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-> Tips from a MP winner with Agarth :) Well, i've just won an EA MP game with Agartha, so i'll share my thoughts. Scales i used were turmoil 3, sloth 3, heat 3, luck 3, magic 3. You might want to use less extreme ones. (but stick to sloth 3 and magic 3). Pretender was awake dom 10 4E6D Risen Oracle (a good chassis choice even if you take lower dom strength). At the beginning, expand using your pretender (forge him any armor you can), for safety you can do that in provinces with your dominion (he's immortal), independentent archers and troglodytes (groups of 6+). Do not buy any of your other national troops until mid game (25+ provinces usually). If going against astral nations, skip troglodytes too (MR lowered a lot in recent patches). Buy an earth reader each round and research conjuration until you get to rhuax pact at least (or all the way to umbrals), then thau 2 for site searching spells, then go for blade wind and earthquake. Summon magma children/earth elementals/umbrals as neeed and your gem income allows (umbrals are always needed . When you get a little more gold income, get a 2nd castle and buy earth readers there, then switch to buying an oracle at capital each turn. Recruit wet ones/pale ones/stone hurlers only if you need to go underwater or siege castles. Your main research goal is army of gold/lead, use it on groups of massed umbrals and magma children. Your heat3 dominion will hurt all other nations a lot more than it hurts you - except for Abyssia, so beware of them. Be on lookout for air/nature/astral indies and mercs. You will need those to diversify your magic. Later on, you can try using Ancient Lords as army supporting thugs (with cheap equipment), but only do that if you can't get either Gift of Healts or Chalice - because if you can, Tartarians will clearly be superior. Try to secure Earth and Fire elementaly royalty, your head start in conjuration and sacred low upkeep researchers should help. If you go for const 6 relatively early, use excess fire gems to forge Lightless Lanterns. If occassion presents itself to cast Forge of the Ancients, go for it and forge like mad for the time you manage to keep it up. Pitfalls to avoid: - do not go for a bless strategy. Minor earth bless is nice to give all your mages some reinvigoration, but don't depend on your sacred troops to be useful offensively even with fire bless. - don't use all your oracles as battle mage (exception is Fire ones, which can and should be casting Magma Eruption). Each army needs just one or two (one casts divine blessing first turn, 2nd army of gold/lead). Use 2E earth readers for blade winding (with boots of earth and or summon earthpower). Better to have 4 2E earth readers than one oracle in the army. Fire readers can cast magma bolts. Water readers can cast frozen heart. Death readers should be busy casting dark knowledge and summon umbral, not being in armies
A lot has been said about Agartha's poor troop availability. It's all true. They're miserable, with few exceptions. One extraordinarily good exception, though, is the Ancient Lord. I love this guy. I'm pretty sure he's recruitable anywhere, which makes him even better. First of all, the Bless for these guys is very important, if you're going to get the most out of them. An imprisoned Risen Oracle is probably your best bet, with Earth 9, Death 4, Nature 4. That's a pretty big bless, but the Risen Oracle gets new paths slightly cheaper than most other SC Pretenders. For scales, I'd suggest Heat 3/Death 3/Turmoil3, and Luck3. Use your own judgement on what Magic and Productivity to use, but I'd recommend Drain 2 or better, and Prod 0 or better. High Dominion isn't really necessary for Agartha. Don't bother recruiting any Agarthan unit, *ever*, except the bronze-cuirassed Stone Hurler. You'll mostly use these to boost your PD, and to support/bodyguard your Oracles. The exception that makes the rule is the Seal Guard-they're useful as a defensive force, for your Capital, and other fortresses, especially if you start having big problems with fast SCs or etherial units that your Ancient Lords can't catch up with, but they're very niche. I don't think you'll ever need more than a dozen in a single Province, though, even your Capital, but they *are* better than Stone Hurlers for some tasks, and since they're Capital only, unlike Stone Hurlers, you won't be building them quickly, anyway. You'll only be recruiting 2 Commanders for a while-and the first one you'll be recruiting will be the Ancient Lord. He doesn't seem like much, and he's not, at first, but Agartha offers a wonderous selection of low-level, cheap equipment that will turn him into a juggernaut that can easily contend with even a Niefel Jarl. Trust me-this guy is the ultimate clothes-horse. You can start building Ancient Lords right away, 1 per turn if you have the funds. Prophetize the first one, and build enough of these guys to take the Independents around your Capital. 3 should be enough to deal with most things you'll run into, with the help of your starting army. Build another fortress as soon as possible. From here you can start generating more of the low-powered Earth apprentices. Set them to researching Construction, while using your Capital to churn out Ancient Lords, and the occasional Oracle. Easy on the Oracles, they can begin elderly, and you don't have a good way to fix that. Extra funds go into armoured Stone Hurlers, independents, and PD. Build atleast 3 fortresses producing apprentice earth-readers, and as many as possible, producing Ancient Lords. Your PD is crap, by the way, but try to get it up to atleast 25 in the important provinces. Recruit independent archers, slingers, and stick-monkeys as needed, and try to find a fast commander. You can use him/her to move your Stone Hurlers to areas that need extra protection. You really, really want Nature mages, and Nature sites. And if you find a blood/air site, or blood/air mages, hold on to them at all costs! Sadly, there's not a good way to give Agartha blood with this setup, and Oracles really need Boots of Youth, so try to break into Blood, somehow or other. Use your apprentice Earth-Readers to research Construction up to level 2. That's all you really need to make your Ancient Lords dominate the Early game. With *just* Construction 2, you can equip them with the following items: Star of Heroes, Black Steel Plate (or better yet, if you have air gems and air mages, Copper Plate), Lead Shield, Horror Helmet, Burning Pearl, Bracers of Protection, and, with Nature, Birch Boots. That's enough to last you until well into mid-game. Maybe even Late Game. Advantages: Cheap as hell items (none cost more than 10 gems each, 8 with dwarven hammer) + Cheap as hell, recruitable everywhere commanders. Here's a breakdown of the bonuses to the base Ancient Lord chassis: Out of the box (no Copper Plate/Birch Boots) version:
Damage +12 + Armour Destruction + Magic Weapon (star of heroes) Afflictions +100 Regeneration +5% Reinvigoration +4 (bless) Shield + 20% chance air shield (bless) +4 MR (lead shield) Basic Prot +25 (black steel plate + horror helmet + bless) plus Bracers effect. Fire Resistance +50% (burning pearl) Fear 0 (horror helmet) Missle weapons are laughable-any that somehow get through the air shield AND the shield, aren't going to get through the improbably high Prot. If by some dark miracle they do, you'll just regenerate the damage. Other units don't stand much chance against you, since you can hit etherial units, destroy armour, reduce morale, not to mention, kill most units with a single hit. With that fire bless, you've also got great synergy with your Magma Children summons, and have a fighting chance against Abyssia. If you *do* get into a war with Abyssia (or Hinnom, or Fomorial, or Niefelheim) right away, look no further than Brimstone Boots, which will grant you +5 Str (not that you need it, for much other than Hinnom, Fomoria, or Niefelheim, but it's enough to raise your damage to...I don't know...40? 45? Somewhere around there-enough to kill even a Niefel in 2 shots, especially since the first shot destroys his armour), and a total of 150% fire resistance, without giving up a single benefit. Against Niefelheim, Caelum, or any water/cold Nation, you've got immediate access to cold resistance rings, if you need them, which can replace Bracers. All that is plenty to get you through the early game-and it's all forgeable by your mages, and available from your capital's gem production. With dwarven hammers, it comes down to about 40 gems per Ancient Lord, most of them Earth. That's less than some high powered non-artifact items cost, by themselves, and a lot less than many summons. I'd suggest that one Ancient Lord thus equipped could *probably* take out a fairly weak Independent Province, if only he were self-blessing. Sadly, this is not the case, so you're going to want to bring along atleast 1 priest unit. Oracles are ofcourse preferred. Even unequipped, though, you'll still have an excellent leader (80) with better than average Protection (especially for the Early Era), who regenerates, lasts all day, and is likely to do an affliction per hit to whatever he can't kill outright. Adding Copper Plate and Birch Boots gives the following benefits: Reinvigoration +2, Shock resistance +%100 Cold and Poison resistance +50% each Charge body. Your Ancient Lord is now resistant to every elemental path. You need Nature and Air to accomplish this, but they're both on your Pretender, and they're pretty common paths on independents. This will reduce your basic prot to +20, plus bracers effect, but I doubt you'll miss it much. The cost will be 4 each Air and Nature, if I recall correctly, which is pretty affordable by mid-game. You don't really need to add any high level items to this. For 48 gems, you're already immune, or atleast strongly resistant, to almost anything anyone's going to throw at you. Just make more of the low level junk that's winning you the war, while supporting your ever-increasing Ancient Lord SC legion with Oracles, Summons, and healers, and do your best to build a small blood economy, boots of youth is all you need, to keep your Oracles young. You will eventually want to research to Construction 3 for Legions of Steel (another +3 Prot), 5 for Watchers, and 6 for Shadow Brand, Evening Star, Gate Cleaver. That's ok though-there's plenty of exotic Construction 4 gear your Oracles can use. And you don't have to rush it. Thoughts: I'd suggest sending these guys out in armies of 2 Oracles-1 fire/earth, 1 earth/water, (so you can spam Magma Eruption, Quickness, Bladewind, and Earthquake), 4 Earth Lords, and maybe 12 armoured Stone Hurlers, for backup. National Summons just add to the fun. Early Rush isn't a big problem, since you'll have your Ancient Lords on hand. If it becomes one, add a few Stone Hurlers to your Capital. You might want to maintain a small unit of Seal Guards there too, incase of SC. Numbers are a problem for these guys, but they become less of a problem over time, since they're tough, and won't suffer as much attrition-in-ranks as most other Nations. There really isn't a lot anyone can do to phase you, once you're established and have access to healing, since you're not likely to lose units very often, and they only get better over time (except Oracles, until you have Boots of Youth). Stone Hurlers are also Sacred, so that's +4 Prot (which is why you should only ever buy the armoured versions), 20% Air Shield, +4 Regeneration, 5% Regeneration, and %100 Afflictions for them, too, making them very surviveable against enemy archers, and even melee units, and their boulders (28 damage) will cause Afflictions to whatever they hit. A wall of them makes an extremely effective honor-guard for your Oracles-and they also make exceptional personal bodyguards, since very few assassins can get through their rain of rocks before the Oracle kills the assassin. Oracles give you plenty of artillery spells, and are tough enough to survive assassins/horrors. They can also be equipped and turned into self-blessing, self-buffing SCs. Gifts from the Sky are still a problem, but they're a problem for everyone. You've got the priests to take care of any demonic or undead pests, plus bad events, plus dom death. Those little apprentice earth-readers are *also* sacred, by the way, and are self-blessing, self-buffing, too, so if you want to equip them, they can be turned into very marginal thugs. Global Darkness just means "make more Umbrals". Heat 3+Death 3 makes your lands hard to take, and the lands surrounding them hard to live in, especially for Niefel and Caelum (heat). Glamour troops don't fare so well against massed Stone Hurlers, who can kill most glamour units in a single shot. Hinnom and Caelum can't trample you very easily, because your Ancient Lords are quite large. And you've got ready access to amphibious troops and water mages, so noone's safe from you. You could summon Tartarians, but there's really no reason to do so-you'd be spending about as many gems just to get them and GoR them, as you would for a fully equipped, unafflicted, sane Ancient Lord. Build as many fortresses as you can put on the map, without shutting down your ability to produce an Ancient Lord or an apprentice earth-reader a turn. Oracles are ultimately going to be the key to Agartha's greatness, so convert your Capital to their production as soon as possible. The best thing about a kitted out Ancient Lord is that Bladewind and other artillery spells are going to hurt your enemy a *lot* more often than they do you. You'll very rarely suffer from friendly fire with these guys. 8.12.1.3 EA Agartha guide Article Author: P3D 8.12.1.3.1 Original thread EA Agartha Guide The is a guide written some times ago (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=30686). I got some inspiration by the recent discussions on MA Agartha to play them, and write another guide (even with my lack of MP experience). Overall: you average troops sucks. They hit the broadside of the barn with difficulty, do not deal much damage, even a few stars won¿t help them much. You have giant sacreds (recruitable everywhere) suffering from the same problems, but they can be get pretty decent with the adequate bless. Your one decent national summon is Conj 7 in CBM. So I am advocating a bless to go with the troops and your recruitable thugs. Even if their weapons selection looks suboptimal in most cases. My pick is an Imprisoned Forge Lord for F4E9N4 with T2P0H3G3L3M1 (from Baalz¿ MA guide) with Dom4, or add S4/B4 and take like O1S0H3D1L1M1 Dominion 3 to pay for it. You would not have resources to buy more than 4-5 Ancient Ones in most castles, recruitable H3 priests help you to push/maintain dominion. Your mages can throw all the Earth buffs and evocations to help them. Magic access is limited to Earth, Fire, Water and Death, so choose Pretender accordingly, and make an effort to diversify. Your other problem is single eye, bad precision and coldblooded units. So look at the troops offered. All the troops are NNE, so you can mass them if you want with no regards to supply, but honestly, you won¿t unless in special circumstances. All your units have siege bonus, so you can use them on either side of a siege to a great extent. With their bucklers they are very vulnerable to archer fire, too. They are also amphibious, so you can venture into the seas, And have Darkvision. Pale One militia, 7g2r: not even good as chaff due to the morale of 8 and 7 attack/defense. Wet one, 9g2r: slightly better stats Wet one (sea castles only), 9g5r?: sharkskin armor for prot 9, makes a somewhat more useful underwater chaff Pale ones: They come in four flavors, they make up your starting army and PD. They are great for chaff, though, with 18HP and a MR of 12. With size 3 they are also less affected by Area attack spells/weapons. Pale One, 9g4r: No armor, spear+buckler, Attack of 8, good only for chaff and sieges. With spear they deal 16 damage. Pale One Warrior, 10g11r: you will recruit this one mostly, due to their mapmove of 2 Protection body 11, head 2. They can at least soak up damage from indies and get in a hit or two. The bucker IMO does not help much. Pale One Warrior, 10g19r: 15 body and 12 head protection, cost the same amount of resources as an Ancient One troop, but their main disadvantage is the 1 mapmove. The protection is at least effective against the slings and short bows of EA. Cavern Guard, 13g22r: 21HP, 15/12 protection, 12 morale, 23 damage. OTOH, they have the same attack of 8, and they cost IMO too much resources. Also Mapmove 1. Troglodyte, 50g1r: The main reason why EA Agartha can survive. Size 4 trample that can be massed if one has the gold for it. In moderate numbers they will take out most indie provinces. Very vulnerable to archers (Prot 7), and will take losses, so arrange for reinforcement. As a note, one must get over a critical mass (10 against indies) to avoid fatigue. Their main disadvantage is the MR of 8, 14 morale OTOH is great for tramplers. Ancient Stone Hurler, 35g, 1/11r: have 2 boulders to throw to a distance of 6, in CBM AFAIK it is is an AoE attack. Have no other weapons (damage 18 with fists) or adequate protection (3 or 11) so 35g is on the expensive side for what is Agartha¿s equivalent of a Javelin Light infantry. They are Sacred, but no bless can make them useful. Also have a higher Siege Bonus, but it won¿t matter much. Ancient One, 40g19r: Pretty weak for a giant sacred, cannot hit or deal enough damage without a bless, Strength 18 with spears deals only 21 damage, with an attack skill of 9. But. They are recruitable everywhere, and affordable, so you can mass them without much problem. Take the example of the bless mentioned above ( F4E9N4). Your protection is now 15 on the body and 20 on the head (was 11/16), effectively stopping all EA missiles save Poison Bows. 12 morale now 14, MR says 13. Their encumbrance of 5 (+2 in severe heat) is countered by a 4 reinvigoration. Defense of 10 is low, does not worth the bless. With F4 your attack is now an acceptable 11 without any stars, and they will survive to pick a few. I have to paraphrase Baalz here, ¿But wait, there¿s more!¿ You have recruitable-everywhere E2 Earth readers can throw on you the following buffs with a mere Earth Boots (Or after summon Earthpower): Strength Of Giants (Ench 3, E3): Now you deal 25 damage (27 with Blood bless), enough to punch through the armor of any giant troops over what they would regenerate. Legions of Steel (Const 1, E3): With +4 protection you are now at 19/24, with a very small encumbrance. At this time your opponents are fatigued after a Curse of Stones (Alt 3, E3, 3E gems), their armor destroyed by Destruction (Alt 4, E3) or Rust Mist (Evoc 2, E2W1). This won¿t affect magical armor of most thugs and SCs, though, against them use Weapons of Sharpness (Const 7, E4) which can be cast by the E2 Earth readers with one booster and Earthpower. Now take this army and buffs below water. No one has stronger underwater army (well, you have, with the Seal Guards). Seal Guard, 55g37r: your capital-only sacred troop. IMHO one of the best underwater units. 1/12 move means they are slow strategically , but not on the battlefield. Your protection is one higher than the Ancient Lords. With the bless, your attack is 14 with an obsidian glaive that makes 30 damage, which is on the same level as the largest giant troops and magical against ethereal units/thugs/SCs. With 0 Production scale, you would be able to recruit 4-6 of them in your capital depending on the surrounding provinces you want as much as possible. Leaders: Pale One Scout, 20g7r: They are amphibious, while still better stealth than indie scouts (+20), so you might even recruit one. Pale One Commander, 30g19r: they are amphibious, but as you can ferry troops underwater with your mages if necessary, no reason to recruit them Troglodyte Lord: Would be a good trampling thug if not for the 8MR that takes a lot to improve. Their overall skills are better than Ancient Lords, so it might worth it if you can make cheap MR items. They have no heads, so no helmet (or the need for one). Ancient Lord, 60g21r: Sacred commander (Leadership 120). He needs a lot of cheap items to make a good thug, as on its own he is worse in melee than a Seal Guard. But recruitable everywhere, equip them with cheap items (Dwarven hammers): Gold/Charcoal shield, brand sword, Birch boots, fire helm/plate depending on your opponents. Earth reader, 120g1r: 1E+100%FWED, 4RP, sacred, affordable researcher. With 18HP they make a better self-buffing thug than human priests, just kit them out (brand, boots, elemental resistance items). Cast Summon Earthpower, Fire Shield, Quicken Self, Iron Skin, Invulnerability depending on random picks and boosters. E2: with boosters (Boots, Blood Stone) and/or Summon Earthpower they free up your oracles from boosting your armies. Blade Wind, Earthquake. FE: Magma Bolts, Magma Eruption (w. Boots, Stone, Earthpower) WE: Rust Mist, Fire Ward ED: Dust-to-Dust, Summon Umbral They also come with a 40 leadership, as they would buff troops anyways, less need for indie commanders. Oracles of Subterranean Waters, Fire, Dead, 400g,1r: XE3+110%XE (X is either F,W or D), H3. Expensive capital-only mage-priests. W ones have one higher base attack skill than the rest. Mainly Earth mages, 55% to get a guaranteed lvl2 caster in their chosen path. Also 55% for E4, 5% for X3 or E5. They also have low precision, so would benefit from air mages casting Aim/Wind guide. Use them mainly to throw Divine Blesses/higher level battle evocations and buffs, or for forging. Earth Readers are cheaper researchers and can do most of the buffs. They are better Thugs/SCs kitted out than the Ancient Lords due to their magic path. They are also on the old side, quite a few of them have Old Age, especially the Fire ones. National Summons: Rhuax Pact: Conj 3, F1E1: 5 Children of Magma for 2 gems, castable by FE Earth Readers. Cheap fire beings with AoE1 Fire Attack, but they are vulnerable to pretty much everything. Bit too late to use against indies. They¿d be cheap to be massed, but magical, so even your Oracles cannot command more than 25 of them. This is IMO their main weakness. Consider them chaff, summon them in besieged castles, or on the frontlines preparing for attack/defense. Barathus Pact, Conj 3 E2: size 4 Earth Elemental for 1 gem. A replacement trampler instead of your trogs that cost no upkeep. Will shrink from strong blows. Also Magical. Umbral, Conj 6 (7 in CBM) E1D1: Size 4 68HP giant ethereal undead with life-stealing attack. Very strong unit for the price and availability. They, are, however, completely useless against lifeless/undead beings, and needsa lot of research. Gift of Reason gives a great Ethereal thug for 20N gems great for trampling PD. Heroes: Ogon the Earth Blooded: F2E5,H3: a Fire Oracle with an extra reinvigoration Deepthought the Great Olm: W3E3, with Life Drain and Mind Blast attacks, also blind, but have 12 precision nevertheless. Not really useful as a thug, as they have only 2 hand/2misc slots, no armor, but stealthy for raids. In CBM, it is a multihero. Olmspawn: multihero in CBM, E1+100%FWED, essentially a free Earth Reader. IIRC also stealthy. Pretender Design You have Giant troops, so you can use the standard E9N4 bless. To get use of the Ancient ones, you must take F4. This leaves you with not much point on an Imprisoned pretender, could squeeze in another minor blessing (S4 or B4) mainly for forging reasons. F9 does not worth it with a single attack and already having magic weapon troops. W9 is an option. Have at least E4 for your sacred mages, E9 improves the protection of your troops immensely. Put cheap armor on your mages so they¿d also benefit from it (e.g. Shambler skin Armor). N4 gives regen for the troops. One could afford stronger E/N blesses . Astral helps you, but pick it for other reasons. Death bless helps to inflict afflictions with your mages but Earthquakes would inflict afflictions on you, too. B4 would help the damage outlay of the Ancient Ones. Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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