Guide: Agartha, Pale ones - a study in darkness (CBM)

[Bo Jangles]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Wow, whats with the agartha fetish lately?

Doesn't bother me, since Agartha has always been my favorite nation I dunno why, since I've always sucked with them (despite my best efforts). I guess all the pieces just clicked in my head with them: I played my first game in the demo with them, their flavor and lore really interested me, and the fact that about half of the end-of-chapter flavor/picture bonuses in the manual were Agarthan units gave me the feeling the developers were trying to tell me Agartha was the nation to play And I love the Ageless Olm as well, definitely my favorite pretender.

But anyways, I really like this guide, it's an interesting change from how I've always tried to play them.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

Yes thats right, good point. However I don´t find the trogs very competetive on their own. I think that in general you´ll want to use dom pushing or summons if you have to go into cold dominion.

Oh yes, I beleive you even thanked me for that idea in the CBM thread. I was playing around a lot with nature and blood, but after extensive testing I came to the conclution that extra range don´t make much difference, that cavern guards beat Ancient ones in the long run even given nature and blood and that those paths are not what the nation needs, especially without blood stones. One thing I ralised is that you´ll have lots of earth gems anyway, more than enough to pull the stuff in this this guide off usually.


Ahem... Your *whole nation* are fully amphibious, getting into water is no problem at all. Would you really sacrifice the hammers, mentors, rings and golems to get... what? Nature searching for forts can easily be done by giving breath rings or shambler skins to indy shamans. Water you have on your oracles.


I mentioned it I beleive. But yeah, thats right.

It is justified many times over when you drop mechanical militia as described in the section "Gear four", try it.

Thanks for that, but I feel you are missing my point a bit (no offense) The bolas and medallions are minor details, the core of this strategy is to build your armies a certain way to circumvent low attack values, create the foundation for outstanding research without getting dry on gems, launch a solid defence system and finally to multiply your strenght through darkness and heavy buffs.

I play a *lot* with agartha - as I've been writing a mod for them so I'm fully cognizant of the need to maximize their ability to hit. So I agree with that point. Darkness rocks!

Some other things to mention.

Agarthans are mostly size 4. The ability to mix in size two units (or better, size 1 units) is invaluable. Play with placement so the normals don't take undue casualties.

Independent shamans can be invaluable for tanglevines as well.

I agree that Trogs attrit too much to lean on. Mostly I was correcting your point #1.

As for considering the olm - I stand by that comment. There is a huge differenct between ramping up immediately - and having to wait for item construction.

I am not impressed with mechanical militia. Nice but any competent late game army is going to beat pd. I'd rather be spending gems on gear, or earth attacks. And generally $$ on mages, forts.

I still don't think anyone is going to confuse you with mictlan, lanka, niefle, as a superpower. Even with a good guide, I'd still rate them a C- for competitive multiplayer. Anyway its your guide, its good, and I'll leave the lasts words for you!

[thejeff]

Does Mechanical Militia scale with PD? I haven't used it a lot, but I thought you just got a fixed amount if you had any PD.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Does Mechanical Militia scale with PD? I haven't used it a lot, but I thought you just got a fixed amount if you had any PD.

It doesn't scale. None of the PD buff globals do.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

It is justified many times over when you drop mechanical militia as described in the section "Gear four", try it.

I could try it, but I'd like to hear the justification from you before I do, because I can't see how 25 pd all over is worthwhile just because you can cast mechanical militia. I see some synergy just in terms of mass and they both work well in the dark, but I don't really get it,...

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

...There are many ways to equip golems but you are uniquely well suited to forge stymphalian wings which gives fear, flying and trample on that enc 0 size 6 unit. Add a golden shield to that for awe+fear and you´re...well, golden. ...

Minor quibble - golems are size 5. Interesting guide

[Benjamin]

I don't play CBM, but isn't the forge lord a bit much? North of 75% off (due to rounding) if he has a hammer? That's a lot of extra gems.

Is fire bolas firing twice another CBM change?

Anyhow good guide, does arrow fend affect the aoe bolders? That would put you in trouble with high defense units perhaps before you can handle them with darkness.

[vfb]

The Forge Lord can only forge one thing a month, and if he's doing that, he's not doing all the other wonderful things pretenders can do. So, I don't think it's too much.

Fire bolas have always fired twice when you wield two.

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I could try it, but I'd like to hear the justification from you before I do, because I can't see how 25 pd all over is worthwhile just because you can cast mechanical militia. I see some synergy just in terms of mass and they both work well in the dark, but I don't really get it,...

I guess I was wrong, I thought it scaled with pd. So ok don´t crank up your pd that much.

I still think it is a good idea for Agartha to buy decent pd of 10 or so all over and drop mechanical militia in the beginning of year 3, turn 22 or so. That is just when some other nations start thinking about air drops and blitzkriegs and Agartha could have some problems handling that.

The idea is that Mechanical militia + a couple golems this early in the game offsets your slow movement a bit and acts as a deterrent to many kinds of attacks.

I doubt if i was Heleim for example and about to launch my first massive air drop in the game, that I would chose a nation that just put up mechanical militia.

Not that mechanical milita would protect you against everything but at this point in the game people are generally looking for easy pickings, which you wont seem like.

If you don´t like the idea then just use the gems another way, it won´t change the general idea of my strategy that much.

[Squirrelloid]

I think this guide, while possibly insightful on some expansion parties that work, is otherwise best summed up as follows:

'If you find a lot of death gem sites, you can have killer research and do lots of cool stuff.'

The problem being, if you *don't* find a lot of death gem sites, then you're up a creek without a paddle.