[chrispedersen]

If you want to add blood to the phoenix you can do so. But the whole point of bloodstones is to add *earth gems*. Couple with ready made dwarven hammers...at the very least agartha isn't hurting for earth gems.

The strategy, to my mind depends a lot on whether or not you are in a fixed start with water, and how many other water nations are in the game.

With water, you are going to want to send a 2w/1n (at the least) mage to find you free castles. And this is probably the single greatest and most profitable avenue for agartha. So much so that with fixed starts, and no/few water nations, I'd probably start with an ageless olm with nature.

Absent that, a phoenix is a solid choice. The problem is usually decried as getting to the middle game- the phoenix will get you there.

Generally speaking, I'd research Conj1, and prophetize a cavern wight and use him to raise the undead killed by my Death scale. And/or my phoneix explosions.

After that, its a gamble. Probably the way I would go would be to expand solely with my phoenix/prophet and thugs, relying on them till I researched up to umbral. Ie I don't think I'd build a national troop, plowing it instead into forts and mages.

Although you could add blood to the pretender... I wouldn't.
All of your mages are sacred. If you add death, things like blade wind, and rain of stones, seeking arrow, flames from affar now *afflict*. Plus its a good segue into tartarians.

one other little tiny secret: give your phoenix reinvigoration items. As long as you don't die the final death - you will keep them through each phoenix reincarnation.

Adding 13 to his rinvigoration and scripting hold x5, boots the median respawns from 2.5 to somewhere from 5-7 depending on the whether your pretender has awe, andn his stats.