Suggestions needed

[Minrhael]

Just got the full game today, so I'm definitely not aware of any tricks I should be using yet so feel free to point out things that really everyone already knows

I'm playing Man/Tuatha in the Desert Eye map. Started out fairly well, and I've got a nice base going. I'm not currently exposed militarily anywhere although you wouldn't know it by that stupid Call of Winds that somehow beat down my 13PD province a couple turns ago *sigh*

As far as the score graphs go, I'm 2nd in provinces (but FAR behind Ulm), slightly above average in everything else, except gem income which I'm in 1st by a large margin, and army size where I am a fair amount behind. Also, I haven't gotten much variety in gems, I just have a (relatively) huge income in air and nature gems, with some earth. Gem income is Air: 151 +11, Earth 34 +1, Death 10 +2, Nature 76 +5, Fire Water Blood and Astral 0 +0 (just got done empowering a sidhe to 3N in hopes of doing some summoning)

My Pretender is an Oracle: 9Astral 9Water, so I had to take a few hits in the scales, but it's worked out fine up until now. (EDIT: specific scale hits Turmoil 3, Sloth 2, in case it matters). Incidentally, the Cu Sidhe are much more impressive than I expected them to be judging by their stats, the dual bless must really help them out.

My income is 415, with upkeep 125. I've got 13 provinces in a nice tight well defended cluster and am at war with just one nation, Marignon, and I haven't had any problems with handling them. In addition, Pangaea has a border with both my north and south borders. Haven't even seen another nation other than the periodic call of winds from Caelum. My armies are composed primarily of longbowmen, Cu Sidhe, and Daoine Sidhe (in that order, not that many Daoine).

My current biggest concerns are: small army size, and evil computer nation just cast Burden of Time, my first exposure to that, and 9 troops are old already, and I'm nowhere near Dispel as most of my research has been conjuration/construction.

My spells are Conjuration 3, Alteration 3, Evocation 2, Construction 3 approaching 4, with 0 in Enchantments, Thaumaturgy, and Blood.

Because I have no water gems, I've been using alchemy to get 2 per turn and cast voice of aspu looking for water sites, but am 0/4 so far; I was planning on going for clams since I've been reading about how great they are, then that Burden popped up.

I assume the burden of time is something I need to do something about (can I still use the aged troops, are they going to die, what do I expect from this?), so what all can/should I do about BoT, and should it be at the expense of expanding my armies which I'd thought until this turn was my primary task now.

Thanks!

[ March 21, 2004, 12:11: Message edited by: Minrhael ]

[Endoperez]

BoT gives afflictions to some units and kills others. It hurts anyone using non-undead armies, and especially badly anyone who uses expensive troops... I don't know does magic resistance affect it, or magic scale, or anything like that. I'd say that Ulm is hurt badly, but as you are too you should try to get rid of it.
You can either research Thaumaturgy and cast Dispel or fill the Global pool with your own Globals. You would need five, though, and I doubt you ca cast that many...

That's all I can think right now.

[PhilD]

If you can reach Enchantment 5, and have someone with 5 Nature, you can try Gift of Health. This will let your units heal afflictions, and give them more HP, so you won't suffer as much.

But, overall, Burden of Time is bad news. And what's worse, the AI don't seem to try to dispel it, even those that suffer from it.

[PvK]

It may be rare, but the AI does sometimes dispel Burden of Time. I wouldn't count on it, though. You could also assassinate the caster. Likely the caster is in the enemy capital. Can be hard to do, though. (Assassins, fires from afar, seeking arrow, surgical strike, etc.).

PvK