Arga Dis is a mod nation created by Sombre, intended to fit into the Middle Age. The mod (as well as discussion about it) can be found here:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1
Arga used to be a warrior like city state, loosely inspired on ancient Sparta, and especially on their portrayal in the movie '300'. But in their hour of need, they turned to an ancient blood-using giant race, the Gilgans, for help. As a result Arga has become a grim(mer) place. To know more about the history, feel free to download the mod and read the various descriptions. It’s well worth the effort in my opinion. Or, in the words of the creator:
Quote:
A society which venerates war and bloodshed. Their city nation watched over the imprisoned Gilgan blood giants. Following a terrible war it seemed Arga would be razed and forgotten, a terrible fate for a once glorious nation. In their darkest hour the Argans turned to the blood giants and swore an oath in exchange for power that would allow them to save their city and slay their foes. The Gilgan's were freed and not only fought the enemies of Arga but gave a 'gift' to those who swore loyalty to them. This gift was a glimpse of the afterlife, of Dis, a terrible place of brutal conflict where the strong reigned. The newly sworn Argans turned to their foes as changed men and fought like devils, finally defeating them and saving their city. Now Arga is a changed city, more brutal and violent than ever, more focused on slaughter and glory. It is effectively ruled by the Gilgans and with the coming of God they have turned their attentions to the surrounding lands.
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I’ve decided to write up this guide for two reasons. One is to encourage people to try out this excellent mod, and to help them get started if they want to give it a shot. Second is that it is now starting to appear in MP games, and people facing it for the first time might find it useful to have an idea what to expect. (My current opponents in the Uakari game should not feel under any kind of obligation to read this, by the way
) I will admit I’m currently playing my first MP game with them (close to turn 50 by now) so I won’t claim ultimate knowledge, but then again there’s only 2 nations in the game I have played more than once, MP and SP combined, so I guess I know Arga Dis about as well as I know any other nation. Anyway, without further ado:
1. Units:
The Argan infantry is, in one word, excellent. Arguably the best non-sacred human infantry around, with several solid options to choose from. Their two mounted units are conceived as niche units, and as such aren’t quite up to the same all-round standard of excellence.
Helgrot (8g, 6r) This is your basic chaff unit. However, they do come equipped with a javelin, shield (giving them 13 def) and minimal armour, and are really cheap, so they do fill the chaff role admirably.
Argan Hoplite (15g, 11r) Your basic infantry unit, and the cornerstone of Argan glory, they are the proud representatives of Arga’s warrior tradition. With elite stats, amazing morale, and two attacks they can hold their own against almost any opposition. Rare for units of this quality they actually are quite lightly armoured (prot 8) but their high defence and high-parry shields definitely make up for it. Their only downside is the lack of that little bit of extra punch to smash through really heavy armour.
Argan Myrmidon (
14g , 24r) The only unit in your arsenal wearing heavy armour, (though not the one with the highest protection) and as such also the one requiring the most resources. They have the same basic stats as the hoplites, but use regular shields instead of the amazing hoplite shield, and thus lack the shield bash attack, but wielding a short sword for a total damage of 17 they do stand a slightly better chance to punch through heavy armour. They also come with mountain survival. Another very solid unit, and if you have enough resources the choice between hoplites and myrmidons depends mostly on the opposition you face.
Orphan (13g, 3r) The Argan youths lacking the discipline to become hoplites are turned into these fanatic, berserking killing machines. Wearing no armour and dual-wielding bronze claws – and lacking the slightest instinct of self-preservation - their life-expectancy rivals that of beautiful virgin girls insisting on taking naked midnight walks through graveyards. During the full moon. In Transylvania. Still, once they go berserk they deliver two att15, dmg16 attacks a round, making this the most powerful offensive unit at your disposal. And at 3 resources they are easily massed in a hurry. Used on the flanks and with proper decoys they can cause quite some damage before dying.
Sworn Brother (26g, 12r) The regular Argan troops rival other nations elites. These are the Argan elites. They use the same equipment as the hoplites, but their stats are universally 1 or 2 points higher. Added to that, they also have a penchant for refusing to die as long as there are enemies left standing. Once killed they revert to their second shape, in which they have higher strength and attack skill, and are unbreakable, though their defence takes a hit, and have to be killed again before they finally accept their time has come. In fact, come to think of it, this second form packs significantly more punch than even berserking orphans. After battle their wounds catch up with them, and they finally lay down and die. Actually they were just expensive enough to prevent me from using them much during my game, but looking at them again now, I think I should give them another shot when facing tough opposition.
Red Achillean (30g, 14r) Your second elite unit also springs from the hoplite mould, but they bath in blood from sacred Gilgan wells to make their skin impervious to harm. And if you take your traditional hoplite and then give him 18 protection you have a very frightening unit indeed. Oh, and most of their stats are also 1 higher than those of regular hoplites. This should probably be the unit you recruit in the very first turns, for as long as resources (as opposed to gold) are the bottleneck for your recruitment, and they will continue to be useful throughout early game. They do have an abysmal MR of 7 though, (a side effect from their blood baths) so once you start facing MR negate spells – or start buffing the natural protection of your other units - they become obsolete. Having to drag around big kettles to bath in the sacred blood slows them down to mapmove one.
Oathsworn (22g,
13r , sacred) Your sacred unit is recruitable everywhere, but that’s about as far as the good news goes. This is basically a normal hoplite with poor morale. (Read the description to know why, I think it’s a nice touch) Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad unit, (we’re still talking about the same Argan hoplites I was so enthousiastic about before) and just about everything will kick *** if you use a dual bless. It’s just that other nations play this game better. Still, they’re not too expensive (upkeep for the regular hoplites is higher) and they will benefit from any (possibly minor) bless you might have for other reasons. They will definitely be happy with a minor fire/water bless if you can squeeze it into your pretender design. Just don’t forget to use sermon of courage…
Sworn Companions (
110g, 23r , capital only) A sworn brother mounted on a horse. (and wielding a light lance) The mares of Dis however, are about as elite as the men riding them. They have a bite attack in addition to the traditional hoof and cause fear to boot. Supposedly massed fear causing units will send just about everything running in short order. Unfortunately, at
110g , I’ve never massed them, and probably never will. Even with their second shape, they’re just too fragile for
110g units in my opinion, and Arga Dis has easy access to the excellent demon knights, who are better in many ways. However, if I can spare the cash I can imagine myself recruiting a couple of these to mix in with the demon knights, to add a few more fear-causing units to the squad, and at the same time reduce the demon knights’ exposure to banishment.
Blackwing Rider (70g,
31r , capital only) An Argan warrior armed with a glaive and mounted on a black Pegasus. While they do pack quite some punch, and flying is of course incredibly useful, they
still are quite fragile. Like most Argan units they have light
[Now medium] armour, and rely on their defence to keep them alive. Unlike most Argan units they are size 4, and thus will suffer from the defence hit of successive attacks.
In the new version they received a scale mail hauberk, giving them protection 13, improving their life expectancy in an anti-archer role, though I still recommend steering clear of strong opposition. Try to buff their protection with legions of steel or other spells to get it even more respectable. Mixing them into the same squad with imps, both to help prevent against the multiple-attack defence penalty, and to lower enemy defence yourself remains a good idea. While I haven't had the opportunity to test them yet, I do believe it is now worthwile to recruit some Blackwing Riders to give extra punch to flying squads.
Harpy of Dis (Blood3, 1B1D, 7 slaves) National summon of Arga Dis, one cast nets you 7 harpies. Harpies have poor stats and no armour, but they do have 2 (low damage) attacks, so they’re quite good at taking out opposing archers. They’re well worth the low cost of one slave/harpy to send flocks of them diving down upon archer-heavy enemies. They will also curse anyone they damage with their wing attacks, though with their poor stats they’re unlikely to curse anything important.
Urtyr (Blood4, B2N1, 10 slaves for 4+ summons) Another national summon, Urtyr are Satyrs who've been corrupted by Gilgan influence. Decent stats, berserk, regeneration, recuperation and a high damage weapon with the armloss effect make this a really useful unit, even though their protection isn't stellar. They also come with animal awe, so they're great if you have to face elephants. (As you'll most likely need Urtyr Shaman at Blood6 to summon them they're too late to stop early rushes though) Most importantly they're really cheap (Since the # of effects scales with blood level it shouldn't be too hard to get 6 or 7 Urtyr for 10 slaves) and cost no upkeep. Don't hesitate to summon them whenever you don't have another urgent need for your N/B casters or blood slaves.
2. Commanders
Helgrot scout (20g, 6r) A scout. Nothing special to see here. Move along.
Argan captains and sworn captains come in 4 different flavours. Each one is a commander version of their respective unit types. Each one has good leadership abilities and a standard effect. The sworn captains have a second shape like the units do. The mounted sworn captain is somewhat thuggable.
Haimgrot (70g, 1r) [1B] The blood hunter that will keep the cogs of your blood economy spinning, and help make Arga Dis one of the most powerful blood nations around. Not quite as efficient as the Mictlan or Lankan blood hunters (not being sacred) they certainly are the next best thing. They come with a built-in dousing bonus, meaning they hunt as B2 hunters. (Or B3 with sanguine dousing rods)
Misbred (130g, 1r, sacred) [220% FEDB] Your basic mage, they will not make Arga Dis into a magical powerhouse, but they do have their uses. At 130g (sacred) for 4 research, they’re perfectly average researchers, but they do have the ability to forge both skull mentors and lightless lanterns, so you have little excuse for lagging behind in your research. They can remote search for FEDB (though all but death requires a 1/16 random pick. In my game I managed to recruit about 40 mages without getting a single 2E one, meaning no site searching, and, maybe worse, no earth boots -> dwarven hammers. I ended up having to empower one mage to 2E. Still with somewhat average luck you should be fine. ) They are able to forge a lot of basic SC/thug gear, and several other nice items. They can access most of the low-level blood summons, although they will need boosters for some of them. Some of them will have access to some powerful evocations and earth buffs, though the reliance on very random picks, and the fact that you’ll want the first few 2F and 2E ones at home for site searching and forging means that you shouldn’t count on having too many of them available fast. Remember that the blood ones can join sabbaths as either master or slave, though always with the hassle of using blood slaves. Half of them can also blood hunt if you need those extra slaves now. In the long run the Haimgrots are more efficient, so you’ll want to use them, but the misbreds can fill in the gaps without trouble.
Gilgan (
410g , 17r, sacred, capital only) [3B2H 210% FEDB] Real powerhouses of the nation, these demonic giants fulfil a dual role. First off they’re the most powerful blood mages around, bar none. They have a decent chance at 5B, and minor access to several useful minor paths, to allow relatively easy summoning (in some cases with easily forgeable boosters) of anything from Succubi, over Arch Devils and Heliophagi, to Demon lords, infernal crusades, and imp-built castles. The only thing lacking is astral magic, denying them access to the powerful blood/astral spell line. (horrors, astral corruption) Second, they make for a good SC chassis. Not quite as strong out of the box as Niefel Jarls (what is?) and with lower paths (except blood obviously) and other research priorities and thus not as good at self-buffing as Dai Oni or Basalt Kings, they certainly are the next best thing. (and significantly cheaper) Give them good gear, and their high hp, massive strength, decent attack skill and very high berserk (
+5 ) will allow them to tear through most opponents. Depending on random picks they will be able to buff themselves with stone/ironskin, iron will, flame shield, and if you’re lucky summon earth power and invulnerability or phoenix pyre, as well as holy avenger and blessing (if you have a useful one) Keep in mind though that with their low paths the F/E buffs will be quite fatiguing, so use discretion in using them, and don’t forget your reinvigoration items. Though it is something of a micromanagement nightmare, especially for solo raiders, blood also hold some really nice self buffs, from the lowly reinvigoration to the powerful blood vengeance, and the amazing battlefield-wide bloodletting. They do have a lowish MR of 16 for units of this power, and their defence skill will plummet to unseen depths once they go berserk, so keep these weaknesses in mind when equipping them. While blood generally isn’t considered the strongest battlefield-magic path (and rightly so) it does have a number of useful spells your Gilgans can cast. Their berserk however means that they’ll go charging towards the enemy at the slightest scratch, so don’t send them out without minimal protection, and keep in mind the possibility that they won’t be casting the spells you were counting on, so don’t rely on them getting cast.
Augurs (Blood5, B4, 25 slaves, sacred) [55%S 55%FS 55%FS 55%DN 55%DN 55%FSDN 55%FSDN] As you can see the Augurs have very random paths. Additionally they are old and come with a random affliction, so occasionally you will be cursing your luck and wondering why you threw away those slaves for a 1F1D cripple or even a feebleminded maniac. Additionally they have a gold cost of
140g for upkeep purposes, so you’ll even have to feed the feebleminded maniac until you manage to find him a nice bit of enemy PD to kill him on.
They also only have a mapmove of 1 However, even with all the drawbacks these guys are well worth the price, and are the key to your magical diversity. (For more details see the later section) They can start off your nature/astral searches and forge a great many useful items (boosters, regeneration, reinvigoration, luck, MR,…) They have a 15% chance to negate negative events, and some of those you don’t need to stay at home for forging and rituals can actually become useful battle mages, depending on their picks. (nature buffs, antimagic!, nether darts, to name but a few.)
Urtyr Shaman (Blood6, B4, 40slaves) [2N1B1H 100%NB 10%N] The Urtyr Shaman aren't exactly versatile, but they do give you access to the N/B combo (Urtyr, crossbreading, blood vines, jade knives, armor of twisting thorns) At 40 slaves he doesn't come cheap for a middling mage, so I wouldn't recommend mass-summoning them, but it's well worth it to summon a few to gain access to the mentioned spells and items. They are relatively survivable as mages go. (16hp, rejuv, regen) Given their price and the fact that they'll go berserk if damaged I still recommend using the Augurs for your battlefield nature needs, and use the Shamans for forging/summoning.
3. Research Priorities
Construction and blood. That’s it. Next chapter.
Okay, okay. I’ll expand a bit. (Okay, a lot, actually. My main flaw when writing this kind of thing is that I can’t seem to stop writing. There’s always an extra interesting point to add)
Construction: A big priority. Lvl 2 will give dwarven hammers and various miscellaneous items. Unfortunately you’ll probably need lvl 4 and dwarven boots to be able to forge dwarven hammers. Lvl 4 will also give you a sanguine dousing rod, greatly enhancing the effectiveness of your blood hunters, quite some boosters, and skull mentors. Lvls 2 and 4 together will give you quite some effective items with which to equip your Gilgans or possibly a pretender to help deter early rushes. At lvl6 you get more boosters, everything you need to turn Gilgans or blood summons into combat monsters and lightless lanterns. Given the fact that construction up to level 6 is a priority you could try to push on to lvl 8 to snatch some early artefacts, though depending on the immediate threats you might want to get your blood summons going first. Even if you don’t rush for lvl8 it’s still well worth going there in some not-too-distant future, as you’re the MA nation most likely to be able to forge some of the nice blood artefacts. Along the way you will have picked up legions of steel. Somewhat less useful on your generally lightly armoured troops, but any boost still is a boost. (And it’s really nice on the Myrmidons) And at lvl 7 there is the great spell weapons of sharpness, though it does take a little effort to get a suitable caster. Also take a moment to reflect on blood contracts. (lvl2) At 65 blood slaves, (and 5 fire gems) not reducable by hammer discount, this is not an early game item despite its low level, but your Gilgans can easily forge one with some boosters, and from that point on you’ll get a free devil every turn. Pays off in about 10 turns, and everything after that is bonus.
Blood: Aaah, blood… What’s not to like about blood. Lvl 1 allows you to battle summon imps. Surprisingly useful units with high defence and 2 attacks. At low levels you get several nice demon summons. Devils and Demon knights at lvl3 and 4 are especially good.
Also at lvl4 you get the very cheap and useful Urtyr . Lvl 2 gives bowl of blood. While blood sites are very rare, and it might occasionally be frustrating to keep on casting this spell with no result, it’s still well worth it, because there are quite a few really excellent reduction sites in the game. There are a few damage spells in the lower levels you can use if you are under pressure early, though nothing really extraordinary. (And always requiring the use of blood slaves) Lvl 5 is a benchmark. It allows you to summon Augurs, remote summon a horde of imps (quite expensive in early game at 44 slaves, but otherwise a very good spell throughout the game), and in combat to capture enemy units with hellbind heart, and to deal damage to the entire battlefield with Bloodletting. Lvl 6 gives you a decent and cheap remote assassin
and Urtyr Shamans , and at lvl 7 you get Arch Devils and leech. (an amazing little spell when spammed. Attacking any position defended by a bunch of B1 mages with enough slaves will hurt. A lot. ) At this moment you should also finish Const 6 if you haven’t before. At blood7/const6 you have overcome the slight weakness you have in early mid game. You can then return to finish off the last two levels of blood at your leisure when you have the time to do so. Plenty of goodies remain to be had here. (Heliophagi, demon lords, the different mass demon summons, life for a life, infernal prison, rush of strength, blood vengeance,…) To make things even better, most MA nations are quite weak in blood and have other research priorities, so you’re quite likely to net yourself many of the uniques.
Conjuration: Less of a priority than for most races, since your Gilgans make for a capable SC chassis, and you’ll (probably) also get most of the various unique blood summons to fill this role. You do want to research to lvl 2 quite early on for Dark knowledge, and lvl 3 (phoenix power/summon earthpower) as soon as you start using your misbreds in combat. After that it’s more of a luxury than a necessity. If you are in a comfortable and safe position after having done (most of) your construction/blood research you can start researching conjuration to improve your magical diversity (Read more about magic diversity in the next chapter. Troll king court at lvl 6 and faerie court at 8 are some of the most universally useful spells) The elemental battle-summons (lvl 5 and 7 are really nice in the right circumstances too. ) At lvl 9 you obviously can get tartarians, but you’ll need liches (Ench 8), with rings of sorcery to cast them, as well as gift of reason (Thau 4) to get the most out of them.
If you are involved in heavy fighting you probably want to research alteration and/or evocation for their immediate combat uses before delving into conjuration.
Thaumaturgy: At some point quite early on you’ll want to research to lvl 2 for the site searching spells, though you might want to wait until you actually have a mage capable of casting them, given the random nature of your misbred paths. At the same time you pick up bonds of fire which might help a bit against trampler rushes (which you are vulnerable against) Iron will at lvl 3 is nice for your Gilgans to have when facing MR or die spells. After that thaumaturgy is low priority, though wither bones at lvl6 is really nice if you’re facing masses of undead.
At lvl 5 you find the new national spell Bray of the Urtyr, a combination of growing fury and bloodletting.
After you have reached Blood7/Const6 (and Conj2/Thau2 for site searching) you are faced with a choice. If you are at peace, or things are going well on the battlefield, with your SC’s, conventional troops, and flying raiding squads up to the task of defeating your opponents, you can choose to to go for long-term development. Const8, Conj9, and any level of Conjuration will enhance your prospects in the long run. If you are hard pressed though, you’ll probably want to research spells that will help you out immediately. In that case Alteration and Evocation will provide you with some options. If you’re facing a very early rush you might be forced to research to a certain lvl in these paths even sooner. (Lvl 4 alteration is nice if you have a couple of 2E mages. If you don’t you can just as well keep going in blood/const)
Alteration: My personal inclination is to go for alteration before evocation. First, because due to all the reasons mentioned elsewhere you’re unlikely to have many mages of a decent level, and a single mage is more likely to make a difference by casting one powerful buff than with the couple of evocations he can cast before passing out. And second, because a few of the early buffs can help out your melee-Gilgans. At lvl 2 you get stoneskin for your Gilgans. Armour of Achilles and earth meld can help you out in a tight spot early on, especially against small numbers of elite opponents. Lvl 3 gives ironskin, and if you have a N mage to spare you could start casting protection on your hoplites. These levels will also give any combat pretender you might have chosen access to several self-buffs, depending on his magic paths. At lvl 4 you’ll get swarm, destruction, and curse of stones. All of them useful spells depending on the opposition. After that wooden warriors, (lvl5) marble warriors or mass protection (lvl7) and of course army of gold/lead (lvl9) are of great benefit to your hoplites, adding protection to all the qualities they already have. If you get your air magic going fog warriors (at lvl7) is awesome. Invulnerability (lvl5) and phoenix pyre (6) are useful for your SC’s, (if you can manage the fatigue) And incinerate, drain life and frozen heart are useful SC counters. (Though blood doesn’t lack for SC counters of it’s own) If you’re passing through anyway, and no one beat you to it, mother oak (at lvl 5) is a nice and relatively accessible gem booster.
Evocation: After the low lvl stuff you can cast if you’re in a tight spot, fireball and magma bolts at lvl 3 are the first spells worth mentioning. Magma bolt has the extra bonus that you’ll have more FE mages available to go to the front than you have 2E or 2F. Lvl 4 gives blade wind, lvl 5 falling fires, shadow blast, and earthquake, though neither your misbreds (too fragile) nor Gilgans (too likely to go berserk) are the ideal casters for this last spell. Both are also quite low lvl in earth. Once you get some trolls earthquake gets more interesting, but then we’ve moved away from early/mid game defence into the realm of endgame. (In the context of this nation obviously. Others can cast it more easily early on) Lvl 6 gets the awesome magma eruption, castable to good effect even by 1F1E misbreds with earth boots/blood stone/summon earth power. At the same level you get flame eruption, which can be truly devastating if you manage to get all the elements in place correctly. (Gilgan or Arch devil with a bodyguard of fire-immune demons, some fire boosters, and defensive and reinvigoration equipment should do the trick. Is it worth the effort? Maybe. At best it’s a gamble, and things can go spectacularly wrong. But if everything works out you get a really awesome fireworks display. ) Lvls 7-9 gives you the truly devastating battlefield enchantments and large-area spells of the different elements as well as flames from the sky. A special mention for arch devils who are easily capable of casting fire storm/heat from hell(ench6), (as well as living fire from conjuration if you want) and it isn’t hard either to get yourself a bodyguard of fire immune demons. Flying ones if you want to.
Enchantment: Finally, we get enchantment. There’s nothing horribly urgent here, but you can find several useful spells along the way. Research when you feel like it. At lvl3 you get strength of giants (as you might remember punching through heavy armour is your hoplites main weakness, so this spell helps you out) Skellespam is here too, though unless you find an interesting site, you’re unlikely to find enough 2D mages to achieve critical mass. At lvl 4 antimagic is vital against astral nations. Further down the line you find the various domes and elemental resistances, mass regeneration and relief for end game nature goodness, and various attainable gem globals. Heat from hell (lvl6) works great with demon armies, and at lvl 8 lichcraft opens the way for high level death magic.
4. Magical diversity
Somewhat oddly for an otherwise magically weak nation, Arga Dis is quite capable of achieving a good magical diversity, and with some efforts is able to reach high levels in all paths but water, even without pretender help. This obviously doesn’t mean you’ll have a cadre of high level mages chain casting all high-level spells in all battles, but if you do need to be able to cast one specific spell, chances are you can achieve it with some time & investment. Of course, pretender design might be able to help you out, and in some cases trading for boosters will ease your task, but this can’t always be achieved. In this analysis I will discount 10% randoms, since they’re just too unreliable to count on. For the same reason I will not take into account uniques, (items or summons) except those you’re likely to get, namely the blood ones. So, how do we achieve all this?
Astral: Not the easiest, but not unimportant to your magical diversity due to the rings, so I’ll look at this one first. Getting an S2 Augur isn’t hard, and he can forge you an astral skullcap. About 1/8 of your augurs will have S3. If you’re unlucky and don’t get one of those, at least one of the Arch Devils also has S3. Equip him with a starshine skullcap and a crystal coin and you have S5 [Okay, I admit it. This is where I cheat. You don’t have a native way to forge crystal coins. Trading for one shouldn’t be too hard though. Alternatively you might put at least one point of astral and earth on your pretender. If you don’t put astral & earth on your pretender, and for some reason you don’t manage to trade for one, there are a number of independent mages (most of them from astral sites I believe) with the ES combo. Failing all of the above spectres (Conj6) have a 1/8 chance of having ES. They are really expensive though if all you need them for is crystal coins. Better to trade for one. If nothing works out, well, that’s it then, you’re stuck at S4 (short of empowerment) Forget rings of sorcery and wizardry then, and everything that follows requiring one of those. You can still get some decent magical diversity without those two items, mind you, but if it’s at all possible, try to reach them. They’re so worth it.] With S5 you can forge a ring of sorcery, and equipping that one you get the ring of wizardry. S6 is as far as you get without artefacts (well, in the very late game you can develop a robe of the Magi for S7, but that will definitely take a while. )
Blood: Well, this is easy obviously. Your Gilgans have an easy B4, and occasional B5. Forge a blood thorn, brazen vessel, and armour of souls (and ring of sorcery or the black book of secrets artefact if you don’t manage to recruit a B5 Gilgan) and you’ve got B8 without pushing too hard. Enough for all your needs.
Fire: With 2F from your misbreds and the easily forgeable skull face (const6) you get a relatively early 3F (4 in battle with phoenix power) For higher levels you’ll have to wait for Arch Devils (Blood 7) (unless you get very lucky with a F3 Augur. Don’t count on that though) Arch devils will give you F4 and thus F6 with flame helmet and skull of fire. (or F7 in combat)
Earth: 2E from your misbreds. Earth boots and blood stones will give you 4E (5 in combat) At Conj 6 you can summon troll king’s court to give you 3E mages. (5 with boosters) Adding a ring of wizardry or (cheaper) the artefact pebble skin suit (which you’re quite likely to get, given the magic paths of the other MA nations.) boosts your troll up to 6E. Enough to cast all spells and forge all items in the game.
Death: Death is an easy path to reach ever higher levels in for any nation, so the same goes for Arga Dis. D2 from your misbreds gives you a skull staff. Depending on your research and available gems from there you have three easy ways to reach the D5 needed to summon liches. (Ench8) At least one of the Heliophagi (Blood8) has D3 Give him a skull staff to forge a skull face, equip it, et voilà, D5. The same can be achieved by summoning a mound fiend (Conj7) Alternatively, you can skip out the middle summon by giving your D2 misborn a ring of sorcery, which together with the skull staff allows you to forge a skull face, bringing you to D5. Liches are D4. Equip them with skull staff, skull face and ring of sorcery for D7 (and Tartarians.) D8 with ring of wizardry.
Nature: About ¼ of your augurs will have N2. Forge a thistle mace for N3. Over half of your N2 mages should also have S. Give them a thistle mace and forge a moonvine bracelet. (If you don’t get any N2S1 augurs you’ll have to wait until you manage to forge a ring of sorcery, then forge the moonvine bracelet with an S1N1 augur) That will take you to N4. With a ring of sorcery you reach N5 and faerie court/tree lord’s staff/tree lords, and from there any level of nature you need
Urtyr Shaman have 50% chance of being N3, so with thistle mace and moonvine bracelet you get to N5 without need for the Ring of Sorcery.
Air: This will take a while to develop. You need N5 and Conj8 to summon a faerie court, giving you A3. Give the faerie queen a ring of wizardry and she can forge winged helmet and bag of the winds, giving you A5, and the ability to cast most of the best air spells in combat (A6 if you keep the ring of wizardry) Unless you find indy air mages you won’t have any serious air income by this time though, and the air boosters are expensive, so don’t expect to have many of these flying around. Keep your eyes open for the illusionist mercenary mage, he can help you out with site searching and/or forge a few key items early on.
Water: Your best bet for some basic water magic is to find enchantresses. (who can then forge a water bracelet, and from there can site search and forge most of the basic useful items. If you don’t luck out with enchantresses water gets harder. While spectres and Lamia queens (both conj6) do have potential W randoms, developing water from scratch if you don’t find any enchantresses really takes a lot of time, effort and resources. If you do decide to go for it, both have 7/16 chance of at least W1 and 1/16 of W2. I wouldn’t try too hard to get water really going though. W2 is plenty for your needs. (Site searching, boots of quickness)
Blood empowerment: Of course, empowerment is always an option to improve your magic diversity. It is however very expensive, and very often not worth it. Empowerment in blood is an exception though, simply because you’ll have so much more blood slaves than you have other gems. There are useful cross-path spells in all paths, though some more so than others. Nature/blood will give you jade daggers, blood vines and cross breeding.
Due to the arrival of Urtyr Shamans it's no longer needed to empower to attain this combo. Water/blood gives you ice devils (and frost fiends) Air/blood will allow for storm demons and robe of the magi (boosting all your paths one higher) Astral/blood will allow the horror spells and empowering an S3 mage twice will (with full boosters) even allow you to cast the dreaded arcane corruption. None of these is a must-have tactic, but they’re all options at your disposal.
5. Blood hunting
Blood is the major strength of Arga Dis, so you’ll want to start collecting blood slaves as soon as possible. Recruit heimgrots, have them forge themselves their own sanguine dousing rods, and park 2 of them in each province between 4700’ish and 6500 population. (except those with gold-producing sites) Set taxes on 0 (or on 20 if you can stand the micro of checking the unrest levels. A tax rate of 20 will work fine most of the time, but occasionally unrest will get really high, and you’ll have to drop it back to 0 until the population calmed down) and watch the slaves flow in. Alternatively you can reduce unrest through heavy patrolling, but this will eat through your population at a horrible rate, and is most suited for aggressive play (bless-rush?) on small maps. Use scouts (or indy commanders if you can’t find enough scouts) to transfer the slaves from the blood hunting province to the nearest lab. Later on you will want more and more blood hunters, and will start using ever more highly populated provinces for blood hunting. You will be able to bring in just about as much blood slaves as you want, the only problem is that the more you hunt for blood, the lower your income will be. (due to lowered taxes) Worse, since you’ll start using ever bigger provinces to blood hunt, and thus loose more and more tax income, each slave will be a bit more expensive than the last one. On the bright side, most of your blood summons do not require upkeep (The Augurs do though), so the more you blood hunt, the bigger the portion of your armies will consist of demons, the less upkeep you’ll pay, the more you can afford to blood hunt. Etcetera.
With 3 growth your population will grow about as fast as it is depleted by blood hunting. (Not if you patrol though) If you take less growth, or even death scales, your population will decline, and you’ll have to occasionally move your blood hunters to a new province, when population levels become too low to sustain efficient blood hunting in their current province.
For more information on blood hunting in general, and on the transition from a gold economy to a blood economy, read Baalz excellent guide on Blood hunting (and Mictlan) You can find this guide linked in the strategy index at the top of this page.
6. Odds and Ends
I’ve grouped some miscellaneous info pertinent to the nation into this chapter. Don’t expect anything too coherent. (The incoherence might be worsened by the fact that it is now 4 o’clock in the morning, but I’ll reread it with a fresh head before posting.
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* My assessment is that while Arga Dis is strong enough early on to achieve strong expansion and to make them an unappetizing early target, they’re still vulnerable to early trample rushers, and possibly some aggressive bless rushers too. There’s also a small window after the moment your opponents are likely to attain their first really useful battle spells (say skellyspam for C’tis for example, or thunderstrike for Caelum) in which you’re likely to suffer in a war against an opponent of roughly your own size, as you lack the ability to spam spells of the same efficiency) As said before though, research in construction and blood will make you potentially very powerful in mid game, and the powerful blood spells can easily carry you all the way through end game. You also have the ability to achieve good magical diversity with a certain amount of effort, so there really aren’t many late game strategies you can’t employ, though time and gem restraints will of course prevent you from doing everything at once.
* As with other blood nations, you’ll loose a substantial part of your income to blood hunting. This means that you should always pay special attention to the upkeep costs of everything you do. Try to refrain from hiring bigger garrisons than you absolutely need, and use blood summons to supplement regular recruitment if you’re suddenly threatened on a new front. Try to resist the temptation to use up all the money from large lucky gold events immediately, and carefully consider what you want to accomplish with it in the next several turns. Shave every penny twice before spending it, because the less gold you spend, the more blood slaves you’ll be able to rake in. Of course, Arga Dis has some really high-quality units, and the Gilgans aren’t exactly cheap either, so you’ll have to find your balance.
* Like most nations consisting of elite infantry, Arga Dis is very vulnerable to tramplers (rushers or otherwise) Even size 3 minotaurs hurt badly. Too worsen matters you’re not very powerful magically speaking, so several counters are hard to attain. I have yet to face massed elephants myself, with any nation, (though I did face Minotaurs in my current Arga Dis game) so I will refrain from giving specific advice on how to counter them here. You can find a thread on how to deal with tramplers linked in the strategy index. They’ll have the first-hand experience I lack.
* General wisdom is that it’s quite useless to recruit heavy armour units when fighting really high damage units such as giants, as they’ll just smash through the armour without noticing it anyway. While this is good advice, it doesn’t apply to Arga Dis. Since their hoplites have so low armour giants will actually smash through the armour and the shield in the case of a shield hit. (25 protection combined) Recruit Myrmidons (or Achilleans) instead. They have the same defence (actually one more without counting the parry) and a combined armour + shield protection of 30 has a better chance of stopping at least most of the blow.
* Horde from hell is not only an excellent remote summon capable of taking out all but the strongest PD (I’m afraid of using it against Pythium in my current game, but then they have arguably the strongest PD in the game) but you also retain the units to cause further mayhem. 25 imps and a flying commander might not be enough to conquer the world; it’s not something to sneeze at either. Combine the surviving imps with devils, harpies and possibly some blackwing riders for extra punch for some serious raiding ability. Both Arch Devils and Heliophagi can also fly if you want a heavy hitter along. (Or you can use them on their own of course)
* Your PD is on the low side of average, consisting of one hoplite and one helgrot per point. Above 20 you also get an extra myrmidon/point of PD. It does bring some fresh bodies into the field, but don’t expect it to accomplish anything extraordinary.
* Blood stones are great. They are a path booster and a gem-producing item at the same time. Build them whenever you can.
* None of your priests will be able to preach. Preaching is for sissies. If Gilgans want to expand the faith of the true god, they sacrifice a couple of virgin girls. The ability to push dominion through blood sacrifice is always useful, though you lack the predilection for horrible scales of Mictlan, or the weird temperature preferences of Abysia and the Heims to make a dominion push into enemy territory extra harmful.
* The Gilgans are your only national priests. You can probably find some indy priests to fill your basic blood sacrifice and blessing needs, but H2 priests are harder to come by. Unfortunately, Gilgans are quite expensive at 420g, and it’s a waste to use them for Sermons of courage. This kinda makes it hard to follow my advice to keep Sermon of courage active on your oathsworn sacreds, if you use them. Which is a pity, because at their price they would be well worth taking a minor bless for, and to be used extensively, if you would be able to keep them all sermon of couraged.
7. Pretender Design
7a. Scale preferences
Order/misfortune vs Turmoil/luck: I am a firm believer of taking turmoil/luck scales for heavy blood hunting nations, since eventually a large portion of your lands will have their tax scale set on 0 anyway. All those blood hunting provinces will not earn you one dime more with order as they do with turmoil, while they do keep generating lucky (money) events. As a bonus you’ll get ****loads of free gems, which will help you start out site searching, if nothing else. (And the executioner hero is awesome, both thematically and in stats.) I have seen other people disagree with this point of view though, and it is true that order/misfortune will make for a bigger income, or at least a bigger reliable income during the crucial early expansion phase of the game. The augurs come with a big (15%) chance to negate negative events, so a misfortune scale can be mitigated somewhat.
Productivity/Sloth: Most of your units will be quite lightly armoured, and thus don’t require too much resources. One or even two points of sloth are definitely an option if you want more points, especially if you use an awake pretender to help out with early expansion. If you don’t use an expansion pretender, and instead rely on your regular troops to expand, taking sloth might slow down initial expansion too much. In this situation you might be better off with neutral scales or even production 1.
Heat/cold: No special considerations here. Arga Dis has a neutral temperature preference, and as such you obviously prefer neutral scales here. Think twice before before tilting the scale more than one tick either way.
Growth/Death: I like growth for bloodhunting nations myself, as it compensates for the population loss from bloodhunting. It also slightly helps compensate for the income loss of your turmoil picks, if you took those. On the other hand the same thing that’s true for order is also true for growth: a large part of your lands won’t benefit from the income boost. You also have no real supply issues, and your only old mages are the Augurs, some of which have N and D picks mitigating their old age problems, and if you have one with important randoms you can easily forge him boots of youth to keep him young. So you have some arguments for taking death too. I suppose this depends on the size of the map and personal preference.
Magic/Drain: With relatively cheap, low power research mages I seriously recommend taking one magic. It gives a large benefit for little cost. Three magic is an option if you have points to spare, but due to lack of magic you don’t benefit from the -1MR penalty this brings with it, so I would reserve this option for scale monster builds. Neutral scales are acceptable, but any amount of drain hurts a lot. Don’t take drain unless you have a very good plan to deal with it. And then think once more.
7b. Blessings
While Arga Dis doesn’t categorize as a strong bless nation, they do have several sacred units which can benefit from some more or less modest amount of blessing. The oathsworn, misbreds, Gilgans, and Augurs are all sacred.
Earth: The most universally useful bless. Minor earth reinvigorates all your sacred mages and helps them cast longer. While encumberance isn’t the greatest weakness of the oathsworn, and an earth bless isn’t their first choice, a little reinvigoration doesn’t hurt them either. Major Earth is very useful for SC Gilgans. It also raises oathsworn protection from 8 to 12, which still is very mediocre. Major earth is more useful for units which already have high protection, but if you take the bless for the Gilgans anyway, the oathsworn get some benefit from it. Taking even one major bless certainly isn’t a given with Arga Dis, but if you do take one, earth seems the way to go.
Nature: Another one for the Gilgans. N4 will provide them with 3pts of regeneration/turn, and seriously cut down on afflictions. N8 will take this to 9pts, and (prohibitively expensive) N10 even to 12. The oathsworn will also benefit from the affliction reduction from this bless, and gain a little bit of survivability. The very fragile misbreds and augurs don’t gain any real benefit from this bless. The N9 berserk is quite useful for the Gilgans, adding to their already impressive Berserking ability. It’s a mixed blessing for the oathsworn, counteracting their big weakness of low morale, and increasing their offensive power, but at the same time reducing their main survival attribute, their defence. It is suicidal for augurs and misbreds though, who have no chance at all of surviving the headlong charge towards the enemy provoked by any pinprick they might be subjected too.
Astral: Not too bad. S4 or 6 will raise the lowish Gilgan MR to a more respectable 17 or 18 (S8 does not improve on this though, MR can not be raised above 18 through a bless) and more MR for anyone else is always useful. Misbreds and augurs both benefit quite a lot from twist fate at S9, but this is definitely not worth taking the bless for imo. Gilgans nor oathsworn are the type of units who benefit that much from it.
Fire: F4 will raise Oathsworn attack to a very respectable 14. With two attacks each they will stand a decent chance at hitting anything but the very highest defence units. (W9 Vans start to get tricky) F9 will raise their attack to 16 and give them flaming attacks. Not bad at all. The Gilgans don’t especially need extra attack that badly, but an extra point of attack is an extra point of attack. It can help make the difference against high-defence SC’s.
Water: Again a bless the oathsworn will benefit from the most. Raising their already decent defence skill increases their survivability. W4 will give them a respectable 16 defence. W9 means defence 18 and 50% quickness. Not that horrible, but if you insist on taking a major bless specifically for your oathsworn I’d go for the F9. Once they go berserk Gilgan defence is so abysmal they will get hit anyway, W bless or no, so the minor bless doesn’t do that much for them. Quickness is as useful for them as it is for any other SC though. (And maybe more so for Arga Dis than for other nations, since they have no easy access to water magic for quickness items)
Death: The affliction chance increase is actually quite nice for your Gilgans casting blood battle spells. There are quite a few blood spells that target large areas, doing little damage in that area. Bloodletting being the best of the lot. Increasing the affliction chance of these spells can help leave your opposition a useless mess, even if you don’t kill them The other sacred mages can obviously benefit from this as well. I see no incentive to go for a major bless here.
Blood: Meh. Minor blood will increase the strength of your oathsworn, which is nice, given the lack of punch mentioned earlier. A nice bonus if you’ll be getting blood anyway for another reason. But why would you ‘take blood anyway’ on your pretenders if you have Gilgans?
Air: Bleh. Air shield might help increase misbred and augur survivability on arrow-strewn battlefields, but to actually take an air bless for that reason? I don’t think so.
7c. Dominion
Having a high dominion will help you push dominion through blood sacrifice if you’re so inclined. On the other hand, the ability to blood sacrifice can also help you get away with lower dominion. You can’t preach though, so it might be best to avoid the really low dominion you might get away with with other sacrificing nations. Dominion 9 or 10 will obviously help out SC builds through awe.
7d. Putting it all together:
Pretender Types:
* Rainbow pretender: Though I generally like this kind of pretender I don’t feel Arga Dis needs a rainbow, as they are capable of developing a very decent magical diversity on their own. If you still do take a rainbow, make sure you have the ES you need to forge crystal coins. Consider taking 2E to make sure you can forge earth boots, and then dwarven hammers, or maybe even 3E to forge your first hammer before reaching const4 and thus save quite a few gems along the way. Air and Water are your weakest paths, and thus a minimum of two each will help out site-searching. Consider 3+ S to facilitate ring forging (or possibly even 5S to allow arcane nexus with boosters) Also consider minor blessings. Oathsworn benefit most from 4F4W, Gilgans from 4E4N, though 4S ain’t bad either. Your other mages like 4E. You obviously can’t fit all of the above into the same build without sacrificing something else.
Example 1: F2A2W2E2S3N2B1 awake lore master with turmoil 3, production 1, death 1, luck 3, magic 1, dom 6. (Or prod 0, death 0) 2 Picks in almost all paths to allow early site searching. S3 to ease up the forging of rings of sorcery/wizardry. No death magic to save a few points, because you have easy access to death, and death offers little extra in synergy with the other paths. Basic dominion of 6. (Dominion 5 can give you an extra scale, or death magic, if you feel like it) Blood because you have 10 points left over with nowhere else to go, and with the boosters your Gilgans can forge this will get you started on all the cross-path spells your Gilgans don’t have access to. You reach your first blood SC chassis (ice devils) one level sooner this way, and they’re cheaper than arch devils too. Production 1 to insure early expansion goes well. (I’d say this is a well-balanced rainbow. I still don’t like rainbow pretenders for Arga Dis though)
Example 2: F4W4E2S5N2B1 dormant great enchantress with turmoil3, production1, death 1, luck 3, magic 1, dom 6. Designed less for site searching (though she can still do that of course) and more to give your oathsworn some minor blessings, to allow easy forging of rings of wizardry/sorcery and staffs of the elements, and eventually the ability to cast arcane nexus. With this build go out of your way to find H2 casters for sermon of courage, and use oathsworn mixed in with the hoplites as the mainstay of your armies. Enchantment (for arcane nexus) normally isn’t a priority school, but it does hold a number of nice spells for you. (See earlier) Do not rush straight for the nexus without assuring you have an otherwise strong position though, since casting it paints a freakishly big target on your forehead. With the help of a couple of suicidal Sabbath slaves you can also cast master enslave, though thaumaturgy usually is your last research priority. Blood is there for the same reasons as in the previous build. Since you want to use oathsworn, and your pretender isn’t around for the first year, you don’t want to skimp on your dominion any more than this. Also provides one astral pearl per month, to help power your astral needs.
* SC pretender: While your expansion rate using just your regular troops is okay, speeding it up a bit with an awake expansion pretender certainly doesn’t hurt. Additionally having an awake or dormant SC pretender will help deter early rushes, and diminish your vulnerability to enemy attack in the early mid-game window I talked about before.
Example 1: D4 awake prince of death with turmoil 2, sloth 1, growth 2, luck 3, magic 1, dom9 (or Turmoil 3 sloth 0, or sloth 0 heat/cold 1) With awe from dom9 and high fear the prince of death eats most indies naked, and he gets a lot better with equipment. Skimping on the magic allows quite good scales, (net +3) The growth is there to counteract population loss from blood hunting. Incidentally he also provides a minor death bless.
Example 2:
Apparently Sombre never really liked this pretender chassis, and as such it is no longer available to the nation. A3B1 awake blood wind with turmoil 2, sloth 1, heat 1, growth 2, luck 3, magic 1, dom 10 (or turmoil 3 heat 0) Showcasing the unique Arga Dis pretender, a giant bloody whirlwind. (Shaped like the air elementals, but with a delicious bloody haze to it. What? Bloodthirsty? Me? Where did you get that idea?) A size 6, ethereal, fear causing, 30AP, encumberance 0, flying trampler. With 0 protection this choice is somewhat more of a gamble than the tried and trusted PoD, since any hit that does get in through the awe and etherealness is likely to do a lot of damage. (likely to resulting in afflictions or routing) For this reason I felt dom 10 was a must. With dom 9 he just gets hit too often. If he does avoid getting hit though, he’ll blaze over any opposition in no time at all, leaving broken corpses and bits of debris strewn along his path. Quickly research a few levels in alteration for mirror image & mist form, to increase his chance of avoiding hits. At size 6 (and with awe, fear, and etherealness) he’ll stop any elephants cold, though his own kill ratio will be very slow too, without being able to trample them himself. Unfortunately he only has 2 miscellaneous slots, limiting his ability towards later game, though you can alleviate that somewhat by buffing him with other mages. (Iron warriors is perfect) If you can manage to keep him alive, as a 30AP trampler he’ll still devour opposing units at an alarming rate.
* Bless pretender. As I said before, I see little reason to go for a pure bless strategy with Arga Dis, but it is quite possible to combine a rather serious bless with other considerations. If you have a decent bless for your oathsworn try to find independent 2H mages and spam sermon of courage. Make sure to keep them blessed, (+2 morale apart from the bless effect) and consider mixing them into the same squad with regular hoplites for some more morale boostage. Remember that until you find indy priests you’ll only be able to bless them with your prophet or the expensive Gilgans, so build a temple in the first indy priest province you conquer. A bless for your Gilgans is easier to manage, only requiring them to self-bless at the start of the battle.
Example 1: 9F3B dormant Moloch with turmoil 1, death 1, luck3, magic 1, dom 7 (Or turmoil 0, death2; death 2 dom 8, or turmoil 0, magic 0, or possibly even death 2, blood 4 for extra sacred punch) Expand aggressively with your blessed oathsworn. They should waltz over any conventional opposition with this bless, and even stand a decent chance against some sacreds – as long as they don’t break early. Make sure to have at least a decent armour, and preferably some more equipment ready by the time the Moloch awakes. Lacking awe you can’t send him out naked, but with proper equipment he’s a serious SC. 3B because you can’t do anything else with the leftover points, but it also means that if you equip your moloch with armour of souls (and why wouldn’t you? It’s a great armour. ) you can supercharge your hp and wipe away your fatigue by using bloodletting. 9F also makes him an awesome battlefield mage, able to toss out massive spells left, right, and centre. And you can still use the bloodletting trick to wipe away accumulated fatigue, and speed up the opponent’s death. Less (or no) turmoil than with previous builds allows you to build more units in early game, but taking death means you have to put them to good use, immediately, while the PoD build has some more staying power.
Example 2: 9E4N imprisoned Cyclops with turmoil 2, luck 3, magic 1, dominion 7 This bless mostly benefits your Gilgans, with the oathsworn getting a rather minor, if noticeable, benefit from it. Even with this bless the Gilgans risk death, or at least accumulation of afflictions when trying to take provinces naked, so try to target the weaker indies, and be careful all around. Don’t use the Gilgans to replace your ordinary expansion with achilleans/hoplites/oathsworn, but to supplement it. Make construction research even more of a priority as with other builds, and equip some Gilgans with the best stuff you can forge them. Supplemented by their bless they’ll be even better than they usually are. Once the Cyclops breaks free you have another powerful SC in him, with full slots, high hit points, incredible armour, and the ability to cast nature and earth buffs.
* Scales monster. Needing neither a rainbow pretender, nor awake SC, nor major blesses (though they can use them, as shown above) making a scale monster pretender is a viable option. Use great scales to speed up recruitment, expand faster, build more forts, and recruit more mages and troops in them, speeding up your expansion and research even more. If you use the oracle for this you can easily get a frightening astral caster at the same time.
Example 1: 4S imprisoned oracle with order 2, production 2, growth3, luck 3, magic 1, dominion 10 (Or order 1, production 1, magic 3. Or dominion 9 and one more pick somewhere) The ultimate scales, and the dominion strength to push them too. Incidentally you also get a +1MR bless. You can have a Baphomet with one less scales pick and one less dominion and 4F2S if you prefer.
Example 2: 8S imprisoned oracle with order 0, production 2, growth 3, luck 3, Magic 1 (Or order 1, production 1, or production 1, 9S) High production for strong recruitment from turn 1. Neutral or slightly positive order, coupled with production, growth, and luck events should give you a strong income. And a high dominion strength will allow you to push your good scales everywhere. S8 (or 9) allows for arcane nexus, wish, and master enslave. (though without easy access to clams your astral income might be on the low side to use wish a lot, at least until you cast the nexus, and these paths, especially thaumaturgy, aren’t your usual research priorities) S8 gives your Gilgans and oathsworn a useful late game bless, and twist fate if you go up to S9 is somewhat nice for the other sacred mages too.
Edited to include the changes Sombre made with his latest version of the Arga Dis mod. 
An introduction to Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze
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