The Bogarus Problem

[K]

Ming said:
K,

Thank you for your reply and free advice.

For your information, I have played test games against the AI using both strategies (eparch and awake pretender) and find the latter to be superior (and NOT just because it is better against the AI). Nevertheless, in deference to your ability (I can tell from your comments in other threads that you are a good and experienced player – certainly more than semi-competent!) I shall take another look and reserve my judgment. Our differences seem minor and might be no more than player preference anyway. i.e. both strategies requires compromises and it is a question of which is a better compromise.

I should, however, point out a couple of points that you seem to have overlooked in your comments:

Taking an awake pretender can still leave enough points to get good scales – the only significant trade-off is production vs sloth. The value of production diminishes over time. So in this respect you are not getting much lasting value by not choosing an awake pretender. Alternately you could invest the points in magic paths, but Bogarus’ recruitable mages already provide sufficient magic ability, so again the trade-off for taking an awake pretender is not that great.

It is nice to meet someone who can intelligently disagree with me and still be very civil. It is refreshing.

My last point is this: Bogarus's good troops need lots of resources, and their substandard troops need little. Perhaps Bogarus's perceived weakness is because few people see this and they insist on low Production and recruiting a Staret every turn until they lose?

I believe the nation is a trap for the inexperienced. It invites you to destroy yourself with a single good tactic when tactical diversity is the only common trait among the best players.

[Kuritza]

Consider this...by spending first 6 turns on recruiting OLD, 0-leadership smiters not only do you handicap your research significantly, but also dont search your lands for magic sites, compromising your endgame viability even further.
And Jim - I know its just my word, but at least you can consider it.
Dom 10 Wyrm, W3E3, drain 2, dont remember the rest. Research to enchantment 1 for breath of winter (simply a must), alt 2 for quicken self, conj 3 for earthpower, alt 3 for ironskin also helps, constr 4 for some items. Later on such pretender can search for magic sites normally invisible to Bogarus and summon Beregini with Nature picks (they can also forge clams). Once empowered with Blood he summons Ice Devils, Father Illearth and forges Bloodstones. Maybe not the best start possible, but at least its relatively safe and offers some lategame diversification.
What I really missed is nature 4 bless, of course... cant have it all.

[Renojustin]

Drain 2 seems like a very solid choice given Bogarus's high-powered researchers.

[K]

Kuritza said:
Consider this...by spending first 6 turns on recruiting OLD, 0-leadership smiters not only do you handicap your research significantly, but also dont search your lands for magic sites, compromising your endgame viability even further.

But you do search your provinces. You just do it six turns later....and that causes you to lose how many gems?

I estimate that is probably costs a total of 80 gems of maybe four types. This seems like a lot, but it really isn't by endgame standards (and in early game it's not like you have anything good to spend it on).

[Micah]

K- Look at my example scales for an awake PoD. Note how they are not in fact remotely close to being bad.

The supposed SC counters you just listed are more straw men as well. A PoD is immune to Vengeance, and every single pretender has 30 morale, so fear is pretty unlikely to bother them much.

And yes, I am saying that if you start researching on turn 7 like you suggest that having enough research to have construction 4 (360 rp) + teleport (200 rp) + evo 5 (560) for actual useful battle magic as opposed to having your mages sit around casting blink + conj 3 200 for phoenix power is pretty much impossible, since that's 1320 RP. Researching starting on turn 7 you'll only have about 660 RP if all you do is research after your 10th staret researches for a turn. Add a bit for magic scale, still not enough.

OTOH, if you start making starets on turn 1 you'll actually have enough for all of that with some to spare for site searching. 1440 total RP after your 15th Staret researches for a turn. More than twice as much research. TWICE AS MUCH. That's probably got something to do with the resistance you're describing to your exarch spam idea. Sure, its fine if you're desperate, but it starts looking really obsolete right about turn 15 when you're losing out on casting falling fires and soul slays instead of smites.

[Kuritza]

What I meant is, when you dont produce mages during the initial 6 turns, first mages you make will have to choose between site-searching or researching - making the gap even worse, be it research gap or magic sites gap.

[Jazzepi]

Oh man. I just have to comment.

I've been extremely happy with my air4/earth5 dom 9 pretender for Bogarus in Kingmaker. Since you have air shield from the get-go he doesn't die to any indy province. If you script him right, he can even take on blood vine provinces.

I've been running him around since the beginning of time with zero equipment, and he only gets more amazing when you add onto it. Unlike PoD he can run right up front from the beginning. He's also 100% fire resistant meaning he can go toe to toe with sacreds using a fire bless.

Personally I would never recommend that someone use expensive, mapmove one, old age smiters as an answer to Bogarus's military problems which net zero research. In the early game they have enough trouble expanding, but a cyclops like I described is amazing. I had myself at the top of the expansion chart with him at the beginning of the game.

Also, you can research your way towards alteration two in less time then it would take the enemy to get ontop of you, giving you access to ironskin, and mistform. Throw in summon earth power and you have an early game SC.

And like Micah said, you still have great scales giving you tons of cash. I'm using O3S3G3M-2

Jazzepi

[Agema]

I can see that Bogarus doesn't have an obvious troop tactic. There's no great bless unit, the archery is mediocre, and there's no hydra-like monster. But they are certainly seem *adequate*. They've got solid infantry, and knights that can add some big punch if you crank a few out.

If you've taken sloth and can pretty much only recruit the Voi, you would be asking for trouble without an SC pretender. But I suspect you could hold enemies off with the quality troops. Add lots of very cheap voi archers behind a decent front line and it should be pretty effective. Shouldn't it?

[cleveland]

Starets have a 2.5% chance at F3. After recruiting them for 20 turns, you've got a solid 40% chance of landing one...about the same time you're accessing Flaming Arrows. Voi archers are 8g...

[DonCorazon]

Relying on archer strategies is dangerous though as about the time you pull off flaming arrows and the F3 mage your foes might also be getting arrow fend, mist, staff of storms / storm, darkness...

But it is something to consider depending on who you're fighting. Just seems like archers have a large number of counters as opposed to something like darkness, for example, which is pretty tricky to deal with.