EA Arco - uncle moneybags

[chrispedersen]

Yep, I like my play of arco much better. = )

[Ferrosol]

Originally Posted by Viajero

Quick one the recommended pretender in the guide:

My game is going to be a "non standard" Indies at level 7. I made some tests with the pretender and scales recommended here but even fighting with the easy indies, as recommended, survivability of the Bull was borderline in the early game, and the slightest mistake in province selection for attack could easily end up ina dead bull...

So I tweaked a little bit the proposed pretender/scales so to get dominion 9, with awe, at the expense of the luck scale, to neutral (or -1, not really sure as away from game as I type). Although still need to be very carefull when selecting indie provinces to attack early game this pretender seems to have a higher resilience.

Any ideas/opinions on the above?

i find the bull way to fragile for expansion, I prefer to take a Cyclops myself you can get a Dom9 E6 cyclops O3S3Mis2M1 and he will be able to take on anything short of heavy cavalry especially if you can give him a weapon of some sort.

[chrispedersen]

Lord of rebirth. Gives you death access, and after you research alteration makes a perfectly fine Sc.

[Verjigorm]

Oh, believe me, I didn't whiz on your Cheerios until after I had attempted it. Too many 400g units went down the toilet for my tastes. I decided to go the standard route of kitting up Sleepers. I didn't find the strategy wholly ineffective, especially wrt indies, but I didn't like the Oriead's loss rate versus players. All of the items I put on my list of objections are observations, not hypotheses.

As for assassinations, I like to assassinate enemy encampments besieging castles. Drop in several Oriead thugs and then "Massassinate" their commander group. Combination with Dark Skies increases the probability of seduction.

[chrispedersen]

Yes, now that is something I completely agree with.

I *love* wrathful skies, and I *love* assassinating when sieged.

[ano]

Ferrosol
You'll probably be surprised but I managed to overexpand W9S9 TC played by a good player with... guess what? Peltasts and a PoD. It was vanilla game with Indies 5. Without a PoD you can still expand with peltasts very well and rapidly research Alt with Philosophers so that your dormant god is able to go killing the turn he awakes. It is perfectly doable especially if you consider that you'll have a lot of money for mercs because philosophers are so cheap.
So peltasts + mercs is the answer. The trick is that peltast is an absolutely decent unit against EA indies who are basically a lot weaker than in MA. You will lose them and have to replenish your ranks but it IS doable. Just leave really heavy provinces for your pretender and do some testing before each attack.
I think I failed only once or twice against indies with peltasts in that game at all and it was against barbarians (should've tested better)

And once you have enough resources, you may switch to chariot archers that have a good second form just in case.

[thejeff]

But that's not pretender expansion. That's pretender & lots of troops expansion. Which means you're not building other expansion parties.
The point of an awake SC is to add to expansion with your regular troops, not to replace it or back them up.
I'm not a EA Arco expert, so I don't know how their national troops do at indy clearing, but do you really get enough advantage from using an awake pretender like that to cover the 150 design points? Especially when you take less provinces with your troops, because some are being sent with the pretender, and then probably reinforced since you're using cheap ones.

On another note, I doubt the "special targeting options that archers get" carry over once they switch forms and charge into melee. I believe they switch to attack closest. On second thought, what special targeting options? The only difference between the "fire" and "attack" targets is that "fire" lacks a "rearmost" target. What's the advantage?

[Ferrosol]

EA Arco can expand reasonably well without an SC true. Although I would argue that SC pretender offers the best "bang for your buck" you can get. I would further point out that if you intend to rely on chariots to expand with (which I agree are excellent btw) you need an awake SC who can attack on Turn 2 to secure the resources you need (especially if you go the typical sloth build for Philosophers). As such I would argue that as the Lord of Rebirth is not capable of turn 2 expansion due to its flimsy Armour and non existent damage. Precisely which awake SC you take is up to you but I would argue that the Cyclops is probably the single most effective SC Pretender in the game.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Ferrosol

EA Arco can expand reasonably well without an SC true. Although I would argue that SC pretender offers the best "bang for your buck" you can get. I would further point out that if you intend to rely on chariots to expand with (which I agree are excellent btw) you need an awake SC who can attack on Turn 2 to secure the resources you need (especially if you go the typical sloth build for Philosophers). As such I would argue that as the Lord of Rebirth is not capable of turn 2 expansion due to its flimsy Armour and non existent damage. Precisely which awake SC you take is up to you but I would argue that the Cyclops is probably the single most effective SC Pretender in the game.

Under CBM Cyclops is 125 points, and needs awe to safely expand early. That is 295 points more than the lord of rebirth.

The lord of rebirth gets you into death, the cyclops does not. Arco needs the alteration school anyway for Oreos. Finally, the proof is in the pudding. I have much more luck with Rebirth than I do with Cyclops = )

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Under CBM Cyclops is 125 points, and needs awe to safely expand early. That is 295 points more than the lord of rebirth.

An E9 cyclops does not need awe to expand turn 2. Try it before you claim it doesn't work.

That said, i think awake SCs are the single worst use of points in an MP game. They rarely help cover holes a nation has, and they do little or nothing to set you up for the end-game or even mid-game. And killing a single unit really isn't that hard by early midgame, which means your SC pretender gets relegated to lab duty where he's not very good.

Also, doing really well early tends to get you ganked by experienced players.

So unless you absolutely need the awake SC to cover a really weak expansion game, I'd go with something else. Something that will retain utility all game long, or at least most of it. Burning 150pts for the privilege of awake + points for the chassis + dominion necessary is a lot to pay for a pretender whose job is basically done by the end of year 1, mid year 2 at the latest.