Newbie Question about Desert Tombs

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by PDF:
While we're at discussing DT, does someone have a good Pretender design from them ?
I've never played DT nor any C'Tis altogether, would like to try them but ain't that sure of the paths I've to take : definitely Death, and maybe Air ? Would some Nature helps also ?

I personally wouldn't take Death. The Sauromancers can take care of all of your Death needs. Nature would help with Desert Tombs, since you lose the Shaman, and with Death-2, if you want to use your living armies, supply ... er, scratch that. I believe you still have the Empoisoners who can make the Winebags. NM.

Really, C'tis has few 'needs' as far as a Pretender goes. With the Tomb Guards, you don't even really need a SC for early expansion. You might want to take Fire-3, to ensure you can forge Fire-path enhancing items, but even without that, you can get the Skull of Fires, and a Fire-2 Sauromancer can use that to forge the flaming helm of DOOOOOM.

You really don't want to do a Bless strategy, as you don't have the Serpent Dancers (BTW, IW, Undead Serpent Dancers would rock for DT, and if keyed to Life after Death, would give base C'tis more options). This all leads me to believe you should focus on a 'scales' Pretender.

If there was a Pretender that produced Death gems, I'd take them (for faster production of Tomb Priests), but as it is, just focus on getting all of the Order/Productivity/Magic you can. That's what will fuel you, IMO.

Tomb Wyrms are Sacred as well as Sacred Serpents.

[Scott Hebert]

While that is true, Zen, I don't see either the Sacred Serpent or the Tomb Wyrm as worthy of basing a Bless strategy around. The Sacred Serpent is too expensive for a very fragile unit (whose main purpose is not admittedly melee combat), while the Tomb Wyrm is too rare to base a strategy around.

That's the main reason that I don't think that DT C'tis should pursue a Bless strategy.

[Anglachel]

Been playing around with the new Desert Tomb Ctis and I find the 50 point discount on the theme to help a LOT. Thanks IW! I use a Ghost King pretender with Earth 4, Fire 4, Astral 7, and Death 4. The scales I use are Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Death 3, Luck 3, and Magic 3. Dominion is around 5 and the zero cost castle. I do fire and earth at 4 for searches of provinces for money sites or fire gems for alchemy. The eventual income I get from fire gems and gold sites offsets negative scale loss of income. I spam buy sauromancers for research power and thier powerful death magic and helpful random, plus the inborn ability to cast Reanimate Archers and Banefire. I make the tomb priest you get at the beginning a prophet and start it reanimating tomb worms. I research enchantment to level 4 for Twiceborn and switch to evocation until level 6 for the Banefire spell. While researching up evocation I start casting Twiceborn on as many Sauromancers as possible. When I hit evocation 6 and if I get a lucky nature random on a sauromancer, I switch to construction till level 2 for fever fetish and then switch back to enchantment till level 6 for Pale Riders at 5th and Reanimate archers at level 6. I then switch over to conjuration till level 9th. During all of this I have been striking out at the surrounding indies with my Banefire casting Twiceborn Sauromancers till they bite it(hopefully without getting a feeblemind wound) and come back to the capitol upkeep free for research or they actually conquer a province and move on to another one. Meanwhile, with my Ghost King in tow casting magma eruptions and astral fires I mop up surrounding indies with my prophet and summoned unholy priest king, both level 4, using tomb worms and ghosts the Ghost King squeezed out while researching. The Ghost King stays in tow, doing site searches until around conjuration level 5 where he hauls it back to a lab to alchemize and research and cast Akashic Record on new provinces conquered while my sauromancers pump out Mound Kings with 50 man Banefire Arrow archer raiding squads until such time my death gem income and research let me move up to Bane Lords for leading about a 75 archer, 50 undead horseman province and castle crusher armies which can be raised in a fairly small amount of time being that Animate Archers is 5 death gems for 10 units and Pale Riders is 10 death gems for 20 or more units.

In general a very fun theme to mess around with having the uniqueness of holy and unholy priests and banefire theme of magic. Again, thanks to IW for lowering the cost on this theme.

[ June 14, 2004, 23:26: Message edited by: Anglachel ]

[Anglachel]

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:
While that is true, Zen, I don't see either the Sacred Serpent or the Tomb Wyrm as worthy of basing a Bless strategy around. The Sacred Serpent is too expensive for a very fragile unit (whose main purpose is not admittedly melee combat), while the Tomb Wyrm is too rare to base a strategy around.

That's the main reason that I don't think that DT C'tis should pursue a Bless strategy.

It is certainly viable if not perhaps powerful to pursue a blessing strategy with Desert Tomb Ctis. You would have to produce a huge death gem income quickly and the growth of your tomb worm army would be very slow at first but one of the advantages of the summonable level 4 unholy priests that produce the tomb worms is that they can lead the army, replenish it out in the field, and bless them while in battle. You also aren't required to have a castle to produce sacred troops, won't be hampered by dominion strength restrictions, gold, or production. You only need labs and a large death gem income to bring in the priests at 23 death gems a pop. Some of the other advantages of the tomb worms are that they have high magic resistance, good hitpoints, and are not mindless. However, they are not amphibious which kind of sucks and they are sort of slow moving and have lousy defense and protection. This is mitigated somewhat by their disposable nature. They take an unholy Version of bless to activate bless effects just to answer an earlier question.

So, VERY viable. Not optimal or powerful perhaps but there are inborn advantages to the application of bless strategies for the Desert Tomb theme if you really commit to optimizing it fully.

[PDF]

While we're at discussing DT, does someone have a good Pretender design from them ?
I've never played DT nor any C'Tis altogether, would like to try them but ain't that sure of the paths I've to take : definitely Death, and maybe Air ? Would some Nature helps also ?

[tinkthank]

Small follow up here:

I am becoming intruiged with DT, because if you can field a large number of undead summons, this is the perfect fodder answer for Poison Slingers. In normal Ctis, I get upset when my slingers poison my whole army -- but here....
Only question is: What orders do you give em, and where do you position em? Because of their lousy range, when I set them to fire closest, they STILL run out quickly and get slaughtered. Should I set them to fire and flee (and then spend my subsequent turns running around gathering them up from neighboring provs)?

Last question: What schools/spells do you research? I think the only spell I can think of offhand with death and fire is Banefire -- is that it? Do you rush for it? Is it good? I figure I would need construction soon to make Skulls o Fire -- with fire, I suppose one goes Evocation. But what good is Evocation with death??
What good is Thaumaturgy without Astral?
So basically, I am confused as to a good research strategy.
And the poison slingers. Heheh, thanks.

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Small follow up here:

~snip Poison Slinger angst~

I personally don't use them, mainly for the reasons you give. Unless you can give them Poison Immunity, you're probably going to lose a couple of them each battle. Too much investment for too little return, for me.

Last question: What schools/spells do you research? I think the only spell I can think of offhand with death and fire is Banefire -- is that it? Do you rush for it? Is it good? I figure I would need construction soon to make Skulls o Fire -- with fire, I suppose one goes Evocation.

As I believe I posted elsewhere, rush Enchantment to level 6. The main benefit of Thaumaturgy for Death is Terror, which you already start with. (Side note: Biggest advantage of taking high-Death pretender with Desert Tombs is wide-area Terror.) So that's not a priority. Conjuration would be good, except that most/all of your death gem income will be going towards summoning your Unholy priests. So that's not good, either. The other good school to research is Enchantment. It gets you Reanimation (which is completely overshadowed by your priests), and more importantly, the Raise Dead spells. However, at Enchantment-5, you get Pale Riders (which, I'm told, can be useful), and at Enchantment-6, you get Banefire Archers. Banefire Archers are superior to your Poison Slingers in almost every way imaginable.

My vote for early Research with Desert Tombs is Enchantment. As an added bonus, if you take a Nature pretender, Gift of Health is Enchantment-5. The other school you really do want to research is Construction, for what I think should be obvious reasons.

But what good is Evocation with death??

Evocation gets a few good combat spells in Evocation. Probably the best is Nether Darts (which requires Astral too), but Shadow BLast can be powerful, if you put death gems on your mages.

What good is Thaumaturgy without Astral?

Thaumaturgy is good for site-searching spells (though not in Death), Terror (which you already have), and Wither Bones. If you research Thaumaturgy for anything, it probably should be Wither Bones.

So basically, I am confused as to a good research strategy.
And the poison slingers. Heheh, thanks.

I hope this helps.

[ June 15, 2004, 14:03: Message edited by: Scott Hebert ]

[tinkthank]

Hey thanks, all helpful stuff here.

Im still trying to get Poison Slingers to work with an undead fodder screen. Having minor amounts of success.

I wish there were an Air buff spell which increases the range of missile troops (alteration).

Further follow-up questions:

1. Any tips on getting Empoisoners to successfully assassinate (primarily: early game; NOT with super-duper gear)?

2. Any tips on offensive spells, and who to use them with? I love Sauromancers, but dont get much use out of the others.

3. Holy vs Unholy: Does it matter who blesses whom? It seems there are some nice choices of sacred units here -- are there also unholy troops I havent found yet?

4. Scales and Blessings: Does anyone think it is unwise to go for at least astral 4? I like the magic resistance, what do you say?

[Reverend Zombie]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Hey thanks, all helpful stuff here.


Further follow-up questions:

1. Any tips on getting Empoisoners to successfully assassinate (primarily: early game; NOT with super-duper gear)?

I have success scripting them to cast raise dead.