Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Ah, yes, you missed one twist I suggested which is giving your golem crafters lightning rods to keep them from being picked off as the only valid targets for lightning spells. 100% shock resistance for your whole army. I thought you might be thinking about mammoths as they're really the only thing MA Caelum has a prayer of fielding effectively, but there are also quite a few mammoth counters available to MA Argatha along the paths of research I'm suggesting. They're not completely shut down, to be sure, but it's still going to be a struggle for Caelum I think.

Crushers are size 6 and just a couple are a brick wall that mammoths will never break through by themselves. They'll have an in dominion hitpoints over 200 so anything less than massive lightning spam will take many rounds to blast them down from long range while the flying mammoths hold still for point blank magma blasts (or simply magma bolts if it's a small number buffed by gift of flight). Heck actually if you're trying to take the crushers down with lighting its a pretty tough combo to do flying mammoths at the same time because your mammoths are going to take significant friendly fire. Against large number of non-flying mammoths penetration boosted curse of stones is going to utterly dominate them - I'd bet 40 mammoths wouldn't make it through moderate PD against this spell to get to the mechanical men holding to get buffed from the back row - particularly if you hold a few bottles of living water (ice elementals!), summon a couple fire elementals, hit them with a couple prisons of fire, pelt them with massive magma blasts, and/or stack on rigormortis - which is what you're looking at by the time we're talking about mass flight. If you feel like getting your pretender involved horrors are another fabulous mammoth counter, both sending and calling. If you can line up some rings of tamed lightning (scarcely a tough trade proposition) stick a rat tail whip (+3 animal awe) along with a blood thorn (he's gaining life) on a marble oracle (don't forget a ring of frost to!) and you've got practically an all-in-one anti-caelum silver bullet (heheh, he's a holy avenger to, extra nice against the mammoths). Oh, that reminds me, simple smite spam from several oracle of the ancients will stop moderate mammoth action dead.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

*slaps forehead* I can't believe I forgot to mention this when I intended to emphasize it. Acid has *awesome* synergy with MA Argatha. Why? Because it is AP and there is no way to gain a resistance to it. It also destroys armor just like destruction. This means that that the only thing that helps is to have high natural procection, no non-magic armor you care about, and high hitpoints. Argatha has....all of that! Vitriols are awesome and should be staple troops, and acid rain is like falling fires + destruction in one spell than nobody is immune to, but the apple of my eye is acid storm. 4 AP doesn't sound like all that much, but the important thing here is that it destroys armor, so that 4 AP attack is only blocked by natural protection the second time it hits. This adds up *fast* to anybody without very high natural protection. It also (unlike iron bane) destroys the armor on a battlefield wide scale without it having to be hit in melee first. Think about charging into blade wind spam with no armor or shield. How long does it take to chip away at those sacred statues again? ;)

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Thanks for another great guide. Althrough it's kind of disappointing that all recent guides are assuming the use of CBM, so those who play vanilla have to re-check every given strategy before trying the nation in MP.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Just play CBM! Why would you not want to?

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

CBM is like LateX.

First you find it hard and difficult to understand. Then you take it up due to peer pressure. After a while, you're so addicted you think there's no alternative. In the end, you start pressuring others to use it too.

CBM is like smoking.

First you think it smells and makes you feel bit queasy. Then you take it up due to peer pressure. After a while, you're so addicted you think there's no alternative. In the end, you start pressuring others to use it too.

(disclaimer: I've played with and without CBM. Used LateX for years. Never smoked regularly)

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Vanilla is comfortable. You know how it works, you know when it doesn't. CBM is a weird beast. It's unknown. It's Here Be Dragons and Exploding Phoenixes. It's scary. I've tried and it is in fact pretty nice, but it's still not familiar.

That said, there's no reason not to use the SCALES portion, and the PRETENDERS portion is pretty awesome too. You don't have to change the spells if you don't want to, you can download the mod in separate parts.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

[quote=Baalz;684311]ROW are s6. s2 + cap + coin + ROS = dang! 1 level short. But surely this can be overcome? Either scrape together the points for s3 (ditch a scale? or blood bless? or dominion?) or scape up the 45 pearls for an empowerment (alchemy worth it?) or get first to the artifacts and one of the unique s boosters.(hmm seems like there is just the dimensional rod without air = bad option)

Another cool thing about nature and agartha is the Treelord. Normally not a good use of nature gems but in CBM they are 35 gems and you will do the research anyway (ench 6 for oracle and 7 for deep well) All three of them are useful in some way (vine ogre factories, big n rituals etc.) but one of them has blood and is therefore extra useful to supply your bloodstone factory without having to hunt around for empowerment. It´s also super cool to have an ancient grove of treelords in your kingdom.

Then there is Lamia queens... Fairy queens... The first thistle mace to fire up haruspex via indies... moonvine bracelets... armor of twisting thorns...

+ all the great benefits mentioned before. (especially the bless)

I can´t really comprehend how all that isn´t worth the investment of... 45 pearls?

I see your point of opportunity cost for the extra path but you don´t need many turns to get *a lot* out of your investment. The bless pays of in itself and then 1 turn for a thistle mace early on, later 1 for any of the n globals, 1 for a fairy queen or treelord most probably and thats all you need to do to make a huge difference.(ok 1 extra for the s empowerment) Then any nature items or spells you cast because the time is right at some point, well thats just extra fluff.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Lamia queens are great! There's a 75% chance you'll get at least one of either W or B.

The W's can be used to make clams or cast Foul Vapors with your 100% PR army.

The B's can hunt of course, but also can cast Rain of Toads, Cross Breeding, etc.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

Llamia queens are indeed great, but require D as well as N. Yeah, as I said a reasonable person could make the sacrifice to get N, it does open up some nice things. It's all about opportunity cost though. You're scraping up 45 pearls to empower for a RoW (that's almost 4 RoWs), but make sure you consider the other sacrifices you already made to get to that point as well compared to my suggested build. You've given up a point of dominion (= hitpoints off of all your troops), given up a point of MR from all your sacred troops, given up a point of growth with both the direct hit to income and small increase in diseased mages. It's in the realm of reasonable opinion, but there's something to be said for focusing on your core strengths.

Re: MA Argatha - go punch a mountain
 

I'm not sure if the treelord can blood hunt at all, it never seemed to work when I tried it, but that was a lot of patches ago.

Also, I wouldn't put money on iceclad vs mech men, since they'll fatigue out pretty quickly and their good prot will drop off. Caelum's troops are just too assy.