A glance at Bogarus

[thejeff]

Though it's hard to get the needed boosters without pretender/empowering/lucky indies.
And you still need to get to N4 for GoR .

In fact, the only non artifact boosters you can make natively are Starshine Skullcap and Skull of Fire. A few others with rare path combinations on a Starets. That surprised me, for such a diverse nation.
Of course, you'll empower in blood, which opens up those boosters. And a simple pair of Earth boots gets you Coins and Rings which open up most of what you need.

Blood is definitely the way to go for SCs. You've got the research to grab some of the uniques even with some sidetracks for other paths along the way.

[krpeters]

For midgame, Starets can cast Astral Fires relatively easily. If you have 5 in a battle, have the lead one carry two astral pearls. Even with only 2S he can cast Light of the Northern Star. Then the other 4 can lay down Astral Fires repeatedly.

[janthony]

I don't have enough done to make a full strategy guide for Bogarus, but they are by far my favourite nation. The sheer amount of summons they have is what attracted me first, and being a bit of a Rusophile. Then I realized what a powerful Blood nation they were. Also a great Death nation if you can get the national heroes. Of course, I play vanilla so a lot of these things might not be valid for CBM. I take a dormant Great Mother with W2E4N4 - the minor bless is perfect for tossing a sacred shroud on old and decrepit battle mages. The water is for site searching and access to the Beregina (W3E1N2). And with N4 you have GoR and the Mountain Villa (healer, seducer, A2N31S). And the Startsi, with a crystal coin from the alchemist gets you the RoS and RoW, leading you to practically every single magic booster in the game. The cavalry does well as a starting army, especially if you can kit out a Grand Prince (Velikii Knyaz) as a thug. And by year 2 you should have access to all magic paths with every new Fortified City mass producing Masters of Names. Eventually you can send out five of them with the Banner of the Norther Star and they can spam Astral Fires, Paralyze, or Celestial Chastisement. (Maybe Astral Magic is a bit overpowered in vanilla.)

[janthony]

Last night I altered my Pretender design with great results: now Earth Mother can be Awake and a W2E4N4. Good for early expansion and site searching. Scales are Dominion 6, Order 3, Cold 3, Growth 2, Drain 1. Sure, you could take two hits on Misfortune and keep G3 and Magic 0, but Bogarus is best when it collects its three National Heroes and the Multi-hero Bogatyri aren't too shabby. You still keep the regen/rejuv bless for mages with a shroud (great for site searching, as even when diseased, they take three times as long to lose usefulness). With Earth Mother searching early, you get plenty of good gems from the get go–so you can equip your Boyar/GrandPrince thugs quickly. Frost Brand is great for a one turn build and send, as your bodyguard cavalry don't take damage from the AoE. Drain doesn't hurt Bogarus too much as you'll still get Startsi who are 12/13 even on Drain 1–and with an E4 blessing on shrouded battlemages, the drain won't affect them too badly–though with enough gems I'm sure those rejuvenating boots will come in handy too. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure a couple of well equipped thugs with Malaia Druzhnia (lesser kith) bodyguards can take out an early SC pretender–especially, if there's a bow of war with high precision traveling with them.

I'm amazed it took me so long to arrive at this discovery, because the weakest aspect of my previous strategy was always the early game/quick start. The heavy cavalry is named the familial bodyguard of the Velikii Knyazi. The Grid Druzhnia were more difficult to translate, but it might be "guide/marksman kith". Every other guide I've seen suggests taking Sloth with Bogarus; sure, the low end starting army is pretty useless, but with fortified cities you can churn out the Malaia Druzhnia at high speed. Sure, going up against an army of Hochmeisters might do you in, but run back to the forest where your Leshiy is hanging out. If you haven't used the Leshiy because he's 60 gems or requires N6, try it out. I'm sure there are more powerful SCs who aren't limited to a forest, but a Leshiy in a forest choke point can wipe out entire armies–especially with Boots of Antaeus. And, of course, if you get Baba Yaga you've got Tartaran Gate easy, and binding Mastema can get you the Demon Lords. Bogarus holds out in my mind as one of the most versatile and powerful nations in the game, they just require effort.

[thejeff]

To quote: Bogarus's big strength is gold and from that, more communion battlemages

More gold -> more castles -> more mages.

[Executor]

WL - I have no idea how M goes with L. It would be nice if it gave more gems certainly.
I find no use for any troops but cavalry. The starting army is just dreadful, it can pretty much be compared to militia. I think even some light indie infantry would kick their ***. And their use as archers is unexisting, doe you could use them with WG and FA but, you can get far better indie archers, well unless you're a cheap bastard and would rather trade 2 gold per unit for a -2 precision per unit.

Anyway, the starting army can usually take the first province on turn 2. Make 5 of those archer cavalry, they are very good, and a smiter of course.
In some cases, like Demon stated you might get blown away by indies, cause the Voi troops moral is horrific.

As for early spells, I find sulphur haze can rout just about anything due to it's poisonous effect, it really synergies well with undead chaff but you need some small communion for that.
In any case, you have A/F 2/3 path accessibility with Starets. The ones with 2F can cast phoenix power and spam living fire with additional gems.
The A3 ones can cast it the same way. Or again you can use a communion, doe I think that would kill the slaves pretty fast.

One mage should be able to cast at least 2 Living somethings during the battle and that's a fair amount. Gems shouldn't be a problem and the living something spells go well with sulphur haze since the elementals are poison immune of course, and mindless, meaning they won't rout, and can inflict elemental damage that can save you even from bless nations and regenerative giants.
Also, the elementals pretty much eliminate a threat from any early SC pretender, thug or whatever as one can seldom make a F/A resistant high MR unit (communion paralyze of course) so early on which still has good defensive capabilities and wont get killed.

thejeff - given Bogarus magic diversity I'm not sure it would be a very good decision to waste points on taking nature and even more by taking a dormant pretender so he can site search nature. That's a whole lot of trouble for a path that has quite common indie mages. If worst come to worst you can empower to level 2 or use a ring for forging boosters.
Empowering to blood is always cheap so you can even forge that blood/nature armor for a +1BN.

I think we have pretty much any issue covered, the only risk here is getting stuck with some tougher indies in the start which might slow down your expansion a bit more, other than that Bogarus is set for just about anything.

Oh, and Shadrach, I believe Startsy is plural.

[ExHeretic]

Somehow i totally missed that more gold = more mages point

Anyway good guide I always like the good scales approach. But i must say that i like it even more with nations that have good troops.

[Colonial]

Bump.

Could someone file this wee guide for posterity somewhere? I think it is a vital progression in Bogarus strategic theory

[Soyweiser]

you could ask Executor if it is ok to put on the wiki.

[Valerius]

I also just added it to the strategy index along with Fantomen's recent LA Caelum guide.