Erytheia... What can I do??

[Vini]

Please send build suggestions for Erytheia. I don't know if I go for blesses, awaken pretender or just high scales. What do you think is better?

Note: Suggestions for MP game.

[Mount Nomad]

W10 with a Quickness bless on an Incarnate would help you take the water provinces easily, but then be useless on dry land. Seems like a trap.

They have an underwater crossbowman? Their mages have fire and air access, though high paths are a crapshoot. That probably means a scales build.

E4, S6 Dormant Sphinx, maybe? Reinvig x2, Arcane Finesse, Minor Magic Resistance, Arcane Command bless to help out Sacred Mages, then Crossbow spam with those Javelin guys to catch arrows. When the Sphinx comes online, a few Crystal Shields would give badly needed path buffs. For scales, could do Dominion 8, Order 2, Production 2, Heat 3 (won't hurt you underwater), Growth 2, Misfortune 2, Magic 3.

Does Ery have any unique national spells that'd help?

*Edit: S4 Pretender. The heck was I thinking? -.-

[protokevin]

(No play experience myself, just some thoughts)

I think I'd go with a scales heavy build for them myself? I'd probably want death on the pretender to some degree. Your pearl mages already let you break into nature effectively (naiads) but I don't see any way to get death access. Death/fire would let you get flaming skulls to help a bit with specialising your mages, and death/water would let you summon kokythiads (or however that's spelled) to get fully into death. Of course, I usually play games with a good bit higher than average magic site frequency so I might value the ability to take advantage of all paths more highly than others.

In the age of the crossbow, I don't know if I'd put too much emphasis on blesses for the sacred troops. Some non-incarnate-only blesses, just because you may as well. Maybe inspirational presence to make good leaders out of your priests so you can rely less on your mildly insane princes and princesses. Or fire resistance if you expect to be tossing around a lot of fire magic, or if you'll be fighting someone else who will take too much advantage of their fire magic in your hot lands. Defence, cold resistance and withering weapons for the water and death side? Could be a nice boost to your sacreds without focusing on them too much. That way you can be safely imprisoned (coming out in time for summoning kokythiads and forging skulls) to have plenty of points for scales.

[Cal Lord]

I like a 7E Earth Serpent with the big bless. You can expand on both land and sea quickly and carve out a good amount of land. Going for 3O 2P 3H 2G 2M 2D this gives good production and good gold income, the drain and misfortune dont matter as order is high and resreach is quite strong. However Dominion 4 is not the strongest but you can build temples and have your profit + kings/Queens preach + your god is running about.

[nicknight7]

Daduchos are pretty much the strongest aspect of the nation, which gets passable but not amazing line holders.
Fortunately Daduchos can make a passable argument for being the best mage in dominions, so I cannot imagine playing the nation without unaging. Access to higher elemental boosters (especially A4) is also extremely useful, as is death, so a A/E/N/D rainbow imprisoned can work well.

You want to rush conjuration 5 for full sized elementals though. Your research can only really be matched by Bogarus because Daduchos are basically Mystics+.

[sunbeam]

Originally posted by nicknight7:

Daduchos are pretty much the strongest aspect of the nation, which gets passable but not amazing line holders.
Fortunately Daduchos can make a passable argument for being the best mage in dominions, so I cannot imagine playing the nation without unaging. Access to higher elemental boosters (especially A4) is also extremely useful, as is death, so a A/E/N/D rainbow imprisoned can work well.

You want to rush conjuration 5 for full sized elementals though. Your research can only really be matched by Bogarus because Daduchos are basically Mystics+.

Something that seems pretty obvious to me is that the game devs seem to have gotten away from the really limited mages they gave previous nations.

Mekone, Rus, Uruk (and Ur), Erytheia, all have pretty good paths and go decently high in the ones they get. Ragha a bit before (and boy do they get a lot).

They don't seem to make nations like LA Man anymore, which is basically just a two unit nation, one of which is a crappy mage compared to the Daduchos you mentioned (and it's not sacred to boot, so nothing you can do about age for them)..

[nicknight7]

While Magister Arcanes are certainly weaker than Daduchos without question, I'd trade every single mage Mekone, Rus, or Ur has for them. Possibly Uruk as well, but I have very little experience with them.

[sunbeam]

I really like Mekone's mages. After tinkering with them for a bit, if you find the right gems (and you will in EA), you can make any Elemental Booster.

They can pretty much cast any battlefield spell from EFAW wtih a recruitable mage (round 1, without need to even cast summon earthpower, let alone go through the communion stuff). Well there are two that take A6, which isn't reachable unless you cast Storm, but most people probably wouldn't want those anyway.

If you want to do Gifts from Heaven or some astral stuff yeah, I can see it.

[nicknight7]

I tend to play in larger games (with 20+ players), so useful out of capital mages is something I value highly, which LA Man has and Mekone does not. The cyclops is an absolutely fantastic mage of course, and far better than anything LA Man gets, but StR and cap only (which I'm not arguing it shouldn't be) sort of hurts.

[sunbeam]

I'd have to agree with you on that as well, but just saying that while they really can't do Thunderstrike/big nuking spells spells like LA Man, they can do the battlefield buffing spells very well, and there are a bunch of good ones in the Elemental paths.

And actually just for putting Fog Warriors or Army of Blank up, they probably do that better. And yeah, they can nuke, but practically they aren't in the same league.