Patala

[Aezeal]

I'm playing this nation (no prior experience) in a MP game and I'm still wondering what way to go with my pretenter and starting strat.

-bless or not
-elephants or not
-which mage to recruit the first turns etc.
-which troops

Could someone who has a lil experience with this race and maybe some of the strats tell me about their experience and give some advice?
(I read the strat thread but that basicly says all troops suck and doesn't help me much further)

[lch]

In a blitz I neglected mages and went for "all elephants". Seeing as how 5 elephants alone can take most indy provinces, and 10 of them can do it without casualities... I spammed elephants and forts as "forward bases", splitting my elephant corps when they grew large enough and expanding constantly. When you have enemy contact... there's nothing that can be done about a stampede of 30-40 or more elephants. Not one thing, unless you enter the mid to end magic research phase, maybe. We didn't go there as this was a blitz. Until then it was fun.

In a MP game I followed the strategy guide and went with the VQ pretender. I use the Longbows exclusively for early expansion until the sleeping VQ could take provinces. It requires a little more preparation with a couple of scouts set on hold and retreat to determine in which order to take the indy provinces and it takes 2-3 turns before you can effectively start, but when you put those longbows on the rear and put them to fire, it means that you'll take provinces with zero casualities. Only heavy cavallery or other units that can reach your units without being showered in arrows first are a problem. Hence the need of scouting.

I went for those S1 monkeys as research backbone. More forts equals more monkeys per turn equals more research. My research, coupled with a magic scale, skyrocketed. When I had enough money, I hired the Naginis and those expensive super mages (Nagarishis?) as site searchers and for combat buffs. Don't hire the male Snakes, they're not worth it. When you reach Forge of the Ancients, every snake mage that you recruited will be able to forge clams. Bingo.

[Aezeal]

hmmm
no reason not to use both those strats though an elephant army and longbows and those S1 monkeys..

I tried a start with a bless strat and only 4 naga warriors took 2 indies w/o losses.. but.. they need a naga leader (magic beings) and a load of crossbows kills them quickly (I had a 9W,6N,4E bless)
I figure a 9E bless, 6N bless might be nice but then their killing ability won't be as good.

I'm thinking that elephants with buffs should work later in the game though. Spells for morale and protection?
Of course end game powerfull spells will be nasty but that goes for all armies.

[Zenzei]

Have you considered E8 cyclops? Gives you a great bless for the mages, nice SC god and good scales because E8 is dirt cheap for the one-eyed god.

[Ylvali]

lch said:
When you have enemy contact... there's nothing that can be done about a stampede of 30-40 or more elephants. Not one thing, unless you enter the mid to end magic research phase, maybe.

There is plenty things that can be done. Nature mages can spam slime to stop them. Pythium can use hydras. Astral nations can paralyze. MA ermor can use shadow vestals. Ulm can use crusher constructs as meatshields for crossbows. MA atlantis can make ethereal thugs very early. Caelum can spam false fetters and lure them off to attack rear commanders. Woodsman blowpipes can screen and paralyze elephants if massed and scripted carefully. A screen of black servants with shields works w archers/mages. Awake size 6 pretender. Air elemental spam. False horror spam. phantom warrior screen...etc. etc.

Elephants are good, saying nothing will stop them is just wrong. And if you face pythium, elephants are almost useless, 10 hydras can take out 30 elephants without casualties.

[Aezeal]

hydra's would be annoying I'll admit.. but then I'll have some mages too

[Shovah32]

I know you're talking about elephants in general, but this is LA and elephants, atleast in my opinion, are even better in LA than in other ages.
Firstly, armoured troops are much more common - meaning low defence troops that are just begging to be trampled.

Secondly, astral power is lower. LA R'lyeh is pretty much the only astral heavy nation(Patala has astral too, but they are the ones who will be using elephants), and even though alot of other nations have astral magic it is often not strong enough to make as much of a difference as it could in MA - Pythium and Arco for example both lose some astral magic. Pythium may still have Hydras(and sacred Hydras at that), but pythium in general has less counters than they used to(and Patala, with their strong magic, should have other ways to hurt hydras).

For the original question:
-bless or not: Not. While a bless from whatever pretender you happen to take would be helpful(particularly earth and nature for mages and national summons), it isn't really advisable to actually use a bless strategy with patala.

-elephants or not: Yes, oh god yes. As I have mentioned, I love elephants, particularly in LA. Don't make them exclusively, but make alot of them.

-which mage to recruit the first turns etc: At the start, I would stick with yogis and maybe gurus, you want to be spending most of your gold on elephants, longbows and maybe other castles. Once you can affort to, you probably want to start producing a Nagarishi every turn as they have crazy magic power and also make great site searchers(site searching spells aren't quite as nice in LA due to reduce site frequency).

-which troops: As I've said, longbows and elephants. Produce Bandar Archers when you have a gold shortage and light bandar archers when you don't, and remember that longbows can struggle alot against high protection and shields - so when facing them you can call in the elephants.
You'll want to make quite alot of elephants, but I would use them with other Bandar troops(instead of with your archers) like light warriors(stones+maces, stones get nasty with strength of giants) and heavy warriors(armour+mace) until you are buffing your elephants with your cheap astral mages(and possibly protection via Nagarishis if you have a large force).

Remember, both elephants and longbows both have fairly reliable counters, so prepare for them with your magic when you can. You'll want to clam, summon (particularly your national summons), site search and use battlefield magic with your Nagarishis.
Your nagarishis can buff your troops(the various protection buffs, strength of giants, weapons of sharpness and quickening all come to mind) and lay down serious artillery with spells like bladewind and falling frost, but you're very vunerable to astral magic(magic duel) so keep that in mind.
You'll also want to avoid using S2 Nagarishis in battle, because without them your Gurus will absorb any magic duels thrown your way.

Just some rambling from a crazy person. Hope they help.

[Aezeal]

yes it helps..

I've played the first 10 turns in a few strats and the main thing to me seems to have patience to get a few elephants

I've tried so far with a awake pretender which naturally means that scales suffer.. and suffer so much that the first turns pumping elephants goes slowly (I'm using sloth since most guides seem to have that, and only sloth 2 not even 3)

my tests where with a 10 dom 8E cyclops.. he could pretty much take provinces on his own from turn 1 (or 2 if you are more carefull) but I would like a bit better scales

options to me seem:
dom 9 instead of dom 10
earth 6 instead of earth 8
or both

or taking a dormant pretender

is dom 9 much worse than dom 10 for a SC (early, mid and late game?
same for earth 6 vs earth 8 (IMHO there are not much spells using earth 8 and not much spells that have better effect when cast byu a higher earth mage the bless is worse of course as is the protection of the cyclops (and my only test didn't do that well but maybe if I'm carefull)

[Shovah32]

Dom9 isn't much worse than dom10 for a cyclops, considering that he has fear and that protection will soak up most of the hits he takes - and that most of the things that can really hurt him(knights and elite troops) have high morale to get through the awe.
Try using him with Dom9 and earth8, then try with earth6. The bless is helpful and him having high protection is important, but you might get away with earth6.

[vfb]

Alternatively, on an E8 Cyclops, Dom7 isn't much worse than Dom9. The only difference I see is in naked fighting against large groups of barbarians, and longbows can do that instead. Plus E8 Dom7 has zero points left over. Lots of workable choices!