Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Very nice guide, and I agree with a lot of it. Luck is definitely useful if you can afford it, although I would say moreso for gem events than heroes. Furthermore, make it a priority to search all your provs with an E3D2 Oracle. If you're able to get a small death income, you can power yourself to Const 6 with Skull Mentors and then spam Lightess Lanterns to hit all your research goals pretty quickly. EA Argatha is one of the few nations that can forge both items with ease and also benefits greatly from Const research.

In terms of manual searching, level 2 or 3 is usually sufficient. I typically do my with the aforementioned E3D2H3 oracle, because level 4 earth and holy sites are pretty damn rare.

I do disagree with your choice of the Fire bless over a Nature bless. Firstly, any regen, however small, gives a massive ammount of affliction reduction. It may scale (I'm not so sure it does), but the ammount is huge even with just 5%. Secondly, against EA indeps, you don't actually need to hit them very often. You just need to stand there and let them wail on you and kill a few occasionally. Giant Sacreds vs Indeps, the indep morale will break first. The exceptions are Barbarians and Cavalry, which actually do damage when they hit you. So I don't think a Fire Bless is needed, nor do you need to use Seal Guard over Ancient Ones.

I played a 10-player 15 prov/player multiplayer game with EA Argatha, actually it was the first multiplayer game I won. I took an awake Forge Lord with F2 E9 S2 N6, which I afforded by taking Drain 3 and dom 4. I expanded with teams of 6 to 8 Ancient Ones backed by an Oracle smitespamming, and eventually added 4 to 6 Stone Hurlers. My objective was one expansion team every two turns. I rushed construction to level 4 with the pretender, forged up a ton of Skull Mentors and Lanterns on the way to Const 8 (turn 33), and won the game with hordes of tartarians and many blood stones turn 90.

If you went with an awake Forge Lord, F2 E9 N4, you could probably take Magic 1, and do the same thing.

Conj 3 Alt 4 was my plan if I needed early magic, for Earth Meld and Destruction. I think I picked up Conj 3 and Alt 2 right after I got Const 4, and Alt 4 sometime between Const 6 and 8.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Regeneration means less afflictions for those getting wounded. Also, later on the SC's with high HP pool will love the extra % regen they get from the bless.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Are we playing the same game? Are we reading the same post?

First, I didn't take an awake pretender to thwart rushes - nor did I claim that was his purpose anywhere. He's researching and forging, because EA Agartha has *nothing* going for it besides its mages, and they need spells and items before they're good for anything. You can barely play the game out of the box - that's why you need an awake pretender.

And... 'magical firepower'... lol. When you can't hit the broad side of a barn...

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Which sacred SCs will those be? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Umbrals are undead and therefore don't regenerate.

Also, the reduction in afflictions seems to scale with the %regen. At 5% its so negligible you'd need a large sample size to find a significant difference. I mean, sure, if we were talking N8 or N10 there might be something to that...

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Heroes...

Free researchers are a tiny drop in the research ocean. You'll get them on average about one every 8-9 turns with Luck-3. Instead of taking Luck-3, you'd do better taking Magic-1.

And what are the heroes really giving you? E5 is irrelevant: you'll get E5 oracles anyway, and you've got Earth Boots. You can cast any Earth spell in the game pretty much with national recruits. W5 is more interesting, but you'll pick up W2 easily and W3 if you're lucky on nationals. Add the water boosters you've got W4 at least. However, water arguably is the least of Agartha's 4 national paths: you get more traction out of fire and death (and obviously, earth).

Where Agartha most wants water is if you take a dip in the seas. Agartha is a genuine Amphibious race. If you're near the coasts, you'd be foolish not to grab provinces. You can put PD on them, and build castles, (although you don't get national mages underwater, so you want a build on provinces with indy mages). You're no badly outmatched underwater that an opponent could expect to easily crush you.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

The Shroud is always there, with the Earth buffs available protection will be pretty nice even without "proper" armour.

Unless I am entirely mistaken, *any* regeneration drops the chance to 1/8 to get an affliction; higher regen just generates more HP but does not further improve the affliction resistance.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

So getting the equivalent of a free skull mentor year one is irrelevant? Really? Why do people bother to forge them then... The average research from a hero i've seen is ~9.5. That's probably better than a 10% increase in total research output year one.

Now imagine you see more than one in the first year. (Seen it).

Also, if you actually read the OP you'll note I *also* took Magic 1.

E5 is:
Another caster who can cast Weapons of Sharpness.
Another caster who can spam Earth Attack as needed.
Another caster who can cast Army of Gold/Lead.
etc...

W5 is.. um.. ok, less useful overall. But it gives you a caster who can easily summon Queens of Water (which you may want if playing amphibiously). Or forge robes of the sea if you need early water boosters (because counting on getting W3E3 is pushing it).

Just because its a path you already have doesn't make it worthless.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

The shroud is an astral forging, yes? Seems a strange thing to base spending design points around when you don't have any access to it...

Unless I am entirely mistaken, *any* regeneration drops the chance to 1/8 to get an affliction; higher regen just generates more HP but does not further improve the affliction resistance.[/quote]

I have not noticed that much of a reduction in affliction chances. You'd think that much of a reduction would be immediately apparent. I'm willing to be wrong, but my (admittedly anecdotal) observation leads me to believe the effect is much smaller.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Hhhhhmmmmm your Oracles?!? They get +3 regen with a N4 bless.

Unless there's been a major mechanic change that I don't know about, then the chance to avoid afflictions due to regen is a fixed rate regardless of the percentage rate or value of the regen itself.


Another thing you might not be considering is what is your Forge Lord going to do long term? Sure he can forge Dwarf Hammers all day for 3E, but you can only use so many hammers. You can make some to trade as well, but you can only trade so many hammers. Plus trying to be frugle with every last Earth gem doesn't make too much sense playing a nation with abundent Earth gems. The Forge Lord is a great chassis, but if you limit it's forging options by only taking F/E paths, then you limit it's potential overall. A Nature path, and certainly at least 2 Astral, open up a world of possibilities for it.

One other thing as well, some players consider stacking Bracers for the E9/10 bless to be an exploit (although not me), and it is therefore not always a welcome sight in MP games. I have seen several players complain about it in the past. I don't think it is Working As Designed (at least not according to the last info I read on the subject 8+ months ago), so I think you need to at least make mention of this in your guide.


Edit: Damn crappy typing skills made me get attacked by ninja's

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Have you actually done the testing? In my experience, any regen makes a large difference, although I have heard it does scale (and I have also heard it does not). I noticed a significant difference, for example, in testing Eagle King melee casters with regen and without regen. Perhaps I should test for this specifically.

Also, the Undead tag does not prevent regeneration. Tartarians for example, do regenerate.