MA Agartha, or Yet another thread fishing for tips

[MaxWilson]

Sorry, I wasn't speaking specifically of MA Agartha about the skull mentors, more about any nation with access to Death. And... [checking game stats] it appears you're correct. Oracles of the Ancients can cast Dark Knowledge, and thus can bootstrap into the Death path eventually, but yeah, skull mentors are out as a research goal. My bad.

-Max

[Ironhawk]

Atul, Order 3, Misfortune 3 is a given in a game of the size you are considering. Its dangerous at the start but the number of events that can happen in a single turn is capped so once your nation gets to a large enough size you wont have to worry about bad events too much anymore.

As for Heat 3, I think its a TERRIBLE idea. Not only do you lose a huge chunk of income but you will be hobbling your spellcasters on the field of battle! Unless you are planning some strategy that works around battle magic I would not suggest Heat.

And if you want an early expander pretender, you should really re-consider the Cyclops, also. He needs equipment to really put the hammer down (ha ha!) and getting your cyclops equipped in a Very Hard Research environment is going to take you WAY LONGER then you expect. If you want a pretender to do your early expansion and are short on points you might consider an astral Wyrm. Or perhaps dom9-10 on one of the other Monster class pretender chasis (assuming that hp bonus Shovah speaks of exists).

[Ironhawk]

Oh, and isnt the strength of Agartha the Umbrals? Does MA get those?

[HoneyBadger]

I agree with the Wyrm, although I would suggest maybe Death 6 and 2 points of air magic to go along with the Dom 10.
It'll give him both fear 1 (quickly improveable with horror helmet) and awe 2, and allow you to get a jump on death magic.

You can cast air shield immediately-which will help a lot when it comes to avoiding afflictions, which-aside from curses-should be your major concern in the beginning turns of the game.

Eventually, you'll be able to cast other spells, such as Mistform, Fly, and Mirror Image, which will help your Wyrm continue to be a presence on the battlefield.

I personally wouldn't bother with Astral for your Pretender, just because it leaves him vulnerable to certain attacks, and you can eventually forge a Wraith Crown to cover etherialness, for his other head.

Unless you feel you absolutely *need* high astral magic or the MR bonus, then my opinion is to skip it, or at worst go for 10 astral so you can do unto others without them doing unto you, and eventually Wish, but it's just an opinion.

Make sure you get your Wyrm an amulet of antimagic as soon as possible, though.

[PvK]

I don't think Order is as important as Production for MA Agartha. Magic is good for research. You don't really need archers to expand if you learn how to use heavy infantry well (see, "playing an Ulmish nation"...), though you might recruit some indy shortbows. One good early research goal IMO is Legions of Steel, though again that means learning to use your heavy infantry well. Fire Brands and Frost Brands give you thugs but removing the need for high Attack skill from your giants.

Don't forget that if there are water provinces in reach, you should be able to take them easily with a few turns' recruitment of your armored amphibian troops.

[Evilhomer]

Im not sure if order or production is best for agartha, but im pretty sure he wants atleast 2+ of each. Recruiting indie archers are probably not a bad idea i agree, since he might just have some money stockpilling early. oh, btw ma agartha has summon umbrals, those are pretty decent, but it will be a while before you can get them (conj 7).

[Foodstamp]

MA Agartha gets Umbrals at conj7? That is pretty lame because EA Agartha gets them at conj5.

[Evilhomer]

oh sorry, you are right, conj 5 in base game. Was using cb version when i checked if they had them

[atul]

Wow, lots to chew on. Thanks people.

Ironhawk, I have a feeling that order3/misfortune3 meme comes into play when you play lots of MPs where you don't actually care if every now and then you have to bail out early because of bad luck as long as you've got a good shot for optimal end game. Might be wrong, though.

Gotta agree somewhat on cyclops, his magics won't actually help a lot a nation which has E3 mages and only ones at other paths. Also I never manage to keep him afflictionless for long without heavy kitting, and surprisingly pure Earth doesn't offer too many good alternatives to trinkets at const 2, at least. Slap the trinket armour on any scary guy and indies are as good as gone, but the people are of course totally different ballgame.

The golem cult is operational, I did wonder why many of the statues had about 100 hp or more, but it explains it. Should it work on all constructs? ...have to experiment some. Umbrals are nice but they 1) are of conjuration tree might not be a priority and 2) are summonable only by the 400 gold capitol-only mages. Gryah.

Anyone else having problems with lagging forum?

[mivayan]

atul said:
The mages bar the least ones are old, so I dare no Death.

Old age is a fairly small problem for the 400 gold mages, since their long max age and death magic lets them gain fewer age afflictions. But the 200 gold golem crafters, your main researchers at least untill you have several castles, have age trouble. Growth is very nice in a long game too...

You could try a Risen Oracle, Dom9, E2D4. Order 3, prod0, heat2, growth1, missfortune2, magic1.

With dom9 it can beat many indies, and with care it'll never get permanently hurt (immortal). Enc0 to wear heavy armor... not sure if it's worth forging early on. Just be *really* carefull about staying in friendly dominion.

D4 to use the death gems your big mages can find with search spells, and +100% afflictions when blessed mages cast spells.

missfortune 3 sounds risky. Heat3 causes enc trouble, which heat2 usually doesn't do. Perhaps it's worth it for more production...