Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Heh, surprised much? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif The point of liking Agartha is not looking too closely at its A) different era brothers or B) same era competitors.

:p

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Oh boy, I've been mistaken with the dwarven hammer for a while. Forget anything I've said with regards to that.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

I know its only the AI, but only one Golem Crafter and 12 Attentive Statues faced off against seventy units AND WON.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

I think perhaps (from my very little experience) the golems are MA Agartha's real strength. Seems to me they are pretty good.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Yeah. But watch what happens when the pop your mage. All your golems turn into a fine mist of blood the next turn. Ouch.

On the plus side, it seems like you can take your high dominion bonus into enemy territory.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Make sure you have at least two mages with them then, I guess.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Can one take over? Is it tied to the presence of a mage, or the presence of just their squad leader?

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Any mage will do, the fact that it's their squad leader doesn't matter. Basically as I understand it magic units die if your magic leadership on the battlefield drops to zero. So long as you have a mage left with non-zero magic unit leadership (even if there are more magic units than he could lead), you're fine. That's how I think it works anyway.

You could do a test, perhaps - take two mages into battle, with as many golems as they can lead. Have one of them stand at the front and get killed. I think the golems will all still be fine.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Good idea for my practice game, thank you. Probably easiest to do with Earth Readers.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

It also seems that they can carry a high dominion bonus with them into a low dominion area.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Here's my build for MA argatha I pieced together from the advice in this thread.

Oracle Dominion 9
death4, earth 2
order 3, misfortune 2, magic 1, heat 1

I tested the oracle and with the awe and fear effect I can take even the toughest provinces like knights. On first turn I build the black plate armor and next turn I equip him and send him by himself into enemy provinces. I then build him a helm and shield before sending him into the really tough provinces. He doesn't kill much but they always seem to route before he dies.

I research enchantment first to get the statues unless I think I am by an aggressive or blessed nation. If I am, I then go evocation and use the spells other people have mentioned.

The dom 9 also provides more HP for the golems.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Sounds decent.

I've confirmed Llamabeasts opinion on Golems not dissolving when a spare mage is available. This'll be quite important for my guide. Thanks for mentioning it.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

No probs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Here's a question for you.

If a Golem Crafter leading 15 golems is accompanied by an Ancient Lord carrying a Bottle of Living Water (+1 magic leadership) and the Golem Crafter dies, do the golems dissolve as usual?

I believe the answer is no. It's pretty easy to lab, but I lack the time to get my available games up to that research and gem level.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

I set up a game so that I could follow along with this thread, and in the process, I equipped several ancient lords with a bunch of low-level protection enhancing gear-basically to get the maximum prot possible with Const 2.

I also gave them an Earth bless of 9 and I noticed, when I equipped them with a lead shield, black steel helmet, black steel armor (the suit, not the breastplate), a star of heroes, bracers of protection, boots of giant strength, and a luck amulet, they had a Prot of 27, but when I *blessed* them, Prot went up to 33, instead of 31-is there any accounting for this?

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

I've no idea. What happens if you take off the bracers?

Anyways, I hadn't thought of that, but it sounds very interesting- That's cyclops level protection. Tell us how it turned out, please. Why'd you take the Star of Heroes, by the way? I've always passed that artifact by without trying it out. Because, you know, I really need to hit a tiny human with forty points of damage.

Good grief, I experimented with the Forge Lord, but I simply have to go back and give it a second go, with that setup you outlined.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Yeah, it's tasty stuff, but ultimately, I didn't find it worth the trouble. Yes, you can churn out items cheaply, but not much more cheaply than simply equipping dwarven hammers on your other mages, and it's a lot faster that way. Also, boots of strength weren't worth bothering with, ideally, I'd replace them with marble boots, for ultimate protective qualities.

Right now I'm trying out Fountain of Blood-5 blood slaves equals Att+5 and a morale boost. Not bad.

I took Star of Heroes because it gives Att +4-that's huge, especially tied to a 12 point damage weapon that destroys armor.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Well, if you're trying a blood path, let me know if the Boots of Youth help your Golem Crafters. With the blood stone, I expect you'll turn into a regular mass manufacturing plant.

If you don't have access to the luck pendant, consider the burning pearl, for another +4 attack. It's a big help when your weapon only strikes one unit a turn.

Though if I were dedicated to a thug strategy, I might need to check out EA Agartha instead. I think they can recruit Ancient Lords everywhere, leaving my capital free to do other things, though I'm far from certain. And the Troglodyte captain may offer some opportunities.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

IMHO, the earth bless boosts protection of every piece of armor the unit wears. So Helmet gives +4 prot, armor gives +4 prot, and braces of protection give +4 prot.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

But the helmet and armor are correctly averaged together, so you get a +4 to total protection from them. The bracers are added in separately though.

I think that qualifies as a bug. Or at least an unintended side effect.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Yes, and here's the thing-I empowered my Ancient Lord prophet (33 prot, like the rest) with a point of Earth, and he gained the Earth, and the Prot +1 is listed, but no increase to Prot!

Definitely something buggy going on.

Currently, I'm equipping my Ancient Lords with 2 star of heroes (I have 5 in the HOF, 2 with quickness and one with heroic stupidity (increases attack, should probably, in my opinion, grant berserk instead), so they have reasons) or 1 star and a black steel tower shield, plus black steel suit plate, a black steel helmet, the bracers in question, and a ring of the warrior. With the 2 stars, I'm managing 2 attacks at atleast AT 20. Not bad for Agartha!

They are absolutely devastating on the battlefield, especially with support chaff-I have an independent necromancer along for the ride. I'm fighting against Eriu, which normally should be giving me tons of trouble, and I'm winning consistently against them, unless I allow myself to become badly overextended.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Note: Only use these guys as skirmishers, on their own, or to support relatively high PD. They fail miserably against larger armies, unless you support them. The idea is to use them to guard your expansion while you get golems going, and to hit the enemy in his weakspots. Once you've got the golems, use them as your main force, and the equipped Ancient Lords to attack the rear-your results should be very good.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

At least some of the "bugginess" with protection comes from the fact that it isn't added up linearly.

The real formula is weird. How you have to imagine it is that protections are fractions, with perfect protection being prot 40.

Then having basic protection ("tough skin" protection) of 20 can be imagined as protection one half.

Armour with prot 20 similarly is "one half". If a unit with basic protection 20 wears armour of prot 20, they combine to give a total protection of three quarters (the armour covers half of the vulnerability in the basic protection). Three quarters equates to protection 30.

I'm not sure how much sense that made, but I'm pretty sure it's right if you can work out what I'm saying. Try it: Put prot 20 armour on a prot 20 unit (ironskin), and you will get prot 30.

A side effect of this non-linear addition of protections is that if you get Prot+1 from earth magic, for instance, the actual increase in protection will be less than one, and after rounding it's possible that the effect on protection is actually zero. I think this is what you're seeing HB.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Agree or disagree-

Agartha in general requires much less income than many nations, and is restricted by slow troops. Therefore, consider, in MP, going for the generally less desirable wastelands and other rough terrains to boost your gem income with the usually more frequent sites. It'll give you some diplomatic flexibility, and help fuel your summoned army.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Disagree.

Agartha requires mages to do its heavy lifting, whether it be summoning using all those national "summon only one unit per casting" summons or battlefield blammage dutes. This in addition that if you want to get most out of your mages you need to research about six circles. So, lots of forts and mages required.

The other side of the coin is that due to summons, Agartha can't exclusively concentrate on high-income provinces. A good mix of income and gems would be best.

But yes, given your early-game weakness, being really diplomatically flexible might be necessary in order to survive.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Half Agree for DIffeent Reasons.

Nationl summons are all need not eat, hence they need fewer supplies.

Gems are important to maintain summoning rate.
Else, as above poster.

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

Atul, perhaps I'm unduly influenced by unusually high magic scales, but you don't need so many forts, thanks to indie researchers. Quite a few are just as good as ER at research, though deploying my Oracles brings much pain.

On the other hand, barring a few troops, all your infantry costs 10 gold, and is rather low on upkeep given the resource limitations. Your commanders/mages tend to be sacred, hence your income doesn't decline as fast, and you needn't buy priests.

And while wastelands aren't as good at anything, really, and you need some farmlands, they still bring in income. So far, it seems manageable in my game, with +5% total income, though I am pinching pennies. With a few more negative scales, though...

Hmmm... I suppose it depends in part on the map. I'm almost forced to go for the wastelands in "Jaguar". That may be unduly influencing my perspective.

Atul, Valandil:
What kind of scales do you find yourself using, a month and a half after this thread was born? Especially with regards to total financial bonus?

Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
 

I might be a bit paranoid, but long-term, you should have _no_ unfortified laboratories in your lands, especially deep in your territory. Why? Attacking armies, that's why. An unfortified lab for them means easy gem replenishment, item changing and, this is the worst, instant Gateway. In that sense, if you build a lab, build a fort. And if you have a fort, you'll want a temple there anyway.

Any bless rush nation can get +5% total income (1.21 * (.94^2) * 0.98 = 1.048) or near it and indy researchers, Agartha doesn't have good troops therefore it needs to get an edge somewhere else. And unless you get really lucky, only surefire way to get it is research. And that means mages. As you said, Agartha has good research mages that are sacred, which is a considerable bonus on the long run, but of course recruiting indies makes that bonus go away. Only for magic diversity, only for diversity.

Of course everyone's views are biased by the track they first took. Mine is by my initial nation design I took in Perpetuality and by the fact I ended up fighting giants (statues are no good against those guys), yours by your initial setup that's high magic and poor scales.

I haven't done any redesign after Perpetuality was started (never look back!), but I'm quite satisfied by my +20% income (or so) and magic+1. Even misfortune hasn't bitten me back. Currently within best 15 in almost every category (it's 62 player all eras game, after all).

Exploit?
 

Take any pretender, 10 dominion. Take any unit, prophetize it.

They benefit from Golem Cult and regular bonus, leading to triple hitpoints.

A Wyrm with 450 hitpoints, and regeneration? Doable. 120 hitpoint Ancient Lord or Oracle of the Ancients? Also ready to go. Just don't raid hostile dominions.

Agartha Versus R\'lyeh
 

I was wondering what advice people had for a war against R'lyeh (much of which will relate to other astral nations), since I won a couple significant battles recently, but then made a series of bad choices and lost some also, esp. thanks to Mind Hunt remote assassinations.

Lead shields are an unfortunate necessity, given the low, low cost of Mind Hunt, but function nicely in keeping your Oracles alive. That encumbrance of 3 (6 for spellcasting) is problematic, but less so than dead mages.

Blade Wind has proven rather effective against the swarms of troops, and in quantity has affected their unarmored commanders as well, but naturally targets their troops first, commanders are sort of an afterthought or result of poor accuracy. Four Oracles casting Blade Wind reach a sort of critical mass. I've lost my opportunity to cast Earthquake, but I suspect it would do well against an army backed up by sixty unarmored star children assassins. I'll be using it during my last stand, you can be certain. It may even enable some level of victory for me, but I'm certain R'lyeh isn't doing nothing right now.

Next time I go against R'lyeh, I'm going to focus on additional forts, labs, and lots of Earth Readers, indie priests to reduce important casulties from Mind Hunts.

Re: Agartha Versus R\'lyeh
 

Can you get some domes up? Might help vs mind hunt.

Or if you have researched that far, answer in kind with earth attack.

Alchemize gems into astral and empower a mage. With a bit of luck you can zap several enemy hunts in one turn. Makes it less fun to continue hunting in that province.

Re: Agartha Versus R\'lyeh
 

If you can't put up domes, but can block chokepoints, keep out spies (with statues patrol bonus, not impossible), then disperse. Keep mages out of your capital, since that's the first place they'd guess. Hunt out any scouts, and then they're firing blind, except when you're on the offensive.

Spare priests are good, too.

Re: Agartha Versus R\'lyeh
 

Yes, protection is weird. I think you're right, LP.

By the way, concerning protection, as a martial arts afficionado of some 25 years (god I'm old), the region, aside from the face, groin, and neck, that I most loathe getting struck by a blunt instrument in, is the knuckles/hands. Even knees aren't as bad, because my knees can take a lot more punishment than my fingers/toes before serious damage is done, even though major damage to knees would be more severe and debilitating over the long term.

Feet are bad too, if bare, but we have boots covered.

Kristoffer, is there any chance of seeing gauntlets in the game? besides the few weapon types ofcourse. Maybe some official protection varieties? Or add a "limbs" protection attribute to the protection formula? just to complicate things? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Then you could have boots and gloves that added up to a little end-result boost to your overall Prot and helped protect a bit against limb-loss. I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to suggest an extra slot-although it's an idea, just maybe something there to represent hands/feet in the formula so that it's more comprehensive.

Re: Agartha Versus R\'lyeh
 

There are limbs in the armors, but they are disabled, not to complicate things http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

After having made all armors having body, arm, and leg protection values, we decided that it would confuse and complicate more than neccessary. We kept the head hit location as there already were item slots for head, and it is fun to feeblemind someone with a headshot http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Most armors had lower prot in limbs, but limb hits would never give you more than 50% of max hits in a single blow. Something like that.

Code wise the differentiated prots are still there, but the armor value is a function of them all.

It might look like this: Plate cuirass 18 chest, 6 arm, 6 leg, perhaps. Plate haub 18,12,12. Full plate 18,18,18.


And , no, gauntlets are not likely http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Agartha Versus R\'lyeh
 

Ah...too bad, but a fun thought to think about-thanks for the answer http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I was also thinking that, in Dominions 4, it would be nice to be able to individually assign slots to units, like one would make a new unit. You could, for instance, create a new slot "right wing" or "wings" for a mod, assign it to a unit, and then create a forged item that would go on that slot.

Protection could then be a function of the number of total slots, divided or reduced somehow in comparison to the total size of the unit, in relation to how much of the total unit was protected, with "no slots" defaulting to natural protection.

Re: Agartha Versus R\'lyeh
 

When waging war against R'lyeh, should Pale One Soldiers have priority over human infantry? Even when on land? Points in favor-

Size three - no worrying about Shambler Thrall's trample.
MR 12 versus 10. - How significant, if at all, is that?
R'lyeh has few units with good attack/defense scores- most of which require resources- so they won't be completely overwhelmed.

Points against
Low damage- outclassed by Meteorite Guard, maybe Slave Guardian armor.
Lower protection, defense, crappy buckler - though R'lyeh doesn't have archers.
Cold blooded
20 resources means you give up two LI for every one you recruit.

Re: Agartha Versus R\'lyeh
 

Mix it up, but retain a core of human infantry. They are simply superior in combat, by far.

Re: Agartha Versus R\'lyeh
 

Clockwork Horrors =/= (not equal)Golem. No hitpoint bonus? At least not on turn of summoning. Lifeless, mindless, magical beings, not inanimate.

My cyclops does, however, and ...