Guide to MA C'tis

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Xietor, I'm with you on dominion.

But I think C'tis can handle elephants pretty well. Frighten+Terror worked well against Bandar for me, and you can throw poison in there too.

Pan is tailor made to be a friend as MA C'tis, if you've got a choice.

Originally Posted by Xietor

I disagree about the Dominion strength. Since Ctis gets income based on dominion you want to start with a very high dominion, and also you want everything you can get to add to your income bonus, 3 order being a no brainer, but also growth.

Your high income allows you to build massive amounts of forts and mages. With a strong dominion, this fits hand in hand with an immortal pretender. Strong Dominion, Disease inside your dominion, large income, skelly spam, immortal pretender, you will not be high on anyone's list to invade right off the bat. You can get away with a sleeping pretender unless you get very unlucky.

Typically this large income surplus also allows MA Ctis to lead the way in research, making it an even less desirable foe to fight right off the bat.

You are right that the dominion may result in you getting ganged up on, but you can selectively control your dominion by limiting preaching and temple building on borders of friendly neighbors.

Some races you need to make the extra effort to be friendly with early are pangaea, who is almost tailor made to kill Ctis. Their recuperation lets them ignore the disease dominion. Ctis PD is not the best, and the stealthy Pangaea attacks can be a nightmare. If they have the E9N9 White Centaurs you do not want them rushing you.

Arcos. early can be bad as well. Elephants, solar rays, cheap h2 and great healers who also allow them to pretty much ignore the Miasma.

[Executor]

Well dominion is a matter of playstile, if you're going for the saurolich you do want a strong, probably 9 or 10 dominion logically. But I had 9 dominion in my last game with MA C'tis, and it was a problem to say at least. I had multiple threat like "if you miasma dominion spreads we will attack you". And I did get attacked by multiple enemies. Having 9 dominion and an awake pretender spreads dominion like crazy. Taking 7 instead of 9 is only a 2% income cut-back. I also like to take growth but like I said only for larger games.
As for Lamia Queens, while you can get blood with them, I don't think it's certain, so wasting 25 nature gems for a commander that can maybe get a little blood is not good when you can use whose gems for GOH, GOR, ring of regeneration... You'd be better off blood hunting with regular unit, I read somewhere that they have a 5% chance of success. Tried it once and empowered a mage to blood 1 and so on. (but took too much time)
You will surely get blood tartarians, but it' hard to blood hunt with shattered soul, they can pillage and destroy the lab, especially if you have more than one in a province.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Executor

...
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....

Bear in mind, being the one with GoH up can actually make indie mages a sustainable resource. But be prepared to spend a lot of gems, a crafty enemy noting that you have Adepts or some other powerful addition to your mage lineup, will go straight for the Dispel.

[Executor]

Actually, with GOH I see Pangaea as the biggest problem, you can rarely overcast them in nature.

[thejeff]

Well, if you're C'tis and get GoH up, everyone is going to try to dispel it, not because they're worried about your indy mages, but because of your Tartarian factory.

[Trumanator]

Thanks for the guide Executor.

What about an S6 D6 E2 F1 dom 8 awake master lich, with something along the lines of O3 S1 H3 Mis2 Mag1 in CBM? I've been messing around in SP, granted nothing compared to MP, and I've found City Guards to be pretty cheap and effective as expanders, especially if you spend the first few turns recruiting some lizard kings to provide smite support.
On an unrelated note, which is more effective, Smite or Banish, against undead like banes, or those MA Ermor sacreds.

[zzcat]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Thanks for the guide Executor.

What about an S6 D6 E2 F1 dom 8 awake master lich, with something along the lines of O3 S1 H3 Mis2 Mag1 in CBM? I've been messing around in SP, granted nothing compared to MP, and I've found City Guards to be pretty cheap and effective as expanders, especially if you spend the first few turns recruiting some lizard kings to provide smite support.
On an unrelated note, which is more effective, Smite or Banish, against undead like banes, or those MA Ermor sacreds.

I just got defeated by Ermor in my second MP using C'tis. IMO S9 shodow vessels is extremely dangerous for C'tis. Your army essentially can't do any damage(no magic weapon, no archers for flaming arrow), and both banishment and smite is of little use vs high MR unit. The only thing you can do in early game is gathering as many as possible death mages to spam dust to dust, and using several LKs to banish normal undead and to encourage your cowardly armies. If you can hold the line until wither bone researched, undead units will not scare you any longer...

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Against banes or shadow vestals you are better off scripting (eagle eyes, dust to dust x 4) with your marshmasters. If you're up against some big enormous blob of shadow vestals, it would be good to have wither bones researched. You can still Banish with some Lizard Kings too.

Edit: (Ninja'd! So I'll add one other idea.)

You can also Communion some Shamans together for Solar Rays. It also has no MR check. Just do a reverse communion with the one Master casting Power of the Spheres.

[Natpy]

Early shadow vestals can be easy killd by poison slingers.

[Executor]

Shadow vestals are capital only, therefore limited, marshmasers are recruitable everywhere.
Summoning a couple of Behemoth buffed with luck and body etherial should take care of shadow vastals with ease.