Used articles:
Base principles of this guide have it's origin in fantastic Orionja's MA Pangea guide, Baalz's blietzkrig guide, Thedemon's steamrolling guide. It is worth to check these articles too.
General philosophy:
EA Pangea is quite complex to learn nation, but it top tier for people who know what they do. Generally this nation is like quick Italian lightly armored fencing master with short stiletto, who fights blind knight in platemail wielding two-handed sword. Avoid this blade and strike opponent wherever they are defenseless.
Pangea has superior scouts and sneaking troops, mages and priests. They see the opponent while opponent can’t see them. They hit opponent everywhere in vulnerable spots and dissappear in nowhere, forcing opponent to strike empty air.
Except stealth and stabbing, Pangea has recruitable forest mages, scouts and troops, great logistics, perfect scouting, fantastic thugs, freespawns, blood magic and dominion push bonuses. Details are below.
Proposed scales and pretender design:
We propose Turmoil or order-neutral scale to have upkeep-free maenads, Luck for synergy with Turmoil and also because random gems will be used for thugs and acquiring bonus mages with new magic paths is invaluable for Pan, Sloth because EA Pan doesn't use production much, Magic because there will be many low-path researches. Growth is good to have for blood hunting but Death is probably fine too given that player will be more aggressive. At least one major blessing is very desired for White Centaurs and Centaur Hierophant thugs: Water, Nature, Blood or Fire would be great.
Wrong way to play Pangea:
Is to build large army, move it to border province, attack one or two provinces of victim neighbor and move the army to do decisive battle - exactly what newbies do and it is why they suck with Pangea. Pangea pays for a ton of strong options by absence of high-protection soldiers and is pretty vulnerable to archers and evocations. Do you remember "stiletto and two-handed sword" comparison? Fencer doesn't want to parry two-handed sword with stiletto, they dodge it instead. Or even begins fight with stiletto severing neck arteries of a slow armored warrior.
Potentially it could work with order-production build, but Pangea still will take heavy casualties and you want war to bring profit. To maximize gains and minimize attrition you want to use the most prominent national powers, described below.
Everywhere recruitables:
Every forest provides Pangea Centaur Hierophant mages, harpy scouts, and some rarely used troops: minorauts and centaur archers. Just spend 700 gold for temple+lab combo. Later you can blood hunt with Pan here, so blood slaves come directly to lab, and blood sacrifice with dryad. It is awesome advantage and it is why you want Magic scale to make tons of these researchers viable.
Logistics:
The sluggish Pangean commander has Map Movement 2 with Forest Survival. And best unit has Map Movement 3 with Forest Survival. Add access to Boots of Long Strides at Constr0 to enjoy Map Movement 4, Boots of Messenger at Constr4 to move through mountains and swamps and excess of Nature gems and you will enjoy mobility, outmatched by flying nations only.
Information gathering:
Black harpy, the best scout of the game is at your service. There are no excuses to let potential attackers or victims to have unscouted provinces. There is Thaumaturgy2 spell Scrying pool, castable by dryad mothers to use to scry over heavily patrolled areas like enemy capitals.
Raiding economy basis:
Some people can’t raid succesfully, they play only ‘stationary’ armies. Actually it is pretty simple: select some undefended province (1-5 PD) and attack it with a very small force, just to overcome PD. Pangea proposes a number of cheap ways to do it (see below).
Why is it important to stab properly and it is super important to do as Pangea? Imagine you won a decisive battle. You lost 50 troops and enemy lost 150 troops. Assuming average troop cost is 10 gold coins, it can be estimated as you loosing 500 gold coins and enemy loosing 1500 gold, in total you improved balance in your favor for one thousand of gold coins. Now imagine you have simultaneously attacked 10 enemy provinces, every one is average makes 50 gold coins income. You got 500 gold coins, enemy lost 500 gold coins (assuming they take all ten provinces back next turn), balance is 1000 gold coins in your favor. We omit gems you stole. Same effect as fighting straightforwardly, but to win decisive battle you have to take risk of loosing and there is only minor risk in raiding provinces, done properly. Also you can and will repeat raiding to slide balance to your side even more. Raiding in average is low-risk way of playing Pangea and you want to abuse it as much as it is possible. Besides, raiding uses only a handful of mages who'd researched otherwise, and small amount of troops, costs involved are minor, so you will make pressure both by raiding and 'big stationary' army.
Stabbing samples:
Against 1-5 PD (one officer and a few henchmen):
Two Centaur Hierophants (Nature), each carrying two nature gems. Let them do four swarms.
One Centaur Hierophant (Nature) casting ‘protection, protection, protection, eagle eyes, fire closest’ and 5 Centaur Warriors with ‘Hold and attack closest’ orders.
One Centaur Hierophant (Nature) casting ‘bless, protection, protection, eagle eyes, fire closest’ and 3 White Centaurs with ‘Hold and attack closest’ orders.
One Centaur Hierophant (Nature) casting ‘protection, protection, protection, protection, eagle eyes, fire closest’ and 10 revellers with ‘Hold and attack closest’ orders.
One or two Centaur Hierophant (Earth) thugs. See below for details.
If PD is stronger, feel free to unite small squads into larger one.
Backstab bonus:
By 'backstab' we name massed attack and occupation of at least 50% or more - ideally it be 80% - 90% of provinces of a victim kingdom in the first turn of war.
Having invisible sneaking troops, Pangea really wants to backstab victims. Anyone likes backstabs, but there are two powerful specific reasons to do so for Pangea.
First: war mobilization is invisible by victim scouts. Second: infiltration to victim lands is invisible as well. Third: see time save conception in next point.
When BOOM occurs, poor dude has totally no time to prepare: almost all of their provinces are taken, minor forts sieged and capital disabled by unrest-generation spells and possibly is sieged too (see below). Decisive battle will occur much later, after dude will bleed to death trying to deal with raiders while Pan each turn buys more and more reinforcements. At some point decisive battle will happen on Pan’s condition in proper place in proper time.
Another opinion is:
GlointheDark wrote: While I agree with a great deal of what you said, especially that pangeai wants to avoid set piece battles and raid. It is a great raiding nation, one with unique flavor. I would submit that pangea's strength is not so much in the combat ability of the raiders - van and caelum probably exceed pangea. Its not in the mobility aspect.
But pangea's ability to spawn extra troops even from enemy forests does differentiate. As you correctly note, the victim of a sneak attack suffers tremendously from time compression. Pan has the ability to spawn troops well forward, saving multiple turns of moving troops to the front. Also perhaps not addressed sufficiently, pan has the ability to leap frog difficult provinces to take them at leisure, and to use them as bulwarks against more linear opponents. The ability to grab choke points is significant. Oft an enemy will make a priority of terrain with an oncoming opponent, but will leave for later 'empty' territories. You grabbing a close territory allows you to set the boundaries at your desires.
Time conception:
Often the most limiting factor in war is not gold, forts, troops or gems, but it is time. Time is required to order troops, bring squads in place, concentrate armies, forge equipment, research spells and do war preparations. Another bright side of Pangea backstab power is the fact unexpected sudden attack makes defender to severely lack time. Victim only begins to switch economy, recruitment and research to war mode, while Pangea already prepared capital diversion, moved raiding squads in place, bought a ton of sneaky revellers and other invisible troops, attacked, took their provinces and sieges a couple of victim forts.
Capital disable grand diversion:
Pangea has a number of great native unrest-generating spells. It is Rain of toads Blood5, Monster boar Conj5, Locust swarms Conj6, wolven winter Alter4. Now unite it with general backstab strike: two Rains of toads, a couple of Monster boars (unrest generated is cumulative), two wolven winters, arriving two Bane venom charm carrying harpies (you will have to trade for bane venom or get death somehow), also place Scrying pool spell with several months duration to observe level of unrest enemy capital has. And two dozens of Centaur Warriors backed up by a Pan destroy capital PD and occupy it. Combine it with general backstab. Capital unrest is already above one hundred, it can’t produce anything and there are saucy invaders on top of it. First turn victim attacks aggressors to find they disappeared in nowhere and there were a single harpy, who fled. Two more Wolven winters and Rains of toads follow and capital unrest is well above two hundred. One third of capital mages are already diseased by four turns of Bane venom charm action and Rains of toads effect, 20% of capital population already died to Bane Venom Reaper secondary effect and Monster boars generate more unrest monthly even if Pangea stops casting. If it is not catastrophe then what catastrophe is?
Also it is second turn of their other provinces being taken off by raiding squads. Now victim player has to spend several months and significant patrolling force just to clear capital of boars and harpies, loosing almost half of population to Bane venom charm diseases and having a half of mages inside and a half of patrolling force diseased. It happens while your raiding squads bleed him by taking off provinces and stationary armies conquer their secondary forts. In right place in right time.
To do the math, Pan spends 20 water gems + 40 nature gems + 80 blood slaves + 20 death gems and 1k gold for Pan+Centaurs army (that isn’t wasted and will bite enemy in other provinces). Victim has capital income reduced from 400 to 50 for several turns, it is about 1k gold. Also capital have income halved permanently (take it as 200 gold per turn), assuming there were 20 mages in capital they have about ten capital mages diseased (1k of gold counting capital mages as 100 gold each) and one half of one hundred patrolling force diseased (500 gold).
Totally it makes:
1k gold of direct damage; 1.5k gold or more if capital mages/troops are expensive of indirect damage connected with troops and mages dying of disease; 200 gold per turn damage for all remaining game; 3+ turns of capital recruiting lost; need to spend gold, patrolling troops time and recruit more troops to fight unrest while all Pangea spent were gems and mage time; Pangea does it the same turn backstab raiding of all provinces begins and Pangean doomstacks move to siege forts of victim. Now victim has to split forces to deal with capital pollution AND to reconquer lost provinces back AND to gather doomstack to withstand attacking Pangean doomstack(s). Or sacrifice any of these crucial tasks. it has great effect on player morale.
If the victim is powerful and has capital-only strong mages, Pangea may choose to add some more unrest producing spells third, fourth and following turns, trading more mage time and gems\slaves for significant decrease in enemy kingdom military power.
Damage Dealing thugs conception:
There is at least one separation of thugs by their purpose: thugs to tank a lot of chaff, and thugs to do damage-dealing duties. These categories differ by purposes, primary qualities and costs.
Thugs of first kind are able to take solo 20 PD provinces, stay safe in the middle of chaff crowd and take solo small enemy squads. Their priority is survival and these guys belong to more expensive kind. It is Niefel Jarl, Ri or some other expensive dudes with 20+ gems gear. Their analogue among Pangean troops is White Centaur: elite expensive survival specialist. In second year it is expected to have a few of these guys (for nations who can field them).
Thugs of second kind are commanders/mages wielding frostbrands, whose task is to dish tons of damage. Their priority is Damage per Round value maximized and costs minimized (so these dudes can be massed and add VERY considerable punch to main army). Yes, this second kind is better to be used in conjunction with other troops or en masse. It is regular commander with frostbrand, Jotun Herse with frostbrand, Slave Prince with frostbrand etc. Their analogue among Pangean troops is Reveller: cheap hard-hitting glass cannon. In second year it is expected to keep a dozen or more of these guys for kingdoms who use them.
Water blessed Centaur Hierophants are a mix between both categories, but are closer to second kind of thugs. They have extremely high survival value for this category (it's why they can be used to take enemy provinces PD on their own) and are somewhat more expensive for the category. They perfectly suit Pangea because this nation thug production bottleneck is not gold cost, but Water gems. We want best chassis possible for every Frostbrand we have, and by large margin it is Centaur Hierophant.
It is of utmost importance to keep fatigue low for thugs of the first category, but for second category fatigue doesn't matter. If Centaur Hierophant (3 base encumbrance, AOE attacking 1.5 times per round) armed with frostbrand managed to get his Fatigue above 100 in a battle and died, it means he killed enemies for several times his own gold cost. We are glad to make this deal seven days a week. But 99% of battles end much sooner and it is exceptional case.
There is a common confusion: people who aren't aware about second category existence and who apply requirements of first category - several levels of protection, fatigue management - to Centaur Hierophants, who rather belong to second category. Hopefully it will be more clear now.
Centaur Hierophant Thugs:
Thugs are major Pangea power. It at least as powerful as dominion push. Let’s check Pangean thugs.
For comparison imagine standard Bane Lord thug wielding frostbrand sword. He has 42 hit points, 20 protection, 13 defense and 16 magic resistance, 3 Map Movement. It requires Conj5 research, 4D caster, 12 death gems to be created don’t taking frostbrand into account .
Now review standard Centaur Hierophant with Earth random, using single major 9W blessing and self-casting ironskin. He has 23 hps, 20 protection, 20 defense, 15 magic resistance, 3 Map Movement with Forest Survival and he is sneaking. All it requires is Alteration3 research and meager 120 gold coins (and of course Constr4 for frostbrand). This guy is useful besides thugging duties: he is relatively effective researcher, he builds all cheap temples and labs you want and he is pretty competent leader. All you need to field this dude is to take default researcher and give him frostbrand for 3 water gems.
These two fighters in review are relatively equal or maybe comparison even goes in favor of Centaur Hierophant: he severely looses in health department with only 23 hit points, but has 7 more defense (!), has better offense due to attacking more often thanks water blessing, sneaks (ability to sneak or to fly is necessary attribute of raiding thug), has Forest survival with the same movement ability to appear where he is required and is incredibly economical due to research ability. Recruitable in any forest thug chassis comparable to Bane Lord for just 120 gold, 10 gold per death gem? Gimmi two please.
This guy is brilliant in raiding and very decent in battles. Stick a vine shield if you have excess of Nature gems, and as Pangea you most likely have some Nature gems to spend.
These are rather Damage Dealing thugs: count them as an extra-heavy expensive cavalry with lances: they jump in, first-strike with frostbrands clearing few squares of troops, survive counter strike of few squares of enemy regular troops, strike with frostbrands again and reasonably hope destruction they produced is enough to rout enemy squad. It means they are not intended to be surrounded by enemies for several turns and if it is possible, they don't attack frontally, except of raiding minor PD case. You want them to make flanking strikes, it is what they are best at.
Ranged power:
Let review Centaur Hierophant with Nature random. He has 13 base precision. Add eagle eyes and it will be 18. Earn a couple more of experience stars and you have guy who shoots 1.5 times per round (water blessing) with 20 precision. Give him some bow and enjoy enemies dying in droves. Yeah, he is base reseacher too, and has 3 map movement with forest walk too.
Centaur Hierophant with Water random trades 5 precision from Eagle Eyes for Quickness. He shoots twice per round with 13-15 precision. Now add him a bow of War and enjoy flying death: 26 13 accurate arrows per round from this single humble guy.
And Dryads combine pleasure with benefit: they have both Quickness and Eagle eyes, loosing base 3 precision.
Dryads:
Dryads have decent seducing ability. It was so powerful that it was nerfed in latest patches: now about of half seduction attempts end in nothing rather than assassination. Generally it hardly worth it, but every potential power should be used before decisive battle. Send a dozen of dryads, set to cast swarm twice, to province you know enemy deathstack will come to this turn. Order seduce/assassinate, and force enemy into decisive battle next turn. Approximately one third of seduction attempts (total 4) will succeed, one third (total 4) end in assassinations, and one third fails: if it goes well, enemy will fight without eight mages or commanders, troops lead by them will be unscripted and prepared spells won’t be cast.
Also there are no excuses not to bring all dryads available, - it is pretty many of them with Map Move 3 and Forest Survival - to a province with a fort enemy will conquer now to seduce sieging army officers from fort safety.
JustNoEffort wrote:Swarm can later transition into creeping doom at alt 7, which is easily capable of killing even thugs / some SC's. If you get Mother Oak early enough (you pretty much always should as Pan) it's not a big deal to toss some thistle maces on the cheaper dryads to get this going (kudos to JustNoEffort for the tip). If you have a fort on lockdown but don't want to siege it, I like taking the troops off for one turn and leaving dryads stealthed, then next turn you retake it + spam seductions on the mages inside.
Minotaurs:
Very expensive and visible by enemies beforehand trick is to use Minotaurs. They don’t sneak and they are crazy expensive, but buffed with Army of Giants Alteration6, Wooden Warriors Alteration5 - or Marble Warriors Alteration7, Haste Ench4 and Growing Fury Thaum5 they pretty much worth their cost. Also they can be bought in any forest, what helps. Use them against large armies of human-sized troops, avoid to use against big evocation mage squads.
Harpies support:
Harpies propose great chassis not just for scouting or gems carriers. If you have death mages, let harpies have skull talisman Constr0 or otherwise use lifelong protection Constr4 and enjoy never ending horde of chaff. Flying will ensure these ladies appear exactly where you want them to be. Also imps will be pretty deterrent for possible thugs, ruining their buffing cycle. There are two imps per round per harpy, it means that for ten rounds you get twenty imps, and for fifty rounds it is one hundred of imps. It is pretty strong tactics and one of great ways to invest blood.
Freespawns:
Maenads. These ladies seem to have unimpressive stats, but think about number and buffs. Difference between heavily buffed maenads and heavily buffed revellers isn’t as high. Besides, maenads add up and compose Pangean winning ticket in late game: hordes of upkeep-free chaff are great. Also they make castle sieges - and defense - easy as a piece of cake.
The best their characteristic is ability to go berserk. Used together with ‘Growing Fury’ Thaum5 spell, they will die or grant you victory.
JustNoEffort wrote:Since you aren't against a turmoil build you might also want to mention what to do when you actually do take a maenad fight. That's when spells like iron bane, destruction and mass flight can turn maenads into real powerhouses. Also against opponents who know what they're doing I'm often using maenads just to sit inside of castles and make them unsiegeable OR to siege down enemy castles.
Blood magic:
You will use slaves for blood sacrifice, lifelong protections forging, rain of toads casting, Infernal Disease remote assassinations and maybe Demon Knights calling. Another very slow, but winning strategy encouraging middle-late game turtling is to get somehow 4D mage (empower Mother Dryad to Death to cast Streams from Hades Conjuration6 spell), empower it to blood and build vampire lords (Curse of Blood Blood7) farm. Every one summons immortal vampire that costs 11 blood slaves for free.
Blood Rain Blood7 spell that lowers everyone morale is perfectly combined with Growing Fury you already have and use.
Dominion management:
As a Pangea you have very powerful tool to influence a game, is your ability to expand dominion like a mad. It consists of three levers to abuse: cheap 200 gold temples, cheap sneaking 155 gold 2H dryads-priests, and ability to sacrifice together with national blood hunters. It is rather lategame power, though can be used early in game to be sure all provinces are covered by your fruitful dominion . Dominion push is combined perfectly with vampire farm mentioned above or Vengeful Waters Thaum7/Gift of Health Ench6 /Enchanted Forest Conj9 globals.
There is a possibility to play domkill early game: take high dominion, alive SC pretender and produce many dryads to mutilate enemy dominion.
Patrolling:
To gather all blood slaves Pan wants for blood sac and blood magic use, many pans will hunt for slaves. It means Pan wants to patrol heavily one province or many provinces slightly to keep unrest minor. Fortunately, Pan has access to the most efficient patrollers in game: harpies and wolves. Harpies are available immediately in any forest for gold, and upkeep-free wolves may be gained by Pack of Wolves Conj2 spell or Call of Nature Conj4 spell, latest spell produces werewolf who generates free wolves.
Underwater expansion:
Pangea has access for early thugs, underwater breathing items: shambler skins, rings of water breathing and Dryad Mothercan forge Manual of Water Breathing to bring White Centaurs or some other decent troops underwater, and Pangean general research tree priorities encourage underwater trips. Hint: use Ring of Snake for thugs who will take hits of tritons: these monsters use coral poisoned weaponry.
Pangea early game research plan:
Pangea is always powerful due to sneaking troops.
Initially Pan has mighty sacred White Centaurs, revellers and decent flanking Centaur Warriors, so with decent bless early rush is good option.
Minor research to Alteration3 opens protection spell to make raiding even more attrition-less and Centaur Hierophant with Nature random useful, also several Nature mages may cover by protection significant White Centaur or Warrior Centaur squad during decisive battles, making them very strong and cost-efficient cavalry. Reseach to Constr4 to become major power with Centaur Hierophant Thugs. Collect some water gems in advance to start forging frostbrands immediately. Congratulations, now you can transform several Centaur Hierophants researchers with Earth magic path to thugs - dudes comparable to Bane Lord in power - and will buy for cents one or two of them per each turn for the rest of game. It means you reached first Pangean peak of power. Use it ASAP and eat some weak kingdom nearby.
Alteration4 grants Swarm to raid cheap for just nature gems and makes Centaur Hierophant with Nature random even more useful. Then open Alteration5 to get Mother Oak (another reason why we wanted Constr4 is to get thistle mace to boost Pan to cast this global) and Wooden Warriors. Now you want to take another level of power with Growing Fury Thaumaturgy5, making armies composed of maenads, revellers, Centaur Warriors, White Centaurs and Minotaurs berserkering unstoppable force. You already have excellent elite troops, but you really don't want to use them against archer-heavy and mage-heavy armies. There is a solution! Now you have elite fearless unstoppable chaff winning battles after standard anti-Pangea counters are depleted: enemy mages are fatigued out and archers are off arrows after slaying majority of Pangean chaff. Now it is time to get revenge even if 75% casualties limit was reached. See Dl.dropboxusercontent.com screenshot to see sample of such kind of victory. Unstoppable chaff army brings Pangea to a second peak of power. Take someone else capital now.
There are minor bonuses worthy to take at Conjuration3 with Summon Earthpower for Pans and Blood1 with Reinvigoration. If there is peaceful time and you have some Pans around, take a tour into Blood to prepare some B5 Pans to be remote Infernal Disease or Ritual of Five Gate casters and Demon Knight producers. Now you entered middle-game period, and want to utilize powers you got efficiently, being aggressive to neighbors.
Further research directions are Alteration tree, gaining mass protections and armies of Foo, Enchantment tree with Mass regeneration, Domes, Relief, Mass poisoning and poison protection spells, and Conjuration to get magic diversity (Faerie Court, Lamia Queen, Stream from Hades) and upkeep-free troops.
Pangea lategame:
There are maenad upkeep-free hordes (if you took neutral-order or chaotic scales), strong dominion push, high nature battle-field wide buffs and vampire farm trick. Also you get high Air by Faerie Court Conj8 and Death by Lamia Queen Conj7 summons. Instant mass-transportation is available by Faerie Trod Enchantment5 spell. One SC that is almost guaranteed for Pan is Pedoseion, 130hp blood-earth guy at Blood7.
It is good, but not good enough to rival high-astral nations, and you have to seek for any opportunity to diversify available magic. Any astral indepenent mages greatly suit Pangea style, as communions make Pans potent Earth casters, and Will of Fates Alteration8 with Antimagic Ench4 and Solar Brilliance Enchantment7 is nothing to sneeze at.
General trend is early and middle game Pangea be aggressive, and lategame they switch to more defensive-oriented gameplay, more relying on dominion push, vampires and upkeep free maenad hordes grow to deal with neighbors.
sum1won wrote:This omits one of my favorite (EA/MA) Pangaea spells, and that's Haunted Forest. Same research tree as GoH, Mass Flight, and Mass Regen, so you probably want it anyways. Haunted Forest is nice because it's basically instant manikin army, and goes well with nature spells like Swarm/Creeping Doom, sleep cloud, and howl. It also goes well with earthquake and massflight. It also makes the harpies in your PD much more difficult to deal with for raiders.
GlointheDark wrote:Wild hunt is especially effective for pangaiea. Try it with stealthy troops in a forest province with an enemy priest or temple, set to attack adjacent.
Rain of Stones protection:
We enlisted several bugged and overpowered tools in Pangea arsenal in this guide: Pangea nation itself, frostbrands, Centaur Hierophant thugs, dominion push, lifelong protections and vampire farm. One bugged and overpowered tool that doesn’t belong to Pangea and almost inevitably will be used against you is current (4.21) version of Rain of Stones, Evocation7 spell, requiring A1E3 mage and dealing 14 blunt damage to all units on battlefield. One cheap mage will slay ANY amount of your maenads and dryads if used in defensive trap.
Not much can be done with it: script mass protection and few swarms on first turn at main army to defend against cloud trapezing attackers. Forge cheap armor for all mages to reduce effect of Rain of Stones casting from totally catastrophic to very bad (⅕ of mages will get head hits, and blunt damage against head is doubled, so spend another 3 gems to forge helmet per mage or accept inevitable casualties).
Do not attack with maenads at all: as the spell is overpowered, there are almost no ways to make your thousands of meanads safe. In forest provinces you could magically transfer a SC or army to attacked province in a hope to discharge Rain of Stones casters, and after that in normal phase move main army, but as Pangea you lack magically moving SCs except Faerie Trodding Treelords or Pans with Vine Ogres army, it is expensive both in nature gems for Faerie Trod and for army/SC to sacrifice and you can’t do it every turn. Another way is even more ridiculous, to have Sword of Auglemer, unique artefact granting Will of Fates, to save 3/4 of maenads.
Generally, you’ll have to go on defense and sabotage raiding attacks and hope dominions push will do the job of killing this nation.
It is hilarious to be unable to deal straightforwardly with much weaker rival due to single spell abuse, but it is life and it isn’t have to be honest, keep with it.
Diplomacy:
Being the guy having the most information available, you want to use it in diplomacy too. You want to be nice, friendly, trading and sharing information person with everyone except kingdom you currently are eating. Harpies let you know the weak and strong spots of neighbors and you should use this information properly.
Remember the principle: your neighbor is your enemy. The longer mutual border you have the more the enemy is. And neighbor of your neighbor is your friend. Make defensive alliances with them. Talk much. Dog-pile leaders. Try to keep friendly relations with people: potentially it can make one more barrier for them to dog-pile you when you become the leader. If it is possible, don't attack powerful victims alone, do it with allies together.
Edited by: olli!