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Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Hello. I'm trying to learn the game one nation at a time, and the first one is EA Agartha, also my favorite. But the nation seems to me pretty hard to control properly - my troops are incapable to dealing enough damage even to lightly armored opponents, and get always beaten in underwater provinces. Even elite units have serious problems overcoming far inferior foes. I tried to use summoned monsters, but is pretty difficult to mass them (btw, there is a way to queue the cast order for ceremonial spells for more than one turn?). I'm using a Risen Oracle. Any advice?
p.s.: sorry for the bad english |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
1) You can make your commander cast the same ritual repeatedly every month by using M for Monthly ritual.
2) Your troops don't deal enough damage? Agarthans have pretty high Strength, which means they deal quite high damage, especially the sacred giants. My guess is your problem is low Attack, so your soldiers can't actually hit. 3) Your high-priced mages all have 3E - optimal for Bladewind (evocation 4), which is a very effective spell in EA 4) You should consider a bless strategy, you have the H3 to pull it off, and the Ancient One sacred could really use a Fire+Nature bless. (Fire so they can actually hit something, Nature because 40hp works well with regeneration.) |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
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Yes, probably this is the problem. There is some sort of malus battling against lower size foes? |
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And if you look at the attack of the smaller Agarthans you'll see its pretty low (as well as their defence, which makes them pretty lousy) However size does affect the change to hit, though not directly, but IIRC for every attack against someone, he gets -1 defense against the next attack, so if you use (say) size-3 units against size-2 unit, you'll have 2 units per square while your enemy will have 3 units per square (each square is size-6 big), so you'll be attacked more often. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
I believe with Dom 2 it is a -2 defense for each attack (according to the manual). This makes swarming very effective vs high defense units.
The spell that summons 5 magma children for 2 fire gems is pretty good with Argatha. 1 out of 4 earth readers can cast the spell... and of course you can get the flame oracle if you want a guarantee. I'm curious if it would even be worth taking a heat scale to make better use of these guys. Its a real shame they are not sacred or could get really interesting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif You can hit Conj3 on the 7th-9th turn if you get an awake pretender. Or much faster if you build a sage for this purpose (then the sage can site search and help bring in all the gems needed to mass produce the units). |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
I've only been battling against EA Agarthans, never played them myself, but they are pretty good with F9 (and possibly W4 or N4 as well) blessed Seal Guards, and Magma Children summons. The little warriors are not good though .
Their mages are potent (they can have up to E5 !) and quite tough, my Abysians assassins never managed to kill one... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
I've dabbled with Agartha EA in single player and came up with a moderately useful strategy -- Troglodyte horde. A small group of stampeders has a tendency to get enveloped and consumed, but a squad of 20 stampeders can break apart any squad and squish them flat...
...you do have to beware of archers, though. But then any Agartha squad (no shields) has to beware of them. Maybe backing up the troggies with cheap slingers would work? Note that this strategy takes advantage of both Dom3's massive increase of gold and supply. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
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But they cost 400 pounds and are recuitable only in the capital. Usually I employ mercenaries (in sp) to battle against the indie, because the smaller agarthans are sadly weak and the Ancient Ones so difficult to mass and can be swarmed easily (hoburgs seems to be the bane of these poor giants...). Until now I found the earth boots useful for Oracles, but my knowledge of magic objects is very limited. The magma children are nice, however, I'm going to try massing them. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Basic Strategies for Agartha EA
1) Use your National Summons. Umbrals, Magma Children, and Earth Elementals are all quite good. Reasons: a) Umbrals: Undead, Ethereal, Life Drain w/ High Str. Ridiculously cheap for their effectiveness. Guaranteed casters (even cheap ones). b) Magma Children: Magic Unit (problem), and, iirc, an 8-pt Armor Piercing AoE 1 Flame Strike. Just so you know, this means that they hit the entire square for 8+(random) Fire damage, and the opponent has halved protection against it. And this is each individual Magma Child. Try to keep away from your other units, though. c) Earth Elementals: Magic Unit that has Trample. Trample is useful, and their high morale make them quite useful for running through the opponents. That's a basic synopsis of, imo, your best units, barring a particular bless. The game I played with EA Agartha, I played and E10 Cyclops. The bless gives all your mages Reinvigorate, and allows me to Forge useful equipment on the cheap (or VERY cheap with a few effects). Other questions: 1) Pretender design? 2) Opponents? My game was against Ulm and Helheim (at least), and neither one could really get past my defensive set up. Helheim, while usually tough (even AI against new players, honestly), just completely folds to the Flame Strike (btw, AoE (Area of Effect) attacks don't have to roll to hit... they just whack the whole square), and the tramplers are useful against them, too. Ulm just required a good deal of screen, Tramplers, and Magma Children. Definitely research Conj 3 and Evo 5 (Blade Wind's level, right?) quickly, then Cons 2-6, as desired. Thaumaturgy 2, early, if you want to be able to remote search (Gnome Lore, etc.) your provinces. Just some of my thoughts... Wyatt Hebert |
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Just remember the Magma Children only have the flame attack. They're completely harmless against anything fire-resistant.
I watched a single casting of Summon Imp take out a whole side of my army once. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Blade wind is evo three, not five, just for referance.
The umbrals are also sacred, no? |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
In the earth spells, check out Legions of Steel and (I think) Strength of Giants. These two boost protection and strength respectively, for entire squads. You have the earth mages to cast them and it will really help your forces. The giants, especially the pink ones, have low protection and really benefit from the boost. I have not found strength a problem, but boosting it will ensure that you really hurt what you hit.
Blade wind is good, but boosting your units should not be overlooked. If you put all your troops against the back of the battle field, take a turn or three buffing them, then blade wind and infantry attack, it can work out well. It also gives you time to bless. Also, usually archers can not reach you in the first round and then fire at long range for the second. By then, your troops are protected. |
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Umbrals aren't sacred, but the Earth/Death summons in Conjuration they get in later ages are. Well, at least the Sepulchrals, I'm not quite sure about the reanimated Pale Ones. |
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Thanks everyone, this is really helpful |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
And if you can research up to it, weapons of sharpness is very nasty(i think it needs e5 but with summon earthpower you already have e4 mages)
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
It's almost possible for the bigger Agarthans to punch through the shields of medium enemy infantry. Shields have protection 15, and bigger Agarthans have 18 str (and usually Spears, 3 dam), so they have about 50% chance of dealing 1 or more damage to someone with protection 6 before shield. It's not enough to balance the odds on its own, but with Legions of Steel and/or Nature 9 and/or low-level Blood bless they might be able to deal damage to medium infantry with shields even if the hit is parried.
The smaller Agarthans aren't good at killing your enemies, but they ARE good in slowing them down. For the price of a human, you get twice the hitpoints on an amphibian that doesn't consume supplies and has a siege bonus. I just realized that Agarthans also suffer from poor choice of weapons. They use normal-sized Spears, but their attack is too low to Repel with it, and which has too low damage value to emphasize their own high strength. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
The Seal Guards have big magic Glaives rated at 10 dam or so, and they have 19 Str, so sure they can punch through shield and armor of medium inf.
Their problem is Att10/Def8, without F4+/W4+ bless they've difficulty hitting anything and get hit often... |
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The magic weapons are good, of course. They cost lots of resources on a capital-only unit, but they are good. 11 dam, +1 att, -1 def, length 4 and ability to bypass etherealness. 30 damage total is enough to deal some damage even to any human that comes against them (46% chance of hitting Ambibate Noble Warrior for 3 points of damage). Unfortunately, the recruitable-everywhere Ancient Ones have just spears or Boulders for armanent. Boulder-throwers don't have even spears, making them very hard to use. The Pale Ones also have just spears, except for Cavern Guards who have Glaives. Minus to attack? They would be better of with Great Clubs, with att 0 def 1... |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
A good Pretender strategy for Agartha (in my opinion) is an Imprisoned Forge Lord with turmoil3, productivity0, cold3, growth2, luck2, and drain 2. Forge Lord because if there's one thing Agartha does well, it's gems, lots and lots of earth gems. Might as well spend them wisely, and since your Oracles are going to be researching Conjuration and Evocation, you can use your Forge Lord just to crank out magic items for your sacred fighter captain, and you'll be doing alright, since you can practically make as many of those as you can your basic Seal Guard. Naturally, there are better uses for a Pretender, but it's a strategy to consider.
Turmoil3/Heat3 are taken purely for points, although Heat is more likely to help out your Magma Children than Cold, right? Productivity 0 hopefully lets you make Seal Guards faster, since they're by far the best unit you've got, and you can build up to 3 in a row (Dom3). Luck 2 lets Turmoil 3 be atleast a little advantageous, and I hate losing my Temple in round 3. Drain isn't as bad as it could be since you're making less Oracles, but they're individually more powerful, so the -1 isn't affecting 30 mages, it's only affecting 10. Fire 8, Earth 9, Nature 4. Some Nature is pretty much a given, since supposedly it helps keep your units from getting afflicted, and those big, slow to produce Seal Guards become pretty useless if they're blind or lose an arm or something, and regeneration's always nice. The +4 to attack is also a given, and the Earth 9 helps keep those units from getting hit, and helps your Oracles stay in the fight. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Badger: I just played a game as EA Agartha, so I've got a pretty good feel for them. I went with the forge lord initially myself. Your general idea is good, although I'd tweak it a bit. I think the growth scale is a poor choice, as you lose out on one of Agartha's main advantages: no supply use for most troops. Taking triple death makes invading your dominion a pain in the rear for most nations, and redistributing the 200 design points from that scale to order (which then allows the points in luck to go to productivity, if you wish) will easily offset the income from the population death unless you're playing a pretty long game. Plus you get the money up front, which still might make it worth it. Drain is a solid choice for exactly the reason you mentioned, and a bless strat is essential for Agartha. You contradict yourself on cold/heat, but heat is the way to go, since your units are cold blooded and it helps out the magma children, as you said. Heat/cold also hits supplies, synergizing nicely with 3 death.
From my experience playing last time I'd probably try the following pretender for my next game: Frost father, imprisoned, dominion 5. Water 9, Fire 6, nature 4, astral and air 1. If I'm right, quickness will provide a -2 defense penalty on the 2nd attack, making it easily better than the extra few points in fire. It will also vastly up your chances against tramplers because of the defense. Mammoths were my bane in my last game, the only way I could deal with them was massed flame oracles casting magma eruption. Flaming weapons don't stack up to the water bless because the seal guards can already provide magical weapons, and the high str of agarthans makes the extra few damage much weaker than an extra attack. Nature provides regeneration, cutting down on deaths and afflictions. Air comes with the chassis, and astral is a good choice since it's only 10 points, and not available nationally. Order 3, Prod 3, Heat 3, Death 3, luck 0, Drain 2. I already discussed the reason for the scales above. A tweak down to order or production to up dominion might be prudent in a shorter game because of holy troop limits, but in a longer game building temples with the extra income is probably a better choice. As far as general strategy, I didn't play with the summons much, but magma eruption is a great spell, and all of your flame oracles can cast it, many at half fatigue. Crank out some earth boots for the losers with only a 3 earth skill and you shouldn't need the reinvigoration from earth bless, they'll get off a good 4-5 casts of it in a battle with the first 100 fatigue, which should put a nice dent in the opposition. You also have the advantage of half upkeep on all of your units save the trogs (which are great if you need troops right away, or for times when you can't get a blesser over to a province, or as a flanking force). All of your other non-sacred troops are useless. Your PD is good for absorbing damage, but that's about it, don't expect them to win battles on their own (ever). Anyhow, probably way too much info. Hope it helps. -Kyle |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
I can see Death being a valid choice. Not really a contradiction on Heat/Cold, what I meant was I could have gone with Cold3 over Heat3, but Heat seemed the better of the two. Just confusing on my part. Let's see what I can manage with Death 3...Ok, I really want to keep the Forge Lord-even imprisoned, he's still really useful for Agartha. It'd be nice if their were more than one Pretender with forging bonus, by the way, even though I like the Forge Lord. With Death 3 I've also modified my Prod to Sloth 1, luck to 1 and Drain to 3. My new magic becomes: F6, W9, E9, and N4. Dom becomes 5. That gives me extremely tough Seal Guards who can also dish out loads of damage. Crap scales though, but not completely pathetic. By the way, it may be tough to mass Seal Guards, but it's nowhere near as tough as massing Atlantian Living Pillars. Every time you get an extra 50 gold, just put a Seal Guard in the quewe, sooner or later you'll have a decent force.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
I'm not sure why they decided to put the Ancient Lords in charge-they are identical to Seal Guards except with worse equipment. I think I may mod Agartha just a bit.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
My brief opinion is bless strats suck - they should be much harder to implement. They are extremally powerfull, impossible to counter at the begining, very hard to play against, even in later game. Good option would be - until God dormant/imprisoned no bonuses for blessed units, that should balance that strategy little bit.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
I like bless strategies just fine in concept, but I don't have too much of a problem about them not working until your god wakes up. I do feel very confined by the limited choice of 8 total blesses. I think it's a fair tradeoff that if we have to wait until our Pretender wakes up that their be quite a few new things-not unbalanced or more powerful, mind you-just new and different-our blessed troops can do. I'm currently working on some ideas and I'll be sending ideas for new magic paths plus blesses for those paths, into Illwinter, but I'll probably write up a thread for them first, so people can argue about them.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
One important consideration-as of now, Oracles can quickly become old. You may be better off using your cash on Earth Readers if you plan on researching with them. Also, if you can afford to equip them, they make a fine fighting force-they're all priests so undead will melt before them, and they all have atleast some magic. Add a heavy combat bless, armor and weapons, and you've got a superlative fighting force. I do think Agartha is a tiny bit weak, though. Two changes I plan to make are increasing Oracle max age, either increasing the size of Ancient-level Agarthans or adding/modifying in some size 6 Agarthans, allowing earth readers and oracles to have a small chance of preventing bad things from happening while increasing their price, and possibly adding Beholder units and maybe another type of "monstrous" unit-these changes are a little overpowering, but I plan on tweaking other nations as well.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Oracles can indeed make powerful combatants, they can all self bless, cast summon earthpower(reinvig), cast prot buffs and fire/water oracles can cast fire shield/quickness. They also have full slots and nice stats.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Which means they're even more limited. I use earth bless a lot though, and occasionally astral. blood and death I only use in certain cases or if they're inevitable-like if I want to use blood magic, a death curse strategy, or I'm playing EA Kailasa and I want the afflictions. I probably use astral the least, because twist fate isn't hard to get, but then additional MR is better for MP games than SP.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Fire, water, earth and astral are the only paths i tend to use at level 9(very rarely and almost exclusively with pan ive used nature 9) and often use nature at lvl4-6, i also sometimes use astral 4-6 for mr and blood 4-6(generally only on a moloch when i have the points)
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
When I want to add blood to a nation that doesn't have it already (like early Ermor) I'll go with a fountain of blood at blood level 6 or more, but I'll also use blood bless death curse with any nations who have weak, fast sacreds, especially if they fly. Ofcourse, the best one I've come across for this particular strategy is Mictlan, so it's kindof a given anyway.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Note...
Drain has been advocated as a design option for EA Agartha here. I think it's actually a really bad idea. Your capital only mages (Oracles) should have 5-6 paths so 7-8 research. That seems pretty good for a drain strategy. The problem is what is what happens outside your capital - your Earth Reader mages have only E1?1, for 4 research. Once you're outside the early game and setting up secondary forts, drain is ruinous as your non-capital mages are such poor bookworms. Added to this, your capital mages are in high demand, so you'll have fewer than you think to research. Firstly, those Earth Readers have minimal to low usefulness: you'll need capital mages for useful spellcraft, unless you can find good indy mages (not guaranteed). Secondly, EA Agartha is a prime bless nation, so every army you have in addition to your prophet's needs an Oracle for divine bless. Finally, due to the enormous cost of Oracles, you simply might not be able to afford one every turn, especially early on. Agarthan Giants are certainly pretty weak compared to other giants (e.g. Niefleheim). However, it's worth dropping those Fire & Water blesses a little. By and large, your giants don't die, so they gain experience, and each XP gets you Att & Def. Take them around a few battles, as you've got (or should have) Nature bless and so regeneration they should pick up 2XP mostly without afflictions (unlike your average mortal), making Agarthan giants much more useful than they initially look. Maybe take +1, even +2, Fire/Water bless, but your research is probably worth more than big +3/+4 blesses in the long run. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Easy strategy, big bless, strong but bad dominion, (preferably some magic) cast utterdark and gift of natures bounty as fast as you can, preferably close to the same time, and you're set.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Well, i've just won an EA MP game with Agartha, so i'll share my thoughts.
Scales i used were turmoil 3, sloth 3, heat 3, luck 3, magic 3. You might want to use less extreme ones. (but stick to sloth 3 and magic 3). Pretender was awake dom 10 4E6D Risen Oracle (a good chassis choice even if you take lower dom strength). At the beginning, expand using your pretender (forge him any armor you can), for safety you can do that in provinces with your dominion (he's immortal), independentent archers and troglodytes (groups of 6+). Do not buy any of your other national troops until mid game (25+ provinces usually). If going against astral nations, skip troglodytes too (MR lowered a lot in recent patches). Buy an earth reader each round and research conjuration until you get to rhuax pact at least (or all the way to umbrals), then thau 2 for site searching spells, then go for blade wind and earthquake. Summon magma children/earth elementals/umbrals as neeed and your gem income allows (umbrals are always needed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. When you get a little more gold income, get a 2nd castle and buy earth readers there, then switch to buying an oracle at capital each turn. Recruit wet ones/pale ones/stone hurlers only if you need to go underwater or siege castles. Your main research goal is army of gold/lead, use it on groups of massed umbrals and magma children. Your heat3 dominion will hurt all other nations a lot more than it hurts you - except for Abyssia, so beware of them. Be on lookout for air/nature/astral indies and mercs. You will need those to diversify your magic. Later on, you can try using Ancient Lords as army supporting thugs (with cheap equipment), but only do that if you can't get either Gift of Healts or Chalice - because if you can, Tartarians will clearly be superior. Try to secure Earth and Fire elementaly royalty, your head start in conjuration and sacred low upkeep researchers should help. If you go for const 6 relatively early, use excess fire gems to forge Lightless Lanterns. If occassion presents itself to cast Forge of the Ancients, go for it and forge like mad for the time you manage to keep it up. Pitfalls to avoid: - do not go for a bless strategy. Minor earth bless is nice to give all your mages some reinvigoration, but don't depend on your sacred troops to be useful offensively even with fire bless. - don't use all your oracles as battle mage (exception is Fire ones, which can and should be casting Magma Eruption). Each army needs just one or two (one casts divine blessing first turn, 2nd army of gold/lead). Use 2E earth readers for blade winding (with boots of earth and or summon earthpower). Better to have 4 2E earth readers than one oracle in the army. Fire readers can cast magma bolts. Water readers can cast frozen heart. Death readers should be busy casting dark knowledge and summon umbral, not being in armies http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
I like EA Agartha with a fountain of blood with earth, and maybe nature magic. It´s sort of thematic. Ancient beings from times beyond reckoning, keeping a strange blood cult that helps their realm to stay alive...
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Too bad there's no weird sex cults to go along with the weird death cults.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
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Agarthan troops are cold-blooded IIRC. That would make a Cold 3 dominion basically a painful form of suicide. Heat 3 would give nice insulation against people like the Van, Niefels or Caelum if you were fighting them. |
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My first SP try with Agartha, before I knew the game very well, I tried Cold3 for the points. My mages would cast 1 spell and then pass right out, it was hilarious. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Death and Earth are two of my favorite paths, and i like trolls too, so Argatha is one of my very favorite nations. I've been meaning to write a guide for a long time but instead i'll just add my 2 cents here.
1) Micah is of course right about the supply issue. No unit in your entire force pool except Trogs eats, so a crappy dominion will dissuade attacks by experienced players without nature magic. 2) Trogs are a usefull early game matchup unit, kinda like chariots. Against indies and some player nations they are an efficient way of killing things, but they will quickly become obsolete against a decent player, and won't work at all against any of the growing list of giant nations, anyone with elephants, etc. If you do use them you will find that they work best in fairly large groups - they are pretty vulnerable so they have to kill the enemy quickly or they will suffer too many casualties. Also they are expensive to field in mass and you will likely have poor candles, so IMO Trogs have a limited role to play. Other excellent players have extolled the virtue of Trog leaders with modest equipment (Black Shield, Amulet of Luck ,etc) as cheap trampling thugs, but when i have tried it they have gotten dead way too quickly to justify the expense. 3) A few Cavern guards may be useful to add bulk, but other than that the non-sacred are garbage and shouldn't be built at all. All the sacreds except the Seal Guards are build everywhere. Seal Gaurds have their charms, especially the magic weapon, but unlike the entire rest of your force they are move one. This annoys me so much that I do not build them till later in the game when i am rich. Despite the fact that boulders hurt trolls and their precision sucks, i think a modest contingent of hurlers adds much needed killing power. Put them right behind the line and they will fire their limited ammo and then move to the flanks to help against the overlap that you will almost certainly be suffering. 4) Some of the other suggestions for blesses look perfectly viable to me, but my preference is 9E 4-8N. The reinvig stacks nicely with the reinvig from Earth Power for your Oracles. The armor plus the regen makes the Ancients Ones into a very serious living wall. 5)Ancient Ones are the rock upon which your empire should be built. AO's have two and a half serious problems- they cannot hit anyone, they are size four so they have horrible frontage, and since it takes forever for them to kill anything because of the first two and they have pretty high encumbrance, they tucker out before you win. The purpose of Ancient Ones is not to destroy your enemy, it is to form an extremely durable front line that can hold off and wear down the enemy army while you destroy them some other way. 6) I don't really see a point to the earth elementals, but Umbrals and Magma Children are spiffy. Put the Magma Children together in the same unit with the Ancient Ones (~50-50) and you get what i call the Flaming Phalanx, and it is an awesome killing machine. The AO's attract the enemy attacks 'cause they are bigger, but they mostly don't care and the Magma Kids do the killing with their AE attack. Yea, some of the AO's catch on fire, but they have plenty of HP and regen if go with my bless plan. Does not work against fire proof enemies of course, but it is otherwise a full six-pack of whup-arse. 7)Other's have mentioned the Blade Wind, and Blade Wind is great, but Earthquake is Argatha's national motif. Does not mix well with the Magma Children, but other than them no one in your army really cares and with E4 plus Summon Earth Power plus Boots a single Oracle can fire off several quakes, and there's no real reason to bring just one. Caster armies, hordes of scum and most regular human forces will simply disappear into the earth. It's beautiful. 8) A few random notes about Argathan weakness- You need lots of forts 'cause your troops are resource intensive. Though you have both fire and death you do not have them on the same guys and they are only level 2 so you are kinda hosed for power up items - no Fire Skulls, no Death Hats, no Flaming Helms. The death is more of a bummer than the fire - 2+ 1 for a Skull Staff is not enough to self boot death all the way up the ladder. Though your land built armies can kick some butt underwater, the Wet Ones and PD are near useless. Earth Readers are not much, so, like so many other EA nations, you are very dependent on the cap-only Oracles. Unlike many of the others EA nations however,you a are hard pressed to come up with any kind of dome and thus very vulnerable to province smites on your capitol later in the game. Your PD is terrible, stealth raiders will eat you alive. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Not too familiar with Agartha, but 2 Death is enough. 2D+Staff lets you summon Mound Fiends, who can summon Liches, which gets you Hats for 6D. Not enough for Tartarians, but I don't think anyone can summon Tartarians without a pretender, the Astral Rings or artifacts.
It's expensive if you want them in bulk, but 3D is enough for basic battlefield and ritual casting. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
By the way, Agartha EA, in my opinion, is one nation where the ability to wear double bracers ought to remain.
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You should definitely take at least a moderate Heat scale as EA Agartha. All your units are cold-blooded, which means they take encumberance penalties in cold (and even neutral-temperature) provinces. I personally recommend Heat 2, though if you want extra points, 3 is manageable (you take "extreme heat" encumbrance penalties, but so does everyone else). Generally speaking: go with a good bless; you want moderate F/E/N, but F/N can stay 4-6 since you don't need berserk or flame weapons (your Seal Guards have magic weapons already). Earth bless is partly for your mages, but E9 makes Ancient Ones quite tough. With even a small squad of those and a H3 mage to bless them, you can expand quite rapidly. Later, have fun with Destruction and Blade Wind and Magma Eruption. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
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In all seriousness, I am working on my own mod and have done two things to address the early bless rush: 1. Make PDs much sturdier. Mainly I've doubled the number of troops and use better troops. 2. Improve the national units of nations with weaker sacreds--usually by making mid-level summonables recruitable. All this is done on the principle that it's better to improve other alternatives than nerf something. P.S. I realize that this is an old thread but I've been absent from the forum for a while so be forgiving :) |
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Well, you are right about that, but to me, that's more the fault of other mechanics and factors, than it is the fault of a thematic desire to see blesses only take effect when your Pretender is around to affect them. Kristoffer himself has stated occasionally that he doesn't really understand the "Late Game" all that well-and I know it took me a long time to get even something of a handle on it, too, so there's a lot that could probably be rebalanced there, and it's possible that Blesses could be made deeper, strategy-wise.
I personally just want more Bless types to play with :) That's what I'm hoping for. If we get more magical paths, to go along with them, I won't complain about that either. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
On the subject, I'd like to see every pretender #onebattlespell divine blessing and fanaticism. It'd be pretty thematic if all your sacred units strolling into battle alongside your pretender were immediately blessed, and everyone was given a huge morale boost by virtue of the fact that they were fighting alongside the horrible monster that they worship.
Also dominion should totally give a blessing just like the magic paths do, I'd love to see buying dominion 9 giving your sacred units something like awe or an hp boost or something. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
Do bless strats really need another buff? It would be kinda cool, but still seems a little ridiculous.
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Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
I don't agree with the Dominion buff. I think Dominion does enough as it is, giving Pretenders extra HP etc. and spreading Dominion faster.
What I want are new types of Bless/more Bless strategies, for the sake of variety, and because "more and different" can be a good thing. I wouldn't want new Blesses to be more powerful than what we've already got, just different-for the sake of different strategies and builds. |
Re: Strategy for Agartha Early Age
I already become crazy after the existing ones :D
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