MA Agartha, or Yet another thread fishing for tips

[atul]

Lazy_Perfectionist, very nice, you gave me some food for thought. However, several remarks if I may.

As you note, the regular troops won't cut it mid to late game. Therefore I think you shouldn't advice on using Weapons of Sharpness when there are (almost) viable alternatives on research levels way lower. Namely, Rust Mist and Destruction against high-prot troops and Earth Meld against high-def troops, and Magma Bolts for a good trashing after that. All low research and castable by Earth Readers who are recruitable from any castle unlike the Oracles. I feel that Agarthan troops absolutely scream for battle mages accompanying them, unlike many other nations who can manage with mundane means. Note the Earth Readers' average leadership (45) which is quite uncommon to mages usable in a fight. But that's more matter of a magic section, not troops.

Also, I think you've ignored the Pale Ones' size 3 in the melee part, it means they get only 2 attacks against a block full of human-sized opponents who attack thrice. With their poor att and def, I think that equals a world of hurt.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to integrate it once I manage to bull my way through and finish up. You've given me food for thought. I haven't had a clue yet w/regards to battle-spells except that I can afford to spam earth elementals and that all my mages are nearsighted.

A preview of things to come...

As a result of my experiment with suiciding my Pretender (Twiceborn Crone), I've experimented with Wight Mages a bit.

First, you can cast Twice Born with 2 death. Either you empower an oracle, get lucky (.10x.25 = 2.5%) with a random death pick (happened with my second Oracle), get lucky with independent or random necromancers (it happens with death 3, luck 3) or mercenaries. The simplest solution is to have a pretender with two points of death magic, and forge a Skull Staff.

Give the staff to an oracle, cast twice born, and pass it along. If your Oracle dies in combat or starts feeling the ill effects of old age (and you suicide him) you get yourself a wight mage. It's not entirely a trade for the better- you do get certain vulnerabilities, lose your ability to go underwater, lose half your hitpoints, some leadership, generally get a wound, and lose some MR. Most importantly, your former oracle is no longer sacred.

Now that I've gotten the bad out of the way, you get a second life, of course, cold immunity, poison immunity, certain undead immunities, chill(3). You lose old age, and your precision jumps from 7 (or worse) to 10. Throw in an eye of aiming, and you have a mage who can cast spells without deviation to a range of 26 squares. Two out of three times I've done this (and taken note) I've gained one free level of death magic. You go from 6 encumbrance to zero. You lose that pesky cold-blooded, you keep your magic (including holy three - though you don't get any undead holy spells), and your mage goes from moving only 1 province a strategic turn to three. And last, you get to haul around around 100 undead, 70 up from the default 30. It is a real pity I can't do this with my crafters.

[atul]

Near-sightedness just means mages need to be put up front. Earth Meld has a precision bonus, so that helps a bit.

BTW, now that I noticed those updates you made to your previous posts, some comments. (It might be better to have new sections in new posts if you want people to read and comment them, as every contribution appears as an unread message...)

Two of the commanders are capital-only, not one: Ancient Lord and Oracle. The big fat guys are too comfy at home...

Boots of Behemoth + Midget Masher = Bad. If you trample, you don't attack. If you don't trample, you're up against enemies your size or larger and MM does no good. And as I noted earlier, Earth Readers have leadership comparable to indy leaders, so if you're not in danger of Seeking Arrows they are viable troop leaders.

The thing with twiceborn is wicked, by the way. Got to try it. Strategic move of 3 is real benefit to Agartha with such lazy mages.

[Evilhomer]

You should give your guide an own thread, having it appear at the end (or later on middle) of this thread does it no justice.

[atul]

Indeed, a separate thread would be best. Would get people to read it, too...

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Well... EvilHomer... I might as well finish it first.

Atul: Fixed. On moving mages up: I guess, thanks to infantry being such a great arrow catcher, I really don't get as much a benefit from moving them to the back. I'm just to used to playing as Ctis, and their shieldless Elite Warriors, and giving my Sauromancers time to skelly spam.

Other peeps... I added to my post above. My Pretender title is
[booming voice]
HE WHO ALWAYS EDITS
[/booming voice]

Like the thing with Twiceborn, Atul? Check out this thread and my 'Suicide Crone'. I thought it up because I love having an early pretender to get a jumpstart on research, but I often have to spend to much time asleep due to my inability to resist a shiny new chassis like a Ghost King or Draikana. The more complicated they are, the more they interest me. Which means I tend to avoid affordable leaders like Wyrms or whatnot. This allowed me to complicate my Pretender without spending more points.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=3

Shovah, with regards to Earth 9 only helping the mages, what about the +4 protection? With all the other spells on hand, my protection could get rather obscene. Chew on that, Ulm!

THE GREAT REVISIONIST STRIKES AGAIN!
So... I'll keep in mind that point about Midget and Trample not playing nicely together.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Another question here.

What actually counts as golem, in terms of the golem cult. Is it any inanimate magical being. Are mechanical men,and clay men included?

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Good question, Sir Dr D. I'm going to see if I can find that out in the next hour. I have to settle on a commander first, though. But I have to sacrifice... Just can't have everything, no matter how hard I try.

What I want is an awake (out of 350 points then) Ghost King (120), five death (80), 4 astral (92), dominion 8 (147), Turmoil 1, Sloth 1, Heat 1, Growth zero, Luck 1, Magic 3 (sum -40). What do I sacrifice? What do I keep?

My goal, crazy and risky and mismatched as it is, is a stealthy Pretender able to cast Darkness (must), Utterdark would be nice (greedy), hence the 5 d. Is it possible to go as low as 3? I hope to be able to get the Rings of Sorcery, and thus Wizardry (Greedy). I also want to be able to cast luck on my entire army of shades and ghosts and spectres (must- but can I do it w/o communion and w/o a high astral reducing fatigue? Does me no good to have an unconscious pretender. But with invig- wait, don't have that, no earth.)

So yeah, I stuck my hand in the cookie jar, grabbed to many, and can't get out of the design screen again. What do I do? Give me some tough love please?

I've been working on my mage-priest section in my downtime at work. Unfortunately, I left the text file there. Otherwise I'd be finishing and then posting it now.

I will drop this tidbit. Don't underestimate Earth Readers. They may seem underwhelming at E, but with barely any work they can be casting E4. Sure, they may fall unconscious, but they'll live. Or, depending on who won that debate, they'll die. But they're expendable. Just have, say, four Earth Boots in your lab, and four earth readers in every fortress. Then, when a fortress comes under siege, equip those Earth Readers with those boots, script earth power spell, and just enough gems to enable casting, but not enough to eliminate fatigue. Broke your siege? Then send those boots back. Or forge four more. You probably could afford it.

ERR.. I wish I hadn't left my notes and manual. But what happens happens.

Edit: Oh well, I settled for Astral 3, Death 4, Dominion 7, Sloth 1, Turmoil 1, Heat 1, Death 1, Luck 1, Magic 3. I'll probably come up with something better soon, but none of my penalties are too severe. I'll see which affects me most and least.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I know Claymen get the bonus, so I suspect others do to. Undead in general don't get it either, but I swear I saw some cult bonus on my Ghost King and twiceborn crone-wight mage. I mean, it might be dominion... but even at Dominion Seven, I can't see how my Ghost King goes from 35 hitpoints to 84 (49 dominion bonus) unless I'm getting 140% extra hitpoints, not 70%. There have to be more exceptions, but I'm not certain what the pattern is. Skeletons don't get it.