The Bogarus Problem

[JimMorrison]

One might almost say "there aren't many awake gods that can survive a turn 6 dual-bless rush".

I don't think really the point is to insure you can always "handily defeat" your most likely rushers. But rather, to have a strategy and setup that will hopefully hurt them and slow them down enough, to deter them from screwing their entire game by hitting the speed-bump of your nation.

[Renojustin]

Yeah man, at least give yourself a chance. You KNOW that someone is going to come after you... imo you're really going to have to prepare for that somehow and an awake pretender is the only way.

[K]

Basically, a Turn 6 god is not even a speedbump since he doesn't have any good equipment yet.


But, considering that in the LA the only real bless nation is Mictlan, I think you can rest easy.

That being said, Bogarus province defense is very good. I just ran a test with twenty dual-blessed jaguar warriors + initial army vs. PD 35, your crap initial archers, and two Smiters and had no problems handily cleaning up Mictlan's troops.

[Renojustin]

There are lots of "turn 6 gods" that are fantastic fighters. So many that it wouldn't even be very productive to start listing them. But I'd invite others to.

[DrPraetorious]

Mictlan is definitely the *best* of the LA bless rushers, but Midgard, Gath, Patala and T'ien Ch'i all have sacreds good enough to sustain a double-bless rush that will eat Bogarus alive, and they'd be fools not to use it if they're your neighbor. You might also espect a rush out of Ermor, Man or Utgard, since you-have-to-die.

Bogarus can have the Wyrm, Cyclops, Manticore, or any flavor of Dragon. An awake pretender from this list is fearsome in early expansion even without equipment - and, even without equipment, might tip the balance against Man, Utgard, Midgard or Patala. But against Mictlan, T'ien Ch'i, Ermor or Gath, barely a speed bump.

An *equipped* Cyclops is a horse of an entirely different color, also with spikes and machine guns, but that's not possible by turn 6.

[Chris_Byler]

DrPraetorious said:
Mictlan is definitely the *best* of the LA bless rushers, but Midgard, Gath, Patala and T'ien Ch'i all have sacreds good enough to sustain a double-bless rush that will eat Bogarus alive, and they'd be fools not to use it if they're your neighbor. You might also espect a rush out of Ermor, Man or Utgard, since you-have-to-die.

They won't know they're your neighbor until *after* they create their god. Committing your nation to a blessrush on the off chance you *might* be next to Bogarus seems like a weak move - unless you expect those nations to blessrush regardless of who their neighbors are? Even then, it's just the crapshoot of landing next to a rusher.

Taking an awake god as rush insurance is only sensible if (a) it will work and actually stop rushes, and (b) won't cost you so much that you'll lose even if you survive the opening. Based on this thread it looks like awake gods for Bogarus are questionable on *both* counts.

Of course map size, indy strength and other settings matter too.

[Renojustin]

Bogarus's military is at such a disadvantage that there's no question that 90% of the nations in the game can successfully overwhelm you early, even if they are not a 'rush' nation.

Your scales don't do you a whole lot of good when you're beat back into your capital by turn 10.

When the choice is between super scales and no counter to this, thereby commiting yourself to a short, violent death, or mediocre scales and an effective counter, if through anti-army or anti-indy capability - and there certainly ARE pretenders that are more than capable of either one - I know which one I would pick. And I would be right.

[K]

Renojustin said:
There are lots of "turn 6 gods" that are fantastic fighters. So many that it wouldn't even be very productive to start listing them. But I'd invite others to.

Bogarus has a choice of 30 gods, and I note that only 4-6 of them are decent or good SCs. What equipment would you give them on Turn 6 that will make them viable (realize that you have no Earth gems at home and E1 on one flavor of mage)? How much magic would they need?

Basically, they have one choice: an E10 Cyclops with no equipment. He's good, but he won't stand up to any decent Turn 6 Dual-Bless rush wgo can just fatigue him out and crit him to death. Heck, he won't even stand up to a decent amount of crossbowman or calvary.

[Micah]

If you're proposing sending in a god solo and naked to stop double blessed jags you're thinking about it wrong. Another 5 provinces worth of expansion is another 500 or so gold on turn 6, along wth faster resource income to your cap and more indies...another 50 archers in your army is gonna put a dent in a block of 20 jags.

The extra dom from an awake pretender will give you a better chance to have friendly dominion, and that +1 morale is vital when dealing with PD level troops that are just there to die and slow up the assault. Putting a cyclops fresh from +5 dom in the middle of a formation is unlikely to get him killed, but it's keeping 3 jags tied up swinging at a rock instead of slaughtering PD. Having a dragon that can fly around and pick off provinces will do a lot of economic damage...it doesnt't take too long for Bogarus to get up to some nice evo or flaming arrows with their 12 RP mages, so you only have to stop one rush and you're in the game...5 provinces on turn 6 is a pretty big deal, even if your pretender isn't gonna fight off the rush singlehandedly.

[sector24]

You can have an enchanted sword, fire plate, and a pendant of luck on turn 6. Might be too late, but then again might not...