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.