Boot Camp - Finished - Soyweiser/Jotunheim wins!

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

But EGD does make Jotun, or other giant nations, a bit weaker. The grendelkin kills any normal giant in one hit.

The grendelkin is certainly a tank but keep in mind that giant nations can summon SCs like any other nation - they aren't limited to their recruitable ones. You can have your own grendelkin (summoned by indies, spectres or even your pretender). Then too, this is later in the game that those summons become available. And I'd still argue Jotun, in particular, is in a good position. Skratti can dish out tremendous damage, even more so if they can use a damage multiplying weapon like a herald lance (they can't against grendelkin, which is a big reason they are so tough). And then there's the always popular "attack one turn, cast Claws of Kokytos" script.

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

And Jotun has some problems in the endgame. (At least that is what I think, only good access to blood, no high death, nor high astral). Armageddon spam kinda ruins the nation. (as do utterdark and BoT of course).

Those are valid points but I'd say much of a nation's endgame strength is based on what they did earlier in the game and that eventually everyone's endgame starts looking similar.

But I do agree with you that having decent astral on your pretender is important. I've had good results with a sleeping enchantress. As an aside, expansion is a breeze with just couple of light blesses (F, E, N come to mind) on Jotun's sacreds.

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

And thanks for the large intro post too , it is very helpful.

That's good to hear. When I was writing it I was wondering if it was just because I liked to hear myself "talking."

[DragonRider]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Marignon is a pretty good substitute for Pythium. Not as strong, but you have decent astral and the same angelic summons available. I don't think they need an awake SC to expand so I'd save the points and go with the rainbow (a light bless, especially N4, would be nice).

The problem is that I don't really know what to do with a rainbow pretender. There's site searching, I guess, and of course casting rituals or forging items with the paths that your national mages can't use (i.e. pretty much all of them for Marignon), but I don't really know too much about which rituals are most worth casting. It's pretty clearly the best choice, though; the window of opportunity between getting Alteration 3 and pushing a Virtue/Titan/Lady of Love/whatever out the door and getting access to Harbingers who do the same job as well or better would be kind of narrow.

Really, my biggest weakness right now is that I don't think I site-search enough and I don't make enough use of the gems I do have, so I'm not sure if going for a rainbow pretender will force me to learn or just leave me with a pretender that I'm totally incapable of using correctly. If I can get past that, though, I think I'm leaning a bit more towards Marignon, if only because I can look at their troop lineup and have a reasonably clear idea of what I should be doing. Arcoscephale looks like more of a grab bag of random magic which, interesting as it is, would probably just confuse me at this point.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by DragonRider

The problem is that I don't really know what to do with a rainbow pretender. There's site searching, I guess, and of course casting rituals or forging items with the paths that your national mages can't use (i.e. pretty much all of them for Marignon), but I don't really know too much about which rituals are most worth casting. It's pretty clearly the best choice, though; the window of opportunity between getting Alteration 3 and pushing a Virtue/Titan/Lady of Love/whatever out the door and getting access to Harbingers who do the same job as well or better would be kind of narrow.

Really, my biggest weakness right now is that I don't think I site-search enough and I don't make enough use of the gems I do have, so I'm not sure if going for a rainbow pretender will force me to learn or just leave me with a pretender that I'm totally incapable of using correctly. If I can get past that, though, I think I'm leaning a bit more towards Marignon, if only because I can look at their troop lineup and have a reasonably clear idea of what I should be doing. Arcoscephale looks like more of a grab bag of random magic which, interesting as it is, would probably just confuse me at this point.

Ok, I see what you're saying. Well, I think you've got basic idea.

Here's what I think of with rainbows:

Site searching - Jump start your gem income, especially in paths your national mages can't. If you get lucky find useful indie mages or excellent magic sites (Conj. bonus, etc.).

Summoning - Summon mages that can take over the task of searching for paths your national/indie mages can't as well as provide magic diversity.

Forging - Especially forging boosters and unique items.

Spellcasting - One nice thing thing about rainbows is they are able to take advantage of what the game gives you. Not an earth nation but you've ended up with a very strong E income? Rainbow pretender can either cast Earth Blood Deep Well themselves or summon another mage and give them the boosters to do so.

Endgame magic - This isn't unique to rainbows but keep in mind what endgame spells you want to be able to cast, especially Wish, and make sure you have a plan to get there.

BTW, it's a good idea to have an endgame plan in mind. You can play the game like I do ("Haha! Check out my E9N6 Sidhe Lords! What? Endgame strategy? Uh ... I don't know... Hey, did I mention my cool raiders?!") or you can play like the better players and have an actual strategy in mind.

One last thing: unless you get lucky with indie mages I find many times rainbows have more to do than there's time for and you have to prioritize (especially when you hit Constr. 8 and are racing to forge items before someone else takes them). Whenever possible summon other mages that you can delegate tasks to - the rainbow opens doors and handles spells and forging that summons can't.

[DragonRider]

I think I'm just going to go ahead and commit to Marignon instead of Arcoscephale. I did a few test runs for the first year or two and it seemed to go well enough. Of course, that's just against the AI (I think Bandor Log wound up with a total of two territories in the most recent one, and I personally watched Caelum lose its army two or three times), but I have a general feel for things now.

I also learned some very important information. Like the fact that nine out of ten 60-year-old human fire mages will pretty much die of spontaneous combustion within a year and a half unless you take some growth scales, which narrows down my Pretender build quite a bit. Now it's just a matter of finalizing my paths and figuring out a research plan...

[Valerius]

Ok, I switched you to Marignon.

Old age is a PITA. The only one of my favorite nations that has to deal with it is MA Aby and at least they have easy access to Boots of Youth (blood slaves are cheaper than gems). This works fine until someone decides to cast Burden of Time.

So, growth scale is good, if you go with an N4 bless you can forge a Shroud of the Battle Saint to help minimize with afflictions and, if you find enchantresses, you can forge Elixirs of Life.

BTW, the first year is when SP most matches MP since you're just grabbing indies. If you're meeting your goal there then it sounds like you've got a solid expansion strategy.

[minko]

Id like to join if there is still room. I have one game under my belt (i got demolished in the first 10 turns and then kept on having two provinces full of PD :P) and 2 games that im currently still in.

When will the game start? I'd like a day or 2 to decide on a nation since I haven't played MA that much...

[cwkjc]

Need another player ? I just played MP stackers which is still running (but without me...)

[Valerius]

Minko it looks like you posted right before cwkjc. I just setup the game on the llamaserver. How about we aim for a Thursday start? Would that give you enough time?

Cwkjc, unfortunately this map is setup for 8 preset start locations - otherwise I'd just increase us to 9 players. How about if I add you as the first person on a wait list? I'm also thinking about starting another newbies game soon and I could already put you on the list for that.

[minko]

Sure, Thursday is good for me (thinking about Ulm or Aby... i'll prolly decide/send the pretender wednesday). Sorry cwkjc

[Valerius]

Ok, sounds good.

A quick note to everyone that when you send your pretender to the llamaserver you'll want BootCamp in the subject line (no spaces between those two words).