Guide to MA Agartha (In prog) - Pretenders

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Well.. if you just want to give the equipment, skip the Gift of Reason, and just get the Marble Oracle. Admittedly, its quite a bit more expensive, too, but at least you don't have to scrounge together the nature gems and so forth.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, but that adds a *lot* of research time to an already heavy research nation, and I'm pretty sure the oracles are 1 per ritual. Ofcourse, if the fates gifted me with a dozen of them right off the bat, I wouldn't spit at them

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

If you want to get a Marble Oracle researched a lot quicker, take magic 3, and recruit Golem Crafters every turn until you find an independent with a decent researcher. You'll get a second research center up a lot quicker and cheaper than another fortress, and even if you switch your capital to Earth Readers, you'll keep pulling in more research.

[HoneyBadger]

I really wish golem crafters had a forge bonus. I think it would be appropriate, and at the same time, offset the fact that you can set up an enormous forging orgy in EA with Agartha, using a Forge Lord-that or allow them to freespawn some golems, since they *are* golem-Crafters.

Old age kills these guys off quick, well before you ever get golems, if you start building them right off the bat.

The more I look into strategies for MA Agartha, the more I seem to come up with good things for EA to do, or that EA does better, and that seems to me a bit of a problem.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

What? Do remember that even 10 attentive statues (bottom of the line) can do horrible damage to an ocean of chaff. It's no trouble to have 5 golem crafters pump out two teams to be led by a couple Earth Readers. And Mechanical Militia/Clockwork Horrors are able to flesh your forces out, if only they didn't take till C5. They may be a bit weaker, but they don't waste damage on overkill, and they have an amazing set of resistances. With attentive statues, you pay 4 gems to engage one target. With Claymen (Enchant 4, same school of research, different path of elemental magic), and the construction golems, you are able engage about one target per gem you spend.

As regards to "Old age kills these guys off quick, well before you ever get golems". It's true, old age is harsh, but even with drain 1, its possible to get Attentive Statues out by the first year. First, you really don't have much to spend money on. Second, Oracles of the Ancients are nice, but a complete waste your first year. Third, you don't need to search for gems as aggressively as other nations. You can afford to expand slowly and still summon your nationals.

Code:

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Hiring Golem Crafters, Drain Two, no pretender.



Spring: 0 +  0 =   0

LSpr:   0 +  5 =   5

ESum:   5 + 10 =  15

MSum:  15 + 15 =  30

LSum:  30 + 20 =  50

EWin:  50 + 25 =  75

MWin:  75 + 30 = 105

LWin: 105 + 35 = 140

ESpr: 140 + 40 = 180

MSpr: 180 + 45 = 225

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If you have a Pretender with as little as 8 research (after drain), you can get them by the first year. If there was an observer mode, you'll see I'm the top researcher in my current MP game, jaguar. And I switched to varied commanders after my fourth Golem Crafter. Though in that game, I took an excessive magic scale. There is middle ground to be found.

I will give you thugging, and necromancy, though. A forge based strategy is probably better with EA, who has giant, non-capital commanders.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm not saying freespawn attentive statues, I'm saying freespawn *some* kind of statue. Maybe 1 clayman a year or something.

[Salamander8]

Gift of Health has been a godsend in my SP game as MP Agartha I've been mentioning here. It's a great spell as it is, but it's been curing so many of my Golem Crafters' and my Ancient Oracles' old age problems that I'm more than glad I pushed to get an indy S1N2 mage to N5 (between empowering and items) to be able to cast it.