Alternate strategies you'd like to try, but...

[Jarkko]

Alternate strategies you'd like to try, but which you never had guts to give a shot.

You know, there are things you go oooh and aaaah in SP tests, but then in MP games you actually go for the same old same old, because you dare not try the thing (probably because deep down you know it would go all wrong)? I wish I once would have the guts to try one of the following.


Centaur archers from hell (EA Pangaea)
Take something like a sleeping Phoenix with A4F4, for scales something like Order3, Sloth2, Luck3, Magic1. Recruit Centaur Archers, research Enchantment5. Use Flaming Arrows in key battles, and *burn* everything in your way (the centaurs actually are simply amazing longbowmen, and if those beasts would be using flaming arrows....). Summon the Air and Fire mages available in CBM1.8, and use some more fire and air buffs for your centaur archers (while the pans still buff the centaurs with all the "normal" stuff pans do).


Lets dance with Toads! (EA C'tis)
Get an imprisoned pretender with W9S9N4. Recruit all the serpent dancers you can while you expand with other troops. Go for Conjuration until you get Monster Toads, then chain summon those. In battle send the quickened monster toads and serpent dancers in from behind a skelly-screen, with their twist fate and regeneration their poison and trampling the toads will stomp through anything in their path and what the toads can't trample or poison, the quickened magic weapons of the dancers will take care of. You get bonus points if you succeed to summon a tartarian with enough Air magic to be able to cast Mass Flight, altough I'd rather save the death games for Black Bow of Botulf which you want to give to the quickened hands of lizard shamans who with their Eagle Eyes rain in feeblemindness on the enemy fools who do not understand to run.

[WraithLord]

Nice. Esp. the toads

[iRFNA]

I tried something similar with toads, except I did MA c'tis, 10 dom, 9B9D bless. Chain summoned toads, used good scales to build insane amounts of forts to mass produce sacred serpents.

It was the only game I've ever won!

[Corinthian]

I tried a tactic that I would call "Flying Dog Apocalypse" with MA TC. The plan was to mass TCs flying mini-Shishis and then put a fire 9 bless on them. It worked OK initially. I made flying shoes and crowns of command to give to my priests so that they could be flying sacred raiders. But I had bad luck with finding air sites and eventually i had to get other tactics. This one was too expensive.

[Squirrelloid]

Hey dude, where's your bless?
Mictlan with a very light bless (no more than X4Y4), Dom 10, good scales. SP tests revealed jags are still fine for expansion. Rely on non-national blood summons for mid game and blood sac like mad. This is of course about playing mindgames with your opponents almost as much as anything else. (Although massed mictlan normal troops, courtesy of good scales, are surprisingly effective)

[Kobal2]

EA TC as a bless rusher. Take an imprisoned god, tank the scales and give those Warriors of the Five Elements the dom 10 W9/S9/F9 bless they deserve. Proceed to comprehensively destroy your nearest neighbour ASAP to get more lands to apply your crappy scales to. Later, apply bless to hordes of sacred summons (flying dogs, heavenly rivers, heavenly fires). Laugh and grow fat.

I've been plenty impressed with handfuls of Wot5E as expansion troops under a W9 bless and I've been meaning to try rushing with them as it would certainly be unexpected of TC to get right in there instead of sitting back trying to fend off every rusher out there with your archers while researching like crazy as usual buuut... yes.

In the end I think the Celestial Masters would be a pretty big bottleneck - need them to be flying everywhere blessing raiders, but also summoning, site searching, forging... all that with crappy scales so few secondary castles to pick up the research slack.

[LDiCesare]

EA TC does very well as a bless nation. Masters of the 5 elements are pretty much needed to get access to E for hammers and N to a lesser extent. In CBM1.7+ this is no longer the case of course and Mo5E will probably be useless. Still, the Celestial masters fly, cloud trapeze or teleport and are therefore able to go wherever you want them to be in a pinch. Plus you're bound to get a few SW mages that can summon heavenly rivers too. I never got how anyone could not play them with a big bless. Their Wo5E cut through Lanka sacreds like through butter for instance (but not Hinnom...).

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Kobal2

EA TC as a bless rusher. Take an imprisoned god, tank the scales and give those Warriors of the Five Elements the dom 10 W9/S9/F9 bless they deserve. Proceed to comprehensively destroy your nearest neighbour ASAP to get more lands to apply your crappy scales to. Later, apply bless to hordes of sacred summons (flying dogs, heavenly rivers, heavenly fires). Laugh and grow fat.

chrispedersen used a variation of this in the Magellan game a couple years ago. He had IIRC W9S9 (right?) bless, but his pretender (Lady of Luck was it?) was just dormant and thus used as a SC together with the TC sacreds (Wot5E, rain and fire demons). Was mean, especially as he also found two sites with those flying sacred amazons who thus also benefitting from the dual bless

[Kobal2]

I hear ya, but then again the lure of hundreds of (flaming) Composite Bows in an age when people think leather armour is the greatest thing ever is quite strong...

[LDiCesare]

Flaming arrows is actually hard to pull for EA TC. None of your mages can reliably pull it, so I'd say it's a very very suboptimal strategy. Otherwise you need fire boosters, with 1 in 4 capital mage being F2... Compared to a bless that provides bonuses to mages, Wot5E and summons, I wouldn't call that a good choice.