Remind me the best way to design a pretender

[PK SPACE JAM]

It's been a while, been playing this game since like 2010 but its been a long 6 years since the last one. I usually like playing Hinnom in EA but for an example, I would love help putting together a god for Pyrene in MA who look exceptionally cool to me - I generally like playing blood nations even though im terrible at it and never figure out how to both expand and blood hunt but its fun to try.

[Necroscourge]

"best" pretender varies on what country you play. Superthugs are generally good, magicians are bit better in EA/MA, and strong dominions will keep you in the game longer

[boozermonkey]

Originally posted by PK SPACE JAM:

It's been a while, been playing this game since like 2010 but its been a long 6 years since the last one. I usually like playing Hinnom in EA but for an example, I would love help putting together a god for Pyrene in MA who look exceptionally cool to me - I generally like playing blood nations even though im terrible at it and never figure out how to both expand and blood hunt but its fun to try.

Million dollar question my friend. How indeed. There are guides out there but none of them really hit the spot, and how could they? Game is too complex for a cookie cutter template.

Instead, you have to analyze your nations troops and mages carefully. Look at who your opponents are going to be and figure out what they will be using against you. Then you can start to figure out a design that both shores up your weaknesses, meets your strategy goals, and armors you against the nasty tricks your enemies will throw at you.

[Big Dog]

I like to start off by picking a chassis with a discount and working from there when I first try out a new nation.

[iSeenUB4]

The way I do it is to plan for the mid and late game and use the Pretender to compensate or accentuate whatever the nation is good or bad at.

If I had to try MA Pyrene I would look at the troops and mages and try to get an idea of the following:
1. Can they expand on their own efficiently or do they need a boost using the pretender?
2. Can they get interesting mid-late game magic without needing the help of the pretender to create boosters and so on?
3. Can they cast significant battlefield magic or rituals that I would like to use later without the help of the pretender?

(The Dom inspector for 6 isn't out yet so I am doing it from the overview screen)
So for MA Pyrene; from what it looks it from there. It looks like a nation that has a interesting unit (Mouflon/Emerald Knight) that seems like it could be used for expansion; their other troops look very lacking except for the crossbowmen which could be used for a slower expansion. Their heavy troops look as if they are Marignon-level humans meaning they probably act like a decent wall once buffed up with some battle magics. Also note down the resource cost meaning if you want to use the troops you will most likely need Production 1+

1. So from the quick glance you have the option to either (a) use your Knights or Crossbowmen to expand or (b) help out with the pretender

(a) I am going to use the example that you want to use your sacreds/troops so I usually go for a Scales Pretender that also has magic that could be used later. This is not the most efficient but it should be good to play around and try things out.

Dormant MONOLITH / Obelix
E3 S5 N5
Grab Magic Weapons + Recuperation (So your knights last a while + you can counter any magic shenanigans)
Dom7 O1 P2 H1 G2 Mis1 Mag1

When Obelix awakes, you can forge Dwarven Hammers right out of the box to give yourself some forging efficiency on making Sanguine Rods for Blood Hunting and you have Nature to cast Gift of Health or Mother Oak

(b) You want to use a pretender to help out your expansion; you won't really need your knights for this so you can focus on researching some magic with the spare gold.
For the simplest example I will use the Earth Snake (Very oldschool)

Awake Earth Snake / Solid Snek
E3
Dom 9 P1 H2 G2 M1

So with Solid Snek you can expand on turn 1 usually. The 3 Earth magic gives a small boost to its Protection (Unless they changed this) and you can use it to expand around your capitol circle. There's not much the snake can do once you get past the mid-game and people start to get spells to nuke single targets. So you get to enjoy "a super combatant" for a while until the magic gets researched.

As for 2. and 3. its all up to you and what you like doing with the nation. I haven't played MA Pyrene but it looks like a fun blood nation that has Air magic (Sorgina). You can play around with Storm Demons (They're a bit rare and only the Heims usually get them).
The Sorgina is 2 Air magic away from casting the Hawk spell; unless they changed it its a very good way to get a blood economy started as those hawks patrol bonus is crazy.

My personal advice for blood nations is you want to try to find a way to get the economy started painlessly (and very painfully for certain nations); then the rest just slowly starts coming together as you play more.

[Imperialus]

Like Necroscourge said it depends a lot on the nation. You mentioned Pyrene, so to use that as an example:

Pyrene has really good heavy cav sacreds, so a bless that helps them lean into that is one potential idea. Not sure how I would go about blessing them personally... Possibly something that boosts their prot up even more but it might take some experimenting.

Pyrene is also pretty resource intensive for your decent troops (including your sacreds) so good scales would help with that. Their cavemen units are super cheap so you could spam them out like mad for expansion, though they will likely die in droves when hit by anything better than indies.

With that in mind, you shouldn't need an expander. You also have pretty good inherent diversity in magic paths. That said though you have limited earth and fire access and earth bless to buff the tankyness of your knights, along with fire buffs to attack skill would do well on your sacred cav. It would also open up some forging for paths that you have access to but only at low levels so you'll be able to site search for F&E but limited ability to use the gems you find. I might experiment with some sort of titan chassis with fire and earth access. Maybe dormant so it comes online at the end of year 1 ready to start sight searching and/or get kitted out with some basic gear to support an early war.

One other thing is that your muflons have bad Magic Resistance, so maybe boosting that up with a bless would help as well in which case you want to find Astral on your pretender.

[Huitzilopochtli]

I make my pretender in more of a role-play style to fit my nation and theme so I don't think much about power and thuggery. Most probably the exact opposite of what most players do.

[PK SPACE JAM]

Thank you guys all so much for the helpful input I think I have a much better idea about how to go about it now, its just such a thick game, it helps to have a refresher

[PK SPACE JAM]

any idea what Scales and Blesses: Turmoil Limit +1 means? some benefit to Turmoil scales or something?

[Draken]

Originally posted by PK SPACE JAM:

any idea what Scales and Blesses: Turmoil Limit +1 means? some benefit to Turmoil scales or something?

Your order/turmoil scales are shifted one step towards turmoil.

Instead of +2 order to +2 turmoil, you can now select from +1 order too +3 turmoil.

[1337Dude]

There are nation guides floating around for Dominions 5 that I would definitely look into. They're not up to date, and a lot has changed, but I think they explain enough that you wouldn't feel lost.

While you have a lot of range in regards to how you can design your Pretender, most nations usually synergize with one or two specific archtypes of Pretenders.

Seems a lot harder to cheese bless now, so that's one less strategy ro worry about.

[PK SPACE JAM]

Been trying to figure out MA pyrene but just can't get expansion going and don't want to do a super combatant if I can avoid it. hopefully someone better than me takes a crack at them soon

[Sombre]

Originally posted by PK SPACE JAM:

Been trying to figure out MA pyrene but just can't get expansion going and don't want to do a super combatant if I can avoid it. hopefully someone better than me takes a crack at them soon

Try a sight vengeance bless on their sacred cavalry.

[evilmat]

'(b) You want to use a pretender to help out your expansion; you won't really need your knights for this so you can focus on researching some magic with the spare gold.'
How can one use spare gold to help research magic?

[Sombre]

Originally posted by evilmat:

'(b) You want to use a pretender to help out your expansion; you won't really need your knights for this so you can focus on researching some magic with the spare gold.'
How can one use spare gold to help research magic?

By recruiting mages, or building the infrastructure (forts, labs, temples) to recruit more mages.