[Semi-Offtopic: CBM] Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Right on. CB Gods is quite nice.
Also, some of the things that I've read about changes to gem costs or number of effects for summons might incline me to try the spells portion someday as well. But, that's a portion where it would be nice to have manual or spell reference guide in the spirit of the Dom 3 manual (assuming there isn't already one out there).

However, I am certainly not going to criticize Baalz for not doing a vanilla-oriented guide. It just leaves room for someone else to write one. Your guides make interesting (and, often, thought-provoking) reading, Baalz - even for some of us who prefer to explore and formulate our own strats from scratch.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Well bear in mind 1 thing though - 80% of the difference in a Vanilla nation guide and a CBM nation guide, is just in your pretender build. Most spells aren't changed all that drastically, and can be used interchangeably, but when a particular pretender is 75 points cheaper, or starts with an extra magic path, that will have a profound impact on the build, and on the strategy you can develop from it.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

I play mostly CBM and still refer to the manual all the time. Items and spells are the major things you look at in the manual, and not that much has changed, particularly items. Even in terms of spells, it is mostly just research level that has changed, not effect. And you pretty quickly get to know what the major level changes are

There would only be a few specific changes in CBM other than pretenders that could ever really render a strategy guide invalid, such as use of Carrion Woods and Call Lesser Horror. For the most part everything still applies in principle

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Cleveland/Snorre has an online guide that details the differences. It ROCKS!

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Are you referring to the forging reference? Or is there one that has the rest of the changes too?

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

The one with the blood path can hunt very well.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

I was mixing them in with mammoths to absorb some of the 22AP damage the mechanical men are dealing out.

@Baalz

Size 6, 200 hp crushers eh..., for 8 earth gems per 1. Yea 3-6 at 24 - 48 E gems would stop the mammoths dead. So how about my mages doing mistform, summon air elementalx2 (the sz 6, trampling, etheral, flyers), thunder strikex2. The air elementals will fly over your crushers trampling mechanical men/mages and when they are killed they have 2nd/3rd forms etc... so will trample for several battle rounds. The have move 30 on the battlefield as well, so will trample at least 6 squires which is 18 mechanical men will face a trample attack, taking upto 20 hps damage each if successful. Caelum would after equip each A4 mage with 4A gems for the script.

The crushers would eventually go down to damage even with 200hps, not that good in combat or you would lose them all when your mages where killed/routed.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

[quote=Meglobob;684621]Well, the counters for air elementals would be very similar to ethereal mammoths (crushers, lighting immune marble oracles, evocation spells), I'm not sure how you'd get them to ignore the crushers unless you copy Bogus's scripts. ;) Anyway, I'm sure a well played [any nation] can come up with something painful to do, I think I've made my point that a Caelum attack is far from a shutout.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Is there anyone besides me who likes to send out a reasonably kitted out Ancient Lord as early as possible?

With a 2h Sword of Sharpness, Black Steel Helmet and Plate he cannot take provinces on his own, but he does make expanding a lot safer and lessens the need for troops. He also does not care one bit about heavy armour or shields as he does 33AP with an attack of 13 when blessed.



Concerning adding nature to the Forge Lord, I think it more reasonable to just add N2. It takes care of all your crafting and summoning needs as a Thistle Mace in combination with the two rings get you to N5 without trouble and you can craft a cheap mace to make some independent mage take care of the site searching. It costs 66 points which you reasonably can pay for by one point of dominion and a scale (production perhaps?).

A nature bless seems far too costly, but if you are adamant, how about taking Drain 2? If I am not mistaken, the bless only helps your living sacreds, so it seems doable to delay the acquisition of statues a bit. You might then consider taking Heat instead of Cold, though.



As someone asked about non-CBM dominions, I hope that it is not out of bounds to add a few things about it.

I was inspired by the other thread about MA Agartha, so I was actually toying around with the nation and had settled on a Forge Lord for cheap Blood Stones as well and was trying something similar to what Baalz does here - though not as well, I readily admit - when his guide came up.

A lot of it can be used in vanilla, but I could not make astral work that well. It is very hard to acquire enough pearls to produce a reasonable amount of RoW; I needed to alchemize like crazy and that quite simply did not seem worth it. The difference in cost is huge between vanilla and CBM. What did work was skipping astral altogether on the pretender and instead add W2. It is cheaper, which is rather important as the Forge Lord is more expensive outside of CBM, and instead of RoW the pretender can produce Elemental Staffs. Getting the gems for them is easier and they work just as well for your Golemcrafters. Getting into astral - and to a lesser degree death - is very much harder, of course, but Golemcrafters with staffs can pick up the slack until you have gathered enough pearls to empower a mage in a worst case scenario.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

the reason not to go n2 instead of n4 is in your post. Its hard to get the astral necessary for ring of sorcery and ring of wizardry.

And n4 will benefit your sacred troops and casters - if they are going to die (due to disease), stick em in combat so they return to full hp.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

I sort of have to disagree here as long as we are talking Baalz' CBM-pretender. You only need one of each for him and that is well within reason. For the rest you use summoned nature mages.


Not the inanimate sacred troops (or am I wrong) and those are the ones being used. Golemcrafters are not that old and with Growth 3 not many of them get diseased, so I do not find that worth the extra cost.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Also, my half a win with MA Agartha was due almost entirely to getting Gift of Health, and Arcane Nexus up. The lack of either of those, and I would have surely been sunk. It was a really wonky build though, not nearly as streamlined and clean looking as Baalz'. ;)

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Well, if you are that heavy into nature, why not go for the Lord of Rebirth? He generates an absolutely absurd number of gems in CBM.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Your half a win with MA Agartha was almost entirely due to your neighbor working with you, Jim. =)

I could have dispelled either (especially early) and crushed ya -- but we worked better as a team.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Considering how weak you claimed to be before the pearls started rolling in, I am still going to chalk up both half victories to the Nexus. :p (With my survival also having been dependent on the GoH during the Burden of Time.)

So as far as I can tell, you either lied, to milk more gems out of me, or you told the truth, and you wouldn't have had much for SCs and artifacts, without all the Pearls I sent ya. :p


Anyway, my point being, Agartha can do well enough in Astral to get Arcane Nexus up (cast entirely with my own Pearls, built up with Stellar Focus), and GoH can be a very potent tool in your strategy (keep mages alive, and cure afflictions on your Marble Oracles). Also, my bless did absolutely -nothing- for the Oracles (E4/S6/N4), and they were still quite potent.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

I have a soft spot for Argatha, having played them first, (random pick) and like the concepts here, but it seems like CBM 1.6 has stripped out the gem producing gadgets (clams etc.) or raised them out of easy reach.

Any tips for refining/updating this? I can't seem to get the Earth gem income to lean on my statues.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

I'm playing (3.24 & CBM 1.6) single player, on the Aran map, and have had to fall back on quite a few claymen, and am starting to look at Wooden Construction, both to take advantage of the 'buffed' constructs.

I also find a big stack of humble Pale Ones useful as all get out for sieges.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

The moving of Attentive statues to Ench 0 and the introduction of stone hurlers opens up new possibilities for early exansion. You can now go with sloth 3 and expand with stone hurlers behind a few attentive statues.

Switch blood for death on your forge lord and take him awake, try to squeeze in nature. Pay for it with sloth 3 and drain 2. Use him to initially to research construction 2 and then crank out hammers and crystal sheilds.

When you reach construction 4 use your forge lord to offset your drain by forging skull mentors at 2 death gems a peice. Meanwhile your attentive statues protect you while you research evocation and enchantment. Earth readers with crystal sheilds spamming evocations behind statue and claymen front lines.

At Ench 5 you get marble oracles who are now down to 20 earth gems. Equip these using your reserve of hammers to make golden shields and frost brands and your forge lord makes them ethereal robes or wraith crowns (if you got cons 6) Also try to get gift of health up.

Then go alteration for iron bane, curse of stones and darkness which all has great synergy with your statues.

Not a powerhouse, but still playable.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Has anyone ever survived long enough or tried to cast GoH with Agartha?
It seems rather vicious with high dominion.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Baalz, how would you play MA Agartha in CBM 1.7, where blood stones are not available? Seems like CBM 1.7 really wrecks this strategy, and perhaps wrecks MA Agartha as well.