Help finding an old concept; natural RAW result being magocratic city-states

[Grod_The_Giant]

Of course, they don't use human soldiers in the Tippyverse. They use advanced shadesteel golems with superhuman intelligence and epic feats. Because when you have infinite resources, why NOT use invisible perma-hasted flying robots?

Base speed of 30ft, +30ft from Epic Speed,+30ft from Haste, and x4 with Run gives you a move speed of 360ft... which in turn gives you 288 golems per round (or 2880 per minute, or 180,000 an hour). That only gets worse when you start adding extra buffs and equipment--I'm pretty sure there are a couple ways to get a fly speed of double your movement, for example.

1) They make about the best bodies to True Mind Switch with as you pick up perfect flight, immunity to magic, a Dex and Strength bump, all of the Construct Immunities, are still Medium size, and get to basically be a transhuman android which is just cool.

2) They are the best minions you can get. Perfect flight, immunity to magic, total loyalty, and relatively cheap to pump up to 20+ HD. Spend the 8,000 GP when you craft it and it gets an Int score equal to half your CL; an ECL 17 character can potentially have an effective CL of 40 to 60 or so which means a base Int score of somewhere between 20 and 30. This gets the Golem skill points and feats, and with over 20 HD it can qualify for Epic Feats. Exceptional + Infinite Deflection is quite tasty. Throw on a permanent telepathic bond and a Heightened to 9th Shadow Evocation Invisible Continual Flame and it gets to always act as Hasted and heal 9 points per round. Throw on Hide Life and it becomes immune to death/destruction from HP damage.

All told, for about 250K you can make a creature that will tear through pretty much any standard CR 20 challenge like a hot chainsaw through butter.

And once you have the template created you can go and use Ice Assassin to make yourself as many copies as you desire for (even if you actually pay for the IA's) about ten percent of the cost.

3) As a DM they make great opponents to throw at your players. Especially if you throw on non associated class levels. Extra fun is had by pairing the Shadesteel or two up with a few Umbral Spies.

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Shadesteel Golems are the best general purpose construct or minion in the game. Frankly if you build and equip one right it will probably tear through a Leadership Cohort as well, except you have total control over it and it doesn't get any of your XP (being a magic item of yours). If you want to play a high level minion master they are also a better choice than any of the undead. Do it right and you can make the Lord of Blades and his Warforged look like little kids trying to imitate the real robot army.