Building a pretender for Atlantis

[llamabeast]

I've never ever played an underwater nation before, but will shortly be playing Atlantis in the big Armadillo game.

If people have any general tips on Atlantis they would be much appreciated. I'm also a bit stuck with my pretender design at the moment. Because the map will be crowded, I thought it would be a good idea to take some kind of SC pretender. But the build I've been trying for e.g. the kraken just get killed really quickly. What's the trick?

[Ballbarian]

Haven't tried it myself llamabeast, but would it be worth it to bump your dominion up to get 'Awe' for your kraken? Might really help keep him alive and help with early expansion.

[Reverend Zombie]

Can't go wrong with a Dagon, and they are amphibious, unlike the Kraken.

You can get a decent water bless with an awake one, too. Not sure if MA Atlantis has the sacreds to take advantage of the bless, though.

[Foodstamp]

I have a suggestion for you. Hot/Cold scale does not have an effect on underwater income (If I am wrong on this, please correct me). So you may consider taking an extreme hot/cold scale to help free up points for your SC Pretender.

[HoneyBadger]

I like Dagon, although I think it would be cool if he had some kind of weapon, like either a massive ship's anchor that could do damage to an area, or some kind of mystical pillar he dredged up from R'lyeh.

Trample's fine, but it doesn't quite do him justice.

[Kristoffer O]

I suggest you take a Monolith, so the Lawgiver can carve a throne out of you

[Eressil3]

For MA atlantis, (Armadillo is MA isn't it ?)you can rely your early expansion on your war lobsters if you start in a large pool of water. The manual contains good advices on how to use them efficiently.
In the afterthought game it worked surprisingly well. I had one of the best expansion with them mixed with the cheap and efficient reef dwellers.

So you can take a dormant or imprisoned pretender.

An awaken SC will give you even more provinces but IMHO the challenge with MA atlantis is more mid & late game. Therefore the pretender should be designed for these parts of the game.
You may also use your pretender to diversify your magic and/or be sure to summon late game monsters, forge magical items etc.


Scales I'm sure you need :
- cold 3 (water provinces are not affected/water spells are cold related)
- prod 2-3 (prod is the effective limit to your number of units)
- magic 1 or 3 (to get out the water)

Depending on your playstyle :
- order 3/Misfortune 1-3 ---- or ---- Turmoil 3/luck 3
- growth/death depending of the size of the map.
For atlantis I prefer order and growth to negate some of the effects of cold on my land provinces.

At midgame, you can have a good bunch of sacred units. But I don't find them very appealing. So I'm not sure if a bless strategy is the way to go. Try it and tell me

[Saxon]

If you are going for thug/SC pretender with an underwater nation, you have to go for amphibious. I have set up a couple of great SC before and dominated the ocean, only to find it tough to get them on to land for the mid to late game. Sure, SC are more vulnerable late game, but you want to be able to raid as an underwater nation. An SC that can eat PD on land is a nice threat.

I lean towards a dormant pretender who will be able to use the high level magic later (after you have researched them) and provides good scales. Getting them out of the water is not an issue, since they will mostly stay at home.

Going for the Monolith and teleporting into Mictlan’s home province does a have a certain ring to it, don’t you think?

[Saxon]

He was a Pretender. A real Ghost King would not have hip bones.