Guide: Agartha, Pale ones - a study in darkness (CBM)

[Fantomen]

Second gear

When your pretender wakes it is time to shift into second gear. You should now have 10 -15 provinces, two forts and preferably a third under construction, a pile of earth gems, a trickle of fire and death and a couple of expansion parties still alive.

His first task is to forge hammers. In fact he will forge hammers until we reach construction 4. This should get you 5-7 hammers to play with. The first hammer costs 7 gems and the rest 3 each. Without a forge lord 6 hammers would have cost us 15 + 11x5 = 81 gems = more than we could afford. Now we get them early year 2 for 22 gems. On top of that it means you will never forge anything without one, and this is going to change the way we can play the nation.

In the meantime intensify death searching.

While doing this you´ll also want to flesh out your armies. Each army should now include an oracle, and that oracle should be standing in the middle of you front line dropping legions of steel *before* divine blessing. This is important since you want to avoid hold and attack orders which will cause your boulder throwers to end up in melee, but still need that legions of steel to target correctly. You want to compose that frontline mostly of Cavern guards or Ancient ones depending on your gold supply and need for speed.

A Cavern guard now has 16 protection, 21 hp and deals 23 damage. Thats not bad for a 13 gp unit under production scales, even with a net 8 attack score. Your boulder batteries should swell to 20 - 30 per army at this point.

Now there´s something missing here and what´s missing is some long range artillery. Luckily we have some Ancient lords sitting idle in the basement. Now use those hammers to forge some fire bolas and boots of giant strength. Consider that fire bolas have two attacks each and has range AND damage = strength. So each lord gets two bolas and a pair of boots pushing strenght to 24.

Each lord will fire 4 bolas each turn with a range and damage of 24 and 10 precicion(bolas are +3 prec and soon you´ll see stars racking up). First rounds this will break up the enemy formations when the imprisoned units fall behind and when melee starts the fire bonds will allow your cavern guards to dish out that 23 damage even with their low attack.

Add a couple of these to each army and there will be few units you can´t kill at this stage of the game. Glaives kill high prot/low defence units, boulders ignore defence for high def/low prot units and bolas will strip defence of those rare high prot/high def elites and slow down thugs. And you can always call in your special force of Seal guards if you encounter ethereal units.

Also try smaller forces of 1-2 bola lords, 5-10 Seal guards, an oracle and a couple trogs or trog lords with armour.

Another niche (very niche) tool at constr 2 is trog lords with medallion of vengance. Now this is a true grenade. Let them run before your army trampling their way deep in enemy ranks before blowing up those jaguars or whatever small size super elites rushed you in large numbers. This is expensive use of fort turns and fire gems but it is also very effective and utterly hilarious.

Somewhere in summer or fall year two depending on your situation you reach construction 4, prepare to change gears again.

[Fantomen]

Third gear

Somewhere in middle of year two your pretender got a new mission along with one of your death 2 oracles. You guessed it, mentors. You havent used any death gems and should have a death income of 4-10 something. This will let you forge two mentors per turn for a good while. Total cost of 9 gems per turn. If your gems run out your forge who...errr lord keeps forging one per turn for 2 gems. If you have really lucked out in death searching you start with 3 per turn. Now this is where your forge lord starts flirting with the duracell rabbit.

The implications of this is simply going to be huge, and it won´t be a temporary boost either. This is going to give you a progressively increasing research that will catch up with and pass any other nation barring maybe Baalz helheim. Let me just say you may be looking at constr 7 alt 9 by winter year three and you start seeing the proportions, but I´m getting ahead of myself.

After construction 4 you pick up conj 3 for Dark knowledge, voice of apsu, Banes, Rhuax pact and Barathrus pact. Now those are nice summons that cost next to nothing and go well together. The magma children are still pretty niche but later on when we have ench 4 (fire ward) and heavy buffs these will be pure gold. The earth elementals are good right from the start and will now phase out the trogs for most situations. Use those remotes but do it with care, you want to target carefully with Dark knowledge and combine with manual search, every death gem is precious.

At this point you´ll want to start funneling some of your good scale income into high PD all over, I know Agarthas PD isn´t that good but just trust me ok. You´re aiming at 25+ all over. To do this you can stop recruiting your more expensive sacreds in favour of cavern guards. The more cavern guards you mass, the happier you will be later on.

Construction 4 also opens up for some new thugs to flesh out your front ranks. Banes with frost brands and golden shields are cool, and a trog lord with armour and golden shield can be pretty devastating. Also consider fear helmet on trog lords for fear awe combo trampling right through the enemy ranks. Give them some girdles if they get tired, but they are only enc 2 so might not need it. And watch out for that low mr. The very same old brand/gold shield combo works with ancient lords too. If you find indy air mages and get some air gems then give a couple Ancient lords stars of thraldom and mix with your other frontline regulars, who cares about low attack score now?

Cold dominion pushes might start to become a problem now and I see few alternatives other than pushing back. Fortunately you are well suited to do so and shouldn´t be rushing any cold nations yourself at this point of the game. Keep track of it, preach when neccessary and don´t follow any bait into the avalanche and you should be fine.

After Conj 3 you go for Thau 2 or possibly 4. Site searching fire and earth and possibly prison of fire and terror if you feel that you need them to further mitigate your low attack and complement your boulder shocks and tramplers with low morale scores. If you found indy astral mages pick up evo 2 or 4 for site searching and fire cloud, cleansing water and blade wind. But consider that every turn spent above the 2:nd level in these schools will slow you down in the long run, so only if you need it. Might be worth pulling your pretender for a flaming helmet here to let an earth reader cast augury.

Now as soon as possible switch back to construction. From now on avoid using earth and fire gems exept for carefully remote searching those provinces your oracles don´t have time to visit. Pile em up.

Now before you know it we´re hitting the bar for construction 6, time to switch gears again.

[Fantomen]

Fourth gear

Now you have to break into that smithy and convince your forge lord to stop popping out mentors for a few turns and crank out a ring of sorcery, a skullcap and a ring of wizardry (courtesy of that holy searching) At this point your pretender has married the duracell rabbit and made a couple babies who needs a new toy. Your supercharged reseach engine will now be upgraded further by fire random Earth readers cranking out a many lightless lanterns as possible as fast as possible. Burn through that pile of fire gems. You should reach construction 7 before your forge lord finished those items, but when he does we have another job for him.

The rings for now circulates and helps you break into nature and possibly air and blood if you were lucky with indy mages.

At construction 7 either find a e5 oracle if you got one or pass out a pair of earth boots to a e4, make sure he´s not old. This guy will now use that pile of earth gems to drop mechanical militia with any extra gems you have scraped up. Remember that PD we invested in? Now this is early year 3 so some other nations might be thinking about launching a bitzkrieg with teleporting thugs and whatnot. Think again.

Construction 7 also gives us mechanical men if we need to combine with some lightning rods on mages and thugs (look at those trog lords again) against any lightning spams. And last but not least it gives us golems.

You probably don´t have any other choice but to pull your forge lord from forging to do this but a couple kitted golems is exactly what we need to perfect that fancy new defence system we´ve got. There are many ways to equip golems but you are uniquely well suited to forge stymphalian wings which gives fear, flying and trample on that enc 0 size 6 unit. Add a golden shield to that for awe+fear and you´re...well, golden. Have it forge itself a cap and give it boots of stone and you have a fearsome teleporting deterrent to any heavy raiders. And you still have a hand and two misc slots to play with for resistances or mr or whatever you need. Elemental armour + boots of quickness and a set of appropriate weapons should be sitting in your lab in case any tartarians or other big bad guys show up. Remember that you can swap gear and teleport the same turn, any raider should meet your golem perfectly equipped for the job.

We also got weapons of sharpness in the same neat package, spammable by your oracles. Your armies start looking pretty massive by now. Esoecially those cavern guards we´ve been massing really starts to shine.

Still early year 3, we switch to alteration. And this is the school that will transform our tank into a juggernaut.

[Fantomen]

Fifth gear

As you are blazing up the alteration tree faster than your enemies can say slartibartfast your armies are multiplied in power. Your pretender now forges a bunch of skullfaces and any other death gems goes into skull staffs. Every army is thusly complemented with a d4 oracle by the time you reach darkness and petrify, which should be something like early fall year 3. After that most of your death gems will be sitting on scouts sneaking along your frontiers.

Darkness is just crazy with Agartha. Those cavern guards are now leveraging their 23 AP damage against halved defense in most cases. Backed up by petrify spam on top of boulders, bolas, thugs, sacred elites, destruction spam, earth meld etc etc... All the while blights become a monthly occurrence in your enemies forts.

EVERYTHING IN YOUR ARSENAL SHINES IN DARKNESS! All summons, all recruits, all thugs, all mages, everything.

Now don´t come dragging with undead to counter this. Agartha can handle undead like no tomorrow. First we have a host of holy3 priests with our armies. Cleansing water are less than a turn away. Dust to dust and finally petrify will have you covered. And if that wasn´t enough wither bones is two or three turns away if you so chose.

Your pretender cranks out rings of wizardry and crystal shields mostly now when not summoning golems. you´ll be looking at effectively earth 7-8 on your oracles in combat, And pretty heavy fire, death and water too.

From here you can go in different directions. Either stay on target for army of lead/gold which also opens up a new staple in iron bane, just go another notch for marble warriors then umbrals. Evocation for magma eruption and other elemental shells for your cannons, Back to construction for forge, artifacts and poison golems or enchantment for deep well+hidden in sand factory. Conjuration for well of misery, earth attack and tartarians etc etc.

Whichever way you go it´s going to be one hell of a high tech tank to drive into the fray.

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

...There are many ways to equip golems but you are uniquely well suited to forge stymphalian wings which gives fear, flying and trample on that enc 0 size 6 unit. Add a golden shield to that for awe+fear and you´re...well, golden. ...

Minor quibble - golems are size 5. Interesting guide

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

Now use those hammers to forge some fire bolas and boots of giant strength. Consider that fire bolas have two attacks each and has range AND damage = strength. So each lord gets two bolas and a pair of boots pushing strenght to 24.

Each lord will fire 4 bolas each turn with a range and damage of 24 and 10 precicion(bolas are +3 prec and soon you´ll see stars racking up).

@Fantomen
Dear Fanto,

Your guide is entitled "(CBM)". Your strategy is saying that Fire Bolas have damage=strength, but is it not the case that it was Vanilla with damage = 0+strength, but CBM is damage = 4(no strength)? (I've checked back to CBM 1.92, can't see it was different earlier.)

Which would make quite a difference to the early part of the guide...