MA Agartha, or Yet another thread fishing for tips

[Micah]

Well, if the seasonal effect is checked before the dominion then the dominion will have a 5% per candle + 10% per scale tip difference to bring it right back, so yes, dom strength could have an effect. I don't know the order they're checked in though. I may have overstated the importance of seasonal effects from the looks of the low number of season pulls you got, but it is something to consider when taking heat scale.

And back to Agartha for a moment: A heat scale is also more attractive than normal because they're cold-blooded, which I don't think has been mentioned yet in the discussion.

[alexti]

What I've often seen in the test is the heat scale appearing in the summer (ot cold scale in the winter) and then disappearing the next month (still in the summer). And I think (can't recall for sure) that in low dominion test, the scale stayed for longer period more often. Perhaps the scale is getting pulled off the balance with a certain probability and in the next round it's getting pulled back by dominion?

Only pale ones are cold blooded, and I'm not sure that anything but Oracles of Ancient are worth recruiting (unless you're waging underwater war, but in the water temperature scales don't affect fatigue AFAIK). I don't like pale one's poor att/def skills (they are even worse than their human troops).

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I'm prepping for a mp game, I'm trying to choose between Agartha and Shinuyama. I was curious how the never healing affect combines with a regeneration bless. Any idea? I suppose I must test this...

And how does a reinvigoration bless combine with all your sacred mages?

Edit: In hindsight, sentinels are lifeless, contrary to the manual, so no regen...

[MaxWilson]

As one would expect, a reinvigoration bless is significant in long battles (reinvigoration 4 almost doubles your fatigue recovery) and less decisive than more mages in short battles. It's a bit of a bother to get everybody blessed, though, especially if you spread your mages out.

-Max

[atul]

Agarthan mages have earth and summon earth power gives reinvigoration 4 as an extra bonus, so I'd think reinvigoration bless isn't that important. Does it stack, on the other hand? 50 turns of Magma Bolts!

Bless on MA Agartha overall isn't probably that big a deal since their recruitable sacred troops are capital-only and actually going up the Enchantment route (sacred statues) isn't that fast a strategy. By the time you're ench4 thau2 (for gems and decent statues) you could nearly have researched conj3 for earth power and gone either alt2 for earth meld or evocation tree, thus making the earth readers a power to be reckoned with. Taking mages to battle or putting them into summoning spree both prevent them from researching, anyway.

Edit: Max, on the other hand, MA Agartha has holy3 mages, so one casting of battlefield-wide blessing isn't that big a hassle. But, what I wrote previously still applies, somewhat.

[Shovah32]

Reinvigoration from bless and summon earthpower does stack. A single divine blessing priest with your other mages set to summon earthpower and cast spells will give all your sacred mages 8 reinvigoration, extra earthmagic and upgraded armour if they are using any.

Mages are about the only thing an E9 bless will really help agartha with however as the statues have no equipped armour or encumberance to benefit from it.

[HoneyBadger]

I agree with the Wyrm, although I would suggest maybe Death 6 and 2 points of air magic to go along with the Dom 10.
It'll give him both fear 1 (quickly improveable with horror helmet) and awe 2, and allow you to get a jump on death magic.

You can cast air shield immediately-which will help a lot when it comes to avoiding afflictions, which-aside from curses-should be your major concern in the beginning turns of the game.

Eventually, you'll be able to cast other spells, such as Mistform, Fly, and Mirror Image, which will help your Wyrm continue to be a presence on the battlefield.

I personally wouldn't bother with Astral for your Pretender, just because it leaves him vulnerable to certain attacks, and you can eventually forge a Wraith Crown to cover etherialness, for his other head.

Unless you feel you absolutely *need* high astral magic or the MR bonus, then my opinion is to skip it, or at worst go for 10 astral so you can do unto others without them doing unto you, and eventually Wish, but it's just an opinion.

Make sure you get your Wyrm an amulet of antimagic as soon as possible, though.

[Shovah32]

Did you just suggest a death 6, air 2, dominion 10 wyrm? Well theres -172 points awake, -22 points sleeping and 78 spare points when imprisoned all before any scales so either you get stuck with very poor scales or lose your early game edge. It makes a very nice midgame pretender for crushing armies and stuff and can do ok later on too but with his low protection i dont honestly see him lasting too long against, say, a group of charging knights.
Usually i dont think nationals do much to combat pretenders but after seeing a group of my longbowmen kill a 200 health ethereal pretender with 80% airshield(and 6 protection) im even more concerned about protection than before(although his 2 head slots can give him great protection up there).

[HoneyBadger]

Well, really, I'd bump death back to 5 and Dom back to 8 (I think that gives Awe 0) if I wanted good scales, but it isn't very efficient. I almost always take horrible scales, though, and a quick rush+good strategy can cure scale-woes for a lot of nations.

Protection-wise, that's why the Death, it lets you forge that Wraith-crown. Once you've got one of those, your Wyrm isn't going to have a lot of problems against 80% of all nations, until the mid-game. Wyrm isn't what you want, if you want high Prot anyway. If you need it, though, empower 3 levels in Earth-how hard could it be with Agartha? That'll eventually let your Wyrm cast invulnerability.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I'd been experimenting with a death-5, water-4, fire-4 crone, bless expansion (plan for magic boosting). Was too slow, but wasn't bad for merely testing the waters. That attack and def bonus makes for a huge diff versus the typical 10at/def indie. I also noted the regular infantry were very great at catching arrows, and was having trouble deciding whether to put my ancients in front, behind, or mixed in.

Interestingly enough, this is the only game I've played where my early goals include killing off my pretender as soon as possible. And the fruits of my suicide run were worth the effort, too.

Oh, and all this was a trial run, so I went with zero scales- barring a bit of luck, maybe. I've still got that game up, but at 4:00 A.M. I'm not opening up Dom3 again for my own good.

Edit:
Does anybody have a detailed guide to say the first 12 turns regarding expanding relatively quickly, barring use of a supercombatant? Or, if not a guide, a example.

Or, do I just need a super?

Edit Combined two posts...
My latest test game I took a ghost king, sloth 1, turmoil 1, luck 1, magic 1. Around 4 death, 4 water, 4 fire, six dominion, give or take a point or two of death/dominion.

Now, with this -1/-1, no active pretender, I managed to take about 8 provinces by the end of the first year. Better than my first game, which left me with that amount by year three. So... not exceptional expansion, but promising.

I didn't use my sacred troops, despite my run towaards the blesses. Only unit that got blessed was one well-equipped ancient lord who never got into battle before all my troops ran by.

Of course, it helped that I was in a resource rich area... I'm not certain how it would have turned out surrounded by plains. Probably be bidding double on mercs. As it was, I was definetly dependent on mercs. But it's not like I had many ways to spend my money, esp since I wasn't really researching yet. So... next, I have to try it without mercs... What's a good target province goal for the end of the first year w/ MA Agartha? In context of a 'new to mp' mp game, standard settings, largish map.

Edit Post three in to avoid tripleposting...
Now using your mages in combat, they have crummy precision, but your regular infantry is great at catching arrows... How would you suggest deployement, and spell focus w/regards to combat? Any situation in which you'd use Earth Readers or Attendants?