Beginner's Guide to EA Arcoscephale

[Baalz]

Ooooh, one glaring omission (IMHO) is the use of mystic communions for battlemages. The mystics are some of the absolute best mages in the game at forming a communion to dish out damage because they all have astral (for communion master/slave) and they have a variety of the best paths for evocation spells. They're not capital only, reasonably cost efficient researchers, and the ones who get bad/low random picks make great communion slaves while the lucky ones are pretty darned good for their price even before becoming a communion master. Plus, because of the variety you can change the focus of your army every turn by anticipating what you needing to cast in the next battle- you can switch an army from having heavy fire mages to sending out a load of blade winds by just changing who is the slave and who is the master. Or go with an astral focus (make sure to bring a banner of the northern star) and go recruiting with enslave mind when the enemy army is weaker than you. Or switch to water and send a ridiculous amount of cleansing water towards all those undead. I find the mystic is VERY versatile, and one of the best parts of Arco.

[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.

[StrictlyRockers]

Blitz is right, W9 Bless is too powerful not to consider here.

But these are both great guides. Thanks guys.

Nice posts dirtywick.

GJ

[Tyrant]

Nice guide!

couple points

Baalz is 111% right (and i've seen him prove it)- Arco is a major communion power.

Philosophers are cool, but since they are capitol only they should only be built when you are broke since building one means that you are not building an Oreliad.

Starting with a dormant pretender and a 5 dominion as Blitz suggests is risky. You'll probably get away with it, but if some smart alec is going dominion push and starts close you could be in for a short game.

[GameExtremist]

Wind Riders are very hard hitting with a F9 Bless too.

Theres not a great deal that they can't take care of (when used in appropriate numbers).

[mivayan]

GameExtremist said:
Wind Riders are very hard hitting with a F9 Bless too.

Theres not a great deal that they can't take care of (when used in appropriate numbers).

I cant help thinking about running some 125 gold 13 hp units into the indep mages with orb lightning.

[SelfishGene]

EA Arco is one of my favorite themes, but i really think minimizing Philosophers is the wrong way to go. Philosophers are one of the most potent human units in the game; there is no other way to get 10 research points so cheap, so quickly early on. Making 8 or 10 philosophers early in the game w/ 3 sloth 3 magic will give you a very large leg up on research that will be hard to match.

I guess the idea is, while having lots of Mystics is good, what's the point of having them if you can't cast anything? Drain-2 is wrong for a lot of reasons, mainly because it goes counter to the magic heavy nature of Arco, and because it makes Mystics just that much worse at research, forcing you to depend even more heavily on your Philosophers, that at the same time, will be less than optimal.

Arco's early troops are versatile but specialized. I like Icarids as raiders but they aren't front line troops, and like Myrmiddons, they are hard to mass.

[bigfuzzy]

Thanks so much for this guide.. brilliant.. been looking for something like this since there are so many factors to think about and I'm relatively new to the game..
Great work and thanks for all the comments afterwards, they add to the big picture!

[Theodotus]

Lady of Fortune is not available to EA Arco -- only to MA and LA.