LA Agartha Advice Wanted

[Meglobob]

Shovah32 said:
Would some such as, say a robe of shadows be better than a marble breastplate for an SC who can cast the earth protection spells(stoneskin/ironskin/invunerability)?

Also do you prefer firebrands or shadowbrands?

I would say a robe of shadows is always better than a marble breastplate, etheral is always better than protection. Don't foget boots of stone/robe of shadows combo as well.

I like both swords, my favourites are SC's that can have 1 of each and a shield ie...3 arms plus. There should be a spell that can grow body parts...

[Shovah32]

If you had to pick one of the swords which would it be? And vrs most regular armies i would probably take the breatplate(assuming the SC didnt have earth magic) over the robe since the robe lets you ignore 75% of regular damage(with magic doing alot of damage to your low prot SC) but high prot, generally 20+, lets you ignore alot more than that vrs most weapons(bows, spears, shortswords ect).

[MaxWilson]

I would take the breastplate (or boots of stone) normally, but as you say Tomb Oracles can cast Ironskin. Umbrals are ethereal and still take plenty of damage from regular troops, but a naked Wraith Lord is Prot 22 with Ethereal, which is basically what you'd get from a Robe of Shadows-equipped Tomb Oracle; with Soul Vortex a naked Wraith Lord is essentially immune to most normal units in any quantity. Edit: Don't forget that a Marble Breastplate increases encumbrance and a Robe of Shadows doesn't. [I had a bug once where a Wraith Lord wearing Boots of Stone took huge amounts of fatigue from spellcasting. Don't know if it happens with the Marble Breastplate but it's still +8 spellcasting encumbrance or something.]

So yeah, Robe of Shadows. Of course a Ring of Regen would be nice given their high HP base, and of course a Pendant of Luck. Reinvigoration can be gotten from Summon Earthpower instead of items; perhaps Boots of Quickness, Horror Helmet, and Golden Shield would make a nice combination given the death magic on the oracle and the high parry of the shield. For swords I'm partial to Woundflame if you can get it, and a Shadow Brand if you can't for the area-effect AN damage; but perhaps there's another sword that leverages the oracle's high strength better. I think there's a sword that does area-effect AP or AN damage.

-Max

[vfb]

Slightly off topic, but is Bone Armour (built in Vortex) worth it against high MR troops like Helheim? For example if you were to put it on an Ice Devil?

[MaxWilson]

Probably not, because 1.) their MR is high enough that you will leech only a fraction of the normal HP/fatigue, and 2.) Vanir are expensive enough to be worth killing even one-by-one without crowd control spells. That is to say, Soul Vortex usually doesn't kill all that many chaff so much as it gives you back fatigue, and against Vanir it will kill even fewer. Not worth the low Prot on Bone Armour.

-Max

[lachniet]

This is how I play Agartha - in single player

Get a rainbow pretender great sage, and research nothing but Conjuring-5. Defend yourself as yuo see fit until you get there. Then send you sage out to find sites and start summoning the crap out of Umbrals. Use them as your front line (with a few meat shields to take the first volley of arrows). Keep summoning them in bulk, if you can build up an army of about 30-40 of them in your front lines you are pretty much unbeatable because they have good MR as well as being ethereal. They also can take on water provinces well if you summon a wraith lord and give him an item for water breathing or something. Banes work well if you are low on gems.

While you are holding your own and taking other people's home sectors, research up gift of reason and start GOR'ing umbrals up the wazoo. Equip them which charcoal shields, marble armor, amulet of MR and amulet of luck, and maybe some handy boots for either flying (nice for hit-n-run) or for quickness or rejuvination. They have a good drain life and generally double their HP to about 128 and stay there during most battles. I have seen a single GOR Umbral thus equipped take out hundreds of enemies, and easily anything but a main force. They'll die quick against a true enemy force with good magic users and so on though. As an aside, they'll take a TON of hits and get lots of crippling ailments pretty quickly. Be prepared to bring them home after 8-10 rounds of fighting and give all of their loot to a new fresh GOR umbral.

Lachniet

[P3D]

Was playing with LA Agartha, and the lack of gems might be the reason to go for a heavy bless strategy, with everywhere recruitable troops.

The Blindfighters have two main disadvantage: fatigue and damage outlay. This asks for E9B4 bless, and alteration could be neglected for a while. Now you have 24 protection, shrugging of heavy cavalry charges, crossbows (kite shields) even fire evocations with minimal casualties.

It also asks for a turmoil-luck strategy. Especially with the Great Olm multiheroes you might get in CBM (Great Olm or a the immortal Possessed Corpse). And heavy bless will need crap scales somewhere - Turmoil, cold, drain. As your troops are resource-heavy but cheap (so not massed in very big number), this makes a good synergy. E.g.:

Imprisoned druid E9S4N4B4 Dom5 T1P2C2G0L3D2
Imprisoned Titan E9A9 Dom4

Alternative initial expansion is P3 and buy the medium-heavy crossbows. Prot 16 is adequate against most indies.

The slow blindfighters on Hold and Attack are also compatible with your crossbows.

With heavy bless you might go straight for Artifacts, picking lanterns, and Weapons of Sharpness on the way.

While old and fragile, the necromancers are awesome spellcasters. FEDS is arguably one of the best path combinations, and not being cap-only, you should will luck on F3/S2/E4/D4 ones. Very efficient manual site searchers, which is great in the magic-depleted Late era.
You need the pretender to account for your deficiencies though - high S, N and B for blood stones, perhaps A.
Twiceborning them is an option but expensive considering an Oracle cost 30 - do it for the rare randoms.

The main strategic choice is on whatever you want to spending your death gems on.