That's true, but Limitanei Standards and basic commanders can be recruited anywhere so they're not going to slow you down most of the time, and recruiting a standard in a fort instead of a Comitatense is kind of a shame.
@@GeneralConfusionPlays Yes but turns are your most valuable resource. So if you have an army of Comitatense and need a standard for some reason it's worth it to get the one that doesn't force the army to move only one province per turn. That said Comitatense have 12 moral, and most of your commanders give a moral bonus, so they don't usually need a standard.
This nation really deserves another look with new updates. I agree that the new spells don't necessarily save everything, but just to summarize the changes in addition to the sacred assassins: - Renata/Renatus are now three path mages (1W 1D 1 Random) and have a cheaper twiceborn that can be done indefinitely (doesn't turn them undead). - The epoptes has their version of blood fecundity with nature gems that you get at enchantment 3 (which you want to climb anyway for your death communions or D2 renatus-mages). So you can get Growth 1. - Serpent acolytes can easily make a whole army immune to poison for foul vapors/hydras with increased AoE for their poison res spell. Blessed units have an automatic 10 poison resistance for free. Hydra hatchlings can be trained in every swamp temple.
But you get regeneration and quickness from mage buffs, so why not give your hydra fire resistance, and other stats instead? You get enough astral and nature mages to buff that guy up with barkskin, quickness, body ethereal, ez pz. Unfortunately, even gift of reasoned hydras still pretty much just suck (they only get 2 misc slots, not even a crown, which I think they should get like 2 head slots for thematic reasons, but whatever).
I Think Hamadryads should have some inbuilt temporary N Gems so they could be used for defensive Swarm:ing. That would make them neat, kinda like a turret. Who is also a tree.
I would rather they summon 2-3 harpies a turn. Harpies aren't exactly OP, but they would mean enemies would have to guard versus fliers and i think a slow but steady stream of flying chaff might mean Hamadryads could actually see play.
You can make the hydras and cataphracts work pretty well with an imprisoned rainbow bless, and still get decent scales, like we did in the game where I helped Sabouts win, but whiled that worked decently, I think you are right, you are probably better off forgetting about the (overpriced) hydra, and just go full scales (but that is also a bit boring IMO) No matter what you do, Pythium is clearly one of the weakest nations in LA. To win they kind of have to get lucky with a throne rush like we did, because in the late game they don't really have any good options. Personally I would only pick LA Pythium if I was in a game with a lot of less experienced players, since picking them is is like taking a significant handicap.
The thing with LA Pythium is that the sacred hydra as a massive trap, but it's also the national gimmick so it feels bad not playing the hydra game. Pythium just has nothing to offer that makes it stand out over other nations besides the hydras. It's tough to answer "why did you pick Pythium?" unless you want to bring up some silly meme hydra strat.
I really liked nuclear monkeys lets play of la pythium where the strength comes from the quantity of mages you can field, with the right rainbow you can boost your mages but mass vine arrow froze heart and fireflies spam with relief is effective One huge problem with their troop roster is they are a Roman army in the age of crossbows, though their kite shields help offset the issue a fraction
I always do well with LA Pythium. The trick is to counterbalance the heretics with serpent acolytes, don't go for a dominion win, and to play with high magic resources to get the gems needed to empower some of the weaker mages when you need to. That, and make the most of your strong start, which can be very hard for enemies to overcome on a smaller map. Honestly, most nations aren't that much different in the later game, apart from Domkill ones. By the late game, it's really more about summons than recruits, and most of those are the same for everyone. I also find it interesting that their mages are basically imitation versions of other, earlier religions.
I have seen Hydras being rather effective as well with just the Awe Bless. Comboed with their native Fear it keeps them from being swarmed by human infantry. And leaves them alive long enough to let their native poison cloud do its work. Positioning is important though. You want to keep them clear of your own native troops. If you field them together at all.
Really liking your basic nation analysis series, It helps me a lot to get a better grasp on the game as a whole. Could you however include a segment on National heroes tho? I know you're not into taking luck but It'd be nice to have a short review of what were missing by dumping luck, even if that's not a main part of the nation.
There are a few nations where the heroes really matter- LA Pythium isn't one of them sadly. I agree it would be nice to see them though. I will highlight some top tier guys and their nations for you though. EA Abysia in vanilla only has one hero, and he is a flying F3S2B4, which is stupid high blood. Being the only hero possible means you have a really good shot of getting him with luck, and he opens up blood pretty fully (can get to B7 with just boosters he can forge) even if you didn't take high blood on your god (but not vamps). There is Etimmu for MA Ermor and LA Lemuria, who is a mounted armored D3 immortal which is just incredibly good (although probably not quite as OP now that mind hunt is better) and will make expansion or raiding a breeze. I cannot overstate how annoyingly effective he is due to immortality. EA Berytos has only two heroes, both are really good but one which is stupid good. The Queen of the City is F3A4E4W4N2 on a titan chassis. With healing. This is just so incredibly good, and opens up about 3 paths that EA Berytos struggles with. Agartha gets a lot of good heroes every age, but the Onyx Oracle of MA Agartha is a stupid strong unit, being mindless, lifeless, 100 HP with base 28 protection. Makes a great thug at E3W1. These are the kinds of heroes that are worth looking again at luck scales. Pythium on the other hand gets a human HP W2N3 mage (you can literally summon better mages than this) and a human commander unit. Not great.
@@horrifyingthoughts thanks for your overview! Those are the ones one sees ,because they're awesome and I think GC also includes them to some degree. I'm not looking for a whole strategy guide for all boring heroes just a segment like "Heroes: Nation X has no national heroes, so lets look at pretender designs..." or what you just did for LA Pythium.
@@carlpult5235 Yeah I think that would be a good addition. If you really like the flavor or heroes you might want to check out the mod Worthy Heroes, which is about the most standard mod you can get and is run even in otherwise vanilla games pretty frequently. I personally prefer Dominions Enhanced which is like flavor and nationals overload but contains worthy heroes as a compilation. In Worthy Heroes LA Pythium is still kinda on the low end for heroes, but does have a chance to roll a F2W1D2N2 ctissian mage and their basic commander becomes an excellent commander (120 troop leadership) and picks up innate luck so he is less likely to get one shot by an arrow or fireball when leading troops and such. Most interestingly is probably the Master of the Games though, a unit I think is just wonderfully crafted. He is a human who has excellent stats, 4 attacks (one which causes eye loss and one that has a chance to insta kill), innate luck, and auto summons two gladiators and will automatically fight in arena matches (and have a pretty solid chance of winning even versus mages, although if you are hoping for that I would recommend quickness boots or something similar). Basically he is just designed to be REALLY GOOD for 1v1 combat and bring home the arena rewards (which in DE and if you use Worthy Arena are artifacts that you can give out, instead of cool but effectively useless individual items).
@@mdb45424 I know! Such a cool nation thematically but I just can't wrap my head around them. No matter what I try U feel like a worse Pangea wrapped into an inferior Ermor. I want to get them because their theme is awesome, but I can't
you use hydras as shock troops, put them in front and hold back with the rest of your troops, the posion cloud will punch a big hole in enemy, great for thrones add in some gladiator chafe so it wont die to arrows or spells,
I love playing the underdog! And that Lord of the Underworld strat sounds extremely fun. :) Winning the game, for me, is second. Fun factor is where it is at now. I may just have to sign up as a LA Pyth :P
Labs don't get burned down when an enemy captures the province, only temples do. And since none of your anywhere-mages are sacred, you don't need temples. If an enemy raids your lab, you just have to take it back.
I've found Blood Bond to be very cost efficient if you want to use hydras, especially since they have regen naturally. A few big Hydras and a handful of hatchlings can take a lot of punishment. It still wont save them from big magic later on though. Having blood bond and casting personal regen for your communions isn't too bad to have either.
For the late game, I usually use wish to get some seraphs, deck them out with the ark and some good armor +rings of regeneration, give them a bunch of gems and script them to summon fire and air elementals. From there, it's usually just a matter of watching the massacre.
Just a note: I've had serpent priests die to hydra poison as they made their way through the bless carwash. 15 resist can occasionally not be enough, so you either have to go with one less bless or forge stuff, which feels bad. Also don't ask why I was leading sacreds around with cap-only mages.
After all the power of MA Pythium, having most of it vanish and replaced with a barely functioning ragtag mage core hurts even more. WHY are Theurgs not recruit any where? also is it my imagination or is the most common fatal flaw of weak LA nations being bad at getting into late game magic?
with auspex and the sheer amount of cheap nature mages you have/ mother oak in alteration with your buffs you could start spamming out immortals early, especially considering the huge amount of land you could have early maybe Naiads, you could get those fairly easily. Lamia or Fairy Queens? I am just looking for a way of getting a decent mage, maybe even pray for death randoms and start summoning mound fiends?
By the time you have will of the fates (alt 8), could it be situationally worth it to use heavy buffed hydras in a big battle as a really weird curveball? Like, stoneskin (marble warriors), quickness (quickening), mistform (fog warriors), whatever your bless is (divine blessing from some holy guy in a comminion)? These spells would still work on your regular troops too (though might need relief to prevent quickening from just killing your infantry) so the main investment would be poison resistance spells and recruiting the hydras. Maybe with blood bond? Undisciplined does make buffing them a lot harder though. Grr. Stand still you buggers so I can buff you.
Not sure where stoneskin or fog warriors would be coming from. LA Pythium does have a rather crappy anti-hydra poison spell that they can easily spam out with their serpent acolyte priests though.
It's certainly an odd nation. At least the hydras are reduced in price a little but as you say, they're probably still a bit of a trap to use. Might be an anti-thug measure in the early game with that poison effect perhaps? I feel like a blessing would be nice on this nation just for all those sacred mages it can use, and they can make shrouds of the battle saint for their non sacred commanders and just have a nice safe resistance bless. I might consider a swiftness as well to help your mages escape a battle if they lose and to help your own snakes or cavalry connect with the enemy quicker and increase that distance with the poison cloud from your own troops. I don't think taking a strong bless can work with this nation, but it might be a consideration. Given your already strong early expansion I don't think they need it vs indies, so you're really thinking about what your opponents might do. So I think a small rainbow resistance bless is a solid choice. Also your mages generally have lowish hitpoints so you might want to boost that a little. I think undying could help with that or some hp from nature? You have reasonable access to nature magic so regeneration and healing is an option in battle. A healing mage to support your snakes or even just your regular line infantry. In particular alteration magic has a number of buffs and such that might be worth looking at. Transformation at alteration 6 could turn your rather lacklustre nature mages into war machines if you roll the right monster. at the very least they will potentially be a bit less fragile as well. And your variety in magic paths means you have some limited access to a wide selection of weapons or items to give them depending on what form they might take. Things like hamadryads might be worth transforming. This might be a more effective strategy in a heavier scales build so you have that luck to help reduce the chances of death. And enchantment not just for serpents blessing but other things like relief and mass regeneration. Growing fury (thaumaturgy 5) in particular might be worth building a strategy behind because I notice morale is kind of a problem for this nation and if you want to use lots of low cost infantry it can help get more bang for your buck in a pinch. Given you'll be relying on regular line infantry and maybe a few sacreds thrown in around that, that berzerking will give your army a bit more time on the field and on top of that. Your forces aren't that quick, even the cavalry are combat speed 16 which is just, okay. So fighting to the death might be your best chance of surviving. And if you can't climb that high into nature some low level mages casting panic and sleep could be beneficial. Cos you have javalins but you don't really have many archers. so you can connect your armies and put the enemy back line to sleep potentially. Alternatively inspirational presence is worth considering if you want to . Your cavalry have a serpent wounded shape once the rider is killed, so they can still benefit from some of those buff spells as well. You can climb to lamia queens in conjuration 6. 5 nature 2 death. Roll a renatus with 2 death to get a death booster. A serpent priest rolls 1 death. 2 nature natively. (This is the one you'll want to boost). Another serpent priest rolls 1 astral they can get a moonvine bracelet and a thistle mace. So that's 4 nature. you'd have to empower or use your pretender to get to 5 I suppose. But those seem like a few obvious hoops to jump through to get blood. 2 death can get you into shadow blast and some undead shenanigans. And just simple skelly spammers to help protect your mage line. If you're going up to enchantment 7 then life after death could be an interesting weapon to try out. 4 death and 4 gems. Gives friendly units a second chance to live as soulless. On top of a mass berzerk for your army you could make quite an interesting fight out of some cheap chaff units. Given you'll be likely massing lots of soldiers seems like an interesting way to double your money. Those are a few spells an ideas that came to mind. Given they can expand quite well thanks to the gladiators and decent enough troops I think your best strategy lies in just being very adaptable. A rainbow build seems like a decent choice for that. Alternatively if you want to go more aggressive with some bless I think you could leverage the hydras a little bit. You don't really need a super strong bless, even a simple regen bless might be quite effective for your transformed nature mages if you roll a decent thug chassis. Their mages aren't great, but I think you can still use them for battlewide buffs and spammers, swarms, skellies for raiders perhaps. Foul vapors as you mentioned. I think a rainbow mage can make a lot of boosters to help buff up some of those mages, and with the early expansion you can do some early site searching to help that gem income. I like good luck scales to help get more gems but you could do something else. It seems like an interesting nation to experiment with. I might try them out some day.
15:14 why did you have to use that word (mediocre), now I have to watch (listen) Nightcore Stargazing (original by Kygo) again... (always happens when I hear mediocre, that meteoric in there just sounds like mediocre)
Taurobolium is a terrible spell. I believe that you can only have one mage effected by it at any one time, it only lasts for a year, and it turns your mage into a (worse) heretic.
The reason to recruit the high quality standard is they have that 16 map move you love. The cheapo version only has 10.
That's true, but Limitanei Standards and basic commanders can be recruited anywhere so they're not going to slow you down most of the time, and recruiting a standard in a fort instead of a Comitatense is kind of a shame.
@@GeneralConfusionPlays Yes but turns are your most valuable resource. So if you have an army of Comitatense and need a standard for some reason it's worth it to get the one that doesn't force the army to move only one province per turn.
That said Comitatense have 12 moral, and most of your commanders give a moral bonus, so they don't usually need a standard.
For viewers after the initial posting, the sacred assassins are now recruitable at any fort. Also, more spells but those are eh.
This nation really deserves another look with new updates. I agree that the new spells don't necessarily save everything, but just to summarize the changes in addition to the sacred assassins:
- Renata/Renatus are now three path mages (1W 1D 1 Random) and have a cheaper twiceborn that can be done indefinitely (doesn't turn them undead).
- The epoptes has their version of blood fecundity with nature gems that you get at enchantment 3 (which you want to climb anyway for your death communions or D2 renatus-mages). So you can get Growth 1.
- Serpent acolytes can easily make a whole army immune to poison for foul vapors/hydras with increased AoE for their poison res spell. Blessed units have an automatic 10 poison resistance for free.
Hydra hatchlings can be trained in every swamp temple.
Are you telling me that my revolutionary Blood Bond/Regeneration/Quickness hellscales memebless Pythium hydra build ISN'T effective? Get out.
But you get regeneration and quickness from mage buffs, so why not give your hydra fire resistance, and other stats instead? You get enough astral and nature mages to buff that guy up with barkskin, quickness, body ethereal, ez pz. Unfortunately, even gift of reasoned hydras still pretty much just suck (they only get 2 misc slots, not even a crown, which I think they should get like 2 head slots for thematic reasons, but whatever).
I Think Hamadryads should have some inbuilt temporary N Gems so they could be used for defensive Swarm:ing. That would make them neat, kinda like a turret. Who is also a tree.
I would rather they summon 2-3 harpies a turn. Harpies aren't exactly OP, but they would mean enemies would have to guard versus fliers and i think a slow but steady stream of flying chaff might mean Hamadryads could actually see play.
@@horrifyingthoughts wouldn't swarm be better than that tho? Swarm spawns flying bugs with poison attacks doesnt it?
@@k_god7207 Well yes, that's the point.
Hamadryads(with the moon bracelet? nature booster ) and Treelords can cast transformation so they can move around.
You can make the hydras and cataphracts work pretty well with an imprisoned rainbow bless, and still get decent scales, like we did in the game where I helped Sabouts win, but whiled that worked decently, I think you are right, you are probably better off forgetting about the (overpriced) hydra, and just go full scales (but that is also a bit boring IMO)
No matter what you do, Pythium is clearly one of the weakest nations in LA. To win they kind of have to get lucky with a throne rush like we did, because in the late game they don't really have any good options.
Personally I would only pick LA Pythium if I was in a game with a lot of less experienced players, since picking them is is like taking a significant handicap.
The thing with LA Pythium is that the sacred hydra as a massive trap, but it's also the national gimmick so it feels bad not playing the hydra game. Pythium just has nothing to offer that makes it stand out over other nations besides the hydras. It's tough to answer "why did you pick Pythium?" unless you want to bring up some silly meme hydra strat.
I really liked nuclear monkeys lets play of la pythium where the strength comes from the quantity of mages you can field, with the right rainbow you can boost your mages but mass vine arrow froze heart and fireflies spam with relief is effective
One huge problem with their troop roster is they are a Roman army in the age of crossbows, though their kite shields help offset the issue a fraction
I always do well with LA Pythium. The trick is to counterbalance the heretics with serpent acolytes, don't go for a dominion win, and to play with high magic resources to get the gems needed to empower some of the weaker mages when you need to. That, and make the most of your strong start, which can be very hard for enemies to overcome on a smaller map. Honestly, most nations aren't that much different in the later game, apart from Domkill ones. By the late game, it's really more about summons than recruits, and most of those are the same for everyone.
I also find it interesting that their mages are basically imitation versions of other, earlier religions.
I have seen Hydras being rather effective as well with just the Awe Bless. Comboed with their native Fear it keeps them from being swarmed by human infantry. And leaves them alive long enough to let their native poison cloud do its work. Positioning is important though. You want to keep them clear of your own native troops. If you field them together at all.
Really liking your basic nation analysis series, It helps me a lot to get a better grasp on the game as a whole. Could you however include a segment on National heroes tho? I know you're not into taking luck but It'd be nice to have a short review of what were missing by dumping luck, even if that's not a main part of the nation.
There are a few nations where the heroes really matter- LA Pythium isn't one of them sadly. I agree it would be nice to see them though. I will highlight some top tier guys and their nations for you though.
EA Abysia in vanilla only has one hero, and he is a flying F3S2B4, which is stupid high blood. Being the only hero possible means you have a really good shot of getting him with luck, and he opens up blood pretty fully (can get to B7 with just boosters he can forge) even if you didn't take high blood on your god (but not vamps).
There is Etimmu for MA Ermor and LA Lemuria, who is a mounted armored D3 immortal which is just incredibly good (although probably not quite as OP now that mind hunt is better) and will make expansion or raiding a breeze. I cannot overstate how annoyingly effective he is due to immortality.
EA Berytos has only two heroes, both are really good but one which is stupid good. The Queen of the City is F3A4E4W4N2 on a titan chassis. With healing. This is just so incredibly good, and opens up about 3 paths that EA Berytos struggles with.
Agartha gets a lot of good heroes every age, but the Onyx Oracle of MA Agartha is a stupid strong unit, being mindless, lifeless, 100 HP with base 28 protection. Makes a great thug at E3W1.
These are the kinds of heroes that are worth looking again at luck scales. Pythium on the other hand gets a human HP W2N3 mage (you can literally summon better mages than this) and a human commander unit. Not great.
@@horrifyingthoughts thanks for your overview! Those are the ones one sees ,because they're awesome and I think GC also includes them to some degree. I'm not looking for a whole strategy guide for all boring heroes just a segment like "Heroes: Nation X has no national heroes, so lets look at pretender designs..." or what you just did for LA Pythium.
@@carlpult5235 Yeah I think that would be a good addition. If you really like the flavor or heroes you might want to check out the mod Worthy Heroes, which is about the most standard mod you can get and is run even in otherwise vanilla games pretty frequently. I personally prefer Dominions Enhanced which is like flavor and nationals overload but contains worthy heroes as a compilation.
In Worthy Heroes LA Pythium is still kinda on the low end for heroes, but does have a chance to roll a F2W1D2N2 ctissian mage and their basic commander becomes an excellent commander (120 troop leadership) and picks up innate luck so he is less likely to get one shot by an arrow or fireball when leading troops and such. Most interestingly is probably the Master of the Games though, a unit I think is just wonderfully crafted. He is a human who has excellent stats, 4 attacks (one which causes eye loss and one that has a chance to insta kill), innate luck, and auto summons two gladiators and will automatically fight in arena matches (and have a pretty solid chance of winning even versus mages, although if you are hoping for that I would recommend quickness boots or something similar). Basically he is just designed to be REALLY GOOD for 1v1 combat and bring home the arena rewards (which in DE and if you use Worthy Arena are artifacts that you can give out, instead of cool but effectively useless individual items).
Hinnom is another nation with really nice hero units for example
For reference, one of LA Pyhtium's Heroes is almost literally just a Serpent Priest.
If possible, can you do Asphodel sometime?
no one love the carrion woods ;*(
I can't even get Asphodel to work single player lol. I'd love to hear more about them, as well as more potential strategies with them.
@@mdb45424 I know! Such a cool nation thematically but I just can't wrap my head around them. No matter what I try U feel like a worse Pangea wrapped into an inferior Ermor. I want to get them because their theme is awesome, but I can't
@@Petterwass I got success going ranbow bless with their scareds, with the mandragon chaf.
you use hydras as shock troops, put them in front and hold back with the rest of your troops, the posion cloud will punch a big hole in enemy, great for thrones add in some gladiator chafe so it wont die to arrows or spells,
I love playing the underdog! And that Lord of the Underworld strat sounds extremely fun. :)
Winning the game, for me, is second. Fun factor is where it is at now.
I may just have to sign up as a LA Pyth :P
For as bad as LA Pythium is it's really nice that the Tribuni comes with a shield. I've been scammed by lucky archers one too many times.
Labs don't get burned down when an enemy captures the province, only temples do. And since none of your anywhere-mages are sacred, you don't need temples. If an enemy raids your lab, you just have to take it back.
He meant the enemy can use the destroy lab option once he takes it, which can be worth it.
If you can take the province back the next turn, you don't have to worry about that, since battles happen before building.
I've found Blood Bond to be very cost efficient if you want to use hydras, especially since they have regen naturally. A few big Hydras and a handful of hatchlings can take a lot of punishment. It still wont save them from big magic later on though. Having blood bond and casting personal regen for your communions isn't too bad to have either.
except most of your mages are scared and will be effected by the blood bond.
@@mdb45424 for anyone reading this nowadays, blood bond only effects nearby sacreds (5 squares)
For the late game, I usually use wish to get some seraphs, deck them out with the ark and some good armor +rings of regeneration, give them a bunch of gems and script them to summon fire and air elementals. From there, it's usually just a matter of watching the massacre.
Just a note: I've had serpent priests die to hydra poison as they made their way through the bless carwash. 15 resist can occasionally not be enough, so you either have to go with one less bless or forge stuff, which feels bad. Also don't ask why I was leading sacreds around with cap-only mages.
I think posion stacks so ending battle near a hydra = death cause you got to wait out till the posion ends
After all the power of MA Pythium, having most of it vanish and replaced with a barely functioning ragtag mage core hurts even more. WHY are Theurgs not recruit any where? also is it my imagination or is the most common fatal flaw of weak LA nations being bad at getting into late game magic?
LA is supposed to be low magic
La Pythium is like Conquest of Elysium's senator. Bunch of mages, none of them are any good. And they have the literally same units.
About time you did a pythium video...
MA Pythium is one of my favourites. LA Pythium is interesting but weak.
@@malibelizec2543 boooo pythium. Booo
Well if you book it up construction/thamaturgy you could start spamming out worm mages? IDK there is not a lot here.
this nation would be ok for transmutation, easy to get nature two mages with meh stats, maybe you luck out and get a gaint
with auspex and the sheer amount of cheap nature mages you have/ mother oak in alteration with your buffs you could start spamming out immortals early, especially considering the huge amount of land you could have early maybe Naiads, you could get those fairly easily. Lamia or Fairy Queens? I am just looking for a way of getting a decent mage, maybe even pray for death randoms and start summoning mound fiends?
@@johnbrearley9791 its not bad for conjuratoin, focus it for real mages
Regardless I agree that lots of fast research seems to be the only feasible way of surviving into the late mid-game
By the time you have will of the fates (alt 8), could it be situationally worth it to use heavy buffed hydras in a big battle as a really weird curveball? Like, stoneskin (marble warriors), quickness (quickening), mistform (fog warriors), whatever your bless is (divine blessing from some holy guy in a comminion)? These spells would still work on your regular troops too (though might need relief to prevent quickening from just killing your infantry) so the main investment would be poison resistance spells and recruiting the hydras. Maybe with blood bond?
Undisciplined does make buffing them a lot harder though. Grr. Stand still you buggers so I can buff you.
Not sure where stoneskin or fog warriors would be coming from. LA Pythium does have a rather crappy anti-hydra poison spell that they can easily spam out with their serpent acolyte priests though.
@@rovsea-3761 I suppose. I was just sort of assuming "big fat communion".
It's certainly an odd nation. At least the hydras are reduced in price a little but as you say, they're probably still a bit of a trap to use. Might be an anti-thug measure in the early game with that poison effect perhaps?
I feel like a blessing would be nice on this nation just for all those sacred mages it can use, and they can make shrouds of the battle saint for their non sacred commanders and just have a nice safe resistance bless. I might consider a swiftness as well to help your mages escape a battle if they lose and to help your own snakes or cavalry connect with the enemy quicker and increase that distance with the poison cloud from your own troops.
I don't think taking a strong bless can work with this nation, but it might be a consideration. Given your already strong early expansion I don't think they need it vs indies, so you're really thinking about what your opponents might do. So I think a small rainbow resistance bless is a solid choice. Also your mages generally have lowish hitpoints so you might want to boost that a little. I think undying could help with that or some hp from nature?
You have reasonable access to nature magic so regeneration and healing is an option in battle. A healing mage to support your snakes or even just your regular line infantry. In particular alteration magic has a number of buffs and such that might be worth looking at. Transformation at alteration 6 could turn your rather lacklustre nature mages into war machines if you roll the right monster. at the very least they will potentially be a bit less fragile as well.
And your variety in magic paths means you have some limited access to a wide selection of weapons or items to give them depending on what form they might take.
Things like hamadryads might be worth transforming. This might be a more effective strategy in a heavier scales build so you have that luck to help reduce the chances of death.
And enchantment not just for serpents blessing but other things like relief and mass regeneration. Growing fury (thaumaturgy 5) in particular might be worth building a strategy behind because I notice morale is kind of a problem for this nation and if you want to use lots of low cost infantry it can help get more bang for your buck in a pinch.
Given you'll be relying on regular line infantry and maybe a few sacreds thrown in around that, that berzerking will give your army a bit more time on the field and on top of that. Your forces aren't that quick, even the cavalry are combat speed 16 which is just, okay. So fighting to the death might be your best chance of surviving.
And if you can't climb that high into nature some low level mages casting panic and sleep could be beneficial. Cos you have javalins but you don't really have many archers. so you can connect your armies and put the enemy back line to sleep potentially.
Alternatively inspirational presence is worth considering if you want to .
Your cavalry have a serpent wounded shape once the rider is killed, so they can still benefit from some of those buff spells as well.
You can climb to lamia queens in conjuration 6. 5 nature 2 death.
Roll a renatus with 2 death to get a death booster.
A serpent priest rolls 1 death. 2 nature natively. (This is the one you'll want to boost).
Another serpent priest rolls 1 astral they can get a moonvine bracelet and a thistle mace. So that's 4 nature. you'd have to empower or use your pretender to get to 5 I suppose.
But those seem like a few obvious hoops to jump through to get blood.
2 death can get you into shadow blast and some undead shenanigans. And just simple skelly spammers to help protect your mage line.
If you're going up to enchantment 7 then life after death could be an interesting weapon to try out. 4 death and 4 gems. Gives friendly units a second chance to live as soulless. On top of a mass berzerk for your army you could make quite an interesting fight out of some cheap chaff units.
Given you'll be likely massing lots of soldiers seems like an interesting way to double your money.
Those are a few spells an ideas that came to mind. Given they can expand quite well thanks to the gladiators and decent enough troops I think your best strategy lies in just being very adaptable. A rainbow build seems like a decent choice for that. Alternatively if you want to go more aggressive with some bless I think you could leverage the hydras a little bit. You don't really need a super strong bless, even a simple regen bless might be quite effective for your transformed nature mages if you roll a decent thug chassis.
Their mages aren't great, but I think you can still use them for battlewide buffs and spammers, swarms, skellies for raiders perhaps. Foul vapors as you mentioned.
I think a rainbow mage can make a lot of boosters to help buff up some of those mages, and with the early expansion you can do some early site searching to help that gem income.
I like good luck scales to help get more gems but you could do something else.
It seems like an interesting nation to experiment with. I might try them out some day.
Zoomsnakes ftw. When they put all of the hydras on drugs.
Regen Fortitude on a Dormant with Rage of the Cornered Rat fluffer mages that retreat? Berserk hydras with 20% regen sounds fun (maybe not good xD)
So what you are saying is that my 15 games trying to find the best Hydra bless was a waste of time?
Oh lorde, it's a double!
What's your opinion of the changes made by the CBM? Personally, I'd like to improve the mages further, as they're still fairly shit.
15:14 why did you have to use that word (mediocre), now I have to watch (listen) Nightcore Stargazing (original by Kygo) again... (always happens when I hear mediocre, that meteoric in there just sounds like mediocre)
Do Hydras tend to route that often? Because that seems like it would be a huge liability.
I think they're more likely to just be surrounded and die without something buffing up their protection.
Taurobolium is a terrible spell. I believe that you can only have one mage effected by it at any one time, it only lasts for a year, and it turns your mage into a (worse) heretic.
I don't trust your math on jaguar tribe blood. Fuckers have a 10% random, but it's divided among FWSB so if you're just after the blood it's 2.5%