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| Wind Lord-This is a great unit and a good candidate for a prophet to increase it¿s hit points and give it a permanent bless, especially Earth to give it reinvigoration to keep it from getting fatigued too quickly. It has great starting protection and defense, and with a few magic items, like a kite shield and magic sword and pendant of luck, can be made into a great thug that can fly to the rear and take out the soft troops and commanders.
Skeptic-This is the bread and butter of the dominion kill. They¿re stealthy and lower enemy dominion in the province they¿re in, and it appears that multiple skeptics lower dominion more quickly. You can even make them a prophet to both raise your dominion and lower enemy dominion even more quickly. I find it useful that when not in a hurry to attack, get as many of these in enemy territory as possible. Watch for old age though. Philosopher-They¿re basically cheap, capital only researchers. They¿re worth the cost; however the old age status on them can kill them quickly, so use with care and monitor them make sure that any research boosting items you have on them aren¿t lost if disease catches up with them. Engineer-Not worth the time I feel. They assist you in castle sieges, however there¿s a superior mage version of them that will actually help you on the battlefield as well as sieges. They also have old age. Mages Priestess N1 H1-First, this is the only unit with holy magic available as a national to Arco, so they¿re good for building temples at least. They have the ability to Heal on the strategic map, which is valuable for removing afflictions, and cast Sermon of Courage. I keep one of these with large armies at all times, they¿re valuable on the map and can cast a few useful spells, such as Tangle Vines, Protection, Elemental Fortitude, Swarm, and Heal. Mystic S1 ?2(FWES 100%, F 50%, W 50%, E 50%)-The mystic is a decent mage. They have a moderate chance at getting up to 4 different paths, but as low as 1, making them able site searchers, and the only unit available to Arco that guarantees a pick in Astral magic. They¿re not bad in battle and not bad for forging. They¿re good at spamming Body Ethereal for one, and have a few other useful combat spells depending on their picks. Mage Engineer A1 E1 ?1(FAWES 100%)-These are good units, but capital only. First, they help with sieges considerably, so you can keep them around for just that. They also have quite a few useful combat spells depending on their picks, so they aren¿t too bad on the battlefield if not just to launch low level evocation spells. Oreliad A2 E1 N3 ?1(AWEN 100%, AWEN 10%)-This is a great unit, probably one of the best Arco has to offer. Being capital only can be a problem, but there are ways around that, such as Mountain Survival for increasing their map movement and the ability for every one recruited to cast Cloud Trapeze. They¿re also stealthy and have the Seduce command, which doesn¿t seem to work very well. They can forge powerful items, cast powerful rituals and summons, and make good battle mages with access to spells like Lightning Bolt and Orb Lighting. They¿re costly at 400G, but worth it; they¿re great units all around. General Tactical Strategy In first few turns I like to split Cardaces into two groups, and have a group of Peltasts and Slingers. I put the Cardaces and Peltasts into a line on the far right of the screen, to account for my short range, with the Peltasts in the middle and slightly farther back, and the Slingers behind them. It works well for taking out weaker indy provinces. After I have a decent supply of Myrmidons, Chariots, and indy archers I change it a little bit. I put the Myrmidons in front, and groups of combined Peltasts and Cardaces on the flanks of the Myrmidons, slightly behind them to form what looks like an arrow so as to draw arrow fire on the Myrmidons. I put the archers behind them a ways. The chariots are scripted to hold and attack and are put behind everyone and off to a flank. The effect is good. General Strategy Using the Cyclops SC pretender, the first order of business is to research to Construction 2. The reason is simple: To overcome the Drain scale, forge owl quills, and lots of them. Oreliads can do this regardless of their picks. Arco naturally gains Air gems, so by the time you¿re ready you should have more than enough to forge a few. Use mystics for research until you reach Construction 2 and make sure you recruit at least one Oreliad when your coffers are big enough, with Order: 2 gold shouldn¿t be much of an issue. So, the first two turns are spent recruiting an army of slingers, cardaces, and peltasts. I like to wait two turns so any losses I take in the first battle won¿t require me to return to the starting province and restock my army, slowing you down more than waiting an extra turn, and to give me a chance to scry and plan my initial conquests. The first one I aim for is a province I think contains indy archers to replace the slingers or a high resource province, preferably one with both. When you¿ve conquered a mountain or forest province nearby, you probably have enough resources to start recruiting Myrmidons and Chariots en masse. When you¿re at Construction 2, it¿s time to switch to Evocation and research that to 2 to get access to Lighting Bolt, a great spell for your Oreliads. Begin to recruit Philosophers and giving them an Owl quill so your mages can move onto more useful prospects. If you get a chance you could recruit a Wing Lord and make him a prophet and gear him up a bit. Also begin branching out to site search manually with a Mystic and an Oreliad; between them you should have nearly all of the paths covered so you only have to search once. Your pretender should be awakening soon, so be prepared to give him a few magical items as well. Also, if you get a spare moment, forge bows for your army commanders. Recruit a Priestess or use your prophet to build temples. When you hit Evocation 2, it¿s time to switch to Construction to 4 to gear up your prophet thug and SC pretender with some respectable items and give him and others with lucky picks and a pair of Earth Boots access to Legions of Steel, a helpful spell in all respects. By now you should have a very good idea of where the enemies are if you haven¿t already begun to fight them. I suggest finding a place near one of them to build a castle. From this castle you can increase your army size and send out Skeptics to slow them down and keep the dominion friendly, maybe even score a dominion kill eventually. From here, it really depends on needs, playstyle, and the type of enemy you face. Below I¿ll outline which schools of magic have useful spells and useful items to help you to decide where to go from Construction 4. The more difficult strategy, using the Ghost King pretender is very similar up to the Owl Quills, however it¿s slightly different after that. For one, you should be turtling up instead of expanding quickly. Your resources are low so you¿re army is weaker and you don¿t want to face the enemy toe to toe, however getting a dominion kill doesn¿t even require you to fight a single battle. Using all that extra money to stock up on PD isn¿t a bad idea to discourage the enemy from attacking you directly. Next, Evocation 2 isn¿t as important as Conjuration 2. Dark Knowledge is important for finding death sites quickly, and you want a lot of death gems for summoning raiding parties to destroy enemy temples. Also moving onto Enchantment 3 instead of Construction 4 may be a good idea, as Seeking Arrow can destroy a preaching priest if you¿re having trouble pushing down enemy dominion. The next thing that¿s different is setting up the second castle is imperative. The more skeptics you have out there, the better off you are, especially a skeptic prophet. You should also make building temples a priority to help move your dominion outward. Use the preach command to build your dominion quickly whenever possible. It can be even more difficult to use this on a large map where your later enemies will be both powerful and their dominions well established. Suggested Magic Schools As mentioned, taking Construction to 2 is a must. Evocation to 2, Enchantment to 3, Construction to 4, and Conjuration to 2 have also been mentioned. But what to decide next depends on what you¿re trying to accomplish and if your original strategy is a possibility, so here are some other useful spells: Conjuration: The Summon X Power spells are pretty nice for bigger battle spell effects and available early. Summon Amphiptere isn¿t a bad spell available at 3, and at 5 there¿s Draconians and the Sirrush. The Firbolg from Awaken Sleeper, available at level 5 is worth mentioning. I also highly suggest taking it to 6 for all the useful death summons if you took the Ghost King. Your Oreliads can also easily cast Summon Tarrasque and Wild Hunt later in the game with a little help from some items or empowerment, and Wild Hunt may be worth taking it all the way to 9 if you¿re going for a dominion kill strategy, and level 9 will also give you access to the Ghost Riders spell, which is excellent for raiding especially if you can coordinate it with a stealth army attacking at the same time. I don¿t suggest this school over others unless it¿s a dominion kill you¿re after. Alteration: There are some good spells here for your national mages and a couple for the Cyclops pretender, and one useful spell for your Ghost King pretender if you¿re using it directly for raiding. Aim, at 1, is a great spell for all of your units because it increases their accuracy. Mirror Image at 2 is OK, but is outclassed by Mist Form at 3 for your Orelaids. Ironskin, also at 3, is good for most of your mages as they get Earth picks and temporarily for your Cyclops until Invunerability at 5. Body Ethereal at 3 can be spammed by every Mystic on your army. Swarm, at 4, is good for your Priestesses as it gives them something to do besides weak army buff spells and Sermon of Courage. Good higher level spells include False Horror at 6, and Mass Protection and Creeping Doom both available at 7 for your Orelaids, and Phoenix Pyre at 7 is great for any SC, including your Cyclops. Darkness at 6 is good if you¿re using the suggested undead army for raiding and the Ghost King can cast it making most PD nothing more than a nuisance. It¿s a good school to take to at least 3 or 4 quickly to eliminate the possibility of a lucky arrow killing an expensive mage. Evocation: This is actually a great school for Arco as there are many useful spells in it for your mages. I wouldn¿t rate it a high priority for the Ghost King strat, but for the Cyclops it¿s almost always my pick after Construction 4. There are many spells that directly damage the enemy in this school, too many to list because of all the random picks, but I can outline some of the more important and easily used ones. To start, Sleep Cloud at 3 is a cool spell to use against large armies. Blade Wind, at 4, is huge for your Cyclops pretender as he¿ll launch more blades than you can count, and some other mages can use it as lucky picks. Thunder Strike, also available at 4, is good for Oreliads even though it¿s really fatiguing. Orb Lightning, level 5, is a great spell that nearly all of your mages will be able to cast, and your Oreliads to great effect. Also available at 5 is Healing Mists which isn¿t too bad and can be helpful in big battles, and Falling Fires which your Cyclops can cast, but I wouldn¿t do it outside of using it against enemies weak to fire. The Ghost King doesn¿t gain much from this spell other than Shadow Blast at 5 and Cloud of Death at 6, both of which are good spells against PD, but I don¿t think it¿s worth the investment for that strategy. Construction: This is a good school for the Cyclops pretender. There¿s a lot of earth spells/summons available to it, plus very powerful and unique items past level 4. It¿s worth taking a look at after getting some of the more essential spells from other schools. Enchantment: This school is a bit of a low priority in the beginning, depending on map size. At level 3 Seeking Arrow is a great spell whether going for the dominion kill or not. At 4, Haste is a good spell, and Cloud Trapeze can help get your Oreliads to where you need them quickly. Gift of Health at 5 is good for Arco because of the old age that effects many of your commanders, but with a good growth scale I don¿t find it necessary. At 5 you could summon a Watcher, and Faery Trod can help move your armies around the map. At 6 Rigor Mortis can help your undead raiders if you choose. Overall though, it¿s not too impressive for either strategy. Thaumaturgy: This is a great school for the dominion kill strategy as it has many spells that slow down your enemy from afar. There are some good spells available to both strategies though, such as Horror Mark at 1, Panic at 3, Confusion at 5, and Beckoning at 6, all of which are castable by your national mages. My favorite, however, is Melancholia at level 6. It requires E5 to cast, however even for the Ghost King pretender it¿s worth doing your best to get someone able to cast it, because it cripples the resources of your enemy and lowers dominion. Although I wouldn¿t rate this school as a huge priority, if you¿re having trouble with a high dominion enemy Melancholia is where to turn. Useful Magic Items Lesser: Obviously Owl Quills are very important. Pendant of Luck is always a good item for any commander. A Longbow of Accuracy or Piercer is good for a regular commander who would otherwise be standing around. The Ice Sword is a good choice to give to a Wing Lord as it raises his defense skill, and a regular Black Steel Kite Shield will bump his protection up to amazing levels. The Ring of Water Breathing is great to give to a skeptic to get at those hard to reach water provinces and lower any extra dominion you can. Birch boots are good for reinvigoration. Greater: The Amulet of Antimagic is a cheap and effective way of extending the life of most commanders. The Spell Focus is great for just about anyone with any magic. The Vine Bow and Bow of Storms are great upgrades for your regular commanders, especially the Bow of Storms. The Sword of Quickness is also a good upgrade for your Wing Lord as it is more powerful and increases defense even more. A Shield of Valor is a good upgrade as well, but you¿re sacrificing protection for near missile immunity which can be good or bad. Chainmail of Displacement is good for your Wing Lord as well, and Rainbow Armor is a possible choice for the reinvigoration, but I don¿t really recommend it because you can give him an Amulet of Resilience instead. I also like to give my Cyclops two Lighting Spears as that¿s some pretty high damage to anyone who isn¿t immune to electricity and maybe a Horned Helmet for the extra attack with Boots of the Messenger for reinvigoration and a Ring of Regeneration in addition to other possibilities. The Robe of Missile Protection and Ethereal Robe are good choices for casters if you can spare the gems. Winged Shoes are good for turning mages into raiders, and a Flying Carpet is better if you want bodyguards to come along, and again Boots of the Messenger to help overcome the Drain scale. There are also Thistle Maces, Earth Boots, and Bags of Wind for boosting paths. Very Powerful: The only ones to note here are the Water Bracelet for increasing paths, the Bottle of Living Water for popping in a spare Misc slot, the Barrel of Air and Sea King¿s Goblet if you can get them to enter underwater provinces, and if you¿re going for a dominion kill the Stone Idol is excellent to give to a skeptic, but you may have to empower a mage to get access to it. Unique Artifacts speak for themselves as most of them are very powerful. Closing With the versatility of Arcoscephale comes a lot of decisions that need to be made. Outlined above are two viable strategies out of many as well as some general tips for the new players choosing this nation. With time you can develop your own strategies as this is only meant to give you a kick start and begin to experiment and understand the strengths and weakness of Arco. 8.12.1.1.2 Assorted comments -> mystic communions Ooooh, one glaring omission (IMHO) is the use of mystic communions for battlemages. The mystics are some of the absolute best mages in the game at forming a communion to dish out damage because they all have astral (for communion master/slave) and they have a variety of the best paths for evocation spells. They're not capital only, reasonably cost efficient researchers, and the ones who get bad/low random picks make great communion slaves while the lucky ones are pretty darned good for their price even before becoming a communion master. Plus, because of the variety you can change the focus of your army every turn by anticipating what you needing to cast in the next battle- you can switch an army from having heavy fire mages to sending out a load of blade winds by just changing who is the slave and who is the master. Or go with an astral focus (make sure to bring a banner of the northern star) and go recruiting with enslave mind when the enemy army is weaker than you. Or switch to water and send a ridiculous amount of cleansing water towards all those undead. I find the mystic is VERY versatile, and one of the best parts of Arco. -> Not a bad guide, although I strongly disagree on a few points. Myrmidons are decent heavy infantry, but they fatigue very quickly with an encumberance of 10. While I use them, it's often as bodyguards or as flanker defense around the mages. I don't recruit them en masse, as I take sloth scales. Taking drain seems counter-productive with Arco. You have your choice of 4 different mages and 6 national paths at 2 or higher. You have the best recruitable researcher in the game, and early access to feathers. Taking drain effectively trades these advantages for 80 cretion points, and I cannot reccomend that strategy. Recruiting a Wind Lord on your first turn and making him into a prophet is almost a no-brainer. While boots of flying on a priestess (or Conceptual Balance Mod) will allow you to bless fliers, the prophetized Wind Lord is hands-down the best choice for EA Arco. Also worth mentioning is the indy Pegasus Rider, a blessable flying archer. At 50 gold, they aren't cheap, but for adding missile support to an air assault, they are about your only option. My reccomended pretender/scales? Lady Of Fortune, Dormant W9 N4
Dominion 5 Order 3, Sloth 3, Magic 1 W9 bless is still imo the best bless in the game, and even with your healing priestesses, the regeneration from N4 is very helpful. Additionally, you get an Awe-4 mid-game SC chassis with high defense. Wind riders are resource-cheap when compared to the 125 cost, and the sloth is easily managable. I start recruiting wind riders exclusively on turn 3-4, with the odd myrmidon to use up extra resources. You can quickly amass groups of 20, which is more than enough to take any indy. While you will not hit 2-province expansion until at least turn 10, when your pretender awakes you should have a set of black plate and the usual construction 4 toys to kit her out. Oriads are outstanding with boots of flying, as are priestesses for secondary wind rider armies. The slower provincial expansion is somewhat medited by your rapid research speed. Early mystics while assembling your forging team can be followed by later philosophers. A single mage-engineer for forging quills until later in the game. With research kick-started, you should be in a dominant forging and casting potion before your neighbors can besiege you. The very strong wind rider bless protects you early, and your magical versitility, mobile flying sacreds, and unmatched research give you a good position in the mid and late games. [comment: The difference between W9 bless and F9 bless on your Windriders is really a tough choice. With quickness you are getting 3 attacks every two turns. So that is a big bonus to your offense. The W9 defense bonus is really significant, too, because those Windriders are not so tough and they do like to die. With F9 you are getting +4 attack and your lance, which already gets a huge boost to its first strike, become a flaming lance which does +6 extra damage. Not bad! That's going to do major damage on a first strike, possibly light them on fire, and continue to do +6 flaming magical weapon damage with a +4 Attack each round thereafter. I like the W9 bless better, by a hair. Those Windriders are hella expensive at 125 gold, and they are not so tough really. They die. They die purty fast in a toe to toe fight with another toughie regular troop. And that troop probably wasn't 125 gold each. W9 bless gives them a lot more staying power, and the extra attack every other round gives a decent offensive boost, too. They are so expensive, and I hate to see them die. On the other hand, sometimes the best defense is a good offense. And if you have enough of them swooping in with first-striking magical flaming lances, maybe that wins it. But if it's a long battle, your expensive Windriders are gonna get chopped up. ] -> Philosophers EA Arco is one of my favorite themes, but i really think minimizing Philosophers is the wrong way to go. Philosophers are one of the most potent human units in the game; there is no other way to get 10 research points so cheap, so quickly early on. Making 8 or 10 philosophers early in the game w/ 3 sloth 3 magic will give you a very large leg up on research that will be hard to match. I guess the idea is, while having lots of Mystics is good, what's the point of having them if you can't cast anything? Drain-2 is wrong for a lot of reasons, mainly because it goes counter to the magic heavy nature of Arco, and because it makes Mystics just that much worse at research, forcing you to depend even more heavily on your Philosophers, that at the same time, will be less than optimal. Arco's early troops are versatile but specialized. I like Icarids as raiders but they aren't front line troops, and like Myrmiddons, they are hard to mass. 8.12.1.1.3 Expansion strategy If you're really having trouble making EA Arco viable: Take an awake Prince of Death, domstr 9, with D4, 3 Order, 3 Sloth, 3 Fortune, 1 Death, 1 Magic. You can go 2 Growth with neither fortune nor death, if you wish instead - the death *will* kill off some of your philosophers. This works for practically any nation, but is particularly well suited to Arco. Set your tax rate to 200% on the first turn and patrol, while sending your PoD blind into an adjacent territory, with your scout sneaking in behind. Recruit a philosopher and some peltasts. You're going to be recruiting nothing but peltasts for a while; peltasts have javelins and shields and therefore they can expand in the early era. In this first province you grab, build a fortress starting on turn 2. Have your philosophers start heading up construction - as soon as you have Const 2, make a pendant of luck and some armor and things for your PoD. You'll be recruiting philosophers and building fortresses all over the place until you can't afford any more. Build temples and labs as well, recruit prietesses and things. Advanced considerations: * A wyrm or a dragon might be better than a PoD (it's a pity you don't get a Deva), b/c they're alive which means that your priestesses can heal them. - Example 1 - Awake Blue Dragon, Water 9, Domstr 9, Order 3, Sloth 3, Misfortune 3, Drain 2. It takes you a few turns to start recruiting pegasi, but the combination of a strong bless, a SC god *and* an edge in research (net bonus of +2 on the phillies) can be devastating. If your capital doesn't have high resource neighbors, though, you're screwed. Compromise builds like this are harder to use but I generally favor them myself. - Example 2- Awake Wyrm, no magic, Domstr 10, Order 3, Sloth 3, Fortune 1, Magic 1. This probably isn't as good as the PoD, but is less of a risk b/c the Wyrm is a little more powerful pre-equipment, and because you can heal him with your priestesses. Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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