Getting the max out of MA Agartha

[coobe]

Hey

im currently toying around with MA Agartha and find it very frustrating. I got the feeling it is by far the worst early game nation.

negative aspects
- expensive sucky troops
- no ranged troops
- mediocre moral values
- "elite troops" cold blooded (not a big deal but still..)
- low precision troops

positive
- amphibian troops
- versatile sacred mages
- interesting pretender chassis (ancient oracle, mother of monsters)

how to survive early game ? i think there is no way around a sc pretender. and what about the thematic golems ? no real option for the early game, but you need to get a foundation if you want to spam them later...

advices, thoughts are very welcome

[lch]

And here I am, almost suffering from infarction over the thought that coobe might have written a nation guide. Lucky me...

[vfb]

That's not a nation guide? I thought it did a good job of outlining the positives and negatives. Maybe it's more of a "nation blueprint."

[Endoperez]

High dominion is probably worthwhile, since it increases the hp of all your golems. So that means either some mobile construct (what tag was it? inanimate?) but those are few and I don't think MA Agartha gets any, or something that benefits from Awe. A bit of Death magic would also be nice, so that you can leverage the low innate Death of your Oracles for something.

[Quitti]

Indeed vfb, but Coobe, are you talking about EA Agartha or MA Agartha? True, I'd say neither are not good in early gameplay, but can grow up to be quite good.

EA have have trogdolytes, which are somewhat good in killing of indeps and human-sized opponents in masses, and all the earth readers can be used in quite a few ways (earth boots + earthpower -> blade wind for everyone). Access to e4 mages from the scratch (50% chance) is not bad either. And I guess you could go with some bless for those recruit anywhere ancient ones.

MA Agartha I haven't really played in MP so can't comment on that. And Single player I only play to gauge if I would like to play in MP or test out strategies for those that I've already chosen


Edit: Checked out MA, and it doesn't differ much from EA, trogdolytes are absent and mages are bit different, but recruit anywhere golem crafters can do the blade wind -thing without the boots straight away. Also the statues are not bad, enc0 troops with good prot. Slap them with weapons of sharpness/strength and the start hacking away pretty well, me guesses. And there are still those ancient ones, though recruitable only from cap...

[coobe]

im indeed talking about MA Agartha. really try them out, you will find it so hard to expand even against indies in the first 6-7 turns without a Cyclops pretender

@lch look at it as a prototype for a guide just need more feedback since im really clueless about many aspects of that nation

Golems can be nice, but the useful ones (mobile, decent stats) are high in research

[Quitti]

There, my post should make a bit more sense now. But yes, I agree, early expansion is probably going to be hard without a SC. I started with a lousy cyclops in EA with agartha, and was second when the game ended - though mainly because of inattentive/weak enough/not caring neighbors.

[coobe]

well in ea you could clear oout indies with a e9n4 bless, but as soon as you engage another nation it´ll be difficult...

but back to ma
a powerbless might save you the early game, but with prec7 on your sacreds its really a gamble isnt it ?

[Quitti]

Well since precision is only used when firing missiles or spells, I don't see how that's much of a problem. You can pop a divine bless with a single oracle, blessing everything you have on the field, so you don't have to worry about not hitting those sacreds with your blesses either. While it's true that the precision sucks for agarthans, you can get eyes of aiming (indep mages, deer tribe if I recall correctly had 0.1a pick) if you really want those blade winds/magma eruptions to hit the spot. Also there's bound to be one a2 mage coming up as merc sometime.

Also, if you can get some death magic going on, umbrals are good with legions of steel (or even better, army of lead) & strength of giants. But they are mainly good late-game troops, since they require so high conj, which is probably not your first priority anyway.

[coobe]

i thought precision affects melee as well ?