[HoneyBadger]

First Post (or second, for those who were paying attention and have too much time on their hands).

Thuggin It.
Agartha Early Age:
This is going for extremely tough, high-damage sacred troop Thugs who can contribute to End Game, to compliment all the tough, damage-absorbing units you get with early Agartha. The trade-off is miserable scales. Pretender: Forge Lord, Dom 5, Imprisoned.
Turmoil3, Sloth3, Heat3, Death3, Misfortune3, Drain3.
Magic: Fire10, Water9, Earth9, Nature4.
The idea here is that you aren't going to buy a lot of troops, but the ones you do buy are really going to count. Gold and resources are low and are just going to get lower, but with the Forge Lord and all of Agartha's gems, you can easily make this up by the middle of the game. Be careful about spending money-buy lots of province defence, atleast 30, and guard provinces with sacred troops. Don't be afraid to lose provinces as long as you can hurt the enemy worse. Use fever fetishes on your Pale One scouts, you should be able to really milk those fire gems, and spend them on Magma Children initially, and alchemize them to boost your cash flow. Make rings of regeneration and hand them out to your Ancient Lords. With 15% regeneration, you'll get 6-7 HP back. Yes, you could go lower on Fire magic, but 2 36point 15 attack skill magic attacks per round is nothing to scoff at, and almost nothing can resist some damage. With 44 hp, 18 prot, 12 def, and 3 points regeneration, you won't be taking a lot of damage in return. With the Forge Lord, you've got the ability to upgrade your sacred Ancient Lords, and they're a very nice chassis for upgrading. The battleaxe is ok to begin with since you've got Fire-bless, but how about an armor-piercing spear and a shield? or a couple of armor-piercing axes? When you can, think about upgrading to a Gate-Cleaver. You'll kill virtually anything you hit, and you'll go through castles like tissue-paper. You won't have the cash to build forts quickly until you research Wizard's Tower, so why let anyone else build them? Your weakness is going to be Astral Magic-get an Astral mage as quickly as you can, better yet, empower your Forge Lord. The Faithful(luck) sword can be an Ancient Lord's best friend, so can an amulet of magic resistance, and they're both pretty cheap. Create 3-4 small groups of 1 Oracle leading 4 Seal Guards and clean out all the weak indeps in the surrounding area. Either keep the strong indep provinces to help defend your lands or combine groups to take them out. Guard provinces with Seal Guards, your province defense isn't bad but needs help. Your Dom is good, and your scales are bad, so spread the bad around-grab provinces close to the enemy, guard them well, and put temples and prophets on them whenever you can. Especially devastating to cold-loving nations like Caelum, the Vans, and Niefel-all of which are your natural enemies, anyway. Large armies should always include atleast 2-4 Seal Guards (with an Oracle of your choice), Ancient Stone Hurlers (the armored ones), Cavern Guards, Ancient Ones, and Trogs. Don't waste your money on other national troops, concentrate on summons instead. Use your Forge Lord for forging-by endgame you should have atleast 20 fully decked-out Ancient Lord thugs to smash provinces on both land and sea. Other things you'll want are: Bladewind-as quickly as possible, Magma Children-lots, and soon. Riches from Beneath-to solve that pesky lack of resources. Gift of Health-cure your Seal Guards of all the 'itis they picked up by mid-game. Army of Lead-by End Game you should have a handful of Oracles who can cast this spell, and it's tailor-made for Agartha. Oracles of Subterranean Waters (sometimes) can cast Quickening while Oracles of Subterranean Fire can (sometimes) cast Conflageration. Oracles of Death can also cast Blight right out of the box and (sometimes) Disintegrate.
Alteration is your best long-term magic school, but don't neglect Construction-Weapons of Sharpness (castable by oracles) makes even your unequipped Seal Guards really nasty to all for end-game and you'll have the gems and the casters to produce more Iron Dragons than anybody else. Enchantments gives you mass-regeneration by level 8-another fine spell for Agartha, but only your Pretender can cast it, so it's big pivotal battle material only. Try to summon up a few Treelords when you can though, they'll help cover Nature magic, which you aren't as strong in as you could be, and a few Treelords casting Regeneration on your smaller groups of tough units is a good substitute for Mass Regeneration, and they can support in other ways as well. Enchantment also allows your Oracles of Death to create some undead troops, which won't hurt anything. Evocation is your friend up to level 6 with Magma Eruption and can still be useful up to level 9 for Oracles.