Pale one soldier-attack 8/old age

[Xietor]

I just took a look at Argatha MA. I know the powers that be must have had a good reason, but why is the pale one soldier have an attack of 8? And that is the unit they get on its pd after pd 20. The heavy infantry is a better unit, and they get that unit in the early pd.

pd over 20 is supposed to give you a better unit, with an attack of 8, i would prefer to just keep getting the heavy infantry. Since it is a special unit of argatha, i do not think it should suck. With an attack of 8 it sucks.

Argatha is not one of the tougher MA races, and i do not think any of its troops should suffer old age. I think the developers went overboard with old age. I can see marigon, ermor, caelum, and some of the tougher races getting hit with old age, but not the weaker races.

And to be honest, the ancient one should have an attack of 10. With many players using w9 bless, and other races having sacreds with unreal defense, you cripple Argatha by having its sacred units with attacks of 8 and 9. Make them 10 so they have a prayer of fending off w9 vans early in the game.

Argatha is limited enough with no ranged troops, and only a 30 admin. castle. They get no bonus like ulm on starting points. raise their sacreds to attack 10, remove old age from their mages, and they still not in the upper half of MA races, but it would help some.

I would not mind seeing the pale one soldier removed and a boulder throwing unit added at its capital similar to the giants. That may help them with high defense units early in the game.

[Dedas]

Try magic +3 combined with magic penetration artifacts and then cast "weight of stones". Also darkness and utterdark (the last very high level though) work wonders as the enemies defense and attack will be halved if they do not have darkvision.
Another tip is to send in your human high protection high defense infantry first to raise the enemies fatigue and then send in the pale ones.

Any combination of this works.

[Xietor]

that does not help you if you have an army of double blessed vans at your capital on turn 5.

[Endoperez]

Early Age Agartha has boulder-throwing Ancient Ones. Unfortunately, they are too expensive and fragile to be of much use, much like their Jotun counterpart.

Pale Ones of Agartha have many abilities that make them better than humans: need not eat, good magic resistance, high strength and hp, natural armor, darkvision, siege bonus, ability to go underwater and long maxage. This is balanced by their low attack and defense skills, their cold-bloodedness (more encumberance in Cold provinces) and the fact that they only have one eye (more suspectible to Eye Shields, Vision's Foes and just plain battle afflictions).

Pale One Soldier isn't inferior to his human counterpart due to being of a different race, but due to using much worse equipment. Short Sword lets the humans deal just as much damage as Pale One does with a spear, and the spear's repel ability is useless because Pale Ones only rarely manage to hit an attacker. Instead of using big shields that'd help them to negate their lower defence, Pale Ones use small bucklers, and instead of chain mail, Pale Ones use inferior scale mail.

Even now they have their uses, due to being tougher, bigger, and thanks to them not eating and being able to breath under water. Pale Ones have trouble killing their enemies and won't be able to survive for much longer than normal humans, however, so they don't have many uses.

[Dedas]

With fear of repeating myself, try to use them in combination with magic; which in turn means do not use them alone early on.
When playing EA Agartha I see them only as "meat shields" in the beginning (before any defense reducing spells). They are there to let the Troglodytes (which are expensive) get to the archers and commanders. Later on I use them (as I wrote above) with "Weight of stones", "Terror" (they have good MR) and so on.
Without Troglodytes, as is the case with MA and LA Agartha, you should not use the pale ones early on. They do a much better job when they have some magic to back them up.

Some tips:
You could try an awake Risen Oracle who starts with both death and earth and let him deal out the damage whilst the pale ones protects him.
When I play I pretty much let him cast "fists of iron" which is devastating for almost any foe in close combat, especially when you have high earth magic. Combine this with a reasonable death magic skill (+ to fear) and you can rout a much bigger force. Which finally enables your pale ones to kill something easily (-4 to defense).

[Xietor]

I am talking MA argatha.

The extra benefits you mention of the pale one soldier, like being amphibian, offer no benefit when they are used in post 20 pd. They seem to be a weak unit for pd.

I am not sure what units early in the game, and before you have many spells, national summons, Argatha is supposed to use to fight off high defense blessed troops like vans, white centaurs, that attack you early in the game?

Talking about dark vision and such is nice, but not on turn 5 lol.

[vfb]

Endoperez said:
Pale One Soldier isn't inferior to his human counterpart due to being of a different race, but due to using much worse equipment.

Nah, I think the one-eyed attribute messes with their depth perception, that's why Pale Ones have horrible attack skill.

[Dedas]

Also more than horrible precision (7).

Have any of you tried EA Agartha's "wet ones" in water? For me it was a bit of a surprise, and now I actually only use those instead of "pale one" in the water.

[PvK]

Pale One Soldiers are good units, especially _underwater_. They allow MA Agartha to expand quickly against indies underwater, which is a huge advantage. The attack score of 8 is compensated by decent armor, high HP, good ST & MR, a long weapon, and of course amphibian, need not eat, siege bonus, and 100% dark vision.

I agree though that it would be better and make more thematic sense to have humans for PD.

As for no ranged troops, everyone can get shortbows, but not everyone is so hard to hurt with shortbows as MA Agarthan troops.

[PvK]

HoneyBadger, I like your post, but consider that especially in Middle Era, the Pale Ones are really designed for use underwater. Consider using a morningstar (i.e. mace & chain) and a large shield _underwater_, compared to using a spear and buckler.

And again to everyone who looks at MA small Pale Ones and never tries using them, try recruiting a 2-4 turns of them and sending them into the ocean. In sufficient numbers, they can do well against independents underwater, allowing you to be a semi-decent underwater nation from the start of the game, which of course is a major national advantage unless you don't start anywhere near available seas.