Re: What counts as Golem Cult?
National Summons. General Summons will come later.
While its not heavily advertised, your golems get +10% hitpoints per level of dominion. I don't know if the opposite is true in hostile dominion.
Agartha's national summons are an important part of your strategy. With a base income of 5 earth gems, and plenty of mages capable of remote site searching with Gnome Lore, you can easily form the core of your army around your golems.
If you've taken sloth and high magic, then aim to include these in your armies by the start of the second year, or earlier. If you've taken productivity, you can go a bit further with your mundane national troops.
Most of your national golems are sacred. With every mage being a priest, its easy to bless the 5 or 20 you can send out with your Earth Readers and Golem Crafters, respectively. For larger numbers, your Oracle of the Ancients is a level three priest for area blesses. Earth bless, ironically, is useless (for these, but not the mages), and don't be tempted by the nature bless either. Since they're lifeless, 50 morale, regen and beserk is useless. Since they have no armor, all natural protection, they have no encumberance and no armor to get +4.
Also worth noting is patrol bonuses handy for paying for even more Golem Crafters. They need to be repaired in labs, and squash undead statistically and also because there's little point in lifedraining or fear. Lifeless offers several nice benefits. The manual isn't entirely up to date with regards to these, you'll have to take a peek to see all the details. They're also magical beings. Gotta keep your mages alive. Finally, many have map moves of three, but your mages 1. Keep a sharp eye out for any independent mages with decent magic leadership and high map moves, and consider twiceborn-ing an Oracle when the opportunity presents itself. If the Marble Oracle has leadership thats nice- but I don't know yet.
Are they affected by Darkness?
Acronyms
SAR - Standard Aggregate Research
EAR# - Estimated Available Research #
EAR operates under the assumption that each turn your recruit a mage of research ability # and dedicate them to research. Plenty of things can affect this, including early secondary forts, indies... It will be followed by a time.
Standard Golem Crafter RP 6. Magic Scale 3- 8.
Standard Earth Reader RP 3. Magic Scale 3 - 5.
Basic Formula SARx2/RP = t^2 + t
Estimate is sqrt(SARx2/RP). Since it's an estimate, I'm not to worried about rounding up or down. Or whether it starts on turn 1 or two. This is just to give an idea of how quickly one might get to a dedicated research goal.
Attentive Statues - Enchant 3 E2, 8 Gems, SAR 200
EAR3 ~ 11. EAR5 ~ 9 EAR6 ~ 8. EAR8 ~ 7
Compared to your later summons, they don't seem to impressive. However, they are well worth summoning. Consider the typical early expansion army- 10 infantry flanked by two squads of light infantry, ten each. This is sufficent to take down a few indies without many casulties. Now, consider replacing the core of ten infantry with ten Attentive Statues. They lack shields, but at 22 protection, they needn't worry about typical arrows. Even crossbows have to deal with 11 protection minimum, and they're 10 damage strength NOT added. These units are by no means immune to missile fire, but they do nicely. On top of that, all their stats are enough to squash your typical human heavy infantry, and at 50 morale, they'll never break- unless your mage gets squashed. They don't repair outside of a lab though, you'll have to keep an eye on that. Especially worth mentioning is their defense of 14- particularly higher than your later summons. And no encumbrance.
And in funding pinch, they have a patrol bonus, just send them to a farmland, and overtax those stupid abovegrounders.
Enliven Sentinels - Enchant 4 E2, 4 Gems, SAR 360
EAR3 ~ 15 EAR5 ~ 12 EAR6 ~ 11 EAR8 ~ 9.
Sentinels seem more attractive than Attentive Staues. On a one on one basis, they certainly have more hitpoints and strength for the gems, not to mention sacred. On the downside, they have five less defense. Sometimes that means they'll need more repairs at your neighborhood lab. On top of the greater strength, the Granite Sword has been replaced with a Granite Glaive capable of 7 damage, instead of 4, and length 4 causing some possible repels.
In all, they are better than Attentive Statues, but I wouldn't wait for them unless expansion was going very well. If my expansion was going swimmingly, then I'd save my gems for these. In other words, if I went with a high productivity bonus I'd save oup for Sentinels.
Enliven Granite Guard - Enchant 5 E3, 12 Gems, SAR 520
EAR3 ~ 19 EAR5 ~ 15 EAR6 ~ 13 EAR8 ~ 12.
Triple the gem cost, triple the hitpoints, and 22 strength. Throw in a 100% health bonus from a dom10 golem cult and you get 150 astonishing hitpoints. They're mean on the offense, capable of giving Giants a good show (though their 22 prot is matched by 20 strength+weapons). In friendly territory, they'll easily give those giants a good spanking and send them running home to their mommies. If you can afford them.
Enliven Marble Oracle
Haven't tried it yet. Can it lead troops? Any equipment slots? Prophet capable? Anybody have the juicy gossip on el Oracle?
Awaken Cavern Wight - No experience using it yet. What have you got to say?
Chill 3, undead. Available the same time as a a regular Wight, but costs 3 gems instead of five. Loses the bane blade in place of a more mundane glaive. Probably a little inferior, but at 60% cost, who am I to complain.
Summon Umbral - No experience using it yet. What can you say about it?
Stealth, Life Drain, Ethereal, undead. Give a Black Servant a Rod of the Leper King and you've got a raiding force. A lot meaner than shades.
Any juicy gossip on these units?
While your golems are formidable, they don't have any special crowd control properties. Thats why I suggest using them as the core of your force, flanked by mundanes. After all, your mages have much more mundane leadership than magical.
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