EA Pangea carrion dragon bless and scales.

[endomorphious]

Hi again all. Taking a break from playing EA arco and the frustration of learning to use thugs.

I REALLY like the theme of the carrion dragon and plan on playing this beast as an awake SC. I will be using non-cbm, glory of the gods map, 14 AI players, and no mods. What I would like input on is the carrion dragons magic and kingdom scales. I am only seeing the need to take D4,N2. However, I am wondering if i should consider taking N4 for the minor bless; it just seems like most Pangea units have the recuperation ability already. Would a minor earth bless for the re-invig be worth considering.

Regarding scales for EA Pangea, I know i recall discussion about taking Turmoil 3 for pangea, but can't seem to find those threads again. I do tend to lean towards turmoil 3/ Luck 3, but is this wise for this kingdom? Any other thoughts on non-cbm scales and the reason?

Thanks guys in advance...this forum really helps dissolve some of the frustration of such an in depth game.

[Finalgenesis]

carrion dragons may be deceptive in how scary it looks. However it's low prot, low def, bad slots, high hp. As is it cannot perform reliably as a SC. It has high fear so awe would do well, except its base dom is 1. It doesn't even fly! Basically, it can't be a rainbow, and neither is it an effective early SC.

What's worst is its innate path doesn't help with SC, D is more ritual and battle casting rather then buffing except for soul vortex (lvl 6 spell, too late to matter and waste for awake SC). N is good for resist and regen, except you are lifeless and can't regen. If you want regen, you need the national lvl 4 ench spell requiring a lvl 2 priest to cast regen/quickness on you...

I wouldn't worry about a bless, you don't have exceptional sacreds and your main mage isn't sacred. The white centaur while good is pretty expensive in vanilla, turmoil doesn't help and you can go with maenads instead. Unless you want to try funky Dryad mini thug novelty or some such I wouldn't go out of my way for bless.

Turmoil Luck could work if you plan to make good use of maenads. Not only do you get more maenads, you are also a minor blood nation, and turmoil's lost gold income is negated for those province you blood hunt and set tax to 0. Reliance on maenad (which works good against AI) gives you assured sloth 3 on top, that's a lot of points. Luck can give you gold too, though probably less amount and consistent then order, it'd also give you gems and remove indie invasion events as a concern (even with -1 misfortunate, they happen often...). You'd need to be effective in gold spending early on though.

Luck also gives you better chance at transformation for Pans to remove their insane upkeep as Baalz suggested, for fun only it'd make improved crossbreeding better too, basilisks are NASTY (similar to catoplebas!).

Under vanilla, there are those that swear by an awake Gorgon (E9 N4, A1-2 or D2 for example), the Gorgon looks deceptively weak but is in fact the premier chaff cleaner and makes an amazing awake SC for nitro expansion (it can fly too and can handle any early enemy expansion party with ease, cutting off chokepoints and leaving the secured center for later expansion is very viable), just try it, it'd also make your white centaurs premier elite troops. Saint shroud if you find indies becomes a great armor too for a selection of caster/thugs/SCs. Oh, remember to make her a rawhide shield on turn 1.

[Jarkko]

In vanilla Dom3 there is only one *sane* pretender choice for EA Pangaea: Dom10 Awake Gorgon with E9N4 and possibly two points in Air. It makes her one helluva tough SC right of the box, although I would craft her two shields before sending her out. She only gets tougher when you research the basic nature, earth and air buffing spells, and she will be very useful for raids and leading armies even late into the game (later on she will first cast those army wide buffing spells before going in toe to toe with the enemy).

What is more, the E9N4 makes dryads pretty nasty thugs. Slap on a Vine shield, a piece of armour and some weapon with AoE, script Bless HolyAvenger Attack, and watch them rip through enemy ranks. High protection, Awe and regeneration is a crucial combo for the longevity of a thug


Then again, if you want for *thematical* reasons use a Carrion Dragon, then take D4N4 (so that you can later on summon Carrion Lords plus any and all death-summons you might want; remember that it is easy to empower to blood later on for the Death-Blood summons and items, also don't forget about Lamia Queens) and at least Dom9. With effective Fear 19 nobody (who are not immune to psychology, of course) will succeed the Awe check, so he is invulnerable in melee.

However, you will need somebody to actually deal damage, even indy slingers will do but for the first turns you have to rely on the javelin chukkers; you don't need much damage done, because the opponents will fail all morale checks because of the high fear. Just be sure to place the "damage dealers" (you don't often think of slingers as damage dealers, do you? ) well behind the Carrion Dragon, so that the enemy never makes contact with them before they rout because of all those morale tests caused by the minor damage.

[Gandalf Parker]

Pangaea is one of my favorite nations.

Carrion Dragon can be interesting on a large map. Pangaea's built-in advantages of early spotting (flying stealth scouts) and the ability to put out an entirely stealthy army (leaders, mages, priests, infantry, archers, cavalry) can be paired up with a surprise tactic of CD. Use the Pan form of the dragon to lead a stealth army directly to someones capital while they think they are still operating safely in expansion mode. When you get to where you are going, change to dragon and attack the province. This saves you from having to use one action slot to change form at the beginning of the combat. This tactic can get you 1 or 2 early capitals where you can then put time into consolidating the space between them (its not as useful later in the game)

The other thematic pretender, Lord of the Wild can also be used but is a very different situation. He can stealth, or lead, but cannot lead a stealth army due to his habit of gathering maenads. If he does not lead the maenads will drop to the province and create an attack message which is handy for getting totally accurate scouting info but bad for trying to sneak up on someone.

I agree with D4N4. Pangaea is one of those nations that lack the ability to cast their own national spells. Very strange. But Im not big on E9N4. The sacreds of Pangaea are mostly unarmored so I would be bigger on the idea of mage/archer protection if you were going to go with blesses. The Gorgon/E9N4 is playable if you plan to play Pangaea as a marching army and go head-to-head. But if you are playing that, why play Pangaea?

[endomorphious]

Thanks both of you. I rather suspected the carrion dragon wasn't the best choice for a great SC from reading the guides and the forum. I think I'll stick with the carrion dragon despite his many flaws. I particularly like thematic empire building. For me its like writing my own story or D&D module.
My fave was a killer squad of ice druids all sporting frost brands, rime frost armor(?) and crystal shields. Horribly inefficient, but they made me insanely happy. LOL its what happens when your addicted to reading nearly a 100 books of fantasy a year.

I plan on making fever fetish's, alot. Is the inherent regen of most of Pans units enough to deal with the disease, or would the N4 regen help with that. Will go with the D4N4, Turmoil 3, Sloth 1, Heat 1, Growth 3, Luck 3, Magic 3. I mostly plan on using the resultant Maenad masses for patrolling overtaxed realms. I also tend to buy the more expensive beefier units that last longer. I have an ingrained aversion to actually using chaff until i can at least buff them to have a SLIGHT chance of survival. Early expansion will be the dragon and mercenaries if possible for Turn 1-4 or so and then i should have enough minotaurs bought to get another tough party out and working.

PS. Did they improve the carrion dagon in CBM?

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by endomorphious

Did they improve the carrion dagon in CBM?

Last I checked (which wasn't that recently, I have to admit) he was just as crap in CBM as he is in vanilla. Mother of Monsters is in CBM a *much* better choice for a Death-Nature early SC.

[ExHeretic]

One of the nicer sides of SP is that you dont need to be too optimal with your build/strategy. I mean that if you want to do something you can just do it whitout thinking is it really good way to play. For an example i would never play pangaea with F9 bless in MP but if i feel like doing it in SP then why not? The same goes for many pretenders.

Pangaea has never really been my cup of tea. I guess im more of a marching army guy

I have been playing some SP games with them and here is what i have learned. People usually take sloth for more maenads. I usually take order for more taurs. Maenads are crap and taurs are good The bottleneck for recruiting is mostly just gold so that order gives nice boost for early expansion. The mages are also guite expencive so that extra cash is nice for them too. Many people preach for the wisdom of taking turmoil for blood nation because you loose less money for hunting. The point is true but the there is downside too. When takin turmoil you have less money overral and when you blood hunt on top of that you will have even less cash. Its like trying to optimize money shortage

I dont like pangaea as nation so much but i just love many of their units. Centaur warriors are one of my favorite units in the game. Maybe someday i will figure out a way to play them in MP with a way that fits my playingstyle

I just hope that some year i will find 100 fantasy books to read
Im now blazing through "Promise of the Witch-King" from R A Salvatore

[Jarkko]

Minotaurs are not a very good investment. I use minotaurs for one job and one job only: To storm in through the fort gates the maenads just besieged down.

Maenads make Pangaean forts nearly unbreakable. Maneads make Pangaea break the gate of any fort in one turn. If 1000 maenads don't do the trick, then try with 3000.

For the oomph situations Centaurs are nice. Very nice in fact. However, most things Centaurs can do the Revelers can do too. There is just that slight difference in price tag. Oh, and in addition, Revelers are just amazing raiders, they bring havoc where ever they go, even if they don't fight at all

The basic set up against AI nations and indies is Revelers in center, half a dozen centaurs on each flank, and a zillion maeanads in several blocks behind these, with one maeanad block set as far front as possible (ahead of all other blocks, to act as arrowcathcers). The first meanads get hit by arrows, go berserk and the enemy archers are shooting individual maeands. If the revelers and centaurs cant break the opposition, the hundreds (or thousands) of screaming naked women will do the trick.

In MP relying on maenads carry you only that far. Still, if I was playing against Pangaea and would have to plan to either stop 100 centaurs and minotaurs, or 1000 maenads plus 50 sneaky Revelers, I know which ones I would have an easier time to stop Alteration *usually* should be first path to research, and once you hit Mass Protection (and Marble Warriors, if facing something with lots of fire attacks), those hordes of maenads you've been collecting just become *scary* (gotta love Iron Bane as Pangea ).

If you like Pangaea with a marching army, play Late Age. Dryad Hoplites and Black Centaurs simply kick butt (sadly they are capital only, but they are so good they will still carry you a long way into the game).

Early Age Pangaea is very much about sneakiness. Dryad thugs or semi-thugs (together with Revelers or Centaurs) sneaking around behind enemy lines, while your poop-ton of maenads on the border most likely is cathcing the the full attention of your opponent. With the best scouts in the game you will know exactly where your sneaky regiments should hit, and when they should hit.

One more thing about EA Pangaea. If your armies are mostly Maeanads, Revelers and Centaurs, they will never ever rout. Pans on the other hand will run away when things look bad. It usually means it is pretty safe to use Pans (as long as they have a healthy-sized bodyguard) in combat situations, because the combat AI will usually not target broken enemies but those who still fight. And if you lost 2000 maenads in that battle, so what? Let the Pans be the masculine selves they are, and you will soon be restocked with maenads

[endomorphious]

thanks everyone. Very nice summation Jarkko. I must say ran four start up games today the carrion dragon died 3 times on low dominion but did reasonably well with dom9 until i foolishly sent him to the Arena after the sleeping gods had awoken. Still, my carrion died to a recruitable giant.

Such a good chassis idea should get some love from you CBM modders out there. Maybe give him the ability to turn all those maenads into undead versions that can actually do some damage.

[rdonj]

Actually, one good thing about minotaurs is they're very good at expanding. I'm not sure pangaea can expand faster than with minotaurs, or at least they've done the trick quite well for me.