The Bogarus Problem

[Rytek]

My solution is an Awake Virtue:
Dom 10
A4
E3
Order 3
Sloth 3
Cold 3
Growth 3
Misfortune 1
Magic 1
Dominion 10 gives your Virtue Awe 7

Turn 1 make your scout profit. Set taxes to 130%. Patrol with your army. Buy a Starets and as many archers as you can.
Your Goddess researches Alteration.

Turn 2 your goddess attacks a weak province. Position in back corner of battlefield. Script: Air shield, Hold, attack Archers.
Add archers to starting army and patrol again. Set taxes at 150%
Buy another Starets and some heavy infantry.
Set first Starets to researching. Set Scout Profit to preaching. You need to spread your dominion fast and make sure your Goddess fights in her dominion until she gets buffs.

Turn 3 See if you can buy an independent commander at your new province. If so, get it. Buy another Starets and some more heavy infantry at the capitol. Add heavy infanty to starting army. Keep patrolling at 150% taxes. Pick another province with Pretender. Just a quick note: The best early provinces are ones with human type troops, archers, militia, light infantry.
Turn 4-6 keep taking 1 per turn with the pretender. Keep patrolling and buying a starlet every turn. Look for a second province to plop a castle down on. Something to look for: A province with at least 5000+ population so you can start some blood hunting up. Another nice province is one that you can recruit a Indep Nature mage from it. But really, just plop a castle down between 4-6, get a lab up.

After you get Alteration 3, (mistform,ironskin,) head straight for Conjuration 3 for summon earth power. And then finally to construction 2 to put some equipment on your pretender. One quick note to watch. when you hit Alteration 2 and script stone skin, watch the cold level in the province or you will get extra fatigue.

The Virtue realy is a paper tiger. But if you can get to Alt 3 without a bad affliction, its smooth sailing. By turn 12 you should have ALT 3, conj3 and cons 2 and a 2nd castle.

Note, this build also works with some variations.

Dom 7 Air 4, death 5 Virtue (Awe and fear plus the death and air helps with boosters later on.

Dom 7 air 4, nature 5 Virtue (nature gives barksin at alt 1 which really helps. not to mention regen which is hard to get an item for with your national mages

[Ming]

IMHO the starting point for Bogarus has to be an awake SC pretender that is capable of taking indie provinces without equipment, high dominion, and good scales (you can afford these with C3). The advantages are obvious and has been stated by me and others earlier.

To deviate from that one need to ask two questions:

1. Can Bogarus defend itself against an aggressive neighbour without an awake defender?

2. Can the design points saved from not having an awake pretender be put to BETTER use?

I think that the answer to 1. is probably yes except in specific circumstances, even without having to hire a lot of H3 epachs.

The answer to 2. is more difficult. Putting the design points to good use (which is easy) is not the same as putting the design points to BETTER use than having an awake pretender. I have yet to find a way to spend the design points that would make the situation superior to that of having an awake pretender. I am still looking though.