Beginner's Guide to EA Arcoscephale

[Blitz]

Not a bad guide, although I strongly disagree on a few points.

Myrmidons are decent heavy infantry, but they fatigue very quickly with an encumberance of 10. While I use them, it's often as bodyguards or as flanker defense around the mages. I don't recruit them en masse, as I take sloth scales. Taking drain seems counter-productive with Arco. You have your choice of 4 different mages and 6 national paths at 2 or higher. You have the best recruitable researcher in the game, and early access to feathers. Taking drain effectively trades these advantages for 80 cretion points, and I cannot reccomend that strategy. Recruiting a Wind Lord on your first turn and making him into a prophet is almost a no-brainer. While boots of flying on a priestess (or Conceptual Balance Mod) will allow you to bless fliers, the prophetized Wind Lord is hands-down the best choice for EA Arco. Also worth mentioning is the indy Pegasus Rider, a blessable flying archer. At 50 gold, they aren't cheap, but for adding missile support to an air assault, they are about your only option.

My reccomended pretender/scales?

Lady Of Fortune, Dormant
W9 N4
Dominion 5
Order 3, Sloth 3, Magic 1

W9 bless is still imo the best bless in the game, and even with your healing priestesses, the regeneration from N4 is very helpful. Additionally, you get an Awe-4 mid-game SC chassis with high defense. Wind riders are resource-cheap when compared to the 125 cost, and the sloth is easily managable. I start recruiting wind riders exclusively on turn 3-4, with the odd myrmidon to use up extra resources. You can quickly amass groups of 20, which is more than enough to take any indy. While you will not hit 2-province expansion until at least turn 10, when your pretender awakes you should have a set of black plate and the usual construction 4 toys to kit her out. Oriads are outstanding with boots of flying, as are priestesses for secondary wind rider armies. The slower provincial expansion is somewhat medited by your rapid research speed. Early mystics while assembling your forging team can be followed by later philosophers. A single mage-engineer for forging quills until later in the game. With research kick-started, you should be in a dominant forging and casting potion before your neighbors can besiege you. The very strong wind rider bless protects you early, and your magical versitility, mobile flying sacreds, and unmatched research give you a good position in the mid and late games.