Carrion Woods is probably (in)famous as being the trickiest nation theme for most people to play.

And yet it has some interesting features:

DOMINION DESIGN

You are forced to take a minimum Growth +1 and Magic +1.

More Growth is not very useful; you have a lot of nature magic and undead units, so supply is not a big problem. The requirement is rather thematic and suggests a wild and lethal growth, hostile to humans. In fact, enemy invading armies get a supply bonus from your dominion unless in depleted provinces!
Every Growth level gives 10% more chance to get one free puny manikin in a province, plus a derisory low chance to get a strong carrion beast in a forest. Not a big deal.

On the other hand, Magic is useful to boost your research since none of your mages are good at it, and it also gives you a chance to get more powerful carrion beasts.

Productivity is only advised if you plan to make lots of heavy troops at the beginning of the game. Your home province will eventually loose all its population sooner or later, which will hit your resources severely when pop level reaches 1,000. An expensive fortress is inadvisable for the same reason.

High Turmoil and high Luck should be considered. Depopulation makes Order less profitable anyway. Sure you can levy more taxes and patrol with harpies but you’ll lose population faster.
High Luck gives you more positive events (some gems, some gold) and a greater chance to recruit your national heroes (Pangean heroes are just too useful).

The effects of the destructive dominion will eventually significantly reduce your income. A dominion of 7 kills about half the population of the capital by turn 12 ! Even a low dominion of 4 kills half the population of the capital before turn 20.

As long as you manage to keep expanding, the theme should do okay, but if you slow down the free summons you get will not offset the pop loss.

SPECIAL PRETENDERS

The Carrion Dragon is a moss-covered dragon that turns into a Carrion Lord. The dragon does not breath or fly but does have 200 hit points and recuperation (one of the biggest pretenders in the game) and can take advantage of unholy spells. It cannot reanimate but can summon carrion commanders, this means you don't have to purchase a Panic Apostate in the beginning of the game. Also, the Carrion Lord sneaks. Its fear aura is impressive (base +10, but could reach 20 with death magic and a horror helm) and it has 5 attacks/round. Like the other dragons, it has narrow magic skills and a very low dominion.

The Great Black Bull is very strong too (183 hp + recuperation) but expensive. It goes berserk at the slightest wound and can trample anything, so it should obviously be considered as a super-combatant and not as a support mage. Its magic skills are narrow and limited to blood and nature. Furthermore it has only two (misc.) items slots.

The Lord of the Wild is physically solid (90 hp + recuperation) and stealthy but even more expensive. He has Nature 2 and Blood 1 but is fairly versatile and can have other paths. He attracts maenads like a Pan (1-12 in maximum turmoil area).

The Medusa is much cheaper but physically weak however she comes with Earth 2 and Nature 1, other paths are expensive though. She can be surprisingly effective as combat pretender with some protection spells (like Regeneration and Invulnerability) or items (like armour or Vine Shield): she flies and her multiple poison attacks + stone gaze are really powerful.

Keep in mind that an undead pretender (Carrion Dragon, Ghost King, Prince of Death, Lich, Master Lich or Vampire Queen) can take advantage of the special unholy spells like Regrowth (grants regeneration ability even to lifeless undead creatures), Puppet Mastery (hastes) or Mend the Dead (restores hp). Demons, like the Moloch, are not undead and cannot take advantage of those spells.

SACRED UNITS

The only recruitable sacred unit is the Black Centaur. It is an excellent cavalry unit, even without a special bless, but your capitol will quickly depopulate (if your dominion is strong) and sooner or later you'll be unable to recruit them. If your dominion is weak, your resource production will last longer but the limit of sacred units will then be a problem.

The Sagittarian Carcass can be reanimated but is rare and you will never have a large number of them (its vine arrows are invisible but they do entangle what they hit, it is a minor visual bug).

So, don’t expect great bless effects with this theme.

CARRIONS

The Carrion Woods dominion kills population but makes free manikin units.

(autosummoning):

10*(dom+growth+1) % chance (actually a d10 is used) of manikin reanimation if there are unburied corpses.
(1+growth+magic) % chance of mandragora - else manikin.

Plus:

10*(dom+growth+1) % chance of carrion beast / pangaean manikins if the province is a forest.
(1+growth+magic) % chance of powerful stuff.

Unholy Priests can Reanimate manikins and carrion beasts:

Number: Priestlvl/2+(1D2-1)
Quality 10% chance of powerful stuff.

So, if you have ten provinces with dom5 (+growth2 and magic2) of which 5 are forests, you would get about 9 manikin and 4 beasts each turn. Of these one would be powerful.

Carrion Woods also gets extra sagittarians in forest temples since version 2.12

UNITS

One of the greatest strengths of Pangean armies is that their various units compliment each other well. While you're still learning try using each troop type in your armies and experiment with different battle plans or army compositions. Soon you'll find that Minotaurs are awesome versus infantry but vulnerable to cavalry, so try to counter these with your own Centaurs. Then you'll find Centaurs archers are good troops but at a disadvantage in long range shooting duels, as the enemies own bowmen usually cost 3 times less are potentially 3 times more numerous.

The Minotaurs are nice, especially against size 2 units : trample attack is armour piercing (divides armour by 2) and hits all units in a square if they miss a defence check -- very useful against heavy infantry. Against bigger units, like cavalry, berserking Minotaurs can make up for low attack ratings (they get +4 attack, strength and protection, -4 defence, but never rout).
It's only the resource cost that differs between armoured and unarmoured minotaurs, so unless you're in a hurry, there's no reason to use the unarmoured ones (note: they all have a strat move of 2). War Minotaurs are great for storming castles: a couple of those guys forcing their way through the gate allowing more and more to trample their way in. Whenever possible, a Dryad should cast Protection on the War Minos, to raise their armour protection from 13 to 18.
Minotaur Lords are better than War Minos, but have a very high resource cost and are probably not affordable.

The Centaur Cataphract is a good heavy cavalry but the unusually high encumbrance (for cavalry) leaves them with little staying power. They are cheaper than other heavy cav and knights, but their superior hp and good armour don’t compensate for the average morale. The spell Protection raises their prot. from 18 to 23. They can’t sneak.

The Centaurs are great longbowmen, they are solid and have an excellent precision, but cost 30 gp. If you need sneaking archers, try to find woodsmen or villains instead.

Centaur Commanders are quite expensive too and have only an average leadership. Buy them if you've nothing else to do. Independents leaders are cheaper but much weaker.

All centaurs have a special secondary attack: unlike mounted cavalry, centaurs use their own hooves, with strength added. Slightly better than the usual 10 pts damage (strength not added) of a horse.

The Harpies are actually one of the best Pangaea units, as they make great patrollers (flying patroller counts x2), and they can sneak. They're quite weak individually but a flock of harpies can destroy rear mages or light units with terrible speed.

Harpy commanders have no leadership but can have many uses besides scouting. Eg, emergency deliveries of gems or helmet/miscellaneous magic items to campaigning armies. They can also escort these armies, feeding them with supply items (Enormous Cauldrons of Broth or Endless Bags of Wine), even if they stay hidden, or jumping to another army 3 provinces away when their supplies aren't needed any longer.
Also, harpies can be used with other stealth units to cut the retreat of an invading army by surprise, provided your opponent has neglected to invest in province defence (and most provincial defences are made of light troops anyway).

The Satyr Hoplites are very average (you start with 5 of them). 10 morale only, but 14 prot and the recuperation ability. Bronze armour is cumbersome and reduces strategic move to 1 only. Their morale means that those halfmen have a very good chance of routing during any significant battle, and you probably wont find level 3+ priests to bolster it with Sermon of Courage or Fanaticism. With Protection spells, their prot goes up to 19 however.

Other, unarmoured Satyrs are extremely weak. In large numbers, the javelin version (you start with 10 of them) could be useful as missile unit, especially for early expansion, or to support raiding stealth armies in the mid-late game. The other light Satyrs are probably the weakest troops in the game (with the cheaper human Militia) due to their low protection and morale. Sure they can sneak around but their morale is even worse in enemy dominion…

MAGES

The Black Dryad is your bread and butter commander. She is expensive for a level 1 mage but sacred, and gets some holy powers (but no aura of awe, so she should avoid close combat at all cost). She has a decent leadership and can lead some magic creatures, but no undead, not even manikins. Though the main thing you'll use her for is research, she is very useful on the battlefield, casting Tangle Vines or Protection to give your heavy units a fighting chance. Protection spells are really important for troops that start with armour and/or have berserk.

The Panic Apostate is incredibly expensive, has no random magic and does not receive Meanads. It has a very good leadership and is nevertheless useful to field a decent army quickly (since no other recruitable leader has undead leadership) along with your Carrion Lords/Ladies/Centaurs. On the battlefield, it is able to cast some deadly spells like Sleep/Poison Cloud (undead and manikins are unaffected), and, more important, Mass Protection. Twiceborn could be used to turn them into undead wight mages (they then have no upkeep cost, what saves you 21 gold a turn for each pan, and there is a chance that they'll receive an extra level in death magic). Have them cast personal regeneration to reduce the possibility of getting afflictions in dying.

Pangaea CW takes a long time to come on line, there are really only 2 schools available and most green gems are used to summon carrion priests. But it can use interesting Death summon spells like Spirit Mastery, Revive Wight or Create Revenant to beef up a manikin army.

PRIESTS

Carrion Woods get holy Dryads but unholy prophets. All Carrion priests have unholy powers too. On the other hand, unlike Ermor, all independents priests are holy. Unfortunately, independents or mercenary unholy priests don’t exist. The only summonable mages with unholy powers are the Mound Fiends (Conj. 7) and one of the Ice Devils (Blood 5).

So, choose your prophet carefully, since he is one of the best reanimators. Appointing a level 3 holy priest (from an event or a rare holy site) will get you Fanaticism however.

SPECIAL STRATEGY

Pangaea has multiple stealth leaders and different sneaking units, including a longbow archer and flyer support. You could make good use of Pangaeans as CIA operatives. Instead of spreading them equally like butter across the map, send out different sneaking armies that erupt in spots all over. Use some scouts to locate other players first and new targets. Sneak through the big independents and leave them as barriers. Appear and Disappear. Work out from all the little provinces you get a hold of and leave your enemies befuddled as to where your castles are. Pangaea is a counter to anyone who uses the strategy of spreading in a circle, defending borders only.

To makes things more difficult behind enemy lines however, routed sneaking armies will die if they can't retreat to a friendly province. Sneaking attackers have to be very expendable or very much assured of winning, as a single death can cause the entire force to rout and die.
If several sneak commanders get caught in the same province, they attack separately! So don't take it lightly.

Stealthy preaching with Dryads is nice, too. And potentially you can force an opponent to spend a lot of time and units chasing you around or retaking provinces you just snuck up on (with 200% taxes preferably). And taking an opponent's province -even if he takes it right back- destroys his temple if he has one, in addition to denying him the tax revenues. Just keep moving to avoid patrols.

Another point is that stealth troops don't even show up in military intelligence reports if they're actually sneaking in home territory. If they just "move" however, an enemy can automatically get a fair estimate of the stealth troops in a border province. Also remember that you can store some units in neighbouring independents so you don't have to feed them.

Don't sneak with a large force (size does affect the chance of being discovered). Sneak with a force that's just large enough to overcome the local militia - all you really need to do (or can hope to do) is hit and run. By picking the weak provinces scattered all over the map they do fine. Pangaea often favours quantity over quality.

National Heroes

(There may be more powerful heroes available to other nations, but no other nation that needs its heroes more then Pangaea!)

Arcopythera (the Harpy Queen): gives your 2 levels of air magic and free Harpies. Keep her safe, as she might be the only air mage you'll find in a game! If you're lucky enough for her to join, try trading for a Bag of Winds or Winged Helmet with another player to boost her skill. "This ancient harpy has grown older and wiser than all other harpies. Reputed to be the oldest living being in all of Pangaea, she is the queen of all harpies, who serve her every whim. Arcopythera is skilled in magic and is a competent leader".

Taurotyrannnos (the Black Bull): not absolutely needed, unless you want to commit yourself to real Blood Magic. Taurotyrannos has the required skills to cast Awaken Dark Vines (those are unaffected by the unholy carrion spells, unfortunately) and Cross Breedings, or to forge Lifelong Protections. Or he can forge a +1 item like the Brazen Vessel and send Hordes from Hell. "Taurotyrannos the Black Bull is the offspring of a female Pandemoniac and a Minotaur bull. The rare hybrids who survive such a crossbreeding are seldom welcome and this was true in the case for Taurotyrannos as well. During his early years he was trained by his mother in hidden groves of Pangaea as a Pandemoniac. When he came of age he sacrificed his father and placed his skull upon his staff. Now Taurotyrannos has become a most powerful blood mage. His father's legacy makes him lapse into fits of berserker rage should he be angered".

Panicratos (the Apostatic Warrior) is a priest/mage/assassin pan ! He “is a young Pan with an unrivalled bad temper. His dismay at the fate of Pangaea turned him into a vengeful warrior. For a time, he stalked and slew human priests, but then the Dark Lord drew his attention. He has abandoned his magical practices and become a sacred warrior for the angry God. Panicratos is not a great mage by Panic standards, but he is a formidable warrior and an able assassin”.

Ambicephalos (the Ettin Mandragora) is a huge 118 hp sacred Ettin skeleton “reanimated by living vines and roots. Its vines strike like whips and their touch can make men fall asleep”. It has 3 hand slots and can take 3 weapons or shields plus its base 3 sleep vines. It has 2 head slots too (but horror helmets are not cumulative). As good as a Nataraja but zero enc., recuperation and all special unholy protection spells of Pangaea !

Last updated Aug 8, 2005.