[Lazy_Perfectionist]

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.