Bogarus Quick Guide

[Lingchih]

DrPraetorious said:
Are you playing with standard settings?

Because I did several starts with this build, one of the four I had major affliction problems, otherwise no. If it remains a huge issue for you, have him avoid any significant foes until you have equipment for him.

Are you sure that your God isn't casting spells? If you let him cast (which is what he'll do by default), he'll get mauled.

You can certainly do drain instead of sloth. I dislike the gem evaporation events.

EDIT: Also, in single player, there's no reason to attack blind on the first turn. That's the sortof hyper agressive thing I do in MP, but obviously you're going to get killed outright some of the time if you do that.

Yes, standard settings. And no, he does not cast, at least not until he can self-buff himself.

I took another stab at it, playing a little less aggressively. I would take a handful of troops (or just his skellies) with him when I attacked. I put the POD on hold, hold, attack, and let whatever troops I had take the first blows. Then he would come in and mop up. It worked pretty well... he still got afflictions, but not as often, and as someone else said, as long as he can fly in and terrify them away, that's all that is needed. The only one I really feared was the feeble-mind, but I stuck a helmet on him as soon as I could and never got one.

I found it pretty useless to make the initial Scout a prophet though. That may just be part of your hyper aggressive MP plan though. I found it much more useful to have a prophet that could lead a second army. It's a very fun nation to play, with a host of cool summons.

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Lingchih said:
...
I found it pretty useless to make the initial Scout a prophet though. That may just be part of your hyper aggressive MP plan though. I found it much more useful to have a prophet that could lead a second army. It's a very fun nation to play, with a host of cool summons.

By making your scout your prophet, you're only losing the opportunity to scout with your scout. Whoever was leading your second army can still do that. Bring the prophet scout along with them if you want him sermoning and smiting. I've never lost my prophet scouts in battle, and they rack up fatigue less than actual commanders because of less armor.

And this way you've still got the option of stealth preaching with your prophet in addition to your FFAs.

Probably the only time I don't go with a scout prophet now is when I've got early access to an undead leader, so I can have the prophet raising dead instead of preaching. Since Bogarus has no death gem income, I don't think it's an option for them.

[vfb]

I thought I'd give massive scales a try, for some SP Bogarus fun. Imprisoned random pretender, and all scales jacked up to the max. I was going to summon a Mound King as my Prophet for some zombie action, but then Koschei showed up. Couldn't resist making him my Prophet!

Since Taqwus didn't supply a screenie, I thought I would:

[Redeyes]

Figured I would give this thread a *bump* as it seems people are currently reevaluating Bogarus.

[Gandalf Parker]

Lingchih said:
It's a very fun nation to play, with a host of cool summons.

Thats part of what I was alluding to. Why Bogarus showed up so late and seems to ignore some of the balance formulas. Tied into Bogus and Illwinter history.

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Probably the only time I don't go with a scout prophet now is when I've got early access to an undead leader, so I can have the prophet raising dead instead of preaching. Since Bogarus has no death gem income, I don't think it's an option for them.

There is another advantage to an undead prophet. With the right one you can get amphib. Snag the early water-mercs and you can build underwater temples. Its not a major strategy but its an added tactic that be handy.

Gandalf Parker
--
DOMINION is the name of the game.

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You'll get less chance of afflictions if you research the very first turn with the PoD instead of sending him out blindly.

Your HP during combat are based on the dominion of the province you move from, not the province you are fighting in. Higher HP means less afflictions. Sitting for one turn also allows you to choose your victim, picking the province with the best income/recruitable commander/danger tradeoff. It also should give you a longdead.

If you are able to attack a province immediately neighboring your capital (this is a good idea anyway to stay in high dominion), put your single longdead on attack closest at the front, your PoD at the rear on either attack archers or attack closest. I've seen the longdead survive by a couple volleys of arrows and some melee that would otherwise have been aimed at the PoD. You'll probably spawn another longdead in the new province and you can rinse and repeat.

I'll even take a turn to search with the PoD if dom is not high enough or if I'm missing my longdead chaff. I've never had the PoD retreat because the longdead got killed.

Your initial prophet and army plus hiring archers the first turn can also take on most small (20,30) vanilla infantry/archers indies, or tribal indies if you are lucky enough to come across any. 2 times sermon then smite with the prophet. I hire more of the same shieldmen/archers and shuttle to the front with indy commanders.

I used a D5E6 PoD, those two extra earth points really do help cut down on initial afflictions. I tried D10 instead for more fear and a big affliction bless on Agony from FFAs, but it didn't work, probably because of my drain scales.

[sector24]

Lingchih said:
I'm having a hard time beating the AI with your build, DrPraetorius. POD gets afflicted easily, I can't seem to buy a decent number of troops, so the AI keeps attacking me, and, although the research is great, I just can't seem to keep ahead of the curve of the AI building massive numbers of troops to attack me before I can utilize the research.

I have to think that a build with no sloth, so I can build my national Knights, and maybe some drain, since it doesn't really hurt research too much, would be better. At least in SP. In MP, who knows? It would depend on your diplomacy skills.

I agree, Bogarus is definitely one of the tougher nations to play single player. I very much like the PoD for a pretender, but 3 sloth can be limiting. Your other options are equally tough though. You can take drain to pay for more resources, or take less Earth magic on your pretender.

The misfortune pick is also tough because Bogarus has very good national heroes and the free gems from luck events come in handy, especially death gems which you don't start with in your capital. Again your only choice is drain or weaker earth magic on your PoD.

I like the nation quite a bit, although in SP I have to rely a little too much on PD to survive the early parts of the game. I imagine in MP Bogarus players will have to be very aggressive on the diplomatic front to survive.