Pythium Hydra Strategy...for middle age Pythium...

[MythTrip]

These guys are potent killers....of friendly troops, wtf. Placement on the far side of the battlefield didnt change these undisciplined hot dogs, they mixed it up and poisoned my Velites indiscriminantly.

Any ideas for a strategy? Is an all hydra army the only option?

[Bou]

Originally posted by MythTrip:

Is an all hydra army the only option?

Even then they are damaging your hydra tamers.

[pkk]

But one can use magic to create Hydra commanders. Via wish you can even get a daughter of Typhon to then make into a commander.

Philipp

[ÆtherNomad]

Divine Name and Wish are too expensive and late game to make it worth it.

MA Pythium doesn't really have a use for hydras beyond expanding, I think. Just recruit 5 hydras or so and send them with a tamer to colonize indie provinces. The tamer will die eventually, but who cares. You'll recruit another one. And then, when expansion is over, you'll want something more reliable to win your battles. Hydras are too expensive and have a too high upkeep anyway.

[Natpy]

Just use undead leaders with hydra-only army. They are pretty good sc killers

[Drithyl]

They are also excellent counters to tramplers, particularly elephants and the like.

[Catowl]

What if we gave Pythium some Form of a national item that auto casts a spell every round that gives your troops poison resist? That way you put it on a commander, and you WANT him close to the troops he leads to make sure the spell hits them. And have the buff from the item last only a few rounds, to make sure you keep wanting that commander around the troops.
Possibly restrict the item to only be usable by tamers, to show how they protect others from the poison of their pets?

[MythTrip]

Thanks everyone, couple of notes:

1. Dont see any magic created hydra commanders. Daughter of Typon is LA Pythium, I am playing MA.

2. Where do I get undead leaders as MA Pythium?

[Valnak]

The answer is basically: don't use hydras. 1 big hydra a turn is just not enough, especially when you can't bless them and if your hydra-only army somehow comes in contact with your normal army, all of a sudden you lose tons of normal troops.

Buy the gladiators instead.

Originally posted by MythTrip:

Thanks everyone, couple of notes:

1. Dont see any magic created hydra commanders. Daughter of Typon is LA Pythium, I am playing MA.

2. Where do I get undead leaders as MA Pythium?

1. Wish for it.
2. You don't unless you bring a death pretender, or get an indy or alchemize into death gems / get death gems from events and empower.

[ÆtherNomad]

Originally posted by MythTrip:

1. Dont see any magic created hydra commanders. Daughter of Typon is LA Pythium, I am playing MA.

Wish is for Daughter of Typhon, but it will appear as a unit, not a commander.
Whether you want a Daughter of Typhon commander or a regular hydra commander, in both cases you'll need to use Divine Name (or maybe Gift of Reason, but that's less accessible to Pythium). In both cases it's not worth the cost.

[Akkarill]

Or you can not bother with any of these expensive late game options and just make a snake ring.

[MythTrip]

Glti

Originally posted by Valnak:

The answer is basically: don't use hydras. 1 big hydra a turn is just not enough, especially when you can't bless them and if your hydra-only army somehow comes in contact with your normal army, all of a sudden you lose tons of normal troops.

Buy the gladiators instead.

Originally posted by MythTrip:

Thanks everyone, couple of notes:

Just to inform everyone - gladiators and retiarius (retiariei ?) looked great, thought they were overpowered - till I battled em. At the end of battle, they run away like dogs if they took a hit or hit someone. Gone forever - no coming back. One shot troops.

[Valnak]

I'm not going to quote that since it looks like formatting is messed up somewhere.

I see Hydras and Gladiators as the same - something you mass either as a last ditch effort or as an early expansion aid. They're not directly comparable but for expansion you'll tend to be better off with just massing new groups of gladiators.

You can certainly bless around having a hydra army... but that still doesn't make sense since your sacreds are almost all mages anyway.