Good late game SCs?

[Shovah32]

Poison Golems have better protection, a banefire shield and no astral magic that would make them vunerable.
Astral Golems can do the obvious astral buffs and cast the very useful teleport, but in straight-up combat my money would probably be on the poison golem(not 100% sure though).

[Micah]

Astral golems are less SCs and more super-heavy raiders. Properly geared they're pretty able to plow through normal troops without a problem and they have incredible mobility. Great for knocking out blood hunting sites or dropping in to take out an enemy's retreat province(s). They're very, very good.

Posion golems at 9th level research are a bit underwhelming, since they invite the inevitable comparison to tartarians, which is a comparison they lose. They've got a small niche due to lifeless/mindless and not undead, but in most cases I'd prefer the tartarian.

[Rytek]

Vine Ogre Kings aren't too bad. No head slot, but they do come with regeneration. And the best thing is that they have 0 enc. If you can put some Elemental armor on them you can get em to 100% resist to everything with 1 spell. so, boots of flying,elemental armor,(insert weapon here),lead shield, amulet of antimagic,amulet of luck. If the resists arent a factor you can go with armor of quickness instead for more damage.

[DrPraetorious]

I agree that the poison golem is *generally* inferior to a Tartarian. It's smaller, for one thing.

BUT it comes out of construction instead of conjuration and this is a huge deal! Tartarians cannot make SCs at all without both Const 6 and Thaum 4.

[Rathar]

To derail..

How does one make an effective Dragon SC pretender?!

I have been messing around a fair bit and all I can seem to produce is something which has a 50% chance of taking a weak (militia, hvy infantry, archer) province and almost always picks up 1-3 afflictions the next time they try it and then are done until I have chalice or etc etc.

I know I am just sucking somehow as I see you folks speak of them as being great for province clearing and early expansion but I just cant seem to do it!

Here is what I usually try..

I take a dormant dragon, usually fire, and give them more fire, at least 3 water (quickness) and I have been trying earth, nature, and astral of 3 min also. The 3 value is to enable the dragon to still be able to cast spell in that magical area when in dragon form. I am decking them out in whatever helmet I may be able to afford, usually horror or the nature/gore attack one, a luck misc and a regen misc or reinvigor or things like that. I usually play with an indy level of 9-8 but I have this trouble on 6 too so..

Any clues?

[Micah]

Are you giving your dragons awe by bumping their dominion to 9+? That'll probably fix your problem.

That being said, dragons are kind of poor choices for that because of their low base dominion score. A Prince of Death is a much better choice for an SC...cheaper when you account for awe, more slots and magic in combat form, 0 enc, built in immunities, and a better fear value. Wyrms and Cyclops are also popular (Cyclops is usually used with high earth to hit 30 protection instead of needing awe, especially useful when sacreds will get mileage out of the E bless)

[Rathar]

Hmm is awe that awesome?! heh Perhaps I have never boosted it far enough but the results have seemed to be mediocre and the cost to get dominion to 9 seems so gigantic.

I completely agree that there are many other better choices for SC's these days and I can make those, I just want to succeed with a dragon. The mental imagery is just too hard to resist.

[vfb]

If you still really want to use a Dragon to take indies, you might want to use a Blue dragon, W9, Dom9. W9 is probably an OK bless for whatever nation you are playing, and will also give you a bit more defense in case the indies make their Awe checks. Dom9 will also help to keep your HP up due to higher dominion, and higher HP means less chance of afflictions.

Don't fly into provinces with crossbows or lances yet. If it's really early (no research), place the dragon at the far right of the combat setup, then script 2 times "Hold or Fire" and then "Attack Archers" or "Attack Rearmost". You'll land one or two cold blasts, then hopefully you'll fly over and kill or scare off the commanders.

Pretty soon you can hang back on the left and script Breath of Winter, Quicken Self, 3 * Fire, Attack Archers, and you should have no more problem with any indies (obviously attacking lizards is a bad plan though.)

[mathusalem]

for dragon I love the undead one (only for Jotun). With D3 and soul vortex, pendant of luck, of MR and Crown of ... (Etheralness) He is very useful.

[jaif]

Via stupidity mostly. I had to empower in one air, air helmet him then cloud trapeze because I was unaware of his limitations. Worked in SP. Probably not the best choice, but it worked. Took several provinces all alone before getting red hearts.

I don't understand this at all. I summoned a treelord just now in an SP game just to see what they were like. They only have 2 misc slots, and their branches are 15 point attacks - hardly anything special. On top of that it's nature magic, which is hardly that offensive. So what do I do with a treelord besides give him a magic carpet and use him to summon defenses and creatures all over?

-Jeff