Arcosephale

[TheBirthdayParty]

Argh. Frustration. I keep trying to play acrosephale and fail time and time again. I am admittedly new to Domiions II, but yeesh.

I'm not playing in the golden age. Just the hoplites, hearts companions, etc.

So are acrosphale units just over priced in recources?? Are the mages really this useless? I'm really at a loss here. I like the unit theme, strategy, etc., but its like no matter how good the strategy, the computer just is able to pile on many more units. Even if I buy a ton of basic units. Help?

[Verjigorm]

The mages aren't useless. The heart companions and elephants are ok units, but what you really need is magical units.

Mystics are the most versatile elemental mages in the game--they can pop with anywhere from 1-3 books of any given element. Priestesses are cheap upkeep and are good for research/healing. Both of these units can be hired at any fortress (recommend a cheap castle). Astrologers can cast Acaschic Record out of the box and some can spawn with Astral 4.

I don't put too much stock in the units, you need money (order) and maybe research (magic).

Hire lots of mystics and look for these guys:
1 Any mystic that can cast a nice evocation (magma bolts/eruption, Gifts of Heaven (rare), etc.).
2 Any 3 book x 1 element mystic--makes booster items.
3 Any 1 book x 3 element mystic--good site searcher.
4 A 2 water mystic--clammer.

There are incredible possibilities with Arco-Default. A pretender with 4-6 Astral can (with relative degrees of ease) be set up to do Wishing/Arcane Nexus, 2-4 Nature will get you a way in to the Ivy Kings and hordes of Vine Ogres. Try the Daughter of the Land for some early clams, an Enchantress for a little Astral boost, a rainbow mage for some versatility, or you could always go with the SC Nataraja--you don't have to worry about battle wounds or god recalls with all those priestesses hanging around. I like to take Death magic for Revenant/Spectre (researchers), Wraith Lords, and the Tartarian Gate (priestesses cannot heal the undead, unfortunately).

Golden Era is good too, Philosophers with Magic-3 will give you insane research and they're incredibly cheap (capital only though ) Plus, you get to keep your mystics.

Arcoscephale = Magical Versatility + Excellent Research

[Boron]

In earlygame you could e.g.cast Body etheralize + luck on your elephants .
That makes 87,5% of nonmagical weapons hits fail and still 50% magical weapons hits .
The AI has normally really few magical weapons .
You can add a few vinemen/ogres .
They have the purpose to avoid routing of your elephants .

In midgame you could replace them by behemoths .

The hypaspists are very nice MI .

Arco is imo more a lategame nation though . In mp it is really good because you have big magic flexibility with them .
With the rushing ai and their only average troops they are though not so good for sp than e.g. Abysia , Marignon or Caelum .

For learning the sp game i would recommend chosing either an underwater nation or pan cw/ermor .
If you intend to play mainly mp though don't bother with sp and just join a few games with a few nations or if you really like arco so much you can even join a few games all with arco but varying your strats a bit in each game .

[Taqwus]

Don't try to match the AI in numbers.

It doesn't build fortresses, so it tends to hire large proportions of (frequently cheaper) non-national troops. It also probably spends a higher proportion on troops than on mages (that a human player might, for driving research and casting site-searching spells and so forth), I suspect. The large armies of not-necessarily-great quality are also hampered by a seeming disregard for supply constraints -- it has a willingness to starve while besieging fortresses, for instance, while a human player might push more for either supply items or need-not-eat troops.

Quality tends to defeat quantity, with certain dangerous exceptions. Well-designed 'Supercombatants' -- often well-equipped summons or pretenders, but also certain national troops e.g. Niefel Jarls... -- can cut through *most* chaff with ease; a dangerous exception includes hordes of mandragora with their sleep vines. SC designs frequently employ 0-encumberance commanders and/or life-draining items, so they won't even get tired...

High-quality troops like Vanheim's vanir, for instance the vanir are quite survivable with their speed, defense and automatic mirror image can also win against fairly serious odds. For those that invest sufficiently in magic, assorted summons can be very effective; legions of wights, banefire archers, kitted-out Tartarians, air queens, massed devils, hordes of living statues all come to mind.

[SurvivalistMerc]

There are some really neat tricks you can do with Arco.

My first arco game, but I really like astrologers with penetration items and large astral income from clam hoarding.

Any astrologer can mind hunt with an astral skullcap. Your priests can heal feeblemindedness to put the astrologer back in commission even if he gets his silver cord severed.

I adopted the policy in my SP game that any invading army that doesn't get astral mages will lose all its commanders the following turn. It's not so hard to defeat your enemies when you can turn their armies into sitting ducks and not have to guess where they will move next turn. Sometimes I have one or two astrologers mind hunting any large concentration of enemy troops even if I don't know whether there is an astral mage due to healing.

Mind hunt makes capturing even hill fortresses a breeze provided there are no astral magi present. Even if there are...you can send an astrologer with a couple of decoy hoplites in to cast astral duel and then retreat. No astral mages...mind hunt to your heart's content.

It's amazing how much fun it is to kill enemy pretenders from afar.

[Ironhawk]

Just as an aside, one post mentions Elephants, but as a new player you may not know the tactic. Basically you just buy a squad of those big elephants and turn them loose on the enemy which are then promptly crushed underfoot. In order to keep your elephants from routing put them in the same group as hypaptists (those are the ones with high morale, right?) in like 3:1 or 4:1 hyp:elephant ratio. That tactic gives Arco some good firepower in the early game.

Late game of course thier versatile mages really put the hammer down. Great forgers too.

[PDF]

Ironhawk said:
Just as an aside, one post mentions Elephants, but as a new player you may not know the tactic. Basically you just buy a squad of those big elephants and turn them loose on the enemy which are then promptly crushed underfoot. In order to keep your elephants from routing put them in the same group as hypaptists (those are the ones with high morale, right?) in like 3:1 or 4:1 hyp:elephant ratio. That tactic gives Arco some good firepower in the early game.

Late game of course thier versatile mages really put the hammer down. Great forgers too.

About Elephants, there's also a very good trick : cast BE, then Berserkers on them !