Pythium: newbish Vestals question

[fahdiz]

I have played a number of demo games as Pythium. In all games I've played, however, I've found that I have a dreadful time keeping my Vestals alive, even though they are blindingly fast.

Last night, for example, I tried a dual-bless strategy with 4-Nature 4-Air, and sent 8 Vestals and 13 Principii under the command of a Battle Deacon to deal with a small indie force just east of my starting province. I put the Vestals on the side (orders Attack Rearmost), the Principii in the middle (Attack Closest) and set the Battle Deacon to Stay Behind Troops, placing him close enough to the Vestals that he could cast Blessing without problems.

Although I don't recall the exact enemy count, they had a handful of archers, a few militia, and some cavalry. The Deacon blessed the Vestals right away. The Principii did their jobs flawlessly, but the Vestals were smoked in seconds by the small cav force as they were trying to get to the enemy commander and his entourage, even after the Vestals went berserk.

I've had similar problems in other Pythium demo games and was wondering what I might try to overcome this problem, or if other people feel that Vestals are too difficult to keep alive for more than one engagement or so.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide - I am more than open to any suggestions, including "what the hell are you doing using a dual-bless strategy on them?" I am totally new to the game, not sure if I'm doing the right things, and willing to learn.

[licker]

Typically I think of a duel bless strategy as one with 2 9s, not with 2 4s... if you are serious about the blessings you will need to spend more points in magic to make them worthwhile. I don't play pythium at all so I'm not great at talking about their strengths, but seemingly you'd be better off with nature9 or water9 for your blessings (and then one or two at 4 for minor effects). Nature9 would make the berzerk much better, and water9 would up the def and make them 50% faster so they'd get to the rear that much more quickly. Air4 is kinda useless only a 20% missle protection, Air6 is probably where you need to go if you really need the missile protection...

[Teraswaerto]

Nature blessing is a poor choice for Vestals. They are unarmored but have high defense , so astral 9, water and air are probably good choices. Not that they'd be very good even then... Having no armor is bad for survival.

[ February 12, 2004, 16:14: Message edited by: Teraswaerto ]

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by licker:
Typically I think of a duel bless strategy as one with 2 9s, not with 2 4s... if you are serious about the blessings you will need to spend more points in magic to make them worthwhile. I don't play pythium at all so I'm not great at talking about their strengths, but seemingly you'd be better off with nature9 or water9 for your blessings (and then one or two at 4 for minor effects). Nature9 would make the berzerk much better, and water9 would up the def and make them 50% faster so they'd get to the rear that much more quickly. Air4 is kinda useless only a 20% missle protection, Air6 is probably where you need to go if you really need the missile protection...

Great, thank you for the advice. I can see that Water (at a higher level than 4) would have been a much better choice than Air. As I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure why I chose Air, since the Vestals are faster than the archers anyway...doh.

[licker]

If you are going to go with water I'd really suggest going all the way to 9, the added speed for your flaking sacred troops is very nice. Also if you have sacred mages (priests are all sacred arn't they?) They will occasionally (50% of the time) get 2 spells per turn. This does lead to fatigue problems, but you can ease those in a variety of ways. Take some earth for reinvig, equip them with reinvig items, or get some nature mages to cast relief... As pointed out in some other thread, quickened lvl5 priests (typically your prophit if you chose it) that smite 2+ times a turn are quite useful, and being able to get all/most of your buff spells off in the first turn speeds up your mages ability to rout the enemy, or just hammer them before they close on your own troops.

[geo981010]

Licker-
Water 9 is great on most holy mages, but that blessing and Pythium mages doesn't add up to the sum of the parts. Water 9 gives 50% quickness like you mentioned (2 spells/attacks 1 round, only one the next), but the quickness spell gives quickness 100% (2 attacks every round). Since you have to be blessed to get the Holy bonus, any non-prophet mage should be quickened anyway on the same round as the Divine Blessing is cast on the battlefield. Very little gain for their mages...

For holy mages that don't get Water magic like Marignon and Vanheim (especially Vanheim - no feet and no random magic on the Vanir, so that's the only real way to get them quickened), the bonus is really powerful

[Wendigo]

To the original poster:

Taking 4+ Nature in the pretender of a nation with mage-priest such as Vanir or Arch-Theurgs is not a good idea IMO.

Do you really want to see your mages charging forward into hand to hand combat with their fists as soon as they suffer a scratch? The results can be painful!

[Pocus]

for quality troops, if you have astral mages, etheralize them. Thats not specific on vestals though, but it works rather well with them too.

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
To the original poster:

Taking 4+ Nature in the pretender of a nation with mage-priest such as Vanir or Arch-Theurgs is not a good idea IMO.

Do you really want to see your mages charging forward into hand to hand combat with their fists as soon as they suffer a scratch? The results can be painful!

/smacks head

Excellent point - thank you Wendigo. What would you have chosen for a dual-bless in such a scenario as I described? As an aside, my pretender in that game was the Divine Emperor.

Or would you not have bothered with dual-bless at all?

It seems like because the Vestals are such cheap Sacred units (good gold cost, perfect resource cost), I want to utilize them in the best way possible - but maybe a bless strategy isn't the way to play it at all. Any thoughts?

By the way, thank you Pocus for your insights as well. Hopefully I'll have my full copy of the game today (crossing my fingers for UPS to pull through) so I'll be able to test things more thoroughly this weekend.

[Wauthan]

I agree with Pocus on this one. It's all about how you deploy the vestals. These units got very little going for them besides the low cost and defence so water9 will play on their strength.

What you need to do is to deploy them in smaller Groups with a mage in the midst. Set the mage to cast protective spells like protection and luck while the vestals are on "hold and attack". They won't be able to take down anything but they will fend off the enemy while your mages pelter them with spells.

Plain Pythium is not such a good choice for a dual bless strategy though. You would be better off with taking a smaller amount of magic and concentrate on economy boosting scales. You got the best mages in the game after all so you might as well focus on them.

Serpent cult pythium however is a very different kind of baked potato.