LA Atlantis - frozen death from all directions

[sector24]

Another enlightening guide! Couple of questions/comments:

1) Death 3 seems pretty severe, especially considering your expansion rate will average at best. You probably know better than me, but I find Atlantis is always a high priority target for other players and Atlantis is usually on their back heels rather than gobbling up new high population territories.

2) How do you deal with early archer spam? The only shielded troops you recommended were the LA shamblers, but they have no synergy with cold 3 and are best used outside your dominion. Again, I find myself on the defensive ~75% of the time. Maybe that's the real question, how do you put yourself in a position where you are the aggressor considering your somewhat average expansion rate?

[MaxWilson]

E9S9N4 bless should work pretty well against archer spam, combined with smart tactical scripting.

[Baalz]

I don't think there's any reason that Atlantis is relegated to a defensive role, though they have some serious home field advantages. Everyone has their own preferences for scales, but I think death has a very good synergy here. Because your troops and mages (other than one) are so cheap, you're a bit less desperate for gold every turn. Your reliance on cheap sacred units and mages means your upkeep will be very low, helping offset the decline from your death scales. You can fuel a very respectable expansion with dual blessed Arssartut, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to field a force every other turn capable of chewing through most indies with very few casualties using archer screens - that twist fate helps a whole lot at this stage. Additionally, with the ease of expanding into the water there's a lot of options on the table.

As to your question about massed archers, you've got several good options. Your shielded Ice Guards are very good against archers even in neutral scales (you'll have to be careful in heat scales). Mournful also do pretty well with a shield, 15 armor and good hitpoints. Clever archer screens make it hard to target the Arssartut as they're not large and twist fate will help a lot vs the stray arrow or two. Finally, if the archers are massed to such a point you don't think screens will be effective just fall back on the fact that you're a nation of heavy infantry....pull your Arssartut out of the fight and let your shielded heavy guys ignore the arrows - they're certainly fairly tough on their own strenghts, and if necessary they can be superb blockers while your mages do the killing.

[JimMorrison]

Just a couple things - first, it seems Ghost Grip is one of those spells I've grown rather fond of, that most people seem to overlook. It's quite powerful when you can really spam it on large enemy forces - especially in this case, with so much cold based fatigue.

Also, the Winter Wolves, in conjunction with the Freezing Mist. Okay, this Mist is devastating! The Wolves make excellent blockers for it. What I've done a few times, is have some Wolves charge in while the rest of my troops Hold, and have several mages all cast the Freezing Mist 2x, then swap to something else appropriate based on the opponent. The Mist will fade before the rest of your line advances, and the enemy will have enormous gaping holes cut in their army.

It's worth to note, multiple Freezing Mist spells stacked on top of eachother, very much seem to stack damage. I've seen units hit for anywhere from 15-30 damage in a turn with even just 2-3 Mists overlapping.

[Ming]

Baalz,

Good guide. I have always struggled to make LA Atlantis work and your guide has some interesting suggestions. A few questions:

A high dominion is needed to make your C3D3 scale work. To do that you’ll probably need to forget about putting N on your pretender. Shouldn’t be a crippling issue though.

C3D3 would annoy your neighbours. More serious than the above but still not necessary crippling.

With D3 you’ll need to expand constantly to keep your economy afloat. Not sure if LA Atlantis has strong enough armies to expand outside of its C3 domain against active players and you don't have strong priests to spread your domain quickly. This could potentially be the single biggest drawback to your strategy – enemies don’t need to attack you in the early to middle game, just defend themselves against your attack and limit your territory growth. They can then attack you with overwhelming force later when you economy is floundering.

Am I missing something?

[Ming]

Come to think of it, if LA Atlantis could be made to prefer cold3 instead of cold2 (artic conditions should be much colder than mountain tops, no?), plus an extra MR or 2 for the sacreds(so S9 would not be necessary), enough design points would be released to avoid death3.

[Renojustin]

You're killing me, Baalz!

Moral: of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes.

Morale: emotional or mental condition with respect to cheerfulness, confidence, zeal, etc., esp. in the face of opposition, hardship, etc.: the morale of the troops.

Totally awesome guide.

[Maraxus]

Interesting, I had not thought of playing Late Atlantis with a bless.
*checks*
And I really can't see that working either. Just not enough points for these E9S9N4 and acceptable dominion and acceptable scales.
Don't forget, that the Arssatut are capiton only. On the long run they are not worth it.

I'd take a Magic diversifyer god. With only 2/160 chance to get a double earth or double air Angakok, these random picks are basicly wasted, unless you have much luck or a good that helps start the gem-flow here (And in case of eath forges the first hammer+earth boots).
And in fact, you can take a sleeping Crone with enough magic in Earth, Astral, Air and Nature and still have some really good scales:
Order 3 Productivity 3 Magic 1 - I would not go without it. Your troops are good and any and every gold can go into more research centers. Cold 3 sounds good but I would not go all out in death or misfortune.

This probably makes the early game more dangerous but I see better chances on the long run.

[Baalz]

Maraxus said:
Interesting, I had not thought of playing Late Atlantis with a bless.
*checks*
And I really can't see that working either. Just not enough points for these E9S9N4 and acceptable dominion and acceptable scales.
Don't forget, that the Arssatut are capiton only. On the long run they are not worth it.

I'd take a Magic diversifyer god. With only 2/160 chance to get a double earth or double air Angakok, these random picks are basicly wasted, unless you have much luck or a good that helps start the gem-flow here (And in case of eath forges the first hammer+earth boots).
And in fact, you can take a sleeping Crone with enough magic in Earth, Astral, Air and Nature and still have some really good scales:
Order 3 Productivity 3 Magic 1 - I would not go without it. Your troops are good and any and every gold can go into more research centers. Cold 3 sounds good but I would not go all out in death or misfortune.

This probably makes the early game more dangerous but I see better chances on the long run.

Yes, I tried to be clear that the nature component of the blessing was both optional and required some opportunity costs to afford. One reasonable build which fits - Imprisoned Monolith sloth -1, cold-3, death-3, magic-1, dominion of 8. Nature does give you a pretty good diversification as well as the regen blessing, but you can certainly make this work without it if you decide to spend the points elsewhere. Thing is, you can't even really get too much cheaper going without the nature component since the monolith is the cheapest chasis to get S/E with a high dominion.

As to the diversity, it's really not prohibitive at all to empower in earth to level 2, particularly as you'll be getting a earth income through voice of tiamat. After that you've got all the earth boots you need - no reason to wait for you god to break free. You've also got elemental staffs later on. The air boosters are so expensive it's very seldom worthwhile to give them to an A1 mage, though I feel the math works out differently with the elemental staffs since they serve so many purposes. Granted, a staff + 2 air boosters gets you up into some nice territory, but for that amount of gems you can practically empower a couple times.

So, without your pretender being awake or diversified you can shoehorn into earth, nature, and astral, while having strong water and death and token fire and air. That's a pretty decent diversity if you play it right. Then when your pretender wakes up you've got most of the best spells in the game with a powerful E/S pretender and powerful W/D mages.

This is certainly not the only way to play LA Atlantis, but I maintain that it is competitive. Arssatuts with that blessing are top notch dual blessed sacreds who are relevant through the whole game and more than make up for the opportunity costs it takes to deck them out.