MA Atlantis...am I missing something?

[Meglobob]

I would not say they are as weak as MA Ulm. But do suffer from lack of good early expansion units.

I think you have little choice but to take a bless. The consorts will make a excellent thug that can bless himself. He is cheap and cheerful.

Could you go with S9/E9? A little unusual, but it would cover your weaknesses which are low MR and high encumberance. Twist of fate, plus the high protection will make your mother guards supported by coral guards decent for early expansion.

S9/E9 will be most useful later on for forge of ancients and wish which compliments your thug strategy.

[Xietor]

Sphinx imprisoned,dom 6 e9 s9 n4

Order 0
sloth 1
cold 3
growth 3
drain 2

Before you bash drain 2, you get 80 points plus a bonus to your mr for a measly -1 research. I took the 2 drain in Alpaca with Pangaea and ended up winning even though i was dead last in research the entire game.

You have to pick your poison. Plus I traded for skull mentors in alpaca and feathers to get my research up high enough to get the basic spells i felt i needed for battles.

The bonus to mr is well worth it when you are facing astral races. I like growth for the income longterm. If you are worried about survival in short term, you may want to scrap the 3 growth and take production, higher starting dom(more sacreds per turn), maybe a bigger regen bless.

[Dedas]

Those warlobsters are pretty cool. When the rider dies you have a lobster with 20 protection, 34 hp and trample, killing everything (including friends). Expendable yes, but they sure do some damage first.