Bogarus Quick Guide

[Lingchih]

Disregard. I had taxes set to 150%, and had forgotten about it.

[AlgaeNymph]

DrPraetorious said:
Pretender Design:
You *need* a supercombatant God. If you don't have one, your opponents are not going to sit there and allow you to build up an insurmountable research lead.

This is my build, you can vary it somewhat:
Prince of Death, Awake, Domstr 10, Earth 4, Death 5, 3 Order, 3 Sloth, 3 Cold, 3 Growth, 2 Misfortune.

How about: Virtue, Awake, Domstr 10, Air 3, Astral 2, 3 Order, 3 Sloth, 2 Cold, 3 Fortune? Or: Virtue, Awake, Domstr 4, Air 3, 3 Earth, 3 Death,3 Order, 3 Sloth, 2 Cold, 3 Fortune?

[OmikronWarrior]

Have been messing around with Bogarus as well, and came to most of the same conclusions as DrP. The big one being they have absolutely abysmal infantry, which was hard for me to believe since their graphics looked so pretty!

Any advice on the best battle mages to pair them with for earlier (say before turn 10) expansion? Or are they doomed to fight nothing but the weakest indies?

[Cerlin]

I would say some kind of earth magic would be awesome. maybe if your pretender can make earth boots with some earth power for one of the alchemists? That would allow you to cast legions of steel on the infantry and this spell does really help survivability. It is an idea. Im going to try it myself..

[Cerlin]

p.s. those same alchemists could also cast magma eruption with this, so you get a good caster and buffer...oooo.

[Dedas]

Why is the Simargl armed with a falchion?

[mathusalem]

I tried the 2 last Nature summons : a driad with A3, S2, N4 maybe, and Heal.
And another strange one (need N5 and 60 gems) : shapechange bear, with N5, Earth and another path only on forest

[Kuritza]

I disagree that Bogarus calls for a sloth scale.

Heavy cavalry, Malaia Druzhina, is ok. Just 5 gold more expensive than Chelms knight, with slightly lower head protection and strength but with 50% cold resistance which may come handy time after time. Its your only real troop, and its rather resource heavy.
Infantry is not stellar, but at least its pretty. City guards even have an above-average morale. If you want to see a really crappy infantry - check caelum, these flying retards dont even qualify as a meat shield because they rout so fast. Bogarus has a decent meat shield to back up its mages.
As for archers - precision 8 is crap, I agree. But these guys are cheap! In great numbers, precison doesnt matter as much. Also, Bogarus has got access to both wind guide and flaming arrows, and thats worth something. I have a feeling that Bogarus archers may be made a force to be reckoned with.

All in all, I'd say that Bogarus armies are rather weak if you compare them to favourites like midgard, mictlan etc, but not bad enough as to justify sloth 3. You wont go far with no troops at all; besides, production scale allows you to produce your units en masse when you really need them instead of recruiting a couple of them each turn, thus paying less upkeep.
Oh, and if you're so affraid of rain of stones, get yourself arrow fend.

[Dedas]

I agree with above poster. The infantry is so cheap you can field great numbers of them in a hurry (just like the soviets did in WW2), not to mention the ease to boost them thanks to great magic diversity. This should not me overlooked I believe.
The milita actually have rather nice stats if you consider the price and thus the number you can hire. The only low point is morale of course, but that could be dealt with some excellent morale boosting summons and other units with banners.
One should really take advantage of the fact that they all have frost resistance meaning that they do not take the encumbrance penalty for extreme cold (-3). So try to fight where your dominion is high; use your rather cheap and excellent priests for preaching.

Some tips:

1. Do a fast expansion, grabbing lots and lots of territory with your awake pretender.
2. When war is declared let the enemy come to you and slowly wither them down with low cost troops. Making them pay dearly for every inch of ground. Hit the provinces with freeze spells if they aren't cold enough. Use your stealth units for partisan attacks and raiding.
3. This strategy will buy you valuable time for research and heavier troops. Because back in your empire you are building heavy cavalry and summoning birds and three-headed wyverns.
4. When the time is right, hit the enemy rear with the shock troops and continue on towards his capitol.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Another interesting point of Bogarus is the absolutely incredible amount of seduction capability. Granted, the early seducers are water-based (my first game's pretender was a W6/N6 Lady of Springs), but it's phenomenal.

My favorite trick was Skull Talisman on a Rusalka set to the way, way back of the screen. If the seduction fails (which it usually does), you just spam the skeletons until the enemy dies. The only person I lost to was (from Agartha) was his prophet. Managed to take down an Earth Reader, a Cave Knight commander (he broke eventually), and multiple other national commander types.

Another thought is to actually take Drain 2 or 3 for points. You'd get Cold 3, and their research bonus on their primary researchers means you aren't hit that hard for it.

Oh, and Baba Yaga is nutsily evil. ;D

Wyatt