Guide to MA Agartha (In prog) - Pretenders
 

I'll be blatantly stealing the format used by RamsHead- though I'm unfortunately unable to steal his talent.

Table of Contents
0.0 Retractions and Revisions
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Troops of the Golem Cult
2.1 Overview
2.2 Units
2.3 Military Commanders
2.4 Mage-Priests
2.5 Military Review

3.1 National Summons & the Golem Cult

0.0 Retractions & Revisions
Jun.14.2007 Dwarven Hammer does not boost paths for purposes of forging. Passages removed.
Jun.14.2007 Paragraph added on Oracles and Preaching
Jun.14.2007 Various formating.
Jun.14.2007 Added hard details on old age in MagePriest section.

A Guide to MA Agartha, Golem Cult

1.0 Introduction
Agartha is a nation of cave dwellers, a declining civilization. Think Avernum, Ultima Underworld, Arx Fatalis. Agartha is a rather straightforward and simple to use race, without the complexities of many other factions. However, despite this simplicity, they can be challenging to use effectively. With a starting income of 5 earth gems, but few summons until enchantment 3- and some research issues due to old age, they often start equipping commanders (thugs) immediately. All your units have some darkvision, and you have access to amphibious troops.

2.0 Troops of the Golem Cult

2.1 Overview
He said it so well, I had to quote him. Its even more true with Agartha, Golem Cult.

The strength of the Golem Cult lies in its national summons and mages. None of your mundane troops are outstanding.. Unfortunately, you need 200 research points (standard) before you access your first national summon. If you recruited only golem crafters, you would be pushing up against the end of your first year before they were available. Earth Drakes are available earlier, but they have even worse odds at landing a blow than your Ancient Ones.

On top of that, you have little chaff, no archers, and fairly high resource costs. You need to use your available troops well, or your expansion will be stopped dead.

Your options are rather limited, and unexceptional, but qutie solid. Your gold costs aren't that high (thanks to low skill), but your resource costs are very high. At least you're thoroughly equipped. No naked warriors or helmless headwounds here. And just about everybody has a shield.

Your human infantry are pretty much the definition of average. Attack, defense, morale- everything about them is standard. No advantage to be gained by these troops, but no glaring vulnerabilities, either.

All that said, they are pretty durable for their weight class. They don't scale up well, but throw them into the proper situation and they'll do quite well.

Your human troops all have 50% darkvision, shields with good parry values (most basic missile fire isn't a concern, tends to boost protection further), and short swords (you're vulnerable to repels, but with a def of 13/14 its not a concern with most independents).

Your non-human troops are less skilled than the humans, but they have a little more strength and magic resistance, a lot more hitpoints, and less encumbrance than many medium infantry. On top of that, they have 100% dark vision, are amphibious, have a siege bonus, and did I forget to mention they don't need to eat? And, they don't wield short swords, thank god (You're welcome). Unfortunately, they are coldblooded, and have trouble hitting a barn, use rather pathetic shields, and their large size makes them excellent targets for arrows/outnumbering.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (In progress)
 

Good so far, i can judge it more when you add the missing sections.

ps: nice pintsize avatar http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Guide to MA Agartha (National Troops)
 

Oh, Shovah, excellent taste. I'm a big fan of Hannelore. Think Pintsize needs animated laser eyes? I can do that, though in general I'm limited by a small canvas.

2.2 National Units

Note on Light, normal, and Heavy Infantry
They are all equipped with a short sword. I've mentioned the repel, above, but also worth noting is that the weapon damage is 5. Plus strength, thats a base of 15 + DRN for the damage roll. Given that most heavy infantry has 15 prot or above, your units are somewhat impotent against heavy armor. On the other hand, your mages can resolve that problem very simply, with that +4 strength spell.

Light Infantry (10,10)
Entirely unexceptional, it will be the foundation of your expansion forces. Unlike most light infantry, they don't come with javelins. If you're facing high prot troops, leave them behind. They aren't cheap enough to be chaff. Due to a a parry value of 4, they only a 18% chance of being hit by arrows at the start of a battle. Not bad. It also helps absorb some blows as shield hits.

Throw them up against heavy infantry and cavalary, and you'll hurt bad. But if you bring them up against militia, light infantry, and archers, they can usually fight their fair share with low casualties. The key thing is to keep them in their weight class. Whenever you don't, it'll turn into a bloody slaughter.

Infantry (10,22)

The immediate differences between these and the light infantry are obvious. However, the real thing you're paying for takes a little investigating to discover. The key component here is the Kite Shield. This is one of, if not the best, basic shields available, with a parry value of six. This helps in melee, sure, but before fatigue kicks in, these guys have only a 6% chance of being hit by missiles. That isn't counting all the other factors such as deviation. You may not have archers, but you have a unit that takes only a third the missile hits that most nations do.

So, now you know what you're buying, what will you use these for? Early on, they'll be the core of your expansion force. My first team involves one Captain, 10 Infantry in the center, and a squad of 10 light infantry to each side, slightly behind. Since they don't do any more damage, they function to blunt the enemies fury, and hold the center while your more vulnerable, but plentiful light infantry attacks the flank. They let you take some meaner independents, but no giants or elephants yet. However, their great defense effectively boost their morale, too. Low morale independents might break before you take a single morale roll. It doesn't happen that often, but is rather nice when thirty units takes out 45 without any casualties.

Unlike light infantry, regular infantry can fight against heavy infantry. They will likely come out the worst for wear, but it isn't the suicide it is for LI. You've got a variety of spells that can help tilt a battle in your favor, even with a measly Earth Reader and Alt2.

Heavy Infantry (10,27)

These are an excellent choice for close combat between most human armies.

The difference between I and HI is much less significant than between LI and I. Still, without a productivity bonus, you won't be fielding many of these until later on. With, you may consider using these instead of your regular infantry in the core of your force. Heavy Infantry aren't that much better than medium, but than they don't cost much more, either. They don't gain any additional damage, lose a little speed, are a little easier to hit and tire a little earlier. What they do gain is 3 protection.

They are an excellent choice for close combat... but with only ten hitpoints, do not bring them to bear against strong units like giants. Light and regular are better choices. But against your typical size two humanoids and skelly spam, they have a lot more staying power.

Keep in mind, though, that these units don't have a lot of punch. Don't expect them to kill other high protection troops without a little assistance. They're your best bodyguards. If you can, you should put five on every Golem Crafter who is also leading various golems/statues.

And last, they still only have 10 attack and a short sword. Keep that in mind when you're facing very nimble forces.

Notes on your underground albino giants-
Since they don't need to eat, they aren't a bad choice for defending fortresses. Though that is a bit of a waste. They can do a number while sieging fortresses. And, of course, they go underwater without any penalties. They also have rather puny shields, which combined with their large sizes makes them rather vulnerable targets.

Pale One Soldiers (10,20)

Size three. Size three. Size three. Big disadvantage. As atul said, "it means they get only 2 attacks against a block full of human-sized opponents who attack thrice. With their poor att and def, I think that equals a world of hurt. "

Despite their large size, they only carry a buckler with a parry of two. Instead of 18% or 6%, they'll be hit 46% of the time. On top of all that, they have trouble hitting the broadside of a wounded barn.

Only build these when you have a reason to.
1). Going underwater
2). Siege- one of these guys is equal to three infantry. 20 gold, 20 resource versus 30 gold, 30 resources (LI). And without eating, you aren't worrying about your supply lines. If you spend the same amount in LI and POS, you get 50% more reduction strength with POS. With medium and heavy infantry, it starts to look even better. Bring forty or eighty of these when taking down the weaker forts and you'll have it down before reinforcements can come.
3). Darkness. It doesn't come around that often, without planning, but it reverses the equation. Arrows aren't a worry any more, and your defense and attack is much more attractive. It can win you battles. Beware other races with darkvision or bunches of undead and death magic.

Ancient Ones (40,19)

EDIT: I forgot to mention a strategic move of 2. Important.

Now we're getting expensive. But we're also getting sacred, with all its blesses. While these benefit greatly from a variety of blesses, they are too rare to build a bless strat around. And they aren't THAT great, either. Don't go out of your way to get a good bless for them, but with all of your mages being priests, take advantage of it when you have it.

Let's take sieging first. One guy has 18 strength. That's 3 siege damage done before you take into account siege bonus (5). Just five of these does 40 points of fortification damage. Five of these? 200 Gold. 40 light infantry? 400 gold. If you've been buying five a turn for eight turns, you can bring 40 to a siege. Bit of an investment? Yes. Scarce? Yes. But 320 points of reduction strength are hard to argue with.

Second, they're size four. That makes them more vulnerable again to massed attacks and archery, but it also protects against size four tramplers. Which are unfortunately very rare in the middle age, excepting Arcosephale, Pangaea, R'lyeh, Vanheim, and elemental summons. On the plus side, with forty hitpoints, they have can survive a trample and have a chance of hitting and panicking an elephant. Though it'll hurt like a *bleep*. That said, don't use these as elephant counters unless you're REALLY desperate.

Third, if you can actually get them in enough numbers, they can ravage water independents.

Fourth, arrows hurt. Bad. If you have to bring them to an arrow heavy environment, put them behind some infantry, please. Certainly, they won't be able to attack from there, but they are hard to replace.

Fifth, don't get high dominion to recruit more of these. Being capital only, even with 10 holy resources, you're not likely to able to recruit more than 5 due to the high resource cost.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (In progress)
 

Nice, i think you covered MA Agarthas useless troops pretty well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Now im just waiting for the magic summary(which may be the hardest to do).

OCD FTW! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Guide to MA Agartha (Military Commanders)
 

Shovah32, would you be interested in QC avatar?
Magic summary may be hard- but I'll mainly be pointing out spells to note, and leaving most of the choices to others. I will be trying to analyze some, though.
National summons are already written about, and the artifacts, those are the fun part, especially the ones that may need a little Pretender juju, but are oh so worth it.

2.3 Military Commanders

All but one of your military (no magic) commanders can be built outside of your capital. They also have a strategic move of two, faster than most of your troops, and certainly faster than your mages. They can also be decked out rather easily and early, thanks to earth gem income, but the value of such a move is debatable.

Format is name, gold, resources, leadership

Scout (20,3,0)
Its a scout. Yay! Good to have, but boring.

Cave Captain (30,22,80)
Basic equipment equal to an infantry, this guy isn't vulnerable to arrows. You'll use him primarily to lead light infantry brigades. He's also an excellent choice for a research nation because at 80 leadership, you can take him further before needing to hire another military leader.

Pale One Captain (30,20,40)
Inferior to your Cave Captain (at least without equipment), you'll only recruit one to lead your Pale One Soldiers in an amphibious assault or if you expect to see darkness conditions. He's fast enough to lead your Ancient Ones, but too vulnerable. On the plus side, he's fast enough to lead sea/amphibious independent recruits who are faster than your Pale Ones. You can easily kit him out with a black steel tower shield and eliminate his number one vulnerability. Other than that, he's not worth kitting when Ancient Lords are around.

Ancient Lord (90,21,80)

A sacred giant, basically. Capital only. Have to keep in mind the cold vulnerability, but compares favorably to a Jotun Jarl. The stats aren't all around better, but considering the fact that you have enough gem income to forge him an item every turn from middle spring onward, he's a force to be reckoned with. There are some glaring weaknesses with this guy, notably cold-blooded, and no shield, but these can be reckoned with.

If you recruit one early, aiming for death match championship, your basic starter kit will be either
[Stinger, Black Steel Tower Shield, Black Steel Plate]
or, you'll disregard arrows entirely and go with a prot build of [Two-Handed Sword of Sharpness, Black Steel Full Plate, Black Steel Helmet.] Later on, as he gains experience and you get a more diverse gem income, all sorts of nifty options open up.

You want these guys out fighting, though they're not great at handling crowds. Every att, def bonus these guys get is crucial. If you get one with heroic ability attack bonus (I've seen +5 in year three), treasure him and get him, in order of construction level, a 2h Sword of Sharpness (AP), Hammer of the Mountains (-2 attack, 25 damage), Midget Masher (2 at, 13 damage, double versus smaller), or Gate Cleaver for obscene damage rolls. We're talking damage rolls of 40 and above once we break out of trinkets. DRN+17+9 armor piercing, DRN 17+25, (DRN 17+13) x2, DRN 17+29 Armor negating.

And that's only the tip of the stalagmite. Have fun.

Guide to MA Agartha (Mage Priests)
 

2.3 Mage Priests

Your mages, and your golems, are the strength of your nation. Almost every turn you'll be recruiting one.

It's also worth noting that every mage requires a lab and temple to recruit. Add on the cost of a fort, and this gets pricy. If you're focusing on research and have taken strong magic scales, keep an eye out for rare magical indie commanders that require only a lab. If you happen to find a library, even better.

All your mages are sacred, and priests, and the better are suffering old age. And since they're sacred, they're fairly cost efficient, too. And not a single one has precision over 8, though darkvision is a constant.

When you expect the undead, they aren't much of a threat, or at least the lowly hordes (skelly spam), since everyone can cast Banishment. Unfortunately, quite a few undead are stealthy, and won't bother to announce their presence. But you're still better off than most.

All the human mages have one considerable flaw. Ten hitpoints. Even with stoneskin cast, lucky missile fire can pop them like a balloon. Arrow catching infantry are a must, cafeful placement too. For a large crucial battle involving lots of missile fire (crossbows?), it may be worth the encumbrance penalty to equip them with any spare Black Steel Shields for a turn or two. Then move the equipment back to those who can use it better. It depends on your opponents, your luck, and your formation skills. I've won plenty of battles w/o mages w/shields. But I've gone through a few where my two mages die in one hit, after stoneskin.

Leadership scores are (L mundane - undead - magical)
Age is in format recruit age, old age.

Attendant of the Oracle (50,1) (L 10-0-0) H
Age: 33 out of 50
When you read the description of these guys, they come off as bootlickers, attending to every need of the Ancients, even going as far to wipe their asses for them. So, in the rare cases I do recruit these guys, that's what for. Leading 10 Ancient Ones into battle with a bless. But they're in no way superior to your standard independent priest, or your Earth Reader. The only real reason to recruit these is if your lab burns down.

Earth Reader (90,1) (L 40-0-5) EH
Age: 33 out of 50
It's not your best mage, by a longshot. But it is one you know won't die of natural causes. It also has an unusually high leadership. It makes a good, though fragile leader for your slow Infantry and Heavy Infantry. And it can lead a few golems. Given it can lead only five, I'd skip giving them Attentive Statues.

While one earth seems boring, these can kick up the power scales quite quickly. One earth gem allows them to cast Earth Power, turn into E2 mages. They can spend some more gems to cast E3. Earth Boots are too expensive to equip on every one, but given a lab, you can move them around to where they're needed and enable your ERs to cast all the way up to E4.

You'll recruit these when you're saving money. If you're pinching pennies for another fortress, or have several up already, you'll hire these. If your capital is surrounded by tough independents, with few spare resources, you'll hire these and spend the change on mercenaries. If, for some crazy reason, you're under a heavy death dominion (yours or the enemies'), you'll recruit these because they won't die in the winter.

Golem Crafter (200,2) (L 40-0-15) FWEEH
Age: 52 out of 48
This guy starts old. Give him a few death scales and he'll die young. Give a few growth, and who knows how long he'll last. At 0 growth-death, you usually can get your money's worth. If your expansion is growing well, your national troops are sufficent, and your budget is okay, you'll be recruiting one of these nearly every turn.

They can cast Rust Mist (WEE) and Magma Bolts (FE) without any assistance. They'll be doing that quite often. They'll be forging more than a few useful artifacts. They'll be summoning most of your golems. And leading them, too. They'll be doing most of your research. With some gem assist, they can boost into hire paths of fire and water magic (underwater only) during combat. And you'll probably be sending quite a few of them around searching sites for fire and water, unfortunately.

Oracle of the Ancients (400, 1) (L 80-30-15) DEEEHHH? Random 10% pick in water, earth, fire, or death
Age: 440 out of 400. But maximum lifespan is better, also.

Sacred. Capital only. Meaty (38 HP). Amphibious. Slow (map move 1). Level 3 priest.

At 400 gold, and no extra research, you'll buy only the ones you need. You'll use them to scry for death sites (until you find the right independent), summon and lead your undead nationals, forge dwarven hammers, and summon your best national golems. And Blighting your opponent's provinces for a mere 5 earth gems as early as Alteration four. You'll also bring them along with your armies to preach.

Did I just say you'd have a 400 gold unit preach? Yes. Once you have your national golems up and about, this is perhaps the most important thing they can do, even with a strong pretender dominion. Your level one priest can only raise dominion to 2, 4 if you have a temple there. An Oracle of the Ancients can raise dominion as high as six, eight if there's a temple, and ten if there's a temple and he's a prophet. The base chance of success for a priest is 30%, for an Oracle 90%. Add in a temple and that goes to 120%. These guys make it much easier to take AND HOLD hostile territory, since every point of dominion gives your golems +10% hitpoints.

Their random pick is too rare, but when it kicks in, it usually offers some nice benefits. Don't underestimate this. Since you can't depend upon it, I'll only offer a couple examples. Earth and Earth Boots opens up three global earth spells. Death allows you to Summon Spectre (Spectral Mage) and Mound Fiend, via a Skull Staff.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Question)
 

Oh... I've been reading the LA Ermor guide and I've been wondering about the length of my guide. I've already cut out some stuff from my draft. If you think the stuff I've posted so far needs less information, Private Message me and point out an example. If its too long I'll carve it to the bone. It's been a long day, so it might just seem too long to me. I won't worry about for tonight, though, I've got a MP game to start.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Question)
 

I don't think the Dwarven Hammer works like you think it does. It doesn't give you access to any items you couldn't forge otherwise. It just makes them cheaper.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Question)
 

Right - only the forge of the ancients spell does that.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Question)
 

I actually love the length and depth of this article. It gives us other newbies a look at things to consider which is important for us to understand the nuts and bolts of creating a strategy.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Question)
 

Thanks for the feedback. I'll be issuing a retraction soon on the Dwarven Hammer.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Question)
 

I've added a revisions and retraction summary to my first post. Of particular note, I've added a paragraph on the importance of Oracles of the Ancients and preaching to the Mage Priests section.

To do: Comment on manually searching with Earth Readers, Golem Crafters, and Gnome Lore. Also, seasons and ages and how that affects use of Golem Crafters.

Guide to MA Agartha (Military Summary)
 

2.5 A review of your military

Your human infantry are well protected, and fear few arrows. But they're quite lackluster when compared to other nations. They are severely limited by resources, and have a low damage potential. They do have a decent (13) defense score, and that helps.

Light Infantry - These are your fast units. They can easily handle independents consisting of archers, militia, [animal] tribe warriors, light infantry. They will suffer a world of hurt against heavy infantry and barbarians. Choose your targets wisely.

Infantry - These are worth the resources, but hard to recruit in quantity. You'll usually throw 10 or 20 in with a whole mess of LI when you need something with a little more staying power. They're outclassed by quite a few national troops, however. They're equivalent to most independent heavy infantries. Don't underestimate them because they don't have 'heavy' in front.

Heavy Infantry - Your shocktroopers. They still have dinky damage, but they'll be your very best bodyguards. With some of your protection spells, they can form a good wall.

Pale One Soldiers - Not worth recruiting for most expansion, they'll be used to take water provinces, and open another war front against other land nations. They'll also be used in siege warfare, or when you're expecting darkness conditions.

Ancient Ones - maddeningly vulnerable to arrows, and coldblooded, they certainly have their drawbacks. Their attack is a little better than the POS, but their greater strength more than compensates for their decreased hit rate. Unless you have equalizers in place, count them out against units with a defense of 13 or more. They'll only hit 18%. Nice combinations include fire bless, Darkness, Arrow Fend, Legions of Steel, and Curse of Stones.

Scouts - Get them when you need scouts, but you'll often have something better to buy. You'll usually be better off recruiting from independents.

Cave Captains - Use them to lead large groups of light infantry and/or speedy independents, they're the closest thing to a rapid response team you have. There's not much reason to choose them over independent commanders, but

Pale One Captains- Use them to lead amphibious assaults.

Ancient Lord - Well worth thugging. They won't kill armies by their lonesome, but an solo Ancient Lord equipped with a 2h Sword of Sharpness, Black Steel Helmet, and Black Steel Full Plate (all trinkets) can take down 8 enemy humanoids before going down. All in one hit each. Properly supported, it is a worthwhile addition to your force. The problem is properly supporting them. They have a move speed of 13- aside from Ancient Ones, you have nothing else as fast. You can put them behind your infantry, but if you do it improperly, they'll just get stuck at the rear doing you no good. If you're deploying these with anything but Ancient Ones, experiment with your formations, watch the battles, and learn what works well before you get into a battle where they are needed.

Acolytes of the Ancients - Near worthless, unless you have the no independents mods. In that case, they're actually worth using because they are the only blesser fast enough to keep pace with your Ancient Ones. If you need preaching in a distant province, they'll get there quicker than your mage-priests.

Earth Reader - They make a decent leader for infantry and heavy infantry. They don't do much with their spells, but they can scale upwards when necessary. Just keep those spare gems on a commander who can't use them. And while their 5 magic leadership doesn't seem like much, five golems can add a surprising amount of oomph to a force. They're also the cheapest option if you expect to be constantly forging equipment. There's a lot of earth equipment available at only 1E. And even with Gnome Lore being available, it can be worth sending out a couple of these early on to search for sites. You'll recruit these for any permanent positions.

Golem Crafters - Compared to other nations, a puny researcher. On the plus side, the cost is reasonable, and he's sacred. On the downside, plagued by old age, you'll be constantly screening the messages for their obituaries and hiring replacements. Early on, you'll be buying a lot of these, and dedicating them to research. They're hardly worthless in combat, but getting to Attentive Statues before year two is so important you won't want to spare them. Once you've got a solid research base, there is quite a bit they'll be doing for you in battle. But if you still have earth gems, keep em at home summoning instead.

Oracle of the Ancients - Don't hire more than one your first year. They don't have the research to make it worthwhile. Later on, they'll become critical for their access to certain summons, ability to lead undead, and the importance of their preaching in taking and holding hostile territory. Their holy magic will be helpful on occasion, too. Early on, they'll take a few converted gems and scry for death sites, forge a dwarven hammer, and any other odd tasks.

Guide to MA Agartha (National Summons)
 

3.0 What is the Golem Cult?
In short, the golem cult is +10% per level of friendly dominion, for your golems. This includes non-national golems such as Claymen and "Golem" golems. It does not cover undead. If I understand the system correctly, it remembers the highest province they stayed in, till getting damaged. It may pay to move new summons through a high dominion area on the way to the front. It WILL pay if you find any fast independents with magic leadership or twiceborn a oracle, since your map move is three, but all your default leaders are stuck at one.

3.1 Conjuration (Undead - death gems)

Awaken Cavern Wight (3 gems, summons one)
Consider it the poor man's Wight, it available at the same time as the regular Wight, but at DE, not DD. It also costs 40% less gems. It loses the Bane Blade, but it gains a higher damage Glaive. It gains more hitpoints, but loses a lot of protection. In general, it is inferior. Still, it is a fairly tough unit for the cost, and that chill affect can come in quite handy. Remember, chill stacks, and every 20/10 points reduces enemy attack/defense. Every 15 increases the chance for critical hits. You might freeze them, also.

Summon Umbral (2 gems, summons one)
A very impressive stealthy, ethereal, life draining unit. Like all ethereal units, it is vulnerable to magical weapons, but with a meaty 68 hitpoints, it isn't going to be threatened by any old banishment prayer. It is a lot harder to mass than shades, being only one to a spell, but you won't have much undead leadership capacity anyways. it's quite strong, has solid attack, morale, and defense, and a pretty good MR of 16.

While they are worth including in a standard force, keep in mind the Rod of the Leper King (1D). This can give any of your units, even the scout, fifty undead leadership. The disease is a downside, but if you managed to summon a Black Servant (2D), you can avoid that problem and have yourself a stealthy raiding force. If you can't do that, they're still worth using. In short, I'd say ambushes.

Sun Tzu's Art of War has some vague, but interesting things to say with regards to this. It's a pretty short read, I highly recommend it.

3.2 Enchantment (Golems - earth gems)

Your golems are the centerpiece of your Agarthan strategy. You can mix things up quite a bit, but you'll use golems or lose. They are magical beings, lifeless, inanimate, mindless, and neverhealing - outside of labs, that is. They have 50 morale, 22 protection, and 0 encumbrance. All that grants certain immunities and advantages, but leads to a few weaknesses you'll have to learn about.

They a nice map move of three, but unfortunately you're limited to map-move 1 magic leaders. If you find a fast independent mage or twiceborn an oracle, that will be a big help.

Quite a few are sacred. I'll cover blesses in a later section. I will briefly mention that earth and nature blesses are just about moot w/regards to golems.

They don't take much damage, but when they do, you'll need to retreat/ferry a few to the nearest lab. However, since they can only be led by a mage, you can build your own. They can carry the bonus hitpoints they get from a friendly dominion into a hostile dominion.

While I've brought up the subject of their leadership, the one greatest threat to your golems is going without. If you have no mages present on the battlefield, your golems instagib. That is, they burst into a horrifying cloud of blood. The total amount of magic leadership doesn't matter, however, as long as there is some there. You'll need to protect your mages and factor in redundancy. Bodyguards will help deal with arrows and flyers, but aren't perfect. Stoneskin helps, but can't be depended on, since DRN is an open-ended roll, and fatigue increases the chances of criticals. Your mages won't die in every combat, they're not at risk, but you'll curse yourself when you forget bodyguards, and two lucky arrows deal ten points of damage to your two stoneskinned golem crafters and slay all your golems. It's almost always better to err on the side of caution when dealing with golem leaders. Failure isn't that common, but it is catastrophic when it occurs.

To repeat, to prevent the catastrophic loss of all your golems, all you typically need is a little protection, a few (human) bodyguards, and a little redundancy. Even imperfect as it is, stoneskin is well worth casting. Oh, and don't bunch your mages up. There will be situations later on where you need to take extraordinary measures, but those will usually be self evident. It's rather convenient that water/earth offers both Resist Fire and Cold Resistance. And with a Dwarven Hammer, certain trinkets only cost 3 gems. Lightning Rod, Ring of Fire/Frost. And if you're desperate, the Lead Shield is always available, but a bit pricy.

Most of your golems are sacred, opening some opportunites, wear no armor (all natural protection, important to know), and have a patrol bonus, helping you to raise money in a pinch.

Attentive Statues (4 gems, summons two)

It's easy to overlook these units with the much more attractive Enliven Sentinels just around the corner, but you're doing yourself a great disservice by doing so. By cutting off your research goal at t3, you allow yourself a lot more flexibility with your early commanders. Even with a dominion of 1, these are a force to be feared. I once had twelve of them take on a Mictlan army of 70, and win. One casualty. One. There were a few gaping chest wounds, but those were inconsequential and an inevitable result of being so grossly outnumbered and unsupported. I admit, it was against the AI, but I was still quite impressed.

Unlike your later nationals, these guys lack sacred, come with Stone Shields (manual is incorrect), and have a defense value of 14. They will still benefit from your dominion, so that helps compensate for their relatively low health. I say relatively, because for humanoid infantry, they've got above average hitpoints, strength, attack, defense, mr. And obscene morale & protection. They'll tear through undead and heavy infantry. Crossbows will hardly bother them. Even with armor piercing, they've got 11 prot. left and a good shield with a high parry value. High strength units may cause problems, but by high strength, I mean giant level, not berserked barbarians.

Enliven Sentinel (4 gems, summons one)
Once you start encountering tougher resistance, you'll switch to these. These and all further units lack shields, or the excellent defense. But, the boost in hitpoints means they'll last longer without repairs, will get less wounds, and benefit more from your dominion. They're size three, so they're still capable of outnumbering a giant or pretender. In addition to the obvious boost from strength, they get an additional damage boost from their Granite Glaive. And they're the highest you can summon without boosters or oracles. That's quite important sometimes. Don't forget to now take advantage of any national blesses you might have, and take them to labs for occasional repair.

Enliven Granite Guard (12 gems, summons one)
These are expensive, requiring 12 earth gems and an 400 gold Oracle of the Ancients (or Earth Boots golem crafter) to summon. What you get is a MEAN UNIT, that you'll definetly want to deploy to any checkpoints or bring to your critical battles. If you have any dom10 provinces, you get a whopping 150 hitpoints, that even the King of Deeper Earth can't beat. Their only fundamental problem is overkill. They can be a waste of gems that way.

Enliven Marble Oracle (45 gems, summons one)
Unfortunately, this commander gets no leadership without artifacts. Fortunately, you can equip this marble nudist with a full range of artifacts. Holy two is on occasion nice, but for real fun, and over 300 hitpoints, prophetize him. As icing on the cake, you'll get the strength bonuses, MR dominion bonus, attack and defense bonus bonus, and a permanent bless.

Special Golem Threats:
Disrepair. Nations with common earth mages. Having all your mages die off and insta-gib your golems. Armor negating spells threaten everyone, but your golem's less so, thanks to bountiful hitpoints. Your greatest threat will probably be generated by other nations with earth magic. Shatter is harmful, but less so once you get 100+ hitpoint Granite Guardians. Earth forging gives nations access to Smasher (e2), which does extra damage to inanimates and undead. IT makes available plenty of armor piercing/negating weapons. Air nations have easy access to the Thunder Whip (A1), with Armor Negating. Etcetera. However, the only thing you really need worry about all the time is any tactics hitting your mages. They are your weakest link.

Odds and ends:
Various units such as Clay Men also get the dominion bonus. If you think any non-national golem deserves a mention, tell me and I'll edit it in here. Other comments, too.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (National Summons)
 

Juggernauts and astral magic pretenders.

With astral, you can forge robes of shadows, pendants of luck, amulets of antimagic, and summon a juggernaut.

The mobile reliquary has obscene hitpoints and decent combat ability, plus it spreads the vital dominion.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (National Summons)
 

Along with 200 health the juggernaught has 20 protection and is a mindless trampler(quite hard to stop with the health, protection, trampling and immunity to mind affecting spells) but on the downside he has no elemental resistances(only poison), 4 defence, 5 attack, only weapon is a single fist(with its attack of 5 you better hope there are no size 6 enemies) but over-all its pretty nice(and sacred).
With it spreading dominion like a prophet AND benefitting from your golem cult dominion its worth it to bring a few along with your army and, with a few juggernaughts its not too difficult to dominion kill an enemy who's down to their last few provinces.
For a pretender you could try a dormant, 10 dominion, S6 wyrm. You could have luck and ethereal researched for when he comes out, he can die once and still summon juggernaughts, he has awe and of course the dominion 10 helps your golems. This build leaves 40 points over with all neutral scales so adjust them as you wish.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (National Summons)
 

Tasty strategy. I'd forgotten all about the wyrm. I'd been thinking of a Great Sage or Sacred Statue. Still, what do you do to start turning up astral gems, or do you alchemize a lot?

It spreads dominion? Nice. thanks for mentioning it, Valandil.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (National Summons)
 

Loving this guide. I've just started a new MA Agartha SP game and been trying some new ideas thanks to this guide.

I've been using Medium Infantry for the bulk of expansion so far. I used to try to rely on the Ancient Ones, but as you point out, they are very vulnerable to missiles. I just started being able to summon some of the national statues. Enemy archers are having a hell of a time with the combo of the Infantry and the statues backed by Oracles of the Ancients. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (National Summons)
 

Thanks for the feedback, Salamander8. I have quite a bit planned, and you've just helped motivate me.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (National Summons)
 

A great sage or an oracle would also work. The sage could be strongly rainbow for searching/forging ect(but would pay through the nose for dominion) where-as the oracle could have a few other paths/great scales.
The dominion spread is one of the best things about juggernaughts, each one spreads dominion at the same rate as a prophet.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (National Summons)
 

Gift of health works on juggernouts and it is multiplicative with the golem cult dominion, meaning you get 4 times the health.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Common Golems)
 

Actually, even with Scylla, my 12 R not-yet super combatant, I tend to research with her right off the bat. I don't need gem income in other areas right away, and it gives me some flexibility in getting up my research machine. I only have to recruit/dedicate four golem crafters to research to get to my goal of Attentive Statues by the end of year one. I'll make note of exactly when I reach that, but she, and my recruitment queue are free by late summer.

Oh, and some significant spell-threats are located in astral magic.

Summons that are golems, but not national: This list will be updated occasionally, and mentioned in the first post. I will, however, only add golems seen, in action, recieving the golem cult boost. I'm tempted to just guess from the manual, but feel its best to actual hear eyewitness reports/ experience it myself in case its wrong. The manual's been wrong before- case in point, Watcher is under enchantment, not construction. Contributions are welcome via PM.

Confirmed by personal experience of myself or others:
Claymen. Juggernaut.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Castles)
 

I've heard that both Cave City and Cave Fort battles are fought under the effect of darkness. I've also seen it in the short list of bugs.

Capital: Cave City
Default: Fortified City
Mountain: Cave Fort
Swamp: Swamp Fort
Forest: Forest Fortress
Tower weapons: 6x sling

Your capital is pretty well defended, but rather low on supplies. If you expect a siege, Pale One Soldiers are not a bad choice, as they don't consume supplies. Your admin is a measly 30, which means that it will usually be difficult to mass Ancient Ones.

Your Default Fortress of a Fortified City is exceptional. It's defense isn't ideal, but it is well supplied in case of sieges, and most importantly, it has 50% admin. Which means, build one of these in a strategic position to pump out the majority of your national troops. On second thought, your nationals aren't that special- a good independent selection works as well. When you build one of these, consider leaving out a temple and lab to save money.

In Mountain (NOT Border mountains) provinces the Cave Fort is available .It's admin and supply are measly, but its high defense means Pale One Soldiers can hold it for quite a long time against a larger force. Unfortunately, on random maps you will only see border provinces, at least at v. 3.08. It's on the expensive side though. I would NOT recommend making this your first fort. However... there are certain circumstances where its value jumps dramatically. A iron Mine, for instance. Or the Vaults Beneath (150 resources). Or some indies, or special site recruits. When that bug with auto darkness is fixed, if it isn't already, these will be extremely hard to take from you, barring a few nations.

Your Swamp Fort is abysmal- but cheap at 800 gold and 3 turns. It has absolutely 0 admin value. However, its not a bad place to put a library and temple, pumping out mages. If you want to double up your research early this is an option, albeit one that hamstrings troop production and vulnerable to attack. On the plus side, you could put one up next to a better fort, such as your capital, and it will hardly affect production.

Your Forest Fortress is not a bad choice. It's hardly ideal, but considering forests are high in resources and it goes up in four turns and 1000 gold, this is a decent production choice. If you haven't grabbed all the provinces in the area, its superior to a fortified city, but only by a small margin. I'd rank it above the Cave Fort, since it's somewhat less expensive, and goes up a turn earlier.

Next up, Strategy, Pretender Design, etc. Last, a discussion of artifacts and spells, advanced strategy, maybe?

Guide to MA Agartha (Pretender Design, Strategy)
 

Scale ratings:
Order: It helps, but less than other civilizations. You don't have much chaff, your standard infantry all costs 10 gold and your mages sacred, so you won't be spending much on upkeep. You'll be relying on summons who don't need chaff, anyways. There aren't many situations where you'd want turmoil.

Productivity: It's a heck of a lot more meaningful than order, but needn't be in every build. If you're going with a dormant pretender, or need to expand quickly in your strategy, this is a good choice. If you're not planning much expansion, and have a supercombatant, there's no problem taking a little sloth. I wouldn't take more than one, though.

Heat: Heat's good for your coldblooded units, but bad for your cavern wights and mages. I'd take heat one, or neutral. Some people may take more. Cold is just bad.

Growth: Never take more than death one. Higher death scales kill your Golem Crafters ridiculously fast. I'd only take Death if I had magic 3, since I could use indeps and Earth Readers for research. Growth, on the other hand, is nice. It does the obvious, but also makes it a little harder for your Golem Crafters to die off. However, I've never needed the extra supplies. It sometimes seems like a waste.

Luck: You're going to take misfortune, often. In the vanilla game, MA Agartha has no heroes that I'm aware of. You have to download a mod to get any. And you've got all the gems you really _need_, if not want. So there's little benefit to luck. Even with misfortune one, you can get good events frequently. Though when you lose two provinces to earthquakes/troglodytes, you'll hate it. Misfortune three is dangerous.

Magic: You can benefit from tilting this scale in both directions. Taking a high magic scale will allow you to cast lots of spells, research better (or younger), and make the enemy more vulnerable to spells from most paths of magic.

Drain scale can be used to your advantage. First, only two earth spells target magic resistance, therefore, your spells remain effective while spells like Opposition fail more often. Second, earthpower grants +4 reinvig, and earth blesses anywhere from 2 to 5 on all your sacred mages. With A1N1 (random possible), you can forge Rainbow Armor (enc1, invig3), and n1- available anywhere- you can forge Birch Boots(invig2), Boots of the Messenger (invig4). There's also the Girdle of Might (+3)x2.

Unfortunately, you don't have great researchers, so drain will cost you. You'll have to plan around that somehow.

Dominion strength- higher is better, of course, but don't strain yourself too hard. You Golems start out tough.

Blesses:

Fire is again, one of the better all around blesses, helping everybody but your mages. Fire 4 is a big help.

Air is of use only to mages and Ancient Ones, but considering how vulnerable they are to arrows, is another good choice. Shock resistance is irrelevant.

Water benefits your your ancient ones, and your golems. While your golems have enough protection to not need defense, fewer open-ended die rolls are always a good thing. And quickness doesn't hurt, either.

Earth is troublesome. Reinvigoration helps your mages and Sacred ones, but the problem with the high level protection bonus is that it is applied to armor, not natural protection. Golems receive no benefit whatsover from this bless.

An astral bless is wonderful. Magic resistance is always handy, and Twist Fate won't win you battles, but will cut mage casulties. You know, that one lucky arrow that hits your stoneskinned mage in a clump of soldiers and does ten damage, gibbing all your golems if he was the last one?

Death bless isn't really worht talking about, but can make enemies very cautious about attacking with their pretender. Your strong dominion + Ancient Lord w/Gate Cleaver + 100 bless equals wounds. That said, it seems the affliction rate affects spells too, not just melee. There are ways to take advantage of this.

Believe it or not, I'm under the opinion that your pretender design and scales aren't that important to Agartha's early game. Though they will, of course have a long-term and short-term affect. And you can do very different things early on - a Wyrm Astral-3 is a SC.

But for simplicity's sake the basic strategy I'll outline assumes you'll have a pretender like this - And I've deliberately left the cost low, so you can tweak, play around and experiment in a easy SP game. Not because this is a viable MP build, just a puny baseline to compare against.

Dummy, my Baseline Pretender
An Awake Crone (350/350),
with 2 points Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Astral. Default 1 point death. Total RP 14 (costs 130, 220/350)
Dominion 5 (costs 70, 150/350)
Magic Scale 1 (costs 40, 110/350)
Standard game settings, random events -> Rare

gold is unpredicatable, as result of random event.

turn 1, spring
dummy, 14 -> research -> enchantment
recruit golem crafter, 7 LI

turn 2, 14 completed late spring
recruit golem crafter, 7 LI (179 gold left)
21->enchantment

turn 3, 35 completed, early summer, start with 456 gold
recruit golem crafter, 7LI, (186 gold left)
28-> enchantment

turn 4, 63 completed (ench1), summer, start with 483 gold, 54 upkeep
recruit golem crafter, 7LI (213 gold left)
35-> enchantment

Turn 5, 98 completed (ench1), late summer, start with 476 gold, 65 upkeep
42-> enchantment with crone, 28 without, only 102 rp until Attentive Statues

Here, you can start searching with your crone, recruiting other commanders, and get attentive statues by Earl Winter
early fall (74), fall (46), late fall(18), early winter (-10), winter (-38), late winter (-66), and still get 28 RP/a turn. This is what I'd do, recruiting two earth readers, and sending them & my current pretender out to research.

Or, if you recruit another golem crafter, and keep with the research, you'll get attentive statues by Late Fall.

early fall -42 (60), fall -49 (11), late fall -56 (-38), early winter -63 (-101), winter -70 (-171), and late winter, enchantment four. You'll start year two with up to 84 rp/turn (if crone's still researching).

In this sample game, I didn't expand any, or overtax, but I regularly recruited troops, to show you what you can achieve. If this was a more chaff oriented, non-sacred nation, then you probably couldn't afford all this.

In a real game, you'll have a totally different pretender, and likely, better scales.

With a dormant pretender and 5 rp a turn (mag3, earth readers, drain1, golem crafters), you can achieve about
(0+55)/2*11 = 302 by the end of the first year. That's enchant 3, 58 points away from enchant 4.

In most games, your strategy will actually depend on a) your pretender, and b) your terrain. On a random map, you may be stuck with three crappy, low resource connecting provinces. It may be worth your while to pinch pennies and hire mercenaries, to compensate for a complete lack of recruitable troops. In other situations, you'll have independent or mercenary researchers to pitch in.

With a high magic scale, seriously consider setting up a sacred-research indie as an early research station instead of throwing up another fort.

Pretender Commentary- practical advice

Risen Oracle: the most common choice, and for good reason. Unfortunately limited in magic paths, he comes with fear, so each point of death goes straight into a boost. Remember fear also gets stronger every +5, whether its natural or boosted. Doesn't add much to your golems, though will open up a poison golem. Opens up Skull Mentor, Skull Staff, and other nice artifacts that will help with darkness and drain strategies.

Generally better than lichs, unless you find yourself needing very high death.

Sacred Statue: Great potential lies in the astral path, but the difficulty of finding astral gems will hamper you. Alchemy can be used to help, and get rid of those unusable gems. For your very first Astral Pretender, you'd be better off with an Great Enchantress.

Oracle: Four accessory slots, but 20 hitpoints. You won't be teleporting it around, but you probably won't have the gems to do so, anyways. Better choice than the Sacred Statue. Try this once you've practiced with a Great Enchantress.

Wyrm: A classic. Everything to be said, already has. Combines well with nearly every path of magic. Has two heads - something to keep in mind. Want an easy supercombatant?

Titan: Opens up watchers, bless is great for your mages and Ancient ones, not so hot for golems, though the golems don't need them nearly as much. Worth a second look, despite the poor thematic match. Also opens up those Owl Quills you'll need if you take any drain.

Sample pretenders - perhaps not the best, but fun enough for single player or a relaxed multiplayer game.

Forge Lord (dormant)
Fire 5, Earth 5, Dominion 6, Productivity 3, Magic 1.
Basic goal is to reach construction 2 and enchant 3 (total 300 RP) around the the time your Pretender awakens. Meanwhile, you'll be depending on infantry or heavy infantry to expand.

First have have him forge a Dwarven Hammer, then start churning out artifacts, and kitting your Ancient Lords. Dedicate your mages to researching and casting battle magic. Eventually, you'll have access to Earth Attack, King of Elemental Earth, King of Elemental Fire, Melancholia, Volcanic Eruption, Raging Hearts, Purgatory (With a flame helmet), Forge of the Ancients, Mechanical Militia, Riches from Beneath, Earth Blood Deep Well (earth boots).

If you're not interested in globals, you can take a point of heat (good for your Ancient Lords anyway), drop a point of productivity, take 7 dom, and take 4 earth, 4 fire, and either air or water. You now can forge the staff of Elemental Mastery, and boost your Golem Crafters even further. With staff, Helmet, Boots, and Robe of the Sea/Water Bracelet, you've got a FFFWWWEEEE mage. Not bad- still, quite expensive. Though way too many options for just one mage, who'll die of old age. Earth boots is all they need for Magma Eruption. And you can STILL get forge of the ancients and Hammer of the Forge Lord. This will get you Acid Rain, Acid Storm (with water gems, and golems have no armor to be destroyed), get Curse of the Desert, Grip of Winter, Curse of Stones, Heat from Hell, Prison of Fire. Is short, all sorts of ways of ways to mess with your opponents. On a mage one arrow will kill. Base costs: Dwarven Hammer (15), Earth Boots (10), Robe of the Sea (15), Flame Helmet (25), Staff of Elemental Mastery(25,25), Hammer of the Forge Lord (25, 15), Forge of the Ancients (80).

However, if you get the Forge of Ancients up, the Hammer of the Forge Lord, The Staff of Elemental Mastery can be forged for only 3,3. If you find one of the forging sites... The mechanics of forge bonuses are discussed elsewhere in these forums, but there's a limit of 10%. With only a 50% bonus, and Forge of the Ancients, a Ember blade would cost 2,2. With the 75 bonus reachable by a Forge Lord and Forge of the Ancients, that comes down to 1,1. Your Golem Crafters with Dwarven Hammers and Forge of the Ancient comes to 3,3. So... Overkill? It's certainly a little easier to get up and running with the forge lord. And you can waste time forging 5 gem items for free. The problem is, this is all practically endgame. At least the bless isn't useless.

Good diplo build, though arming your eventual enemies is always a questionable tactic. You'll come out on top of any item exchange. Though people will consider you stingy if you keep your best (Dwarven Hammer?) items to yourself, its worth considering in a MP game. It is possible to pull off by year four, though I didn't do a great job of orchestrating my test game, and went about it all wrong.

Other people, please mention a build for people to try. And state whether its competitive or fun. I'm trying to put together a blood strat, myself, but it requires a bit of work and experimentation.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Pretender Design, Strategy)
 

What about a few Stone Idols? Idols should bring down the Dominion to O in one particular province, thereby cancelling the Drain effects. Astral + Earth may be tricky to get, though it's a very nice combination that you probably want anyway.

You might even want to use the enemy Dominion to override your own Drain in research provinces (you don't get the research bonus of their Magic scale, though). That requires putting the research base on your borders, though, but hey, it's cheap and it works with all negative scales.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Pretender Design, Strateg
 

Don't forget the Gargoyle, another lifeless construct. Flying, mindless and very tough. Do they work with Golem Cult?

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Pretender Design, Strateg
 

I think astral+earth on the pretender has a nice synergy, with items such as communion matrixes, stone idols etc. The downside is the magic duel, and even there is an easy solution: immortal pretender. With Risen Oracle you can get quite cheaply earth+astral+death caster for all your specialized needs.

And gargoyles are very nice, since thay are flying and thus help with poor mobility of Agartha and reside in the Enchantment which is the statue route also. Unfortunately they require one point of air... once again, on pretender only...

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Pretender Design, Strateg
 

How about this pretender for MA Agartha?

A imprisioned fountain with S4 N9, which gives a blessing of regeneration+15%, berserk+2, +1 magic resistance, +2 morale.

Dominion 9 with scales of Order-3, Prod-2, Heat-3, Growth-2, Misfortune-3 and Magic-1.

Your ancient ones are pretty tough with reg+15% and berserk+2. The main thing about the berserk is it raises the attack of ancient ones to 11 and gives them a little extra protection. All your summoned sacreds should enjoy this bless too.

Initially make your cave captain your prophet so he can divine bless and expand with him. Soon after you can make another army up of ancient ones with a earth reader leading them. Place upto 20 ancient ones on hold attack, script earth reader with blessx3, flying shardsx2, cast spells. This is capable of conquering most indies. Aim to produce 9 Ancient ones a turn ASAP, any left over resources build your heaviest infantry.

Long term you should aim towards your unique national summons plus anything else that benefit from your 9 dominion golem cult. Lightless lanterns + skull mentors to speed your research up. Umbrals for raiding/assaulting other nations. Globals Earth Deep Blood Well, Forge of ancients and Gift of Health, Gift of Bounty (your pretender can cast). Gift of Health, gift of bounty, golem cult, a bless strategy on your ancient ones all go together so well with dominion 9. You even get awe on your fountain.

Your magic paths are fairly diverse with Earth, Nature, Astral, Water, Fire, Death all accessable from your mages or pretender. You can use mercenaries or summons to fill in the rest if you wish.

This would be fun to play in SP and may be competitive in MP if you are left alone long enough to get rolling. Your blessed ancients would be good enough early on to deter attack.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Pretender Design, Strateg
 

Revised Scales Opinions

Growth 0:
While some people in the advice thread provide solid reasons for picking growth 3, I have to strongly disagree. I feel its a total waste of points, and any reduction of aging problems is unreliable at best. My first year, 2/4 mages ended up with at least one affliction. I might as well have taken death.

No reason to go above standard. Your mages start with old age (by 4 years), and afflictions will happen anyways. There's little benefit to the supply and growth boni. I can't recommend it yet, but I'm going to take another look at 1-2 death scales. It's a thematic fit, and it seems they're going to die anyways.

Magic 3: Allows you to cast till the cows come home, but is it really essential? Expensive, take if you have a lot of spare points, or if you plan to aggressively use indie/earth readers for research, which is, btw, a viable strategy. 1700-2100 gold to start a secondary national research/recruit site, while it takes 500-900 for independent setup.
Magic 2: No good. The MR reduction helps, more than it hurts, thanks to earth's physical nature.
Magic 1: Very good. As others have said, it renders Earth Readers a viable research choice. I almost always take this.
Magic 0: Don't.
Drain 1: Don't. If you're going drain, take two. Research is the same, but the MR bonus is handy to have.

Drain 2: Challenging, but doable. Golem Crafters still provide a solid 5 RP. Use the extra points to take an awake pretender who can help with research - even 10 will help a lot in getting to Attentive Statues. Lightless Lanterns WILL be available to help with research, but you need to get to C6 first. On the plus side, they're only 5 fire gems, before various forge bonuses, and Forge of the Ancients is around the corner. If you take the appropriate magic paths, and find the right gems, you can forge Owl Quills and Skull Mentors to help at earlier stages (C2, C4).

While you're at it, an earth bless helps deal with the extra fatigue, Summon Earthpower does the same (Conj3), reinvig artifacts abound, and you've got plenty of earth gems for when you really need to cast. Long magical duels will be nonexistent, but you'll have a little more staying power, and wake up earlier after falling unconscious.

Drain 3 - No. It makes a bad situation worse, and offers nothing in exchange.

Sloth - Even with a super combatant, I don't recommend it.

Additional Pretender Commentary

Humanoid, low cost rainbow pretenders such as sages, enchantresses, etc. The Golem Cult can work with 5 dominion. However, you want to give your all into researching Attentive Statues as soon as possible, and push that advantage as far and fast as possible.

Master Druid - an odd choice, but with some death can lead your Umbrals as part of a very mean raiding force. The stray arrow will murder you easily, however. Take air magic also, for weightless shields/armor, owl quills, and amulets of missile protection. There's plenty of counters available, so you have to hit your enemy hard. In a large mp game, this is less likely to succeed, since they're likely to be on guard against some other stealthy nation. But still, it is unexpected, and a druid can bring some powerful battle magic to bear. Definite gamble, but fun. You can prevent magic loss by casting twiceborn, though failure will cost you stealth and that opportunity. On the plus side, the wight mage isn't a bad deal.

Great Enchantress - Great pick if you're interested in the astral path and a rainbow pretender. Can't beat a free astral gem. If you're not into a rainbow pretender, pass her by.

Great Sage - Wonderful. Can take a drain realm, and still get Attentive Statues out faster than anyone would expect. Certainly, drain may hinder in a long game, but in the short term, you'd have to recruit 11 researchers before drain cancelled out your base 11 RP before magic. And throw in all the research items (or only just the Lightless Lanterns GCs can forge), dwarven hammers, and a little Forge of the Ancients, and you have one of the strongest late-game research-drain empires, though Ermor probably occupies the top slot. Make construction a priority after enchant 3. It'll open up the research items, Forge of the Ancients and Iron Dragons. While you may have trouble getting the gems for the research artifacts in the early game, your sage compensates. And in the late game, you'll want to grab the alchemist's stone if you're missing the gems for whatever research item you're mass producing at a large discount.

Crone - the pretender for true skinflints. Cast Twiceborn for a true improvement, and a 'get-out of assassination, do pass go' card that monopoly would be proud of. In general, brings nothing special to the table, but will have enough magic to help with research.

Freak Lord, Arch Mage- Two of only a few pretenders with move three, they'll generally have enough magic leadership to lead an army of golems around your empire very rapidly, terrain/magic permitting.

The dragons are tougher, but lack the magic variety. They each have their advantages, but the green one can access Faery Trod in times of need. The Red One can help provide fire gems for Lightless lanterns via augury, site searching, or Eternal Pyre. The blue one offers Curse of the Desert (thau4), the enchantment spells Grip of Winter, Warriors of Nefielheim, and Quagmire, which can together with Curse of Stones to dramatically fatigue an enemy army, though that's the best I can come up with.

The Phoenix is special, putting aside the obvious immortality. Even with just one air and one fire, it has a whopping ninety magic leadership, and three move. Though, if its the only leader and dies, you'll kill me for suggesting it. Winged Boots will allow you to bring a Marble Oracle along for any blessing needs. Though Oracles can forge Stymphalian Wings.

It also has relatively easy access to the Flying Ship, which will allow for a ridiculously mobile army of golems, even at size four.

However, none of this is uniquely suited to Agartha, but it still is nice, even though nearly anyone can have one.

General advice: don't neglect to recruit indep. nature mages. Healing can keep those Ancients up and running, I've mentioned the invig boots, and the Raw Hide Shield will protect a few mages from arrows, without any encumberance. It's generally not hard to scrape together five (base), three (Dwarven Hammer) nature gems to keep your Golem leaders intact.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Pretender Design, Strateg
 

In the SP game as MA Agartha I previosuly mentioned, I took Growth 2. I have to concur with your assessment of growth vs the Golem Crafters old age problems (and to a lesser extent, the Oracle of the Ancients). It's mid year 4 for my game, and I've lost 6 of these guys to disease brought on by old age, I have 2 that recently became diseased on top of this, and have at least another 6 that have less major afflictions. Two of my Ancient Oracles have minor afflictions from aging as well.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

I'm glad to hear that, Salamander, since i was lazy, and only went a year before giving up on growth 3. If it was only a bout of badluck it would have been embarrassing. Four years is a much better data sample.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

Well personally, based on a sample of 20+ MP games, perhaps a 1,000+ turns in all, I am a growth fan, especially with order.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

I wanted to add that I normally do like to take growth, just that it hasn't helped with the old age issues with MA Agartha. I have growth 3 in my current SP game as MA R'Lyeh, and it's been quite nice. I tend to use a fair chunk of supplies as MA R'Lyeh due to the Ilithid artillery brigades.

Part of the old age problem with the Golem Crafters is that they come with F1 magic.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

Meglobob, thats good to hear. Now, that growth you've taken, has that helped with units starting with old age, or are you a fan because of the other benefits?

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

Growth is great. The supply bonus is helpful, the income is nice, the reduced old age afflictions are also helpful and the population growth(particularly if you take growth 3) is a very big bonus in long games.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

Growth does help with old age but its really the income boost. I play in alot of games that last 50 - 100+ turns, growth has a considerable effect over this time period.

I suppose I would not take growth in a blitz.

A good way of reducing old age afflictions is to recruit your old age mages after the late winter month. So you get a full 9-12 turns out of them before they get afflictions.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

On the subject of growth-I'd suggest never taking growth scales in combination with misfortune-over the long term, the misfortune generally cancels out any benefit from the growth.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

Growth is absolutely one of my favorite scales, but I have not seen any help to my old age Golem Crafters as MA Agartha at all. I know it's supposed to, but I have not seen any appreciable difference as far as the old age problems between growth 0 and any positive growth scales (I'm using Growth 2 in my current SP game). I take growth mostly for the expanding economy and certain nations needing more supplies and was hoping the old age reduction would be icing on the cake, but that has not been the case in my trials so far. Now it is hard to do raw comparisons due to the vagary of starting ages on the units (from barely old age to ancient), but so far it hasn't helped the old age issue for me. I still am a growth fan.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

Trust me there is a difference.

Around 5 months ago, a player ran tests on old age effects for various nations mages with growth-3 to death-3. Growth-3 resulted in alot less deaths from afflictions.

Here is the link to the thread:-

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...art=1&vc=1

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

Thank you, that is very interesting. Now I just have to decide how to value my GCs versus 40 points.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

Then my results are not typical, because G2 or G0 I get the same rough affliction occurrence with my Golem Crafters. It's a very small sample size in my case (only 4 starts and no complete games as of yet, 2 with G0, 1 with G1, and 1 with G2), but I would expect an obvious, if not huge difference in the results. I have never tried Death with them, but I avoid Death barring nations like LA Ermor.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

One thing that is affecting my current MA Agartha SP game is that I found an Earth site that let's me recruit trolls! These guys regen+decent hitting power on top of my Infantry and my Statues let me crush Man into the dirt, and I'm now stomping Tien Chi. Both of these AIs have been using archers heavily, and the combination of good protection with shields and regen are keeping my missile casualties very light. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (response)
 

Recruitable trolls are very nice(and lucky) indeed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summons)
 

This section is dedicated to readily available summons. I'll mostly be ignoring any that depend on random picks, chance indeps, or pretenders. At least right now. Have fun experimenting with those on your own. I'm just going to cover the common tools of the trade.

Section deleted: To much of a paper jockey, will get more experience with these summons first.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summons)
 

q: does nature bless affect golems?

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summons)
 

Statues are lifeless so they don't get regeneration. They can berserk, though, which I feel a bit odd...

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summons)
 

That's too bad, but definitely understandable. If you Gift of Reason these guys (Agartha's summons), what slots do they have?

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

Take a look at the Marble Oracle - already a commander, though without any leadership (the other Middle Age Agartha thread discusses various ways to give them leadership). The whole ensemble is available.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

I'm trying to, but it takes a looong time to get one to look at. I was thinking, with a Forge Lord and a dwarven hammer, you could Gift of Reason these guys and then use all the earth gems to forge a bunch of armor and cheap items, boost their Prot up around 50, with some work, providing they have the slots.

Re: Guide to MA Agartha (Available General Summon
 

Well.. if you just want to give the equipment, skip the Gift of Reason, and just get the Marble Oracle. Admittedly, its quite a bit more expensive, too, but at least you don't have to scrounge together the nature gems and so forth.