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Warlock upkeep = 18 Pretty sure those figures are right. So if you consider that the anathemant has about 75% the research power of the Warlock for 60% of the upkeep cost, in the long run the anathemant is clearly better. After 9 turns the anathemant dragon has made up the cost difference between himself and the warlock in terms of upkeep, however being out of pocket early in the game often leads to reduced gold income from expansion. They're pretty even all things considered. -> I always use the Dragons as Abysia. When the going gets rough, the Anathement Dragons get going - spamming Fire Cloud and Falling Fires, that is. Abysia is one of those nations that I feel benefits greatly from rushing towards mass evocations as fast as possible. Apparently with your late game so weak, you need to push your early-mid game strengths as much as possible, so at least by late game you are HUGE, and thus somewhat powerful. -> I like magic 3 with Abyssia, and then I use the little blood 1 guys-they're cheap, easy to mass, not susceptible to immediate old age, and function well as researchers when I'm not using them all for bloodhunting-which I'm often not. 8.11.3.3 LA Abysia: Discussion and a Proto-Guide. I've always enjoyed abysia, because they can be relied on in any age to provide some sort of very solid play. Coming back to dominions after a while, I have to admit I love the changes brought to them, but I haven't seen any talk about them at all, I suppose because of the profusion of new and awesome nations. Troops: Abysia's funny in that their best troops are in the EA; when everyone else is lightly armored, they have purebreds everywhere and tough armor. Here, in the LA, you mostly have humanbreds, who are quite servicable, but not the same as the infantry of old. There's effectively four versions, before you hit the new unit and the sacred. Axe-throwers, who are the only abysian missle unit, light infantry, heavy infantry with and without shields. Light infantry comes in spear and axe forms, and I typically prefer the spear for the lack of attack malus and repel chance. Heavy shielded infantry comes in axe and morningstar forms, and again, I don't feel the extra damage is worth the loss of accuracy. Heavy unshielded infantry hit very hard, if you're facing ermor or someone else who's unlikely to have missle troops, coming in Battleax and Flail versions. I use the battleaxes on giants and, later in the game, swarms of summons, and flails on the chaffier troops, but the main force of my armies is always the morningstar and shield troops. The Warbred hits like the proverbial truck, with a high base strength boosted by berserking and a strong battleax as a weapon. Their 50% fire resistance means you can't quite use the fire-based battlefield enchantments and evocations as well, which somewhat restricts their use... but the berserking adds a lot of punch to armies that, for some reason, aren't based on the ancient Abysian principles of Shake and Bake. The lack of perfect fire resistance also means they will berserk if you "accidentally" tag them with fire flies or another weak evocation. The Sacred is, well, a slow tough Abysian. Darkvision, heat aura, the usual encumbrance and high protection pairing. They're too slow for a real bless strategy in a large game, IMO, and the gold cost seems a bit high... but I like them anyway. Best used with Earth and/or Nature blesses, with earth winning out thanks to the mages. I never put fire on my pretender since flaming skulls are accessible, so lesser likely options are astral (always worthwhile thanks to endgame magics) and... well, that's about it. Their shields negate any urge for air, they don't have much use for a death bless, water's unlikely, and Blood is possibly the worst bless in the game. Commanders: Clocking in with twelve commanders, 4 assassins, and nine different mages, there's a profusion of options here. The new mage-assassins are quite effective, with the fire or death assassin better in the beginning thanks to basic attack evocation or raise skeletons, and the Blood variant being more useful later, thanks to Hellbind Heart and Life for a Life. You've also got a profusion of battle magic, but you have to mix it carefully. Summoning skeletons that are going to get mixed in with your likely to get falling-flames troops isn't a great way to win battles. The three main setups I've had thus far have been skellyspam and Darkness with sacreds and sometimes Heat From Hell, pure evocation, and sabbaths suddenly dropping large battlefield enchants. Sabbaths are possibly the most interesting part of your blood economy, because you don't have any national blood magic to make an immediate target, and dropping utterly huge fire, astral and death magics on the battlefield never gets old. You've got a basic cheap blood hunter, holy to cut down on the upkeep, and a variety of fire, astral, and earth packing warlocks, apprentices, and sanguine anathematics. Just don't expect precision here, because all your mages are old and only getting older. National Magic: Smoulderghosts are interesting, in that they're sacred here, but there's an issue: You don't nationally produce death gems, just Fire. Still, they're reasonably priced, and can make excellent blockers for your battlemages, and hat's usually what I use them as, guards to prevent assassination and flier swarms. Scorpion Men suffer from the same problem of being a magic type you don't produce nationally, but by the time you have them researched, you should have a massive income in Earth anyway. They're worth every gem, and on top of that are just plain fun with their base weaponry. Awakened Fossils are novelty units. Cool novelty units, but not something to really worry about. Inner Furnace also isn't worth seriously considering, on any large map you'll never have enough sacreds to make it useful. Nice if you happen to be in the right situation, but not worth working towards as a research goal. Pretender Design: I tend to stick to nationals or simply rare ones, because I don't play much MP at all. Still, Abysia has a good set of those, with the Divine Glyph being a reasonable fire and astral source, the Scorpion Man being a good SC to come out dormant so there's equipment waiting, and the Moloch is rather fun for sheer destructive capability, from bless and his own powers. Despite that, I haven't found much use for either lion-headed titan at all. The usual suspects are of course an E9N4 cyclops, D-something Prince of Death with high awe, and a Great Enchantress to rainbow, and all of them add quite a bit of punch to the nation. You don't really NEED an SC, per se, but it definitely speeds your way to more castles and that critical mass of armies and mages you need. Similarly, an early rainbow mage, even in paths you already have, can help alleviate your unpleasant lack of astral, death, and earth income. If you go rainbow, remember that the blesses that affect your mages to any strong effect are Earth, Death, and Nature, and as TheMenacer pointed out, dealing afflictions with your damage is a strong bonus. You don't need to be able to automatically make a blood stone, but if you want to use your pretender to kickstart the factory because you don't envision buying seventy-odd thousand warlocks, skimp on the blood, not the earth. The bless is better, and it's easier to empower or come by a booster for blood with your national mage picks. One of the things you're going to be forced to do late game, if it gets that far, is diversify into Nature. This isn't hard, mind, since it's common on all three pretender archetypes. What you'll want to do is summon a faerie court eventually using your pretender, and use it for all your nature magic needs. You need GoR, healing isn't bad, and it gets you mobile air magic for Arrow Fend. Scales, of course, are still Heat 3, and production is nice, but honestly in the late game you're going to go to a blood economy anyway. I tend to Drain 2 and simply building massive piles of skull mentors and lightless lanterns with gems. Luck/turmoil and order/misfortune are up to you. Castles are expensive, but you need gems badly, and site searches take some income to start. Tricks of the Trade: Blood Stones should be everywhere. You can become possibly the strongest Earth power in the LA once you get going, but you have to get going. With the blood stone, even a 1E random warlock can become 2E, which can make boots to earth power and blade wind. And every warlock with any E can communion or sabbath, which makes for some very impressive blade winds. Or Earthquakes, Petrify, or the usual buffs. Heat From Hell and skellyspam combo very nicely, though earth items and bless may be required to keep it up, since your natural D is weak. 2D is the best you naturally get, so you'll want to climb the ladder once you get some gem income going to drop Darkness on top of that and really grind out some victories. Speaking of grinding out victories, this is the era with LA Ermor in it. This means, of course, that all those mage priests are going to be pulling double duty, and gain double-effectiveness from the sabbaths I'm frankly obsessed with for this nation. Sabbaths and communions buff Holy as well, and H5 priests raining down Banishment are nothing to sneeze at. You've got also got a really incredible toolkit against SCs, though the finesse of employing it is probably beyond me. Petrify, Disintegrate, Life for a Life, Infernal Prison, Soul Slay, and Hellbind Heart can all be spammed out of a sabbath, and with a massive earth income you can usually afford penetration boosting items. Similarly, Earth and Astral make for some nice thug and SC gear, though again, it's somewhat difficult to get the gem flow started. You've got flame and eventually shadow brands, reinvig gear, horror shields, and AMA everywhere Stymphalian wings are fun. I don't use proper SCs that much, since I enjoy big armies and battlefield magic too much, but its worth considering Linebacker Sabbaths (from Baalz wonderful communion guide). Being able to skimp on the Luck Pendants and mix armor with etherality can often be the edge you need, letting you mix your slow-moving large armies with quicker moving but no less effective thug groups. Good chassis for this are the obvious Elemental Royalty, Scorpion Men, Bane Lords, and if you get bored enough, this is a shockingly good use for Reawakened Fossils. Wraith Lords and Vampires deserve special mention here, because you don't want to gear them up in the standard fashion. Instead, give them a small handful of gems. Generally, I use soul vortex on the wraith lords and send them out to attack, which leaves a small sabbath to rain down death-based attack magic. Sometimes, the best bet is more bodies, in which case you summon a lot of lammashtas turn one, soul vortex turn two, and attack rear with everyone. They'll win or die or win AND die, but since you recycle them, you lose just the small handful of gems, rather than give your opponent free thug gear. If there's anything fun or tricky I missed, let me know, and I'll add it in... Or write a better guide! I may revisit this one myself when it's not late and fix up some formatting, or add MP-ready pretender builds if someone more experienced than me is willing to contribute. 8.12 Agartha 8.12.1 EA Agartha 8.12.1.1 Some tips
1) You can make your commander cast the same ritual repeatedly every month by using M for Monthly ritual. 2) Your troops don't deal enough damage? Agarthans have pretty high Strength, which means they deal quite high damage, especially the sacred giants. [Note about swarm effect: " Well, I mentioned size only because the bigger ones have 18 strength and the smaller ones have 13 strength. And if you look at the attack of the smaller Agarthans you'll see its pretty low (as well as their defence, which makes them pretty lousy) However size does affect the change to hit, though not directly, but IIRC for every attack against someone, he gets -1 defense against the next attack, so if you use (say) size-3 units against size-2 unit, you'll have 2 units per square while your enemy will have 3 units per square (each square is size-6 big), so you'll be attacked more often. " ] [2nd note about swarm effect: " I believe with Dom 2 it is a -2 defense for each attack (according to the manual). This makes swarming very effective vs high defense units. The spell that summons 5 magma children for 2 fire gems is pretty good with Argatha. 1 out of 4 earth readers can cast the spell... and of course you can get the flame oracle if you want a guarantee. I'm curious if it would even be worth taking a heat scale to make better use of these guys. Its a real shame they are not sacred or could get really interesting You can hit Conj3 on the 7th-9th turn if you get an awake pretender. Or much faster if you build a sage for this purpose (then the sage can site search and help bring in all the gems needed to mass produce the units). " ] My guess is your problem is low Attack, so your soldiers can't actually hit. 3) Your high-priced mages all have 3E - optimal for Bladewind (evocation 4), which is a very effective spell in EA 4) You should consider a bless strategy, you have the H3 to pull it off, and the Ancient One sacred could really use a Fire+Nature bless. (Fire so they can actually hit something, Nature because 40hp works well with regeneration.) -> Bless
I've only been battling against EA Agarthans, never played them myself, but they are pretty good with F9 (and possibly W4 or N4 as well) blessed Seal Guards, and Magma Children summons. The little warriors are not good though . Their mages are potent (they can have up to E5 !) and quite tough, my Abysians assassins never managed to kill one... -> Tramplers I've dabbled with Agartha EA in single player and came up with a moderately useful strategy -- Troglodyte horde. A small group of stampeders has a tendency to get enveloped and consumed, but a squad of 20 stampeders can break apart any squad and squish them flat... ...you do have to beware of archers, though. But then any Agartha squad (no shields) has to beware of them. Maybe backing up the troggies with cheap slingers would work? Note that this strategy takes advantage of both Dom3's massive increase of gold and supply. -> Basic strategy 1) Use your National Summons. Umbrals, Magma Children, and Earth Elementals are all quite good. Reasons: a) Umbrals: Undead, Ethereal, Life Drain w/ High Str. Ridiculously cheap for their effectiveness. Guaranteed casters (even cheap ones). b) Magma Children: Magic Unit (problem), and, iirc, an 8-pt Armor Piercing AoE 1 Flame Strike. Just so you know, this means that they hit the entire square for 8+(random) Fire damage, and the opponent has halved protection against it. And this is each individual Magma Child. Try to keep away from your other units, though. [Note, Just remember the Magma Children only have the flame attack. They're completely harmless against anything fire-resistant. ] c) Earth Elementals: Magic Unit that has Trample. Trample is useful, and their high morale make them quite useful for running through the opponents. That's a basic synopsis of, imo, your best units, barring a particular bless. The game I played with EA Agartha, I played and E10 Cyclops. The bless gives all your mages Reinvigorate, and allows me to Forge useful equipment on the cheap (or VERY cheap with a few effects). Other questions: 1) Pretender design? 2) Opponents? My game was against Ulm and Helheim (at least), and neither one could really get past my defensive set up. Helheim, while usually tough (even AI against new players, honestly), just completely folds to the Flame Strike (btw, AoE (Area of Effect) attacks don't have to roll to hit... they just whack the whole square), and the tramplers are useful against them, too. Ulm just required a good deal of screen, Tramplers, and Magma Children. Definitely research Conj 3 and Evo 4 (Blade Wind's level, right?) quickly, then Cons 2-6, as desired. Thaumaturgy 2, early, if you want to be able to remote search (Gnome Lore, etc.) your provinces. [Note,
In the earth spells, check out Legions of Steel and (I think) Strength of Giants. These two boost protection and strength respectively, for entire squads. You have the earth mages to cast them and it will really help your forces. The giants, especially the pink ones, have low protection and really benefit from the boost. I have not found strength a problem, but boosting it will ensure that you really hurt what you hit. Blade wind is good, but boosting your units should not be overlooked. If you put all your troops against the back of the battle field, take a turn or three buffing them, then blade wind and infantry attack, it can work out well. It also gives you time to bless. Also, usually archers can not reach you in the first round and then fire at long range for the second. By then, your troops are protected. ] -> Points about weapons It's almost possible for the bigger Agarthans to punch through the shields of medium enemy infantry. Shields have protection 15, and bigger Agarthans have 18 str (and usually Spears, 3 dam), so they have about 50% chance of dealing 1 or more damage to someone with protection 6 before shield. It's not enough to balance the odds on its own, but with Legions of Steel and/or Nature 9 and/or low-level Blood bless they might be able to deal damage to medium infantry with shields even if the hit is parried. The smaller Agarthans aren't good at killing your enemies, but they ARE good in slowing them down. For the price of a human, you get twice the hitpoints on an amphibian that doesn't consume supplies and has a siege bonus. I just realized that Agarthans also suffer from poor choice of weapons. They use normal-sized Spears, but their attack is too low to Repel with it, and which has too low damage value to emphasize their own high strength. The Seal Guards have big magic Glaives rated at 10 dam or so, and they have 19 Str, so sure they can punch through shield and armor of medium inf. Their problem is Att10/Def8, without F4+/W4+ bless they've difficulty hitting anything and get hit often... The magic weapons are good, of course. They cost lots of resources on a capital-only unit, but they are good. 11 dam, +1 att, -1 def, length 4 and ability to bypass etherealness. 30 damage total is enough to deal some damage even to any human that comes against them (46% chance of hitting Ambibate Noble Warrior for 3 points of damage). Unfortunately, the recruitable-everywhere Ancient Ones have just spears or Boulders for armanent. Boulder-throwers don't have even spears, making them very hard to use. The Pale Ones also have just spears, except for Cavern Guards who have Glaives. Minus to attack? They would be better of with Great Clubs, with att 0 def 1... -> Possible pretender A good Pretender strategy for Agartha (in my opinion) is an Imprisoned Forge Lord with turmoil3, productivity0, cold3, growth2, luck2, and drain 2. Forge Lord because if there's one thing Agartha does well, it's gems, lots and lots of earth gems. Might as well spend them wisely, and since your Oracles are going to be researching Conjuration and Evocation, you can use your Forge Lord just to crank out magic items for your sacred fighter captain, and you'll be doing alright, since you can practically make as many of those as you can your basic Seal Guard. Naturally, there are better uses for a Pretender, but it's a strategy to consider. Turmoil3/Heat3 are taken purely for points, although Heat is more likely to help out your Magma Children than Cold, right? Productivity 0 hopefully lets you make Seal Guards faster, since they're by far the best unit you've got, and you can build up to 3 in a row (Dom3). Luck 2 lets Turmoil 3 be atleast a little advantageous, and I hate losing my Temple in round 3. Drain isn't as bad as it could be since you're making less Oracles, but they're individually more powerful, so the -1 isn't affecting 30 mages, it's only affecting 10.
I just played a game as EA Agartha, so I've got a pretty good feel for them. I went with the forge lord initially myself. Your general idea is good, although I'd tweak it a bit. I think the growth scale is a poor choice, as you lose out on one of Agartha's main advantages: no supply use for most troops. Taking triple death makes invading your dominion a pain in the rear for most nations, and redistributing the 200 design points from that scale to order (which then allows the points in luck to go to productivity, if you wish) will easily offset the income from the population death unless you're playing a pretty long game. Plus you get the money up front, which still might make it worth it. Drain is a solid choice for exactly the reason you mentioned, and a bless strat is essential for Agartha. You contradict yourself on cold/heat, but heat is the way to go, since your units are cold blooded and it helps out the magma children, as you said. Heat/cold also hits supplies, synergizing nicely with 3 death. From my experience playing last time I'd probably try the following pretender for my next game: Frost father, imprisoned, dominion 5. Water 9, Fire 6, nature 4, astral and air 1.
One important consideration-as of now, Oracles can quickly become old. You may be better off using your cash on Earth Readers if you plan on researching with them. Also, if you can afford to equip them, they make a fine fighting force-they're all priests so undead will melt before them, and they all have atleast some magic. Add a heavy combat bless, armor and weapons, and you've got a superlative fighting force. I do think Agartha is a tiny bit weak, though. Two changes I plan to make are increasing Oracle max age, either increasing the size of Ancient-level Agarthans or adding/modifying in some size 6 Agarthans, allowing earth readers and oracles to have a small chance of preventing bad things from happening while increasing their price, and possibly adding Beholder units and maybe another type of "monstrous" unit-these changes are a little overpowering, but I plan on tweaking other nations as well. Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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