Dominions 3: The Awakening/Nations/Pangaea, Age of Revelry

The previously innocent woodland beings of Pangaea have begun to take up human weaponry to fight the invading civilized nations.

Overview
Pangaea, Age of Revelry let you play a nation of strong, stealthy forest creatures. Your mages are strong in Nature, have little Blood and Earth skills and nothing else. Your priests are weak, but stealthy as well. All your national units can heal their own afflictions, most of your units are stealthy and some of your units can go berserk. Nearly all off your troops have good strategic movement as well as the forest survival skill. Your Pan mages attract free Manaeds, depending on the turmoil scale. Your national spells (spell songs) let you reanimate undead forest creatures, but none of your national mages can cast this spells (Death and Nature Pick needed, Enchantment Level 1). Your troops cost much gold but few resources (max 12), making it possible to take a Sloth scale. Your Sacred Units, the White Centaur is capital only.

Units

 * Harpy: Gold 7, Resources 1
 * A flying, stealthy patroller with no protection, few hitpoints and bad attack. Use it to quell unrest and harass enemy mages when storming fortresses. A possible use would be to attack units with first strike capability like heavy cavalry, but you should have plenty of cheaper units for this purpose when playing Pangaea.


 * Satyr Sneak: Gold 10, Resources 3
 * Cowardly Satyrs without shield and bad protection (6). Their most noteworthy detail is that the Satyr Sneaks increase unrest. Possible use would be to make a cheap bodyguard squad out of Satyr Sneaks for your Pan mages if you play with strong order scale. This squad raise the unrest level of your research province to let the Pan's attract more Manaeds.
 * But for just 4 Gold more you can get Revelers with the same effect, but the difference that Revelers are good fighters.
 * Another possible use would be to make a cheap bodyguard squad out of Satyr Sneaks for a Dryad and send her stealth-preaching into enemy lands.


 * Satyr: Gold 10, Resources 4, Spear, Javelin
 * Javelin throwers with bad morale and no shield. Use them for fire and flee tactics. The strength of 11 make the javelins fly longer and hit harder compared with human javelin troops. If you find indy light infantry with javelins, recruit those instead if your really need javelin throwers.


 * Satyr: Gold 10, Resources 4, Spear, Buckler
 * Your cheapest unit with a shield has at least normal morale (10).


 * Satyr Warrior: Gold 13, Resources 5
 * This is your standard infantry unit and it is not a bad one. The shield allow it to survive missile fire, and the spear in combination with the high strength (11) and attack (11) allow it to deal moderate damage while enjoying a good defense value (15).
 * The hitpoints are above human levels too (14 instead of 10).


 * Reveler: Gold 14, Resources 3
 * Stealth units should win a fight because there is often nowhere to flee after losing a battle. Revelers can help you winning with a battle with a stealth force. No Shields means you place them best behind a squad of Satyr Warriors or other Shield troops. But once those Revelers join the Melee fighting, their fight with spears and hoofs. And go berserk. A lovely unit.


 * Minotaur: Gold 40, Resources 7
 * Your standard trampling heavy infantry (size 3). Defense and Attack values are bad, but those guys trample over normal troops (size 2) and go berserk. Berserk lowers defense even more, but increase Attack, Strength and Protection. If they manage to hit something with those big battleaxes the result is devastating (weapon damage 9, strength 16). Unfortunately, Minotaurs tend to get swarmed after the first round of trampling. Being of big size means easy targets for enemy archers. Slowly raise a force for special purpose, like storming the gate of a fortress. Calculate losses, and employ them in big numbers only. Also don't mix Minotaurs into squads with smaller troops like Manaeds. Minotaurs do not trample over friendly troops, and are not fast enough to really outflank someone.


 * Minotaur Warrior: Gold 50, Resources 8
 * 10 more gold for slightly better stats.


 * Centaur: Gold 30, Resources 4
 * The only weakness of those cool horse-men is the high gold price. Those lovely units survive incoming fire (20 hitpoints) can defend themselves (defense 14), hit something with the deadly longbows (Precision 12) and are not so bad fighters (hoof, dagger, strength 13) if running out of ammo.
 * Place some squads with shields as arrow-catchers before your Centaurs. The low protection (3) make even enemy slingers dangerous. Also keep in mind that for the price of one Centaur you can recruit 3 to 5 shortbow archers.


 * Centaur Warrior: Gold 40, Resources 12
 * Big value for a big price. Those horse-men wear shields and have almost normal protection (9). Berserk means the protection increase after being wounded, and the extreme good defense value (17) means that even after going Berserk enemy's have trouble scoring a hit. Often you will find that an enemy arrow enrage one of your Centaur Warrior into Berserk mode. He will break the formation and charge solo against the enemy hordes... and survive ! At least some time. Centaur Warriors are fast, so if you give "fire closet" orders, make sure your Centaur Warriors come in big numbers. Else, your few Centaur Warriors will charge forward, launch 2 Javelins and become swarmed by enemies. If you have few Centaur Warriors, use them as bodyguards for your mages or give "hold and attack rearmost" orders. Centaur Warriors are your shock troop and the best answer against enemy heavy cavalry.


 * White Centaur: Gold 70, Resources 12
 * Your only blessable unit is capital-only an has nearly the same stats as the centaur Warrior.


 * (Maenad): 0 Gold, 0 Resources
 * Maenads are human females seduced by the wild lure of a Pan's flute. They enter a state of revelrous rage in which they shed all clothing and join the armies of Pangaea to fight with claws and teeth (Quote of the in-game description). Each Pan attract Maenads, especially if he is in a province with high turmoil. Transporting the Maenads from your research center to the front lines need some micro management and a lot of commanders with high leadership. While Maenads may have lost her clothes and all manners, but not their appetite: With 17 hit points the Maenads are nearly twice as big as a normal human female (10 hit points), but still size 2. Despite the description, Maenads fight just with a claw and have no secondary bite attack. Having no clothes on (protection 0) and bad weapons (all stats: 10) make the Maenads look like poor fighters. That is not so, each Maenad can go berserk (+1). Together with the already high morale of 15, Maenads may fight poor, but brave. Earth spells from the construction school like Legions of steel, Strength of Gigants or Weapons of Sharpness have all large area of effects and help your Maenad hordes fight better. Fighting and eating seem to be all that the Maenads are good at, because they make bad patrollers.
 * Note that the Maenad is neither stealthy nor gifted with forest survival. She is the only unit of Pangaea with no recuperation ability.

Commanders

 * Black Harpy: 20 Gold, 1 Resource
 * The Black Harpy is not much of a fighter, but she is one of the most useful commanders in the whole game. Providing military intelligence (scouting) like no one else, this bird-lady can fly deep into enemy lands and remain stealthy (strategic move 3). If not scouting for Amazon provinces or observing enemy troop movements, she can pick up strugglers (Leadership 10). Giver her some harpies or wolves and she can help quelling unrest or search for enemy spies. Remember that flying units and fast units are good at patrolling.
 * With one head and two misc slots, she can transport wine skins and cauldrons with food to your starving troops. Remember that a commander wearing two items of the same kind (like wineskin) do not get double bonus. Also delivering magic items to your battle-mages is a job where the Black Harpy excels.
 * If you have access to an fire mage let him forge a Medallion of Vengeance (Fire 1, Construction 4) each turn. Equip an harpy with the amulet and script her to (hold), attack largest / rearmost / archers. You don't get more "bang" for just 20 bucks.
 * If you have access to death magic, you can use Black Harpys to deliver Disease very fast: Forge a Bane Venom Charm (Death 2, Construction 4) and sent two or more Black Harpies over enemy armies. The Bane Venom Charm will spread deadly Disease wherever the wearer is and will also disease the wearer. Control the hit-points of the Black Harpy each turn. Make sure to change the Bane Venom Charm to the next Black Harpy before the hit-points reach zero. Switching items between commanders works without the need of lab, even deep in enemy lands. Ideally, equip the Black Harpies also with an Medallion of Vengeance and send her to a final suicidal mission after passing the Bane Venom Charm to her flying comrade. Show those Valkyries what "winged messenger of God" really means !


 * Minotaur Lord: 65 Gold, 7 Resources
 * Your only non-stealthy commander has only average leadership (40) and you will in most cases recruit an Centaur Hierophant instead. The Minotaur Lord has amazing strength (17) and berserk (+5) values while being able to hit opponents he cannot trample (Attack 11). Give him an Lycantropos Amulet and maybe some armor. The Lycantropos Amulet will make him go berserk at the start of the battle, give him +10 regeneration each turn. Should he survive more than a few fights he has a chance to become a werewolf... in his case an improvement.


 * Centaur Hierophant: 80 Gold, 4 Resources
 * Pangaea's bread-and-butter commander is sacred, stealthy, strong and a good fighter, an excellent archer as well as an low priest (level 1). But most important, he is a good general (leadership 80). Recruit one at the first turn and make him your Prophet. Use a castle with temple to produce one Centaur Hierophants. 80 Gold is not much for an commander, and you will need lots of his kind  to ferry your troops (Maenads) to the frontlines. He is better at sniping than at priest spells, so equip him with an bow. Any bow will do, and he can still fight with dagger and hoof if needed. Like all Centaurs, he has twice the hit-points of a normal human (20 instead of 10) and can survive one arrow. You should still forge armors for your Centaur Hierophants, at least for the better ones with Hall of Fame bonus. The low protection value of just 3 is his only weakness.


 * Dryad: 110 Gold, 1 Resource
 * Pangaea's best priest (level 2) is not only aphrodisiac beautiful (Awe +2), she is also very stealthy (20) and a nature mage (N1).
 * Send her deep into enemy lands and let her preach before battles. Unless spies of other nation, she can not instill unrest. Let her lead Revelers or Satyr Sneaks to raise unrest, she has leadership like a normal human commander (Leadership 40). Keep in mind that big groups of stealth units get detected more easy, and that the Satyrs have lower stealth values than the Dryad. Turning one Dryad into your Prophet could maximize the stealth-preach effect. A stone idol (Construction 6, S2E2) would further maximize the stealth preaching effect if you manage to access Earth-Astral mages.
 * If you forge her a simple Thistle mace (Construction 4, Nature 2) she can cast spells like Vine arrow and become an useful combat mage as well as defend herself against Assassins. She can protect herself with the barkskin spell in combat but would still profit from an forged armor. Rainbow armor (Construction 4, Air 1, Nature 1) comes to mind, because of the extra reinvigoration effect.
 * The Dryad is your best national researcher.
 * If you forge her a Black Heart (Construction 6, Blood 2) she can become an very effective Mage-Assassin. Deadly, stealthy and beautiful, she can bless herself to higher stats, cast Holy Avenger and attack with any weapons you give her as well as with her hoof. Time will eventually heal the chest wound of the Black Heart. The strength penalty from the chest wound (Strength -1) can be countered by forging a non-strength weapon like an bow or a whip.


 * Pan: 350 Gold, 1 Resource
 * Pangaea's battle mage is stealthy, expensive and so male that he attract Maenads. A strong turmoil scale will attract more Maenads. A Pan have 4 Nature Skills and ether 2 Earth and 1 Blood skill or 2 Blood and one Earth skill. There is a small (10%) chance for an additional Nature, Earth or Blood skill. A Pan provide you with 9 Research points for 350 Gold, but for 330 Gold you get 3 Dryads and the same amount of research. You still want to recruit some Pan's on the first turns because you have not so much castles with temples and labs in the beginning.
 * Send the Blood-2 Pan's Blood-hunting or site-searching. Let the Earth-2 Pan's site-searching by spell (Gnome Lore, Thaum 2, Earth 2) or accompany armies. The spell Summon Earthpower (E2, Conj 3) is very useful for battle mages. It gives you one more Earth skill and much needed reinvigoration. Don't forget that The spell Eagle Eyes (Alt 1, N1) increase your precision.

Strategies
Pangaea begs for the using of stealth tactics. Search the http://forum.shrapnelgames.com for the words Dominion, Pangaea and Gandalf Parker to learn more. Using stealth tactics alone is no long term strategy but it can be a highly useful ally strategy. Having good scales, building big armies fast and conquering the world is a long term strategy (a very simple one). You can rely on your national troops even in mid/late game. Your troops are good, even without any bless strategy. Your Pan's generate free lance-fodder units in the form of Maenads. The nature summon spells and the two blood spells cross breeding or animal summoning provide you with even more fodder. Any Death-Nature mage can recruit Centaur Manikins who in turn can animate undead Manikins. Having good national armies is a strategy, becoming a (part)-undead nation is another strategy. Once you have your gold income rolling, you can recruit large armies of good troops really fast, thanks to the low resource cost of your troops. You can also become a blood nation. Thanks to the recuperation skill, your troops fear neither starving nor disease effects like old age, making you well suited to fight against undead nations. Your biggest weakness is the narrow magic skill of your mages, so you must Design your pretender with that in mind or find indy mages really fast.

Scale Design

 * Order
 * Pangaea is one of the few nations which can operate with low order and low productivity which can grant you quite a few build points for other things.
 * lots of Maenads or not lots of Maenads ?
 * If you like to drown the world in Maenads horde, consider taking Turmoil 3, Luck 3. This will maximize the random events and most of them will be good, giving you lots of random gems, militia armies, Gold and other things. Luck also help with the spell cross-breading.
 * If you can survive without hordes of Maenads take high order and ideally also high growth scales.


 * Growth
 * Both order and growth will help you with blood hunting. Order will give you high income fast, and growth will give you more income over time, because your tax base (population) grows fast. Growth will help to feed big armies but with so much nature magic Pangaea does not tend to have as much of a problem with this as other nations. Growth does however boost the result of a number of important spells involving vine-units.


 * Sloth
 * Taking a Sloth scale cost you some gold but frees up points for other things like magic skills. Your national troops are not very resource intensive.


 * Magic: Your mages are not the best researchers in the world, so taking magic scales may help even out the odds. Magic makes it more easy for enemy priests to kill your undead Manikins, but it makes it also easier for you to charm / harm your enemies.

God Design

 * Unique
 * Only Pangaea gets Lord of the Wild. Along with the Pans he also brings maenads to you. He is also titan sized, has stealth, and recuperation from afflictions.
 * Only Pangaea gets the Carrion Dragon. Titan sized, fear of +10, and recuperation from afflictions. Its other form is a Carrion Lord.


 * A high bless strategy
 * may or may not be worth it (depending on map size and opposition), but having lot of magic skills that your national mages have not is definitely a good idea. Death comes to mind because death and nature magic share some magic schools (Conjuration). A Prince of Death with Death 6+ and good scales can fly, auto-summon undead take out weak indy nations alone. Later, he sit in his lab and cast Pale Riders or Ghost Raiders.
 * A Blue Dragon with water 9 makes your white Centaurs nearly untouchable and is a decent super combatant.


 * Rainbow Mage
 * take skills that your Pan's can't have like Astral, Death or Elemental Magic. Search sites.


 * Economy Mage
 * take a cheap mage like a immobile Monolith, give him some astral skill to cast Acashic Record and invest your points in good Dominion scales.


 * Combat pretender
 * Only Pangaea you can take the Gorgon. She can fly and have the medusa skill (units attacking her must make a MR check or die) but has few hitpoints for a combat pretender. Forge her a good armor and a long weapon (Black Steel armor, Thorn Staff) and send her against weak indy nations. Keep her in friendly dominion or let her support big armies with spells.
 * Like the trampling, regenerating Mother of Nature, N4E4 give a nice bless effect for your Dryads.
 * A Vampire Queen with D4B4 open you the path to blood magic, can fly and auto-generate vampires. If you keep her in your dominion she cannot die because of her immortality. Go for high dominion to maximize the area where you can use her. Dom-9 also give her the awe effect.

Research Goals
Do not hesitate to empower mages, especially with nature. You have enough nature gem income, and your Pans will find every Nature site in the world. You need to cast Carrion Centaur (Ench 1 N1,D1) fast and you need one dead-nature mage to start your undead manikin factory. If no other way is possible, alchemize nature gems into astral and astral gems into death gems and empower a Dryad. Better, have your pretender cast create Revenant (Ench 3, D2) and empower him with nature magic.
 * Conjuration
 * has a lot of useful spells for you, especially if you have high Death scales. Later, you can summon mages with Air Fairy Court, Random Skills Laima Queen, Summon Spectre, immortal Super Combatants Wraith Lord or nasty global enchantments like Wild Hunt.


 * Construction
 * let you forge magic items and path boosters as well as summon units (especially Earth spells) and protect your troops in battle


 * Thaumaturgy
 * offers you army-annihilating spells like Beckoning (N6) or Leprosy (D6), both at Thaum 6. Thaum 7 allows your Pans to charm enemy commanders.