Scales for the Jomon in CBM 1.92 - Page 2

legowarrior · #11 February 2nd, 2012, 12:45 AM

What I wouldn't give to have just a few more pretender options. Love to have a pretender with access to death and fire natural, otherwise I'm starting to think the Liche with 1 fire and death is the best solution.

It seems that you need super high production is necessary, as is gold (I keep running out)! Misfortune is okay to take, but then so is death, but misfortune and death together is bad! Heat scales are okay in small amounts. It's really frustating making a pretender for this realm.

Kobal2 · #12 February 2nd, 2012, 04:58 AM

If you take a temp scale, take cold, not heat. At least if you have misfortune. Misfortune and Heat burn your labs a lot. Also cold will help with your water elementals, and doesn't affect the income of any underwater province you might score.

I wouldn't say you need super high production - the samurai are higher resource than average but they're not Ulmish black plates either. 1 or 0 is quite enough, you can always compensate by having more castles (even if those castles don't have labs or temples - a ninja castle is not the worst thing to have)

I'm not sure the Lich is all that great, because it won't get you into the water any easier whereas a tough bloke like the Lord of Plenty can even with just Const-0 items and some token Alteration research (Boots of the Behemoth, Ring of Poison Protection, Ring of Water Breathing, any helmet. Script Body Ethereal, Ironskin, Personal Luck, hold, hold, attack. At Const 2 he gets a Midget Masher or Gloves of the Gladiator instead, freeing his feet for Birch Boots).
As long as you keep him away from trolls, and possibly Ichtyids as well (nets always scare me), he should be able to stomp just about anything while always being one Returning away from home.

legowarrior · #13 February 2nd, 2012, 11:42 AM

But if I don't go with a Rainbow or a Liche, what is my end game? Do I try to get into Dai Onis another way?

Kobal2 · #14 February 2nd, 2012, 12:41 PM

Well, you have astral mages with *5* other random paths, and the ability to craft crystal matrices in bulk to hook up any other mages you find so large armies supported by communions casting from an extremely open spellbook are a go - fog warriors, army of X, mass flight, weapons of sharpness, gaia's blessing, will of the fates, mass regeneration, relief, quickness... really, with the exception of death spells you can pretty much cast *anything* from *any castle* in the fullness of time.

You also should have a large and varied gem income - the only paths you're missing remote site searching in are death (which you can take on your god) and blood (which is semi-easy to bootstrap into with scouts and a death god, or that you can just ignore entirely). There's very little mundane equipment you can't make.

If you take D magic on your pretender, and you most definitely should strive to, you'll have tons of Shuras to raid with - without equipment a pair of them can take just about any amount of PD with little or no equipment. Sure, a proper SC will cream them, but you can make a lot more Shuras than the other guy can make SCs. All other things being equal, if you can take 2 provinces of his while he takes 1 of yours, you win.

Or you could indeed go Dai Onis (as I said earlier, with a D3 LoP they're just one booster and one empowerment away), but honestly they're not that great for their gem tag (not to mention they still carry upkeep over from the EA, so unlike other summons they'll wreck your bank account). I would take 4 Shuras over 1 Dai Oni any day, especially without a bless tailored for them.

If you're playing the latest CBM, treants are pretty neat and you shouldn't have too much trouble recruiting them using your bootsrap Nature summons (Kitsunes). Mechanical Giants are also good additions to your armies, and your E4 god will have no problem summoning them. You can get Grendelkins easily, too - any W1E2 Master Shug can get them with easy to forge boosters.

If the other guy is fielding communions too, you can pull a really nasty trick with your Dai Tengus and minimal equipment (a hat, MR & luck amulets, gems ): Cloud Trapeze in, Rain of Stones, retreat. Rince, repeat. Very tough to counter for anyone who isn't Pythium, especially if you put astral mages in the provinces he could retreat into so your opponent can't just Mind Hunt him.

Try and look up Baalz' guides to Tien Chi for more ideas, or even guides to Arcoscephale, both nations are comparable with Jomon in that they have lots of varied but weak paths. But suffice to say, as Jomon, don't sweat the endgame. You *rock* the endgame.
It's the early game you gotta watch out for.

legowarrior · #15 February 2nd, 2012, 01:06 PM

Cool, thanks. I have more questions if I may. Teaching Sign, how does that work with the Crystal Shield or Power of the Spheres? Does it stack and can you use it with communion. And Mediation, is it worth it to make a Master Matrix, and stick it on a Monk, so that they can cast mediation?

Kobal2 · #16 February 2nd, 2012, 01:22 PM

I'm honestly not sure (haven't actually played with Jomon in MP yet, most of my "wisdom" comes from playing Shinuyama and TC), but on paper both seem like great additions to a communion... until they run out of script, that is.
If you're fielding a large communion, once his scripting is over your Mediation monk could well get into his pixel head to cast Falling Frost or whatever over and over. The fatigue wipe seems neat for reverse communion purposes, but I'd probably give him a bow of some kind on top of the matrix and script him to cast Mediation x5, Shoot Whatevs. The teaching sign seems *extremely effing great* to stick a matrix on, even more so if it stacks with PotS (I don't know that it does, though).

As always, if you have any doubt whether this or that particular tactic works or not, the Debug mod is your friend.

legowarrior · #17 February 2nd, 2012, 04:27 PM

This has been a really helpful thread.
I might ignore death completely or use a Nushi to boot strap into it when the time is right.
How do Kenzoku compare to Shura?

thejeff · #18 February 2nd, 2012, 07:44 PM

I haven't tested this, but I believe Teaching Sign is the same effect as PotS, which would mean it won't stack.

Easy enough to test if you want to be sure.

Look for the Debug Mod if you want to make it really easy.

legowarrior · #19 February 2nd, 2012, 08:01 PM

It wouldn't cast Teaching sign, after I cast Power of the spheres. So I guess that answers that!

Shangrila00 · #20 February 2nd, 2012, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kobal2

If you take a temp scale, take cold, not heat. At least if you have misfortune. Misfortune and Heat burn your labs a lot. Also cold will help with your water elementals, and doesn't affect the income of any underwater province you might score.

I'd say heat is better. Jomon's best mages/recruitable thugs are the cold blooded Ryujin, and high heat makes it harder for people to wolven winter them to death.

Hopefully, the Onmyoji researching in those labs keep them from burning down too often.