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[Karlito]

Orb lightning also has a fairly short range (not melee-close, but you have to risk the mages a bit) I think. Nothing you have to worry about too much with good placement though.

I've ended up in trouble trying to script orb lightening for the first round of combat. Since there weren't any enemies in range they couldn't cast it and went completely off-script.

[Delta Foxtrot]

That's my experience with it too. I think I used aim-lightning bolt-orb lightningx3 in 401 multiplayer to get around that issue. Since then I've also used attack-castx4 or attackx2-castx3 with varying results. It's definitely tricky to manage spell ranges sometimes.

[Mindmaker]

That is true. The shrouds I mentioned confer your bless effects to any commander wearing it, sacred or not. So any Pan with a shroud gets +2 precision +2 reinvigoration.

I feel that understanding of the magic system comes with experience. Don't really know any good ways to teach it.

edit: the shroud gives +2prec+2reinv only if you created your god with A4E4, of course.
The item is called "Shroud of the Battle Saint", is S1 (= 5 pearls) and requires construction-4 to forge.

Think a Titan or Rivers with 2W3S and 5 Dominion, 1 Order, 3 Growth and 1 Drain could be any good?

[USEC_OFFICER]

Think a Titan or Rivers with 2W3S and 5 Dominion, 1 Order, 3 Growth and 1 Drain could be any good?

Definitely not. A Titan of Rivers is not a good super combatant out of the box, so you should make it sleeping/dormite/whatever-the-second-option-is to get some more points and better everything. Or look at another pretender that'd do better awake.

Just my two cents.

[Mindmaker]

Think a Titan or Rivers with 2W3S and 5 Dominion, 1 Order, 3 Growth and 1 Drain could be any good?

Definitely not. A Titan of Rivers is not a good super combatant out of the box, so you should make it sleeping/dormite/whatever-the-second-option-is to get some more points and better everything. Or look at another pretender that'd do better awake.

Just my two cents.

Well wasn't meant as an SC, but I thought that you'd get 4W4S with boosters so it might add some spell variety to Pangea.
On the other hand I'd probably only use her for site searching earlygame so I probably would really be better of with dormant or sleeping.

God damn, spending what little of a free evening I have on designing pretenders instead of playing.
Edit: Oh whatever, rolling with Delta Foxtrots suggestion.

Edit 2: One more thing. Why does everybody seem to prefer Order over Growth? Shouldn't the latter give you more in the long run? I mean I understand that Order is better for Blitz games, but for long runnig games?

[Delta Foxtrot]

Think a Titan or Rivers with 2W3S and 5 Dominion, 1 Order, 3 Growth and 1 Drain could be any good?

I haven't actually played any LA Pan, this is all just conjecture based on what dominions variant of common sense I've gathered.

Dom5 is definitely low, not horrible against AI but you're just asking for a domkill if you take that to MP. 6 or 7 is generally recommended just to avoid dying.
2W3S is very light on magic. I don't really see much reason to boost W but higher S could be nice if you ever take her to a battlefield. W4 for searching/minor boost to your sacreds might come cheap. It's not a huge thing but worth putting your excess points into.
You're not taking any production? LA Pan is a pretty resource heavy nation to play without it. I think a little magic/drain scale is a matter of opinion. I'm not too comfortable with drain but some people do pretty well with it. I'd switch order-1 growth-3 around since order gives more gold per scale than growth. Growth is probably better if you plan on going into blood at any point though.
Keeping her awake would give you about 24 water gems extra and 12 successful temple checks, but I'd still be tempted to make her dormant and go heavier into scales or deeper into astral.

Note that W boosters are a cloak requiring W3 at const-4 and a bracelet requiring W1 at const-6. So you'd be at const-6 before you can start boosting your pretender, that's a long time and I'm not sure W4 has that many big spells worth boosting into. Sure there are good spells (Falling frost and liquify for instance) but they require mass of casters a single god can't provide.

I'd take another pretender entirely but if I was going with a Titan of Rivers, I'd take dom6 or 7 (I prefer higher but Pan gets cheap temples IIRC), more scales and deeper astral. I'd just ignore that the W even exists on that chassis during pretender creation.

[Mindmaker]

Dom5 is definitely low, not horrible against AI but you're just asking for a domkill if you take that to MP. 6 or 7 is generally recommended just to avoid dying.

Well they do have cheap temples so I assumed it wouldn't be too bad.

You're not taking any production? LA Pan is a pretty resource heavy nation to play without it. I think a little magic/drain scale is a matter of opinion. I'm not too comfortable with drain but some people do pretty well with it. I'd switch order-1 growth-3 around since order gives more gold per scale than growth. Growth is probably better if you plan on going into blood at any point though.

I actually did take production, but I forgot to include it in my post.
The drain was taken because you have a very good researcher.

I'll go with your first suggestion on pretender design and see if I can familiarize myself with the magic. Tomorrow that is.
Thanks a bunch.

Any why exactly is Order prefered over Growth? Doesn't the population increase production and gold income?

[USEC_OFFICER]

Any why exactly is Order prefered over Growth? Doesn't the population increase production and gold income?

Yes, but it takes time for the increased population to compensate for the lower income. And you definitely want more gold now than later. You need a ton of gold in the early game, to recruit expansion parties, set up temples and forts, so the more gold you have in the early game means that you have a better leg-up in the middle/late game.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Yeah, in the long-term growth gives more income than order. But there's no guarantees the game or you as a player in that game will last to see those longterm benefits. Growth is not a bad scale but order is slightly better.

Dom5 is doable, particularly with cheaper temples. But it's always a bit tricky. Basically it's one of those "do it if you know what you're doing" type of things. Higher starting dom also spreads your scales faster early on, which is good if you have good scales.

[USEC_OFFICER]

While we're on the subject of pretenders, can I ask if anybody has any suggestions for a good pretender design for EA Ur? Since they're new to Dom 4, nobody has written any guides for them, so I have no idea what to do or go for. All of their mages are sacred, so I was thinking about something with Air and Earth to help them out. No clue what else to add though, any ideas?

[Delta Foxtrot]

Well they are awfully expensive so you probably want to max out both order and growth. Most troops are resource light so a bit of sloth might be in order too. I've heard good things about Annunaki of Love and War as an awake expander. She has strong awe so you save up points from "mandatory" dom9 that most awake expanders take. She can also fly which is pretty useful to avoid backtracking while expanding and to use her as an offensive raider in an early war.

Using her as awake you get:
A3E4N2 (mostly for self buffing, though E4 is a compromise as a useful bless and a good battlepath)
Dom7 O3S1H2G3M1M0
You could tweak the sloth/temp/drain scale to get more points for A4E4 if you like. I'm probably overly cautious in suggesting just sloth-1. When thinking about sacred mages it's good to keep in mind what kind of spells they will be casting. Evocations usually require some precision to find their target while troop buffs tend to hit pretty well in my experience.
Also Ur has A2 mages who can spam aim for the other mages. No reason you couldn't double dip with A4+ bless but it's not strictly speaking necessary.

[USEC_OFFICER]

-snip-

The thing with A4 is that she can then forge air boosters and staff of storms later on, which could be very useful and give me access to the Queens of Storms and things like that. Plus a little extra precision for spell casting never hurts.

Anyways, going to try some more testing with her. The second battle saw her getting ganked by some Wolf tribesmen, so... Awe isn't entirely perfect?

EDIT: She only routed this time. So... Yay? I get the feeling that I'm missing something here. How would you expand with an awake pretender? Also, she does very little damage too. Blah.

EDIT2: Rushing for Const. 2 and giving her some gear seemed to work much better. The only problem is... rushing for Const. 2 and giving her some gear. Ur has pretty good troops, and I feel like I might as well just make her dormant for the extra points and scales.

[Frumple]

It... kinda' depends on the pretender, uh. Which is a bit of a non-statement because duh, but yeah. Awe alone probably isn't that useful* -- it's awe+fear that's the big one, or AoE/multiple attacks (Dragons, tramplers) with bucketloads of HP. One obvious mistake you might be making is forgetting scripting -- doing anything but charging forward and attacking is a good way for early pretenders to die due to fatigue accumulation (which is a good way for an early SC to die regardless.). An at-least minor E bless is strongly desirable for fatigable early-expansion pretenders.

And yeah, looking at it, an annuki of love and war would be kinda' terrible for out-of-box early solo expansion. Low prot, relatively low HP, no AoE and only two attacks, fatigable (and worse, flying, which chews up fatigue like damn), and a pair of built in route bait. Also low defense! She's got basically nothing built in except the awe that makes for a good army killer. About the only annuki I'm seeing that would be semi-decent at immediate expansion might be the sweet waters one -- water elementals are pretty beefy vs. indie chaff.

What you're looking for with an early soloer is being hard to kill (which needs more than just awe -- a virtue, ferex, would probably do a lot better) and having either a means to flat kill indies or make them route (though the former ties in to the latter, of course ). Fear and AoE or trample, plus high defense/protection (either/or, or preferably both) and/or high HP, is what you're looking for in most cases. An Annuki of L&W has... well, none of that. She's got the awe and a middling amount of HP, but basically nothing else.

E: It's not something Ur has access to, but if you're looking for an absolutely sterotypical 1st-turn expander you need look no further than the Ancient Kraken. Fear, bucketloads of HP, tons of attacks and an AoE poison effect (which stacks up even more morale checks over time). It can usually take one province a turn, every turn, until there's no more water provinces to take.

E2: If you're looking for a first-turn expander for Ur, I'd say your best options would be the Virtue (though that's a bit riskier due to no-prot -- it looks like you might be able to turn-2 forge a black-steel breastplate, though. E3: Could definitely turn 2 a 'zerker pelt, which might be an even better idea.), the dragons, or the Shedu, or maybe the scorpion king (especially with some water bless, I guess. The def's a lil' low).

*It's an opposed morale check of some sort, so yeah, it's not perfect. It would do jack all vs. skellie spam, ferex, and it doesn't get really sexy until it mixes with some means of morale damage -- like a bit of fear.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I'm learning that the hard way, as you can probably tell...

I guess I'll switch to a dormant pretender for Ur then. Ugh... Any suggestions?

[E. Albright]

An at-least minor E bless is strongly desirable for fatigable early-expansion pretenders.

Unless you're talking about disciples, having a dominion with a minor Earth bless will do nothing for the pretender's survivability.

And yeah, looking at it, an annuki of love and war would be kinda' terrible for out-of-box early solo expansion. Low prot, relatively low HP, no AoE and only two attacks, fatigable (and worse, flying, which chews up fatigue like damn), and a pair of built in route bait.

I can't find a source on it (or remember/find the hotkey to display the by-side rout numbers in combat), but I'm pretty sure autosummons don't count against the autorout calculation.