[DrPraetorious]

If you're really having trouble making EA Arco viable:

Take an awake Prince of Death, domstr 9, with D4, 3 Order, 3 Sloth, 3 Fortune, 1 Death, 1 Magic. You can go 2 Growth with neither fortune nor death, if you wish instead - the death *will* kill off some of your philosophers. This works for practically any nation, but is particularly well suited to Arco.

Set your tax rate to 200% on the first turn and patrol, while sending your PoD blind into an adjacent territory, with your scout sneaking in behind. Recruit a philosopher and some peltasts. You're going to be recruiting nothing but peltasts for a while; peltasts have javelins and shields and therefore they can expand in the early era.

In this first province you grab, build a fortress starting on turn 2. Have your philosophers start heading up construction - as soon as you have Const 2, make a pendant of luck and some armor and things for your PoD.

You'll be recruiting philosophers and building fortresses all over the place until you can't afford any more. Build temples and labs as well, recruit prietesses and things.

Advanced considerations:
* A wyrm or a dragon might be better than a PoD (it's a pity you don't get a Deva), b/c they're alive which means that your priestesses can heal them.
- Example 1 - Awake Blue Dragon, Water 9, Domstr 9, Order 3, Sloth 3, Misfortune 3, Drain 2. It takes you a few turns to start recruiting pegasi, but the combination of a strong bless, a SC god *and* an edge in research (net bonus of +2 on the phillies) can be devastating. If your capital doesn't have high resource neighbors, though, you're screwed. Compromise builds like this are harder to use but I generally favor them myself.
- Example 2- Awake Wyrm, no magic, Domstr 10, Order 3, Sloth 3, Fortune 1, Magic 1. This probably isn't as good as the PoD, but is less of a risk b/c the Wyrm is a little more powerful pre-equipment, and because you can heal him with your priestesses.
* A dormant pretender saves you a *lot* of points, but as EA Arco with sloth you have trouble expanding early; almost certainly isn't worth it.