Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

Yeah, but that adds a *lot* of research time to an already heavy research nation, and I'm pretty sure the oracles are 1 per ritual. Ofcourse, if the fates gifted me with a dozen of them right off the bat, I wouldn't spit at them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

If you want to get a Marble Oracle researched a lot quicker, take magic 3, and recruit Golem Crafters every turn until you find an independent with a decent researcher. You'll get a second research center up a lot quicker and cheaper than another fortress, and even if you switch your capital to Earth Readers, you'll keep pulling in more research.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

I really wish golem crafters had a forge bonus. I think it would be appropriate, and at the same time, offset the fact that you can set up an enormous forging orgy in EA with Agartha, using a Forge Lord-that or allow them to freespawn some golems, since they *are* golem-Crafters.

Old age kills these guys off quick, well before you ever get golems, if you start building them right off the bat.

The more I look into strategies for MA Agartha, the more I seem to come up with good things for EA to do, or that EA does better, and that seems to me a bit of a problem.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

What? Do remember that even 10 attentive statues (bottom of the line) can do horrible damage to an ocean of chaff. It's no trouble to have 5 golem crafters pump out two teams to be led by a couple Earth Readers. And Mechanical Militia/Clockwork Horrors are able to flesh your forces out, if only they didn't take till C5. They may be a bit weaker, but they don't waste damage on overkill, and they have an amazing set of resistances. With attentive statues, you pay 4 gems to engage one target. With Claymen (Enchant 4, same school of research, different path of elemental magic), and the construction golems, you are able engage about one target per gem you spend.

As regards to "Old age kills these guys off quick, well before you ever get golems". It's true, old age is harsh, but even with drain 1, its possible to get Attentive Statues out by the first year. First, you really don't have much to spend money on. Second, Oracles of the Ancients are nice, but a complete waste your first year. Third, you don't need to search for gems as aggressively as other nations. You can afford to expand slowly and still summon your nationals.

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Hiring Golem Crafters, Drain Two, no pretender.

Spring: 0 + 0 = 0
LSpr: 0 + 5 = 5
ESum: 5 + 10 = 15
MSum: 15 + 15 = 30
LSum: 30 + 20 = 50
EWin: 50 + 25 = 75
MWin: 75 + 30 = 105
LWin: 105 + 35 = 140
ESpr: 140 + 40 = 180
MSpr: 180 + 45 = 225
</pre><hr />

If you have a Pretender with as little as 8 research (after drain), you can get them by the first year. If there was an observer mode, you'll see I'm the top researcher in my current MP game, jaguar. And I switched to varied commanders after my fourth Golem Crafter. Though in that game, I took an excessive magic scale. There is middle ground to be found.

I will give you thugging, and necromancy, though. A forge based strategy is probably better with EA, who has giant, non-capital commanders.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

I'm not saying freespawn attentive statues, I'm saying freespawn *some* kind of statue. Maybe 1 clayman a year or something.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

Gift of Health has been a godsend in my SP game as MP Agartha I've been mentioning here. It's a great spell as it is, but it's been curing so many of my Golem Crafters' and my Ancient Oracles' old age problems that I'm more than glad I pushed to get an indy S1N2 mage to N5 (between empowering and items) to be able to cast it.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

Here's an extreme example of the golem cult in action.

This pic is of a Siege Golem in a Dom:10 province:


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...GreatGolem.jpg

Here's another Siege Golem that is in an enemy dominion:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../PoorGoelm.jpg

Pretty extreme difference in hit points there! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

They've discussed this quite a bit in other threads, but heres some numbers to assign to the situation.

Your Pale Ones are coldblooded. What precisely does this mean?
They get an encumbrance penalty of one in a perfectly neutral 0 heat/0 cold environment.
They get an encumbrance penalty of four in a one cold province. So yeah, you do want to take at least one heat scale, even with a high dominion, else winter will mess with all your strats and best mages.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

As MA Agartha, research is very tempting, thanks to your earth income. But I must say, resist, at least for a short while.

The very first thing I'm going to do in my next few games is recruit lowly scouts- at least two, depending on geography.

This will do two things for you - save some gold for projects like additional castles or dealing with events, and let you make an informed research decision.

If you're only three provinces from Jotunheim, for instance, Evocation 3 is crucial (for Magma Bolts), while lesser earth elementals, or Attentive Statues will be next to useless. Research into enchantment or conjuration or alteration will be next to useless, unless you've got some particular short-term strategy around that.

On the other hand, if you expect to be rushed by a smaller race, Lesser Earth Elementals can come in handy thanks to trampling. And for 10 earth gems, you can spawn five off of a single lowly earth reader, saving you further gold compared to a golem crafter or Oracle of the Ancients.

And if you've got a decent buffer of indies, you can just decide what chokepoints you need to seize first while you diligently toil away towards your strategic research goal- most likely Enlivened Sentinels or Attentive Statues.

If you go straight for Attentive Statues, you'll regret it if you start hazardously close to a race with a natural counter. Trampling, perhaps? Jotunheim with ~22 strength certainly doesn't have to worry much about 22 protection opponents.

Knowledge is power - you must know your opponent before you can know yourself - blah blah blah. Diplomacy is your best bet, but sometimes locations just don't allow for that, and it won't work at all in singleplayer.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

Heh, sorry LP, but I just must disagree with you on details, again.

Namely, as someone in the IRC channel noted (lch IIRC), Destruction hurts giants BAD. All that armour stripped, you can on average trade one infantry to one Jotun. Of course, Magma Bolts and assorted stuff are also viable, but now I must contradict my earlier claims. Alteration is quite good against anyone in heavy armour. Agree on enchantment though, in conjuration you get Earth Power which is pure manna from the skies.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

Actually, I'm glad to hear you disagree with me.

Does Conjuration 3 do you any good, though, if you haven't opened up any other paths, and are facing troops to large to trample?

Of course, if you're facing water blessed giants, destruction doesn't hurt as much since you're capped at 10 attack with your standard troops. Then a ranged attack starts looking a bit better. Standard giants, though, destruction looks like it could be quite useful, armor of achilles... Since Jotun focuses more on quality than numbers, individual target spells are more effective than they would be against, say, Ctis.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

Conjuration? Black Servants in trinket armour! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Seriously, conjuration may be only secondary target, but never forget to go to Earth Power - else you'll be wasting a hell of a lot of earth gems for bigger spells like Earth Grip or Destruction. Magma Bolts can be done unaugmented, though.

And, water-blessed giants? I'd wager you're more probably seeing earth/nature bless, but in any case, anything that can be swarmed by size 2 units isn't probably going to rely on defence for too long.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

Black Servants? Sorry, you haven't found any death gems.

But definetly, I agree conjuration is a necessary target. If nothing else, it allows your earth readers to spend one gem and cast Earth Meld, or spam Earth Grip.

I'm really going to have to try the armor of achilles against Jotunheim. I hadn't even thought of that possibility, and i'm up against a low-level quad-bless right now, with Jotunheim sitting on my capital.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

just one more thing : iron dragon benefits of Golem Cult too

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

How does misfortune cancel the benefits of growth? Do the two scales synergize in nasty ways?

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

Misfortune causes nasty events that kill population. That was the point, probably.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

When choosing growth are normally combine it with order just to get a better "income per people" ratio for my growing population. Normally i choose misfortune (rarely even luck) and i can say that misfortune has no big negative effect on population in this case.
Maybe because growth 3 influence the population killing negative events and don't let them happen much.