Re: Thoughts about Bogarus troops.
 

As I see it. An early multi-pathed Staret should site-search while an awake pretender helps expansion and you may want to build an additional fort.

The research should be conj3 (summon phoenix power and the summons) and ench 4 (fire arrows) asap. Instead of conj could be thau 1 for communion also.

Re: Thoughts about Bogarus troops.
 

Also, on the heroes, Alexej, I believe, reduces unrest where he is. You can typically get him up to ~8 Khlysts before they start generating unrest.

Re: Thoughts about Bogarus troops.
 

I agree Torin, that works very well in my experience as well.

Re: Thoughts about Bogarus troops.
 

I agree, Bogarus is definitely one of the tougher nations to play single player. I very much like the PoD for a pretender, but 3 sloth can be limiting. Your other options are equally tough though. You can take drain to pay for more resources, or take less Earth magic on your pretender.

The misfortune pick is also tough because Bogarus has very good national heroes and the free gems from luck events come in handy, especially death gems which you don't start with in your capital. Again your only choice is drain or weaker earth magic on your PoD.

I like the nation quite a bit, although in SP I have to rely a little too much on PD to survive the early parts of the game. I imagine in MP Bogarus players will have to be very aggressive on the diplomatic front to survive.

Re: Thoughts about Bogarus troops.
 

Yes, standard settings. And no, he does not cast, at least not until he can self-buff himself.

I took another stab at it, playing a little less aggressively. I would take a handful of troops (or just his skellies) with him when I attacked. I put the POD on hold, hold, attack, and let whatever troops I had take the first blows. Then he would come in and mop up. It worked pretty well... he still got afflictions, but not as often, and as someone else said, as long as he can fly in and terrify them away, that's all that is needed. The only one I really feared was the feeble-mind, but I stuck a helmet on him as soon as I could and never got one.

I found it pretty useless to make the initial Scout a prophet though. That may just be part of your hyper aggressive MP plan though. I found it much more useful to have a prophet that could lead a second army. It's a very fun nation to play, with a host of cool summons.

Re: Thoughts about Bogarus troops.
 

By making your scout your prophet, you're only losing the opportunity to scout with your scout. Whoever was leading your second army can still do that. Bring the prophet scout along with them if you want him sermoning and smiting. I've never lost my prophet scouts in battle, and they rack up fatigue less than actual commanders because of less armor.

And this way you've still got the option of stealth preaching with your prophet in addition to your FFAs.

Probably the only time I don't go with a scout prophet now is when I've got early access to an undead leader, so I can have the prophet raising dead instead of preaching. Since Bogarus has no death gem income, I don't think it's an option for them.

Koschei
 

I thought I'd give massive scales a try, for some SP Bogarus fun. Imprisoned random pretender, and all scales jacked up to the max. I was going to summon a Mound King as my Prophet for some zombie action, but then Koschei showed up. Couldn't resist making him my Prophet!

Since Taqwus didn't supply a screenie, I thought I would:

http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w...ns/Koschei.jpg

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

Figured I would give this thread a *bump* as it seems people are currently reevaluating Bogarus.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

I dont know why so many people uses the PoD isntead of something easier. Hes prone to get afflictions and is not reliable till you can kit him.
Sure you get good level in death but the cyclops gets you earth and can forge a hammer. If bogarus can take the virtue, its a turn 1 attacker since air shield is research 0 and you can get to awe +7 both making it very hard to get hit.

The wyrm and dragons are safer (& cheaper) for turn 1 blind attack but cant be kitted with items later, not good slots.
Wyrm is cheap enough to get dom10 and strong dominion will hurt neutral or hot nations because of bogarus cold.

I will try out PoD when I get home to see what i get.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

Heck, the Bogarus thread actually gave me an idea.

Recruit two Occultists. Recruit a Fivefold Angel and some stealthy units.
Research Blood 1 and get some bloodslaves (doable with powerful sage god and not so bad scales or maybe fountain of blood).
Additionaly get an indie commander/scout to carry bloodslaves.
Fivefold Angel gets the stealthy units and sneaks into the indie province.
Occultists attack the province with (Call Lesser Horror)(Retreat).

Next turn: Take one of the stealthy units from the Fivefold Angel away and drop it into the province (empty province + your unit in it = your province). FA sneaks into next indie province with the rest of the troops, Occultists attack it. That way you are taking one province each turn with an "army" assembled in three turns for the cost of 2 bloodslaves. Only stop when you run out of blood slaves and let your mages bloodhunt.
That's beautiful you're expansion armies are bloodhunters, lab/temple builders and researchers once you stop expanding.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

Exactly... thats.. half the secret = )
I'm a little disappointed you figured it out = )

Tip: Avoid cavalry, and always bring 4 regular units (not archers), set towards the back with hold and attack.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

It has been covered a couple of times as far as I can recall, it isn't unique to Bogarus.
In the LA Ulm, Abysia and Mictlan are just as good at it, with a couple other nations (Marignon, Utgård, Gath, etc) touching on the ability with randoms.

Oh, and it's only viable in CBM.
Without it Call Horror is much higher in level.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

It is unique to Bogarus, for a couple of reasons:

A). There's still half a secret = ).
B. No other nation than bogarus has the research to pull it off quickly. Those starets are looking at 14-15 rp.
C. Other nations have more profitable avenues to expand: Mictlan has great jaguar warriors that allows him to launch an expansion group every turn.

The best bogarus can do with occultists (hint) is one new expansion group every two turns.

Still, thats pretty good for bogarus, and *much* better than trying to use their crappy national troops.

D. You can use either an FoB B6-9E3S4 Dom 6, or a great sage. The great sage has a lot better upside, but has a lot more variability of results: A rapid unrest can hose you; The Fob does not have the upside, but the consistent blood income under CBM is exactly what you need.

E. There are several variations:
O3 Cold2, Growth3: If you go this route your income is roughly 600. Tax at 140%, and patrol the first turn, you will have the money to build your castle turn 2 or 3, whenever you take the province.

If you go this way, your income is great. I'm personally divided on where to put forts. I think you will be rushed, so you should probably look for swamps, forests or hills. But each of the cities in the clear will give you better income... (they just take 5 turns).

Figure it this way: Your entire expansion army costs 236 gp.

F: Regarding unique to CBM: I agree completely. Thats what I said in my original post, too = )
G: One little minor flavor touch. *If* you go with B9E3S4, your khysts have that *useless* blood curse...

Only it turns out that ... its actually not useless. Use the kysts to attack cavalry or enemy SCs. Sure, it isn't a big thing - but it does pretty much guarantee a rack of afflictions.....

G. A few.. other touches: Armor of souls, is only Con-2. And Longbows of accuracy are only Con-0. And .. what might you be able to do with a communion of three occultists, and hellpower......

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

Ah, I think I can guess the other half of the secret.
You don't retreat from the battle, right?

I tried it and it worked quite well. The retreating cost me some precious turns of going into the same province I cleared to get to other provinces though. Was on the other hand on a very tight spot in the map, on a open map it might work quite well. And starting to pull in about 100 blood slaves per turn mid year 2 without having focused on building a blood economy is nice. :)

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

*If* you get it exactly right, I'll tell.
You're almost right on the blood economy too = ).

Isn't it cool!!!

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

You don't need Khysts to get curse.
There's that lvl 0 summoned hag for 2 death gem which has a Curse special attack.

More anti-SC stuff
There's also an ethereal troop for a single air gem, which has Attack skill 21 with a Plague Scythe doing 19 damage. They are unfortunately fragile and you can only summon them one by one - and by D random starets only (A1D1).

The Zmey (fire dragon) summon is actually nice. Flying 45HP, 13prot, 3xbite+breath, for a mere 3 fire gems. Problem is being cold blooded comes with 10 Encumbrance in cold-3.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

The hag is more interesting for the misfortune she brings; but that doesn't make khysts uninteresting.

And I completely love the zhmeys. Con-6 is rough tho.

Re: Thoughts about Bogarus troops.
 

Thats part of what I was alluding to. Why Bogarus showed up so late and seems to ignore some of the balance formulas. Tied into Bogus and Illwinter history.

[quote=vfb;576431]There is another advantage to an undead prophet. With the right one you can get amphib. Snag the early water-mercs and you can build underwater temples. Its not a major strategy but its an added tactic that be handy.

Gandalf Parker
--
DOMINION is the name of the game.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

I have had another look at La Bogarus and actually it is a very powerful nation using conceptual balance mod. Also, its not weak in the early game at all and does not need a awake pretender to expand.

If you play it as a blood nation in the early game, you are actually in a position to rush someone else, with a extremely powerful cavalry army using classic mongol warfare tactics (exactly what the mongol hordes did to the romans) and magic + summoned demon hordes to back it up.

You can have quite a few pretender types but a Dormant Lady of Springs with W4 N6 magic paths and Order 3 Prod. 3 Cold 3 Growth 3 Luck 3 Drain 2 is extremely fun and powerful to play.

The prod. is too allow you to recruit your cavalry. Only recruit cavalry, no other troop type. Your cavalry armies + Call Horror spam will get you alot of provinces early game.

Growth 3 will protect your old mages and help your income and blood hunting.

Drain 2 is no disadvantage at all, given your reseach output.

Order 3 Luck 3, always a joy to play.

Your god gives you a potential SC at the end of your 1st year but thats only for emergencys. She is really there to get your clamming going, so you have enough astral gems to feed your powerful S mages. Also, she gives you access to 2 paths of magic you are weak with and of course produces free water gems. You even get a bless of +2 defence and 10% regen., astral shrouds on old mages.

You should end up a blood, astral powerhouse with powerful all cavalry armies backed up with communions which can cast alot of nastiness, further backed by demon hordes and wind guided/flaming arrows composite bow firing cavalry as well.

Very cool nation.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

If you go that route Meglobob,
mix your voi archers with the second kind of cavalry (the one with the standard).


With 200 resources (a bit lucky, 180 is more average with Prod 3)
build 6 cav and 10 voi.

Also you have a 60 admin great city as I recall, so you ramp *really* well conquering the lands around your castle. If you do so, you can go for a lower prod setting.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

p3 do I remember right that you were into modding?

If so, I'd like to see someone write a small mod to fix the weapons on the zmey.. as others have mentioned they *never* use them.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

What is that? How don't they work?

EDIT: nevermind, I found this:

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

It's a problem with any ranged unit that has flying, I think. (I learned not leave boots of flying on mages with bows in another game).

What I think happens is: whenever a range unit determines that it's out of range of something it attempts to move forward until something is in range. If they fly, they move immediately to the front lines and get engaged in melee. Since the Zmey have a short range to begin with, it's rare that they'll have something to shoot at on the first turn of the battle. I haven't specifically tested it with them, but I'm guessing they just fly to the front and use normal attacks if you set them to "fire closest"?

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

But Caelian archers behave correctly if you set them to fire?
They have both melee and bows, so I don't think there's any automatic problem with the combo.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

Good observation fungal.

But I can add a few more data points.

A. Zmeys, even if they can't fly due to Staff of storms, (I thought I would get clever) still don't fire.
B. Zmeys, even if set on body guard, with a unit plainly in range (attacking a nearby unit) don't fire.


In fact, as I said in the original - I haven't been able to get them to fire under any circumstances.

Can others confirm the question about flying mages with bows? Can we get it added to the buglist or faq?

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

All ranged units that I have seen, that have Flying, refuse to fly while given Fire orders. Caelians are a perfect case in point.

Dragons are another good example.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

Bodyguards NEVER fire. EDIT: unless they're humans guarding Abysians. They they fire, but only in the "ooh, who's cooking?" sense.

Dragons set to Fire will walk forward until an enemy is in range.
I would think that the Zmey try to do the same, but for some reason never get close enough to fire. It might be due to moving very slowly when not flying, and/or their strength and thus range not being very high.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

I have seen the Zmey use fire breath a few times in CBM. My enemy Wokeye would have seen them too. The range is strength / 2. so about 8 squares?

I thought bodygaurds do not fire their ranged weapons? Although I could be mistaken.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

This is not 100% true. I have seen the lions summoned by the manifest vitriol spell fire while on guard commander orders. Of course, this was during an assassination attempt so that is probably why. In normal combat no, I'm pretty sure nothing uses its ranged weapon while on guard orders.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

Thanks, I had totally forgotten that. :re:

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

Because -during- the assassination battle, they are not under "Guard Commander" orders, they have no orders. They are set to Default, which for anything with a ranged attack (and no magic), is Fire Closest.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

I can confirm I've seen Zmeys fire in my current CBM game. They were not particularly close to the action, either. Thankfully they melted a few Mictlans for me.

Seems to be a decent area of attack fireball. I can't test whether dragon master would work on them - dont have the magic POWA...

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

I have found Dragon Master sadly limited to the drakes + wyvern - all of the nation-specific draconic stuff that I've tested hasn't worked. I was really hoping Sirrush would as well.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

It probably won't. It doesn't work for other national "dragons" (Shirrushes), or Tarrasques, or Iron Dragons. It's more of a "drake master", actually.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

Imprisoned S4 Oracle, Dominion 9
Order 3, Production 3, Growth 3, Cold 3, Luck 3, Magic 3

???????

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

No early expansion. Bogarus has terrible, terrible troops and really needs an awake SC to make that happen. Though, I suppose Cavalry might be able to get the job done with Production-3. Beyond that, Magic-3 is probably a waste on a nation with Starets. Bogarus is so good at research, it doesn't need any Pretender help in that regard. Finally, I see no reason to buy such a Dominion score on an imprisoned pretender. 7, or 8 at the most, is fine.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

From my point of view, they really don't need anything. That's the Hinnom build, well pre-nerf I don't know if it still applies, probably does.

LA has generally sucky high resource demanding troops, but Bogarus seems to have good administration in their forts to cover that.

And it seems with the super awesome badars killer scales they can expand pretty fast, pretty pretty fast, and it's not like they need the paths, or cros paths. Cavalry seems to be able to take provinces with no or minimal loses.
And as for awake SC, do they really? They can jump start research faster than any other nation in the game, and with such great cross paths I doubt they couldn't defend themselves early on.

I sure as heck wouldn't take an awake SC, it feels rather like a waste if you lay out your options. I mean, just keep patrolling the cap for the first dozen turns for a 1000+ gold just from your cap and set up 5 forts by turn 15.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

I like the sound of your build Executor. Thanks 4 the tip.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

So I haven't played much multiplayer at all and none against skilled competitors, and I'm just theorycrafting here as a result. Since you don't really need the dom 9 awe for an imprisoned immobile, wouldn't it make more sense to go dom 8 and use the points to get S6? It seems like a very minimal cost that gives the Oracle some reasonable late-game uses instead of just "well, got to put something in the pretender position". If nothing else, it can cast Wish without empowerment or artifacts. Of course, I could be mentally overstating the usefulness of that, but I'm not sure there's much usefulness in that 8 -> 9 dom either.

Re: Bogarus Quick Guide
 

being an imprisoned pretender in the blood sacrifice happy late age you need at least dom8, otherwise you run too high a risk to be dominion killed. also, with such good scales you better have the dominion power to push those scales throughout your empire, otherwise they're no good to you at all. I do agree with Dom8 S6 though, cause while Bogarus does have some astral mages, it isn't an astral power with natural S4 mages that can easily cast wish later on with a single empowerment, so having S6 on the Oracle is certainly helpful for that.