering this until late game when you summon your amphibious tartarians, but in case you are caught in a premature war with a sea nation you should have little trouble getting into water.
You have a good water income with C’tis, so you can cast Naiad warrior ( good unit, has awe+3, recuperating and has heavy protection ), sea King’s court, he grant his troops water breathing, once you get a water province, you can summon Asp turtles, kraken and Queen of elemental water ( very strong in water has a 30% regeneration I think )
As for items, sea king’s goblet let’s you bring 50 units under water, ring of water breathing for thugs/SC, and robe of the sea for water mages.
You won’t even need all that, you can cast life after death to get soulless mages and priests that can enter water, and reanimate undead for support.
C’tissian troops have a somewhat higher MG than regular troops, 12. And can communion or give boosters for anti-magic which will give you 16 MR. That can be enough even for R’lyehs mind blast.
As for underwater spells you can cast all your enemy can, shark attack, living water and all other spells.
Blood magic and blood hunting:
No point in giving your pretender blood magic since you don't really need it.
You don’t need blood magic much or at all, but you can get there if you want.
You can summon Lamia queens ( I don’t recommend, like I said expensive and they don’t always have blood magic ), and tartarians. Problem with them is shattered soul 25 which makes it difficult to blood hunt with all that pillaging and lab destroying. But you can use them for initial blood hunting and empower regular mages to continue the work.
Since C’tis is good with research you should get tartarians by turn 50. Another way to go is to have all your commanders that aren’t doing nothing blood hunt. Yes they CAN blood hunt. They just have a very small success rate, something like 5% if I remember correctly, read it in some other thread. But having 20 commander blood hunting gets you there faster. However people rarely do this.
As for using blood magic, you don’t need it for summoning Devil and other demonic troops and SC. You will have a heck of a time defending your tartarians form flambeau and 3x damage against undead/demon items as it is.
But having blood to forge all those wonderful unique items is great! Gift of Kurgi, Sceptre of Corruption, Procas axe of rulership in combination with the other one to get arm chop effect. Another great combination is Twin Spear for call lesser horror and Oath Rod of Kurgi for horror mark. Do you see where I’m going with this? Also don’t forget to put boots of quickness. Hearth Finder Sword is also good, the name says it all. Infernal Sword ( One of the best items in the game ), struck by it will get you banished to Inferno, so no more SC. Harvest Blade, has a AOE attack, and leg chop effect!!!
And having blood magic is good for SC, with Claws of Kokytos and Infernal prison, don’t forget life for a life either. Being able to send horrors is also a greats tactic, both for taking provinces and taking out SC’s. You can also cast blood vengeance on some tartarians that have blood magic when you attack.
Also maybe something worth mentioning. C’tis PD is terrible, it consists of militia (mostly) and city guards. You get a couple of slave warriors after PD 20 I think, but that’s just terrible you don’t even get a shaman! So no point wasting gold on PD. The highest I ever go is 5, just so I don’t lose a province to call of the winds.
That’s all I have for now but I will add some other stuff… as soon as I remember something else.
Linear Mode
