Re: EA Atlantis - Bad*ss Battletoads
 

very nice and helpful guide Baalz. Atlantis seems like a very fun water nation to play with. I'm a hardcore newbie thus I have a few questions for you:

looking at the pretender choice I wonder why you prefer the Master Lich over say the Arch Mage. Arch Mage with 4D/4S/4N/1W(default, put more if you really need 4, but I still don't see why). also it will let you fit A2 that Atlantis won't have any access to otherwise. so lets drop the 4W and put 2A instead, you should still be ahead in points to improve your scales even more while not losing much, unless you're using the Master Lich for something that the Arch Mage can't do.

now, if we do go for 2A our pretender will be able to cast amulet of the fish, which will allow our aquatic pretender(Arch Mage) move onto land. also I saw that there are items that allow your commander to carry non amphibious troops into water, are there items who do the same but for aquatic troops to land? if so than it will allow those aquatic summons to also get over land and wreck some havoc.

with your setup(or my proposed setup above) you seem to have a pretty nice minor bless. the only combat(as in non Priest/Mage) units Atlantis seems to have are the Living Pillars, who I read somewhere have the best armor out of all EA troops(correct me if I misread that). they're capital only and very resource intensive, but with so much points you can afford Production3 and you already got Order3+Luck3, so they should be affordable. and I don't mean them as a bless rush but rather more of a mid-late game force, when the additional MR from the Astral Bless will prove more helpful.

is there a reason to not immediately go manually site searching with your pretender, to get a quick D, S, N and to some extent A and W economy? can it be better than to spend those early turns researching in the lab with it?

that's all that comes to my mind for now, I'm sorry if those points don't make any sense at all, as I said I'm a newbie after all ;)

Re: EA Atlantis - Bad*ss Battletoads
 

The master lich costs the same to get the suggested magic paths and dominion, and is safer as he's immortal.

The amulet of the fish is requires only 1W in the most commonly used mod.

Nope.

Re: EA Atlantis - Bad*ss Battletoads
 

how can the Master Lich and Arch Mage cost the same when the Master Lich costs 100(base) while the Arc Mage 0(base)? not to mention that each new path(3 or 4 with air) costs 20 for the Master Lich as opposed to 10 of the Arch Mage.

ok than 1A is enough for the amulet, so maybe 1A would be enough after all, or 2 for wider Air access(if needed, not sure). but if there are no items that allow aquatic troops to move onto land than I guess the amulet of the fish isn't that necessary, so it's just Air access that can be added.

Re: EA Atlantis - Bad*ss Battletoads
 

Note that namad included the suggested dominion as well. Immortality is also unbelievably good to have on a rainbow since he's much harder to kill. Finally, like he said, the fish ammy is 1W in the most commonly used mod, which most of Baalz' guides are written using.

All that said, there's nothing that says you can't take an archmage of course. Baalz generally encourages player adaptations.

Re: EA Atlantis - Bad*ss Battletoads
 

Partly it's the 3D to start, but mostly it's the 3 Dominion. Try it. With your paths (dropping W on the Lich) the Master Lich is 2 pts cheaper at dom 6. Cheaper above that, higher below it.
That's with CBM 1.6. May be different in vanilla.

Re: EA Atlantis - Bad*ss Battletoads
 

I'm not looking at the costs in the unmodded game, as all my posts assume that you are playing with the Conceptual balance mod version 1.6. The master lich costs 75 points with a dominion of 3, while the archmage costs 0 points with a dominion of 1. Raising dominion to 6 makes the master lich cost 12 points more. The master lich costs slightly more, but since he's infinitely safer as long as he's kept in your dominion he's probably a better choice.

1 water is enough for the amulet in the modded game, not 1 air.

Re: EA Atlantis - Bad*ss Battletoads
 

Doh!

Dom 3 base is worth like er .... 100 points!

So Master lich is cheaper than the archmage.

Re: EA Atlantis - Bad*ss Battletoads
 

I think it would be worth it to get a little more into how useful Manifest Vitriols are for you. They provide you w/excellent ranged support in exchange for your cheap and plentiful W gems.