MA Argatha - go punch a mountain

[archaeolept]

the thing is, most of these tactics seem to demand a fair amount of research, and/or gem income for items. however, MA Agartha's problems are not that the mid-game is too difficult for them, but to survive and prosper in the early game; especially w/ having a giant target painted over top.

I'm not sure how having prod 0 for their esteemed mm 1 hvy inf is going to be sufficient to protect them...

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by archaeolept

the thing is, most of these tactics seem to demand a fair amount of research, and/or gem income for items. however, MA Agartha's problems are not that the mid-game is too difficult for them, but to survive and prosper in the early game; especially w/ having a giant target painted over top.

I'm not sure how having prod 0 for their esteemed mm 1 hvy inf is going to be sufficient to protect them...

I don't know, I think it's easy to mistake a wealth of options for a large amount of requirements. With just moderate ench you're fielding strong enough units to carry you through the early game with no real support. This carries you through the construction phase of your research where you're not really gaining immediately useful stuff, then by the time you're getting into the midgame where you need something more than unsupported statues you start dropping weapons of sharpness & mechanical men, strength of giants was already picked up on the way to getting the sacred statues. At this point your bloodstones are starting to pile up and you can decide what you expect to face in the near future and either go down evocation or alteration, either path giving you a very strong hand without the immediate support of the other. The way I see it, you've got a lot of great stuff but you don't desperately need it all up front...it's just a steady building of your power curve.

I also don't think that you really need to worry too much about fighting a war with your infantry. How early are you realistically going to have to fight in earnest? Maybe if you get heavily rushed you'll loose a couple provinces stalling to get to ench-4, but I can't imagine you'd have to defend your capital before you have had a chance to spend a turn or two dumping the gems you've been site searching for into 20+ sacred statues which will stop almost any rush dead. No doubt, as I mentioned the very early game is by far MA Argatha's weakest time and an aggressive rush is almost certainly a bad thing, but I think there are much softer targets I'd be considering rushing if I was the rusher.