Getting the max out of MA Agartha

[Baalz]

The mistake to MA Argatha is to think their troops are those crappy things on their roster. Yeah, they blow and there's not really any way to get around that. Good news though is that their national summons are very good and you can get them early enough to help with indie expansion and your first war. *Those* are your troops, and they're effective in small enough numbers that they can be your mainline troops much of the time. Your mages (properly leveraged) are also very good combat mages. True, you're gonna struggle in the very early game before any research is done, but if you're clever you should have a very tough army right around the time all the indies are snapped up and a good chance to roll over one of your faster expanding neighbors before his larger size can really be leveraged. Those dominion boosted golems are pretty viscous against light enemy mage action, and the golem crafters scale up very nicely as research progresses - not to mention the higher level summons like umbrals and marble oracles. The very early game is *very* tough, but you have a pretty wicked power curve from that point.

Those golem crafters I think are mages which you have to have a little bit of vision to really appreciate. As configured by default, they're fairly meh. Once you really appreciate their strengths though watch out!

Maybe I'll write a guide this weekend.

[chrispedersen]

I may be forgetting but someone recommended eyes of aiming....
For the single eyed, this is not a good option...

[Quitti]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

I may be forgetting but someone recommended eyes of aiming....
For the single eyed, this is not a good option...

True, but still the golem crafters do have two eyes, I suppose. Being humans and all.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Quitti

True, but still the golem crafters do have two eyes, I suppose. Being humans and all.

And yet, don't have the same Precision problems that the Agarthans themselves do.

Personally I think the Golem Cult is a weak mechanic, when coupled with the fact that all of your summons are Lifeless.

From my experience, MA Agartha is a perfect turtle nation, and can develop into a late game juggernaut with a fairly mediocre number of provinces, good diplomacy, and a bit of patience.

I'm always wary of the Awake SC, and with useful Sacreds (yes, cap only, and they have serious drawbacks, but they -are- useful), as well as Sacred mages, a minimal magic SC with nothing going for it is going to sacrifice later game potential for only a few more provinces than your recruitables could have gotten, had you given them at least a little bit of a Bless.

I think if I were to go Awake, I'd want some Blood, so after some fast expansion, could push straight into a strong Blood Stone economy - no one is hungrier for Earth gems than MA Agartha.

Looking at them again, now, I think Agartha is very enigmatic. They actually have numerous ways to approach, and none of them are especially thrilling, unless perhaps they cater directly to your specific playstyle. Few nations have such narrow appeal, it seems.