MA Agartha, or Yet another thread fishing for tips

[HoneyBadger]

I set up a game so that I could follow along with this thread, and in the process, I equipped several ancient lords with a bunch of low-level protection enhancing gear-basically to get the maximum prot possible with Const 2.

I also gave them an Earth bless of 9 and I noticed, when I equipped them with a lead shield, black steel helmet, black steel armor (the suit, not the breastplate), a star of heroes, bracers of protection, boots of giant strength, and a luck amulet, they had a Prot of 27, but when I *blessed* them, Prot went up to 33, instead of 31-is there any accounting for this?

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I've no idea. What happens if you take off the bracers?

Anyways, I hadn't thought of that, but it sounds very interesting- That's cyclops level protection. Tell us how it turned out, please. Why'd you take the Star of Heroes, by the way? I've always passed that artifact by without trying it out. Because, you know, I really need to hit a tiny human with forty points of damage.

Good grief, I experimented with the Forge Lord, but I simply have to go back and give it a second go, with that setup you outlined.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, it's tasty stuff, but ultimately, I didn't find it worth the trouble. Yes, you can churn out items cheaply, but not much more cheaply than simply equipping dwarven hammers on your other mages, and it's a lot faster that way. Also, boots of strength weren't worth bothering with, ideally, I'd replace them with marble boots, for ultimate protective qualities.

Right now I'm trying out Fountain of Blood-5 blood slaves equals Att+5 and a morale boost. Not bad.

I took Star of Heroes because it gives Att +4-that's huge, especially tied to a 12 point damage weapon that destroys armor.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Well, if you're trying a blood path, let me know if the Boots of Youth help your Golem Crafters. With the blood stone, I expect you'll turn into a regular mass manufacturing plant.

If you don't have access to the luck pendant, consider the burning pearl, for another +4 attack. It's a big help when your weapon only strikes one unit a turn.

Though if I were dedicated to a thug strategy, I might need to check out EA Agartha instead. I think they can recruit Ancient Lords everywhere, leaving my capital free to do other things, though I'm far from certain. And the Troglodyte captain may offer some opportunities.

[Burnsaber]

HoneyBadger said:
Prot went up to 33, instead of 31-is there any accounting for this?

IMHO, the earth bless boosts protection of every piece of armor the unit wears. So Helmet gives +4 prot, armor gives +4 prot, and braces of protection give +4 prot.

[thejeff]

But the helmet and armor are correctly averaged together, so you get a +4 to total protection from them. The bracers are added in separately though.

I think that qualifies as a bug. Or at least an unintended side effect.

[HoneyBadger]

Yes, and here's the thing-I empowered my Ancient Lord prophet (33 prot, like the rest) with a point of Earth, and he gained the Earth, and the Prot +1 is listed, but no increase to Prot!

Definitely something buggy going on.

Currently, I'm equipping my Ancient Lords with 2 star of heroes (I have 5 in the HOF, 2 with quickness and one with heroic stupidity (increases attack, should probably, in my opinion, grant berserk instead), so they have reasons) or 1 star and a black steel tower shield, plus black steel suit plate, a black steel helmet, the bracers in question, and a ring of the warrior. With the 2 stars, I'm managing 2 attacks at atleast AT 20. Not bad for Agartha!

They are absolutely devastating on the battlefield, especially with support chaff-I have an independent necromancer along for the ride. I'm fighting against Eriu, which normally should be giving me tons of trouble, and I'm winning consistently against them, unless I allow myself to become badly overextended.

[HoneyBadger]

Note: Only use these guys as skirmishers, on their own, or to support relatively high PD. They fail miserably against larger armies, unless you support them. The idea is to use them to guard your expansion while you get golems going, and to hit the enemy in his weakspots. Once you've got the golems, use them as your main force, and the equipped Ancient Lords to attack the rear-your results should be very good.

[llamabeast]

At least some of the "bugginess" with protection comes from the fact that it isn't added up linearly.

The real formula is weird. How you have to imagine it is that protections are fractions, with perfect protection being prot 40.

Then having basic protection ("tough skin" protection) of 20 can be imagined as protection one half.

Armour with prot 20 similarly is "one half". If a unit with basic protection 20 wears armour of prot 20, they combine to give a total protection of three quarters (the armour covers half of the vulnerability in the basic protection). Three quarters equates to protection 30.

I'm not sure how much sense that made, but I'm pretty sure it's right if you can work out what I'm saying. Try it: Put prot 20 armour on a prot 20 unit (ironskin), and you will get prot 30.

A side effect of this non-linear addition of protections is that if you get Prot+1 from earth magic, for instance, the actual increase in protection will be less than one, and after rounding it's possible that the effect on protection is actually zero. I think this is what you're seeing HB.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Agree or disagree-

Agartha in general requires much less income than many nations, and is restricted by slow troops. Therefore, consider, in MP, going for the generally less desirable wastelands and other rough terrains to boost your gem income with the usually more frequent sites. It'll give you some diplomatic flexibility, and help fuel your summoned army.