Guide to MA Agartha (In prog) - Pretenders

[Valandil]

Juggernauts and astral magic pretenders.

With astral, you can forge robes of shadows, pendants of luck, amulets of antimagic, and summon a juggernaut.

The mobile reliquary has obscene hitpoints and decent combat ability, plus it spreads the vital dominion.

[Shovah32]

Along with 200 health the juggernaught has 20 protection and is a mindless trampler(quite hard to stop with the health, protection, trampling and immunity to mind affecting spells) but on the downside he has no elemental resistances(only poison), 4 defence, 5 attack, only weapon is a single fist(with its attack of 5 you better hope there are no size 6 enemies) but over-all its pretty nice(and sacred).
With it spreading dominion like a prophet AND benefitting from your golem cult dominion its worth it to bring a few along with your army and, with a few juggernaughts its not too difficult to dominion kill an enemy who's down to their last few provinces.
For a pretender you could try a dormant, 10 dominion, S6 wyrm. You could have luck and ethereal researched for when he comes out, he can die once and still summon juggernaughts, he has awe and of course the dominion 10 helps your golems. This build leaves 40 points over with all neutral scales so adjust them as you wish.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Tasty strategy. I'd forgotten all about the wyrm. I'd been thinking of a Great Sage or Sacred Statue. Still, what do you do to start turning up astral gems, or do you alchemize a lot?

It spreads dominion? Nice. thanks for mentioning it, Valandil.

[Salamander8]

Loving this guide. I've just started a new MA Agartha SP game and been trying some new ideas thanks to this guide.

I've been using Medium Infantry for the bulk of expansion so far. I used to try to rely on the Ancient Ones, but as you point out, they are very vulnerable to missiles. I just started being able to summon some of the national statues. Enemy archers are having a hell of a time with the combo of the Infantry and the statues backed by Oracles of the Ancients.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Thanks for the feedback, Salamander8. I have quite a bit planned, and you've just helped motivate me.

[Shovah32]

Lazy_Perfectionist said:
Tasty strategy. I'd forgotten all about the wyrm. I'd been thinking of a Great Sage or Sacred Statue. Still, what do you do to start turning up astral gems, or do you alchemize a lot?

It spreads dominion? Nice. thanks for mentioning it, Valandil.

A great sage or an oracle would also work. The sage could be strongly rainbow for searching/forging ect(but would pay through the nose for dominion) where-as the oracle could have a few other paths/great scales.
The dominion spread is one of the best things about juggernaughts, each one spreads dominion at the same rate as a prophet.

[ologm]

Gift of health works on juggernouts and it is multiplicative with the golem cult dominion, meaning you get 4 times the health.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Actually, even with Scylla, my 12 R not-yet super combatant, I tend to research with her right off the bat. I don't need gem income in other areas right away, and it gives me some flexibility in getting up my research machine. I only have to recruit/dedicate four golem crafters to research to get to my goal of Attentive Statues by the end of year one. I'll make note of exactly when I reach that, but she, and my recruitment queue are free by late summer.

Oh, and some significant spell-threats are located in astral magic.

Summons that are golems, but not national: This list will be updated occasionally, and mentioned in the first post. I will, however, only add golems seen, in action, recieving the golem cult boost. I'm tempted to just guess from the manual, but feel its best to actual hear eyewitness reports/ experience it myself in case its wrong. The manual's been wrong before- case in point, Watcher is under enchantment, not construction. Contributions are welcome via PM.

Confirmed by personal experience of myself or others:
Claymen. Juggernaut.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I've heard that both Cave City and Cave Fort battles are fought under the effect of darkness. I've also seen it in the short list of bugs.

Capital: Cave City
Default: Fortified City
Mountain: Cave Fort
Swamp: Swamp Fort
Forest: Forest Fortress
Tower weapons: 6x sling

Your capital is pretty well defended, but rather low on supplies. If you expect a siege, Pale One Soldiers are not a bad choice, as they don't consume supplies. Your admin is a measly 30, which means that it will usually be difficult to mass Ancient Ones.

Your Default Fortress of a Fortified City is exceptional. It's defense isn't ideal, but it is well supplied in case of sieges, and most importantly, it has 50% admin. Which means, build one of these in a strategic position to pump out the majority of your national troops. On second thought, your nationals aren't that special- a good independent selection works as well. When you build one of these, consider leaving out a temple and lab to save money.

In Mountain (NOT Border mountains) provinces the Cave Fort is available .It's admin and supply are measly, but its high defense means Pale One Soldiers can hold it for quite a long time against a larger force. Unfortunately, on random maps you will only see border provinces, at least at v. 3.08. It's on the expensive side though. I would NOT recommend making this your first fort. However... there are certain circumstances where its value jumps dramatically. A iron Mine, for instance. Or the Vaults Beneath (150 resources). Or some indies, or special site recruits. When that bug with auto darkness is fixed, if it isn't already, these will be extremely hard to take from you, barring a few nations.

Your Swamp Fort is abysmal- but cheap at 800 gold and 3 turns. It has absolutely 0 admin value. However, its not a bad place to put a library and temple, pumping out mages. If you want to double up your research early this is an option, albeit one that hamstrings troop production and vulnerable to attack. On the plus side, you could put one up next to a better fort, such as your capital, and it will hardly affect production.

Your Forest Fortress is not a bad choice. It's hardly ideal, but considering forests are high in resources and it goes up in four turns and 1000 gold, this is a decent production choice. If you haven't grabbed all the provinces in the area, its superior to a fortified city, but only by a small margin. I'd rank it above the Cave Fort, since it's somewhat less expensive, and goes up a turn earlier.

Next up, Strategy, Pretender Design, etc. Last, a discussion of artifacts and spells, advanced strategy, maybe?