EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

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The problem isn't the quality of the hero.
Even with a luck +3 its only a 6% chance to get one each turn. Its simply not worth the 120-200 design points. Plus, magic paths duplicate ones you already get.

Luck doesn't scale either. Sure, multiheros you can get forever.
But the other part of luck that you are paying 4 - tops out at 4 events. And there are iirc 2-3 heros.

Hey, I'll take 4 good events every turn. Especially since the Order + Luck combination seems to generate large numbers of taxation events, and the Magic + Luck combination favors some of the truly high value cash events.

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Rather like comparing apples and oranges - since you are talking about e9 vs n4. 360 design pts vs 80.

Prot 40 looks awesome. Still loses to a lightning bolt. Or petrify. Numbness. Slime. Curse of stones.

Yes, any given tactic has counter tactics. Congratulations. How does nature help with that at all? And there are obvious counters to some of those (like Iron Will for petrify), and no need to counter others (seriously, curse of stones, vs. a mage SC with good MR?). But none of these objections are at all relevant unless a nature bless actually does something to answer those. The obscene protection is still something an earth bless gives that nature doesn't, and nature gives... 5% regen? OH yay. 2hp/trn.

You never answered my question - what does a nature bless give you that you need? How is it relevant? I *tried* it (F4E9N4, slightly worse scales, same army size). It didn't improve the performance of my units that I could notice.

(And E9 is only 292 design pts with the suggested pretender, whereas N4 is 122, so still more points, but you get so much more).

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Vs with my build I am typically building someothing link.. 8 sacred, 5 pales ones and 3 trogs.

What are you doing with the sacreds turn 2 - do you prophetize your scout? (Doesn't seem worth it to me when you can have an H4 later). And 3 trogs don't feel very efficient. I'll try it, but i'm not sure why you think that's better than 8 trogs.

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Note on blessing:
You need Oracles or a prophet for divine bless. Your mages (especially earth readers with their low area bless) will miss some of your sacreds even if there's only *5* of them. Even if you repeatedly cast blessing. This leads to dead troops you can't afford. So oracles seem to be your only repeatable and viable bless chassis.
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Precision/2 -2. If your earth reader is smack dab in the middle of your sacreds he doesn't miss. Set them to bottom right, hold and attack. Set your earth reader to bless, bless, bless, earth grip earth grip. (or fright etc).[/quote]

Yeah, tried that. Missed the same guy all three times. Repeatedly. Earth Readers are utter fail at anything requiring aim.

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Precision +3/ and Check the AOE:5. Works pretty well.

[/quote]
For some reason i thought you were refering to the AoE 1 version which is castable earlier. Precision 10 isn't all that exciting, but with AoE 5 you'll probably hit something.

I think this speaks to a difference in research priorities. Whereas I'm rushing for legions of steel and forging better items, you're running down alteration.

Its hard to comment on how useful this is without knowing something about your pretender build. I don't know how early you have enough research for that to even be meaningful, whereas i'll have Legions of Steel at the start of turn 3.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Hey, I'll take 4 good events every turn. Especially since the Order + Luck combination seems to generate large numbers of taxation events, and the Magic + Luck combination favors some of the truly high value cash events.

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Yes, any given tactic has counter tactics. Congratulations. How does nature help with that at all? And there are obvious counters to some of those (like Iron Will for petrify), and no need to counter others (seriously, curse of stones, vs. a mage SC with good MR?). But none of these objections are at all relevant unless a nature bless actually does something to answer those. The obscene protection is still something an earth bless gives that nature doesn't, and nature gives... 5% regen? OH yay. 2hp/trn.

You never answered my question - what does a nature bless give you that you need? How is it relevant? I *tried* it (F4E9N4, slightly worse scales, same army size). It didn't improve the performance of my units that I could notice.

(And E9 is only 292 design pts with the suggested pretender, whereas N4 is 122, so still more points, but you get so much more).

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What are you doing with the sacreds turn 2 - do you prophetize your scout? (Doesn't seem worth it to me when you can have an H4 later). And 3 trogs don't feel very efficient. I'll try it, but i'm not sure why you think that's better than 8 trogs.

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Precision/2 -2. If your earth reader is smack dab in the middle of your sacreds he doesn't miss. Set them to bottom right, hold and attack. Set your earth reader to bless, bless, bless, earth grip earth grip. (or fright etc).

Yeah, tried that. Missed the same guy all three times. Repeatedly. Earth Readers are utter fail at anything requiring aim.

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Precision +3/ and Check the AOE:5. Works pretty well.

[/quote]
For some reason i thought you were refering to the AoE 1 version which is castable earlier. Precision 10 isn't all that exciting, but with AoE 5 you'll probably hit something.

I think this speaks to a difference in research priorities. Whereas I'm rushing for legions of steel and forging better items, you're running down alteration.

Its hard to comment on how useful this is without knowing something about your pretender build. I don't know how early you have enough research for that to even be meaningful, whereas i'll have Legions of Steel at the start of turn 3.[/quote]


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Ok..

Why Alteration before construction - because legions of steel is e3. And at 400 gp a pop, its too expensive to build Divine Oracles early. You need to mass agarthans.

As for pretenders so much depends. Its why I haven't specified *a* build - Because if you are starting (or have a high possibility of starting near water, you absolutely want an olm ESPECIALLY with a nature bless. Since he can site search water for free castles.

As for research.. I don't build Divine Oracles *at all* for most of year one. Sure they are great units - we agree. But for research earth readers are 20rp/gp (or less). And they don't die from your -3 death scale. Divine oracles are more than 40gp/rp. And you simply cant afford them. Now you might build 1, early, just to assure you can cast earth meld.

As for counter tactics - we agree. Everything has countertactics - but you are predicating your entire build on a tactic that has easy counters.

As for a few of your points - your first expansion group requires you to have a means of blessing - so absolutely you either prophetize your commander or your scout. Typically I do the commander.

Make sure to also SoC your trampling group. Make sure that your hit point sponges are 2/3 back, and your tramplers are all the way back corner. You want to string out your opponents.

obviously you look for low #'s to attack... but even better is low numbers where your scouting report tells you there are three kinds of units....archers militia and heavy infantry for example - tells you the militia will move forward - and the archers will damage is tolerable at long range.

As for nature bless gives you: Forging options on the forge lord. Better attrit survivability. Fortress searching for the olm. IF you go e9n10 the berserk + on protection and + on hitting ... Well as I recall with e9N10 LoS you were getting prot 21 from your sacreds...