Bogarus Quick Guide

[DrPraetorious]

There has been much *****ing in respect to the power of Bogarus. Let's start with a breakdown of the mages:

* Starets. The Star, indeed, the raisin deeter of the entire nation. Much hash has been made over their low cost - they cost the same as an Augur elder, the Augur elder is quite excellent, and the Starets is better. I don't view this is a balance problem - you recruit one every turn, which is the same number you'd recruit if the cost 75gp more, and, by and large, you are going to end up spending the extra money on your dismal military.
While their low cost is not that big a deal, their high total research output (regardless of cost), *is* a big deal, and gives Bogarus the sharpest early research graph in the game, sharper even than EA Arco.
In the long run, you actually don't have a research advantage on cost anyway. These guys produce 12RP/17gp/turn, compare to an Archtheurg at 9RP/13gp/turn. Over the long haul, it's sacred researchers that really pay off.
But in the short run you've got a huge leg up, and you'll want to take advantage of it.

* Master of Names. By and large, you will recruit one of these in every non-capital fort, every turn. When you have all the science, they turn into serviceable communion slaves.

* Kalendologist. The argument can be made for these guys, but personally I'd rather have more science and take the bad events.

* Alchemist. Recruit 1 or 2 of these - they'll search for sites (only earth you get) and may perform alchemy if needed. Even at +50% alchemy is not a great idea most of the time.

* Astrapelagist. Another site searcher. The event prevention is not worth the loss of research, most of the time, BUT these guys are your best bet for cheap combat mages out of the many, many fortresses you will be building. If you're at war (and you probably are), you'll want groups of 8 who will form a communion and spam thunderstrike.

* Occultist. The final leg of your native site searchers. You can use these guys to blood hunt, or you can use five fold angels, it's probably about a wash.

Note that this gives you F1A2E1S1D1B1. Pick up a couple of trivals to find nature, and the only site you're missing is water.
This is one reason I recommend *against* aiming for the water summons. No income.

* Five fold angels. Use them as blood hunters (the unrest is bad, but the low upkeep and second point of blood magic are good), or stealth preachers, as you like it. Skopets are amusing but I wouldn't bother.

military:
Dateline: Stalingrad, 1943
* Scum, from the huts of scum. To conquer indie provinces, you will be recruiting peshti of one kind or another (I recommend the axes, so that you can kill some heavy infantry) and voi archers.
These units suck, and you don't care if they die doing their internationalist duty. When they can't conquer anything else useful, you bring them home to be patrollers. At least they're cheap.
You can give 1/3 of them axes if you really want to extend the red army joke.

* You can use the Voi infantry as skirmishers if you have the patience (scatter them around in front of your real army to soak spells and arrows), but your peshti are expendable enough that I wouldn't bother.

* The cavalry are decent and only moderately overpriced, especially the medium cav with composite bow and sword. Their great virtue is that they aren't strat move 1, so once your past the very early wars, use these guys, or tribal archers and light infantry, or something other than your SM 1 national troops.
Even these guys aren't much compared to a real army, so mainly you'll be wanting chaff who can die in droves while your communion drops thunderstrikes.

* Khlyst are stealthy. This means they are actually better than flagellants. Not worth a bless, though, imo.

Pretender Design:
You *need* a supercombatant God. If you don't have one, your opponents are not going to sit there and allow you to build up an insurmountable research lead.

This is my build, you can vary it somewhat:
Prince of Death, Awake, Domstr 10, Earth 4, Death 5, 3 Order, 3 Sloth, 3 Cold, 3 Growth, 2 Misfortune.
A few notes:
* The extra point of cold is probably going to be cancelled during summer of year 1 (when it really matters), and helps to bring the edges of your dominion to the desired cold 2 more quickly.
* Your dismal military really cries out for 3 Sloth.
* Your capital is a great city which changes the relative value of certain scales.

== Early Turns ==
1. Recruit a starets and a bunch of the archers. Send your PoD blind into the highest income-looking adjacent province (avoid forests, as dark vines can still kill him). Absolutely set him to attack - if he tries to use magic, that's bad.
Raise your TR to 150% and set your initial army to patrol. Your scout should be a prophet.
Alternately, raise your TR to 200% and have your scout sneak after your PoD, he'll build a fort on turn 2. Probably better to wait, though.

2-4. Build a starets every turn, and some scum if you like. Put all RP into construction. Keep your starting army in your capital until you have 1200 gp for a walled city, then lower your tax rate back down and build it in a nice-looking province. With a TR of 200% you can sometimes do this on the 2nd turn, but you miss out on a staret so it's not worth it.
Your POD should be wandering around killing stuff. Avoid enemy dominion, avoid amazons or undead provinces and dark vines. Avoid Hvy Cav unless dominion in the province is at least 3.
Once you have the money for a walled city, send your pile of archers and spearmen around conquering weak indies.

Turn 5 - Rerout your research to get const 2 and them thaumaturgy.

Turn 6 - You just got construction 2! Build the following:
Enchanted Sword, Pendant of Luck, your choice of:
Fire Plate, Fire Sword, Copper Plate (Fire Plate is usually what you want against an F9 bless enemy.) Have your God come home and get it.

If you have an opponent with weak dominion, your God can personally kick his *** now. More likely, your God is going to intercept your first neighbor to invade you (expect this next turn). Fighting inside your own (strong) dominion, he can stop pretty much anything at this point, and bite back against an enemy with anything other than a SC God of his own.
Early research priorities are Thaum 1 and Evocation 4, so that you can put together a communion of 8 Astrapalegists (4 masters, 4 slaves) to spam thunderstrike.
Then you probably want blood (for thug chassis as well as big piles of demon troops) and construction, or possibly enchantment (for flaming arrows) and alteration (for wind guide.)

Other Sundry:
1) Flaming Arrows + Wind Guide. You have enough fire and air to pull off both, so you probably should. Your national archers are an bang:buck ratio, but you'd probably rather have tribals for the improved strategic move.

2) PoD and risks. Your PoD is going to pick up a few afflictions. Try to avoid them but don't have kittens when it happens. Place him at the far rear of the battlefield (to avoid crossbow bolts) and set him to attack rear. This both minimizes his exposure to archery, and will hopefully inflict some morale damage on the front line infantry before they can turn around and get him.

Mostly they'll be pretty irrelevant (Chest Wound doesn't matter when you have no enc., Weakness and Never Healing Wound can almost be ignored, etc.) but there are a few that will end his career of conquest.
Use your research edge to beat everyone else to the chalice.

3) Stealth Communion Fun. See "stupid pet tricks". Make a master matrix, give it to a druid (or other stealthy nature mage.) Give him some nature gems. Send him along with four angels scripted to cast sabbath slave, and a bunch of Khlyst.

When they fight, he casts Mass Protection - tada, you get some kind of army!

Note that this is in-no-way worth a bless.

[Sir_Dr_D]

I don't how good of blood hunters Five fold angels will be, since they cause unrest.

As mostly a challenge: is it even possible to make a strategy out of their stealthy, unrest causing sacreds. At their price I can't see it, but it would be fun to try. Flagellants at least have two attacks.

[DrPraetorious]

With patrollers in place, I didn't even notice the extra unrest from the angels.

They have one more blood magic than the occultist, and cost about 2/3 the upkeep. But you're right that I don't actually know how much unrest they were making - if they require enough extra patrollers, that'd cancel out the benefits.

[VedalkenBear]

Just a note: The Angels seem to cause 4 Unrest a turn just by being there. (If you wanted a number...)

Upkeep of Occultist: 7.33g/turn
Upkeep of Angel: 6g/turn
Difference: 1.33g/turn
Break-even point: 52.63 turns

By this analysis, going by pure stats you have to have an angel for 53 turns before it's better than an Occultist in terms of money. You can put in the better Blood/Holy magic on the Angel in the same bin as 'causes unrest' and 'higher up-front cost' and it'll probably come out a wash.

For this reason, I think I'd use Occultists before I'd use Angels for Bloodhunters. Also, IIRC the Angel is a Spy in addition to everything else it can do.

[zlefin]

that low end dog summon has patrol bonus 20. so they should be able to cover all the patrolling needs at a very affordable cost. though i dunno how many people get killed off fo rthat.

what would you recommend doing against rain of stones? it seems like trouble for a communion dependent nation.

[vfb]

FFAs generate about 3 unrest a turn. With 2 hunting in a province, tax at zero should preserve zero unrest. With other blood hunting nations, I usually tax at 20 with 2 B2s and unrest remains at zero.

Dr P, I like your stealth preaching idea with the FFAs. With a weak dominion neighbor, you could build a few early, head over to an enemy capital, generate unrest above 100 to prevent detection/recruitment, then preach for a dom kill ... at H2 they've got a decent shot at it. Should work really well with your suggested Dom10 PoD.

[VedalkenBear]

yes, they are quite good (if expensive) stealth preachers.

[DrPraetorious]

If you manage to have Will of the Fates and Army of Gold both up, you can survive a rain of stones. So Alteration 9 should be a high priority for the mid game.

Otherwise, my advice is to cultivate an attitude of extreme serenity regarding the savage casualties that can be inflicted on you.

Combine this serenity with the resolve to avoid being predictable. If you know T'ien Ch'i might try to pop a rain of stones, send in a moderate force of skirmishers to see if you can flush him out.

If he does it by cloud trapezing in the spellcaster, there isn't much you can do about it; the leaders of the communion should probably have modest armor. You ought to be ahead in research, anyway. If you aren't ahead in research as Bogarus you're toast.

Vedelkenbear - that second point of blood magic makes a very big difference in efficiency, but with the unrest penalty I suppose it's about a wash. The angel is *cooler*, however.

That second point of blood magic makes a big difference on a blood hunter.

[Lingchih]

I've encountered a strange occurance, I won't call it a bug, in my first game playing Bogarus. On about turn 15, unrest in my capitol increased to over 100. There was no message saying that anything bad had happened. Over the next several turns it increased to 133, though I had troops patrolling. The only nation near me is Atlantis, which has no unrest causing stealthy commnanders. Very stange.

[vfb]

And you're not doing anything like stockpiling Khlysty or FFAs or Likhos in your capitol, right?

[Lingchih]

Disregard. I had taxes set to 150%, and had forgotten about it.

[AlgaeNymph]

DrPraetorious said:
Pretender Design:
You *need* a supercombatant God. If you don't have one, your opponents are not going to sit there and allow you to build up an insurmountable research lead.

This is my build, you can vary it somewhat:
Prince of Death, Awake, Domstr 10, Earth 4, Death 5, 3 Order, 3 Sloth, 3 Cold, 3 Growth, 2 Misfortune.

How about: Virtue, Awake, Domstr 10, Air 3, Astral 2, 3 Order, 3 Sloth, 2 Cold, 3 Fortune? Or: Virtue, Awake, Domstr 4, Air 3, 3 Earth, 3 Death,3 Order, 3 Sloth, 2 Cold, 3 Fortune?

[OmikronWarrior]

Have been messing around with Bogarus as well, and came to most of the same conclusions as DrP. The big one being they have absolutely abysmal infantry, which was hard for me to believe since their graphics looked so pretty!

Any advice on the best battle mages to pair them with for earlier (say before turn 10) expansion? Or are they doomed to fight nothing but the weakest indies?

[Cerlin]

I would say some kind of earth magic would be awesome. maybe if your pretender can make earth boots with some earth power for one of the alchemists? That would allow you to cast legions of steel on the infantry and this spell does really help survivability. It is an idea. Im going to try it myself..

[Cerlin]

p.s. those same alchemists could also cast magma eruption with this, so you get a good caster and buffer...oooo.

[Dedas]

Why is the Simargl armed with a falchion?

[mathusalem]

I tried the 2 last Nature summons : a driad with A3, S2, N4 maybe, and Heal.
And another strange one (need N5 and 60 gems) : shapechange bear, with N5, Earth and another path only on forest

[Kuritza]

I disagree that Bogarus calls for a sloth scale.

Heavy cavalry, Malaia Druzhina, is ok. Just 5 gold more expensive than Chelms knight, with slightly lower head protection and strength but with 50% cold resistance which may come handy time after time. Its your only real troop, and its rather resource heavy.
Infantry is not stellar, but at least its pretty. City guards even have an above-average morale. If you want to see a really crappy infantry - check caelum, these flying retards dont even qualify as a meat shield because they rout so fast. Bogarus has a decent meat shield to back up its mages.
As for archers - precision 8 is crap, I agree. But these guys are cheap! In great numbers, precison doesnt matter as much. Also, Bogarus has got access to both wind guide and flaming arrows, and thats worth something. I have a feeling that Bogarus archers may be made a force to be reckoned with.

All in all, I'd say that Bogarus armies are rather weak if you compare them to favourites like midgard, mictlan etc, but not bad enough as to justify sloth 3. You wont go far with no troops at all; besides, production scale allows you to produce your units en masse when you really need them instead of recruiting a couple of them each turn, thus paying less upkeep.
Oh, and if you're so affraid of rain of stones, get yourself arrow fend.

[Dedas]

I agree with above poster. The infantry is so cheap you can field great numbers of them in a hurry (just like the soviets did in WW2), not to mention the ease to boost them thanks to great magic diversity. This should not me overlooked I believe.
The milita actually have rather nice stats if you consider the price and thus the number you can hire. The only low point is morale of course, but that could be dealt with some excellent morale boosting summons and other units with banners.
One should really take advantage of the fact that they all have frost resistance meaning that they do not take the encumbrance penalty for extreme cold (-3). So try to fight where your dominion is high; use your rather cheap and excellent priests for preaching.

Some tips:

1. Do a fast expansion, grabbing lots and lots of territory with your awake pretender.
2. When war is declared let the enemy come to you and slowly wither them down with low cost troops. Making them pay dearly for every inch of ground. Hit the provinces with freeze spells if they aren't cold enough. Use your stealth units for partisan attacks and raiding.
3. This strategy will buy you valuable time for research and heavier troops. Because back in your empire you are building heavy cavalry and summoning birds and three-headed wyverns.
4. When the time is right, hit the enemy rear with the shock troops and continue on towards his capitol.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Another interesting point of Bogarus is the absolutely incredible amount of seduction capability. Granted, the early seducers are water-based (my first game's pretender was a W6/N6 Lady of Springs), but it's phenomenal.

My favorite trick was Skull Talisman on a Rusalka set to the way, way back of the screen. If the seduction fails (which it usually does), you just spam the skeletons until the enemy dies. The only person I lost to was (from Agartha) was his prophet. Managed to take down an Earth Reader, a Cave Knight commander (he broke eventually), and multiple other national commander types.

Another thought is to actually take Drain 2 or 3 for points. You'd get Cold 3, and their research bonus on their primary researchers means you aren't hit that hard for it.

Oh, and Baba Yaga is nutsily evil. ;D

Wyatt

[Zeldor]

Their army seems to be really pathetic, and you can't make a lot of it with Sloth 3. Against LA Ermor army was useless, PoD was useless too... and my PoD massed afflictions really fast.

[Baalz]

Another thing that occurs to me is the fact that there are stealthy commanders with blood vengeance is a reasonably good deterrent to many commander targeting rituals. Seeking arrow right back atcha! That alone makes me think the angels would be better bloodhunters to have scattered around...

[vfb]

Drain 2 is pretty much okay for research, since outside the capital you've got the "Master of Names" researchers too, 160 gold for 7 research and possible S3 casters is good. I'm not liking the MR boost from Drain though.

If you've got a Death 5+ PoD, Wither Bones is nice against LA Ermor. Take his armor off first.

[Zeldor]

My PoD got afflictions on crossbowmen :/ and then got one fighting militia :|

[Meglobob]

Had a quick game with Bogarus and there troops suck big time!

Indi heavy infantry managed to defeat my massed hordes Voi archers protected by Peshti spearmen 4 turns in a row. Just expanding through indies is hard with Bogarus troops.

I agree with Dr.P, a awake SC is a virtual must. If I was in a MP and Bogarus was my neighbour, guess who I would attack first? Bogarus may become even more a favourite target for an early kill then Ulm. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Not sure about the sloth 3, I think you need resources to recruit your one and only decent troop type Malaia Druzhina. Those guys are decent, them plus a awake SC should keep you safe in the early game until you get your excellent magic and research going.

Mid/late game Bogarus will become a nation of summoned troops backed by powerful magic, with lots of options.

[Zeldor]

But LA gives much smaller gem income, so it may be really hard. Especially against Mictlan and Ermor. And that spells attacking water will work only against R'lyeh, and you would need to really amass them to beat R'lyeh. If they were insanity-resistant it would be nice.

[Kristoffer O]

Simargl should not have falchion, and IIRC we lowered patrol to 10 in the last version. Seems to have been neglected by the compilator http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Bogarus have quite good PD I think. Might compensate a bit for early weakness in troops.

[B0rsuk]

DrPraetorious said:
* Starets. The Star, indeed, the raisin deeter of the entire nation.



Actually, 'starets' means 'elder' . 'ts' shouldn't be pronouced separately. They form a single sound together. Russian alphabet has a letter for this sound. It's pronouced like german 'z', or polish 'c' . Polish language uses latin alphabet, so we'd just write 'starzec'. Plural for 'starets' in bogarussian would be 'startsy'.

[Baalz]

I haven't played around too much with blood vengeance, how effective is it at +0? Does this just mean a unit has to make an unmodified MR roll to successfully do damage? Those angels are blessable and can join sabbaths, even without hands I wonder if you could do something interesting with them. They wouldn't need to really attack to do damage with that blood vengeance. With regeneration (bless), iron skin, mistform and fireshield (plus several other buffs if you're feeling extravagant) it seems like they'd be pretty effective at just running up and being attacked. Might not be a terrible way to use your blood hunters when attacked.

[Zeldor]

Baalz:

Do they have enough HP to survive long enough for regen to work?

[OmikronWarrior]

If my memory serves they have 9 HP and no protection. The blood vengeance aspect looks tempting, but in my own experience that won't get you far.

[Baalz]

Blood vengeance: will reduce the amount of hits they take
Iron skin: 20 protection will stop a decent amount of attacks from dealing any damage (depending, of course, on what they're fighting)
Mistform: those attacks that do land will only deal 1 damage

You'd have to have several of them for this type of tactic to make any sense, so you're talking about a group of them, not a single guy who's quickly surrounded. So...depending on what you're facing it seems likely they're only getting hit for damage a couple times a round, and each hit is just doing 1 damage. With a little bit of regeneration this turns them into something that requires a specific counter.

[Zeldor]

Baalz:

But when they are not hit hit blood vengeance won't do any damage. And doesn't damage from it depend on how much damage they receive? And they can still die from smites and spells.

[Baalz]

As I said, I haven't played around with BV much so I'm not sure how it's resolved but my thought was that if you fail the MR roll you attack yourself - so for instance casting a fire spell at a fire immune guy with BV could still hurt you. I may be wrong on that though.

And yes, of course they can go down to spells and smites, though with the blood vengeance and ability to be buffed with lighting, fire and cold immunity, luck, etc. seems like they'd be more resistant to that than most.

[Falkor]

Great thanks for a nation with old-slavonic motive!

Btw: Fivefold angel has fist attack, but description says her hands were cut off. Maybe 'useless kick' would be better? (like commanders with two schields)

[archaeolept]

no no, give them a falchion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Nikolai]

I am only one who thinks that this good looking troops should not be just waste of space?

If this nation modelled after trade cities of Novogorov, Kiev, etc... they should have decent citizen militia. I like slow movement for peshti (infantry) because they would not like to go away from home. But broadsword guys should be a bit better. At least 11 in attack/defense - they would have SOME soldiers that are OK on foot.

The black hoods (karakalpak) feel a bit wrong too. Why the heavy, full helmet? Kalpak is 'hat', and in this case, it's a fur hat - like mongols, tatars, etc... Leather cap at very best. And they should have bucklers - same for Grid Druzhina - eastern horse archers mostly had bucklers.

Actually, lack of shields is strange. The knyaz also should carry a shield, with 'coat of arms'. Why does black hood carry the banner anyway? They were displaced nomads, working as mercenaries. Not ones to carry flags. Give it to druzhinik...

As for magic, I find dominance of blood over nature strange. It would make sense if we get a 'middle era' Rus, based on nature, wise women, etc... But as it is, without back story, it feel strange.

By the way, I am not Russian :-) Not my fault that my name could be.

[johan osterman]

The answer to all of your questions is that dominions does not make any claims of complete historical fidelity. Bogarus is not the nations which inspired it.

[Kristoffer O]

In the osprey books used for inspiration the black hats wear visors to protect their faces from incoming arrows, thus the name black hats/hoods.

The mid age Vanarus will be more nature oriented.

[DrPraetorious]

Those troops are *not* a waste of space. I would've given the Peshti kite shields (no need to change the artwork, those are kite shields they're holding,) and I think the Malai Druzhina is paying too many RP for his barding, but the army is useable as is.

Firstly, they suck, and you're never going to conquer another player with them, however many you recruit, because other players are geared to fight indies who also have hosts of crud. But hosts of crud are NOT useless...

Against most enemies, I'd rather have 5 Pre 8 shortbowmen than 4 pre 10 shortbowmen, and the combination of fire and air magic practically cries out for wind guide + flaming arrows, which you get relatively quickly for your research bonus, making you much better at this than Shinuyama.

The suck infantry are better than most militia, and they cost 8 gp. Against many enemies, it doesn't matter *what* you have because all your troops are chaff, so cheaper chaff is better.

The heavy infantry really wish they had javelins and a better shield, but:
* With spears, they are relatively low resource cost and have a repel attack, making them useful meat shields for your mages.
* The axemen and swordsmen do quite well against equivalent resource worth of hvy inf from other nations. Their armor isn't great but it isn't hugely resource intensive either.
* The voi infantry are cheap and expendable, and do fairly well as far as blood hunt patrollers go.

The big weakness of their military is the strategic move of 1. No human opponent is going to let you get away with that.

So their military is pretty weak, but you still use it, especially the elite components, and it's balanced against the strength of their magic.

[archaeolept]

the one strat move makes their troops nearly useless except in marginal ways. i'd end up buying 2 stat indy shortbows and a whatever for a little meat shield.

the cavalry are useful, though, as is usual, rather costly in gold and materiel.

the khylist are close to useless... not worth getting any real bless, and complete crap w/out one. They do, however, have strat move of 2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Lingchih]

I'm having a hard time beating the AI with your build, DrPraetorius. POD gets afflicted easily, I can't seem to buy a decent number of troops, so the AI keeps attacking me, and, although the research is great, I just can't seem to keep ahead of the curve of the AI building massive numbers of troops to attack me before I can utilize the research.

I have to think that a build with no sloth, so I can build my national Knights, and maybe some drain, since it doesn't really hurt research too much, would be better. At least in SP. In MP, who knows? It would depend on your diplomacy skills.

[DrPraetorious]

Are you playing with standard settings?

Because I did several starts with this build, one of the four I had major affliction problems, otherwise no. If it remains a huge issue for you, have him avoid any significant foes until you have equipment for him.

Are you sure that your God isn't casting spells? If you let him cast (which is what he'll do by default), he'll get mauled.

You can certainly do drain instead of sloth. I dislike the gem evaporation events.

EDIT: Also, in single player, there's no reason to attack blind on the first turn. That's the sortof hyper agressive thing I do in MP, but obviously you're going to get killed outright some of the time if you do that.

[Cerlin]

I tried your built for fun, and after the second forts troops arent such an issue. Besides, until you have several forts you shouldnt be building the knights anyhow.

Also my POD had lots of afflictions but it didnt affect his efficiency because its all about making them run, as long as he can fly and smack some you are good.

[vfb]

You'll get less chance of afflictions if you research the very first turn with the PoD instead of sending him out blindly.

Your HP during combat are based on the dominion of the province you move from, not the province you are fighting in. Higher HP means less afflictions. Sitting for one turn also allows you to choose your victim, picking the province with the best income/recruitable commander/danger tradeoff. It also should give you a longdead.

If you are able to attack a province immediately neighboring your capital (this is a good idea anyway to stay in high dominion), put your single longdead on attack closest at the front, your PoD at the rear on either attack archers or attack closest. I've seen the longdead survive by a couple volleys of arrows and some melee that would otherwise have been aimed at the PoD. You'll probably spawn another longdead in the new province and you can rinse and repeat.

I'll even take a turn to search with the PoD if dom is not high enough or if I'm missing my longdead chaff. I've never had the PoD retreat because the longdead got killed.

Your initial prophet and army plus hiring archers the first turn can also take on most small (20,30) vanilla infantry/archers indies, or tribal indies if you are lucky enough to come across any. 2 times sermon then smite with the prophet. I hire more of the same shieldmen/archers and shuttle to the front with indy commanders.

I used a D5E6 PoD, those two extra earth points really do help cut down on initial afflictions. I tried D10 instead for more fear and a big affliction bless on Agony from FFAs, but it didn't work, probably because of my drain scales.

[Taqwus]

The heroes are interesting.

Baba Yaga's a flying hag with A3W1D4N2; Alexej's a D1B2H4 human who's old enough to be a Twiceborn candidate and who attracts Khlysts; and Koschei the Deathless, well... is unusually old http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Not something to build a MP strategy on, but fun.

Bogatyr multiheroes are a nice bonus. H1 cavalry commanders / standards.

[Dedas]

The ground troops
As I wrote before I believe that the ground troops are mostly good for defense with their map move of 1. One of them even has castle defense bonus for exactly this purpose.

The Khlysts
One exception to this is the Khlyst with map move 2 and stealth, meaning that they are suited for partisan activity. The unrest causing ability also hints at this. The commander for Khlyst groups should be the Five Fold Angel for the same reason. He can also stealth preach and bless the group in battle. The blood magic he possess can be used to for buffs and offensive spells.

Cavalry
The cavalry is, as I see it, the real army for offense. Forget the slow infantry when attacking as they will only bog you down. Let them slow down your attacker instead so you can mount a successful counter charge with horses.

The summons
As most of them are flying they can be used in conjunction with cavalry to strike selected weak spots in your enemies defense. You find out which these are by infiltrating with your Five folds.

The seducers
Use them to further stall and hamper the enemies attack upon you so that your lowborn ground troops can stand a chance in battle.

The general strategy, roughly
Early game
Spend all your money on research, meaning more castles and gold producing provinces. Do not bother to buy more troops than needed to expand. Preferably: use your awake pretender to do the expanding without hampering your research and castle building budget. The choice of pretender is up to you, but why not a blue dragon or the like. At least choose someone that can expand on himself.
If someone is attacking you defend with your fast and hopefully very mobile (flying) pretender and some chaff.

Mid game
Now you should have done lots of research, mostly in the conjuration school. This enables you to have a broad base of specialized summons, with seducing and stealth preaching abilities and whatnot.
Your blood economy should also be up and running using Five Fold Angels as blood hunters (with a few Khlysts to accompany them). They should blood hunt in provinces bordering the enemy you soon believe to be attacking you, making the first provinces he conquers poor and unrestful. When the enemy really is attacking, do NOT pull back your Five Fold Angels, as they will now be used as partisans and spies, liberating temporarily provinces behind the attacking enemy army.
The blood slaves they have hunted should be used to achieve this goal. Use the excellent spell "pain transfer" for example. It should enable the FFA to take and deal damage against enemy PD, and in conjunction with some blessed Khlysts it should not prove too difficult to overcome it.

The defense
Let us look at your assets at this moment. You should have:
Many researchers.
Five Fold Angels + Khlysts (cheap in upkeep and overall)
A lot of castles.
Not much else.

Now for one of Bogaru's strengths.
Quickly shift focus from research to war summoning and military.
Use your former researchers to:
*Summon specialized elite fliers to terrorize the attacking army.
* Summon a chock army of fliers. Like the three headed wyverns.
* Forge items to kit your commanders out.

Use the castles nearest your front to:
* Build ground troops.
* Build some nice PD to be used in combination with your ground troops when defending. Do not waste much money on it when no ground troops are available to strengthen it.

The other castles should build heavy cavalry and offensive spellcasters and "buffers".

You should have all the money needed as you haven't built or paid for any military (upkeep and such) until now. But if more gold is needed fast you have your alchemists to transmute for it.

The attack.
Led by your flying pretender, the flying shock army, with a core of elites, should strike the enemy rear. A rear area in disarray to the enemy, much thanks to the FFA and Khlysts. The area is also well scouted and can be defended quickly by the same. Let your fast cavalry do the mopping up of the hostile attacking armies, thinned by seductions, starvation, cold and valiant sacrifice by your ground troops.
Obviously you should no longer build ground troops in your outer castles. Instead switch to cavalry and offensive spellcasters to strengthen your oncoming forces.

The enemy, having fought a long and costly war should now be weakened. Not only in military organization but also in research. The momentum is in your favor. Now it is time for you to relieve the ruler of this heavy burden...

The conclusion
I believe that the trick with Bogarus is to quickly and accurately switch from heavy research to heavy defense to heavy offense. This is something Bogarus is more than capable of. The hard part is to know when, as timing is critical to success. Also, knowing often means spying, so that is critical as well.

[Kuritza]

Actually, I agree that city guards should get some combat training, above regular indies. +1 attack and defense or something like that.
Lack of a decent foot archer also surprises me greatly as many sources (both Byzanthian, German and Russian) state that slavs always fielded many skilled archers with composite M-shaped bows. Archeological discoveries back that claim.
Just as I'm surprised to see a Grid with a bow, but without a shield. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And back to strategies, khlysts... they are useless in combat, I think any strategy revolving around them as partisans will fail badly. Forget about partisans, its not the time for them as Napoleon is not born yet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Khlysts may be used for raising unrest in the enemy territories, without actually attacking them. Think of them as of non-commander spies.

[vfb]

The nice thing about non-commander spies is that they don't cause a "Spies are creating unrest" type message in the enemy provinces.

[Dedas]

I didn't say that the Khlysts should take on a real army. Rather that they should attack the provinces left behind the attacking army. And I do believe that some 20-30 blessed Khlysts backed up by a FFA (casting "imp" for example) could take out at least 10 PD.

Remember that my defensive strategy revolved around making the attacking enemy divide his forces and spend money on non-mobile forces (like PD). All to make that counter attack of yours (with real troops) easier.

[Torin]

As I see it. An early multi-pathed Staret should site-search while an awake pretender helps expansion and you may want to build an additional fort.

The research should be conj3 (summon phoenix power and the summons) and ench 4 (fire arrows) asap. Instead of conj could be thau 1 for communion also.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Also, on the heroes, Alexej, I believe, reduces unrest where he is. You can typically get him up to ~8 Khlysts before they start generating unrest.

[Dedas]

I agree Torin, that works very well in my experience as well.

[sector24]

Lingchih said:
I'm having a hard time beating the AI with your build, DrPraetorius. POD gets afflicted easily, I can't seem to buy a decent number of troops, so the AI keeps attacking me, and, although the research is great, I just can't seem to keep ahead of the curve of the AI building massive numbers of troops to attack me before I can utilize the research.

I have to think that a build with no sloth, so I can build my national Knights, and maybe some drain, since it doesn't really hurt research too much, would be better. At least in SP. In MP, who knows? It would depend on your diplomacy skills.



I agree, Bogarus is definitely one of the tougher nations to play single player. I very much like the PoD for a pretender, but 3 sloth can be limiting. Your other options are equally tough though. You can take drain to pay for more resources, or take less Earth magic on your pretender.

The misfortune pick is also tough because Bogarus has very good national heroes and the free gems from luck events come in handy, especially death gems which you don't start with in your capital. Again your only choice is drain or weaker earth magic on your PoD.

I like the nation quite a bit, although in SP I have to rely a little too much on PD to survive the early parts of the game. I imagine in MP Bogarus players will have to be very aggressive on the diplomatic front to survive.

[Lingchih]

DrPraetorious said:
Are you playing with standard settings?

Because I did several starts with this build, one of the four I had major affliction problems, otherwise no. If it remains a huge issue for you, have him avoid any significant foes until you have equipment for him.

Are you sure that your God isn't casting spells? If you let him cast (which is what he'll do by default), he'll get mauled.

You can certainly do drain instead of sloth. I dislike the gem evaporation events.

EDIT: Also, in single player, there's no reason to attack blind on the first turn. That's the sortof hyper agressive thing I do in MP, but obviously you're going to get killed outright some of the time if you do that.



Yes, standard settings. And no, he does not cast, at least not until he can self-buff himself.

I took another stab at it, playing a little less aggressively. I would take a handful of troops (or just his skellies) with him when I attacked. I put the POD on hold, hold, attack, and let whatever troops I had take the first blows. Then he would come in and mop up. It worked pretty well... he still got afflictions, but not as often, and as someone else said, as long as he can fly in and terrify them away, that's all that is needed. The only one I really feared was the feeble-mind, but I stuck a helmet on him as soon as I could and never got one.

I found it pretty useless to make the initial Scout a prophet though. That may just be part of your hyper aggressive MP plan though. I found it much more useful to have a prophet that could lead a second army. It's a very fun nation to play, with a host of cool summons.

[vfb]

Lingchih said:
...
I found it pretty useless to make the initial Scout a prophet though. That may just be part of your hyper aggressive MP plan though. I found it much more useful to have a prophet that could lead a second army. It's a very fun nation to play, with a host of cool summons.



By making your scout your prophet, you're only losing the opportunity to scout with your scout. Whoever was leading your second army can still do that. Bring the prophet scout along with them if you want him sermoning and smiting. I've never lost my prophet scouts in battle, and they rack up fatigue less than actual commanders because of less armor.

And this way you've still got the option of stealth preaching with your prophet in addition to your FFAs.

Probably the only time I don't go with a scout prophet now is when I've got early access to an undead leader, so I can have the prophet raising dead instead of preaching. Since Bogarus has no death gem income, I don't think it's an option for them.

[vfb]

I thought I'd give massive scales a try, for some SP Bogarus fun. Imprisoned random pretender, and all scales jacked up to the max. I was going to summon a Mound King as my Prophet for some zombie action, but then Koschei showed up. Couldn't resist making him my Prophet!

Since Taqwus didn't supply a screenie, I thought I would:

http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w148/vfb_dominions/Koschei.jpg

[Redeyes]

Figured I would give this thread a *bump* as it seems people are currently reevaluating Bogarus.

[Torin]

I dont know why so many people uses the PoD isntead of something easier. Hes prone to get afflictions and is not reliable till you can kit him.
Sure you get good level in death but the cyclops gets you earth and can forge a hammer. If bogarus can take the virtue, its a turn 1 attacker since air shield is research 0 and you can get to awe +7 both making it very hard to get hit.

The wyrm and dragons are safer (& cheaper) for turn 1 blind attack but cant be kitted with items later, not good slots.
Wyrm is cheap enough to get dom10 and strong dominion will hurt neutral or hot nations because of bogarus cold.

I will try out PoD when I get home to see what i get.

[Illuminated One]

Heck, the Bogarus thread actually gave me an idea.

Recruit two Occultists. Recruit a Fivefold Angel and some stealthy units.
Research Blood 1 and get some bloodslaves (doable with powerful sage god and not so bad scales or maybe fountain of blood).
Additionaly get an indie commander/scout to carry bloodslaves.
Fivefold Angel gets the stealthy units and sneaks into the indie province.
Occultists attack the province with (Call Lesser Horror)(Retreat).

Next turn: Take one of the stealthy units from the Fivefold Angel away and drop it into the province (empty province + your unit in it = your province). FA sneaks into next indie province with the rest of the troops, Occultists attack it. That way you are taking one province each turn with an "army" assembled in three turns for the cost of 2 bloodslaves. Only stop when you run out of blood slaves and let your mages bloodhunt.
That's beautiful you're expansion armies are bloodhunters, lab/temple builders and researchers once you stop expanding.

[chrispedersen]

Exactly... thats.. half the secret = )
I'm a little disappointed you figured it out = )

Tip: Avoid cavalry, and always bring 4 regular units (not archers), set towards the back with hold and attack.

[Redeyes]

It has been covered a couple of times as far as I can recall, it isn't unique to Bogarus.
In the LA Ulm, Abysia and Mictlan are just as good at it, with a couple other nations (Marignon, Utgård, Gath, etc) touching on the ability with randoms.

Oh, and it's only viable in CBM.
Without it Call Horror is much higher in level.

[chrispedersen]

It is unique to Bogarus, for a couple of reasons:

A). There's still half a secret = ).
B. No other nation than bogarus has the research to pull it off quickly. Those starets are looking at 14-15 rp.
C. Other nations have more profitable avenues to expand: Mictlan has great jaguar warriors that allows him to launch an expansion group every turn.

The best bogarus can do with occultists (hint) is one new expansion group every two turns.

Still, thats pretty good for bogarus, and *much* better than trying to use their crappy national troops.

D. You can use either an FoB B6-9E3S4 Dom 6, or a great sage. The great sage has a lot better upside, but has a lot more variability of results: A rapid unrest can hose you; The Fob does not have the upside, but the consistent blood income under CBM is exactly what you need.

E. There are several variations:
O3 Cold2, Growth3: If you go this route your income is roughly 600. Tax at 140%, and patrol the first turn, you will have the money to build your castle turn 2 or 3, whenever you take the province.

If you go this way, your income is great. I'm personally divided on where to put forts. I think you will be rushed, so you should probably look for swamps, forests or hills. But each of the cities in the clear will give you better income... (they just take 5 turns).

Figure it this way: Your entire expansion army costs 236 gp.

F: Regarding unique to CBM: I agree completely. Thats what I said in my original post, too = )
G: One little minor flavor touch. *If* you go with B9E3S4, your khysts have that *useless* blood curse...

Only it turns out that ... its actually not useless. Use the kysts to attack cavalry or enemy SCs. Sure, it isn't a big thing - but it does pretty much guarantee a rack of afflictions.....

G. A few.. other touches: Armor of souls, is only Con-2. And Longbows of accuracy are only Con-0. And .. what might you be able to do with a communion of three occultists, and hellpower......

[Illuminated One]

Ah, I think I can guess the other half of the secret.
You don't retreat from the battle, right?

I tried it and it worked quite well. The retreating cost me some precious turns of going into the same province I cleared to get to other provinces though. Was on the other hand on a very tight spot in the map, on a open map it might work quite well. And starting to pull in about 100 blood slaves per turn mid year 2 without having focused on building a blood economy is nice. :)

[chrispedersen]

*If* you get it exactly right, I'll tell.
You're almost right on the blood economy too = ).

Isn't it cool!!!

[P3D]

You don't need Khysts to get curse.
There's that lvl 0 summoned hag for 2 death gem which has a Curse special attack.

More anti-SC stuff
There's also an ethereal troop for a single air gem, which has Attack skill 21 with a Plague Scythe doing 19 damage. They are unfortunately fragile and you can only summon them one by one - and by D random starets only (A1D1).

The Zmey (fire dragon) summon is actually nice. Flying 45HP, 13prot, 3xbite+breath, for a mere 3 fire gems. Problem is being cold blooded comes with 10 Encumbrance in cold-3.

[chrispedersen]

The hag is more interesting for the misfortune she brings; but that doesn't make khysts uninteresting.

And I completely love the zhmeys. Con-6 is rough tho.

[Gandalf Parker]

Lingchih said:
It's a very fun nation to play, with a host of cool summons.

Thats part of what I was alluding to. Why Bogarus showed up so late and seems to ignore some of the balance formulas. Tied into Bogus and Illwinter history.

[quote]
Probably the only time I don't go with a scout prophet now is when I've got early access to an undead leader, so I can have the prophet raising dead instead of preaching. Since Bogarus has no death gem income, I don't think it's an option for them.
There is another advantage to an undead prophet. With the right one you can get amphib. Snag the early water-mercs and you can build underwater temples. Its not a major strategy but its an added tactic that be handy.

Gandalf Parker
--
DOMINION is the name of the game.

[Meglobob]

I have had another look at La Bogarus and actually it is a very powerful nation using conceptual balance mod. Also, its not weak in the early game at all and does not need a awake pretender to expand.

If you play it as a blood nation in the early game, you are actually in a position to rush someone else, with a extremely powerful cavalry army using classic mongol warfare tactics (exactly what the mongol hordes did to the romans) and magic + summoned demon hordes to back it up.

You can have quite a few pretender types but a Dormant Lady of Springs with W4 N6 magic paths and Order 3 Prod. 3 Cold 3 Growth 3 Luck 3 Drain 2 is extremely fun and powerful to play.

The prod. is too allow you to recruit your cavalry. Only recruit cavalry, no other troop type. Your cavalry armies + Call Horror spam will get you alot of provinces early game.

Growth 3 will protect your old mages and help your income and blood hunting.

Drain 2 is no disadvantage at all, given your reseach output.

Order 3 Luck 3, always a joy to play.

Your god gives you a potential SC at the end of your 1st year but thats only for emergencys. She is really there to get your clamming going, so you have enough astral gems to feed your powerful S mages. Also, she gives you access to 2 paths of magic you are weak with and of course produces free water gems. You even get a bless of +2 defence and 10% regen., astral shrouds on old mages.

You should end up a blood, astral powerhouse with powerful all cavalry armies backed up with communions which can cast alot of nastiness, further backed by demon hordes and wind guided/flaming arrows composite bow firing cavalry as well.

Very cool nation.

[chrispedersen]

If you go that route Meglobob,
mix your voi archers with the second kind of cavalry (the one with the standard).


With 200 resources (a bit lucky, 180 is more average with Prod 3)
build 6 cav and 10 voi.

Also you have a 60 admin great city as I recall, so you ramp *really* well conquering the lands around your castle. If you do so, you can go for a lower prod setting.

[chrispedersen]

You don't need Khysts to get curse.
There's that lvl 0 summoned hag for 2 death gem which has a Curse special attack.

More anti-SC stuff
There's also an ethereal troop for a single air gem, which has Attack skill 21 with a Plague Scythe doing 19 damage. They are unfortunately fragile and you can only summon them one by one - and by D random starets only (A1D1).

The Zmey (fire dragon) summon is actually nice. Flying 45HP, 13prot, 3xbite+breath, for a mere 3 fire gems. Problem is being cold blooded comes with 10 Encumbrance in cold-3.

p3 do I remember right that you were into modding?

If so, I'd like to see someone write a small mod to fix the weapons on the zmey.. as others have mentioned they *never* use them.

[Endoperez]

What is that? How don't they work?

EDIT: nevermind, I found this:

Bug: Zmey dragon has a fire breath with range of str, but *never* fires it.

[fungalreason]

It's a problem with any ranged unit that has flying, I think. (I learned not leave boots of flying on mages with bows in another game).

What I think happens is: whenever a range unit determines that it's out of range of something it attempts to move forward until something is in range. If they fly, they move immediately to the front lines and get engaged in melee. Since the Zmey have a short range to begin with, it's rare that they'll have something to shoot at on the first turn of the battle. I haven't specifically tested it with them, but I'm guessing they just fly to the front and use normal attacks if you set them to "fire closest"?

[Redeyes]

But Caelian archers behave correctly if you set them to fire?
They have both melee and bows, so I don't think there's any automatic problem with the combo.

[chrispedersen]

Good observation fungal.

But I can add a few more data points.

A. Zmeys, even if they can't fly due to Staff of storms, (I thought I would get clever) still don't fire.
B. Zmeys, even if set on body guard, with a unit plainly in range (attacking a nearby unit) don't fire.


In fact, as I said in the original - I haven't been able to get them to fire under any circumstances.

Can others confirm the question about flying mages with bows? Can we get it added to the buglist or faq?

[JimMorrison]

All ranged units that I have seen, that have Flying, refuse to fly while given Fire orders. Caelians are a perfect case in point.

Dragons are another good example.

[Endoperez]

A. Zmeys, even if they can't fly due to Staff of storms, (I thought I would get clever) still don't fire.
B. Zmeys, even if set on body guard, with a unit plainly in range (attacking a nearby unit) don't fire.

Bodyguards NEVER fire. EDIT: unless they're humans guarding Abysians. They they fire, but only in the "ooh, who's cooking?" sense.

Dragons set to Fire will walk forward until an enemy is in range.
I would think that the Zmey try to do the same, but for some reason never get close enough to fire. It might be due to moving very slowly when not flying, and/or their strength and thus range not being very high.

[Reay]

I have seen the Zmey use fire breath a few times in CBM. My enemy Wokeye would have seen them too. The range is strength / 2. so about 8 squares?

I thought bodygaurds do not fire their ranged weapons? Although I could be mistaken.

[rdonj]

A. Zmeys, even if they can't fly due to Staff of storms, (I thought I would get clever) still don't fire.
B. Zmeys, even if set on body guard, with a unit plainly in range (attacking a nearby unit) don't fire.

Bodyguards NEVER fire. EDIT: unless they're humans guarding Abysians. They they fire, but only in the "ooh, who's cooking?" sense.


This is not 100% true. I have seen the lions summoned by the manifest vitriol spell fire while on guard commander orders. Of course, this was during an assassination attempt so that is probably why. In normal combat no, I'm pretty sure nothing uses its ranged weapon while on guard orders.

[Endoperez]

This is not 100% true. I have seen the lions summoned by the manifest vitriol spell fire while on guard commander orders. Of course, this was during an assassination attempt so that is probably why. In normal combat no, I'm pretty sure nothing uses its ranged weapon while on guard orders.

Thanks, I had totally forgotten that. :re:

[JimMorrison]

Because -during- the assassination battle, they are not under "Guard Commander" orders, they have no orders. They are set to Default, which for anything with a ranged attack (and no magic), is Fire Closest.

[Wokeye]

I can confirm I've seen Zmeys fire in my current CBM game. They were not particularly close to the action, either. Thankfully they melted a few Mictlans for me.

Seems to be a decent area of attack fireball. I can't test whether dragon master would work on them - dont have the magic POWA...

[darloth]

I have found Dragon Master sadly limited to the drakes + wyvern - all of the nation-specific draconic stuff that I've tested hasn't worked. I was really hoping Sirrush would as well.

[Endoperez]

I can confirm I've seen Zmeys fire in my current CBM game. They were not particularly close to the action, either. Thankfully they melted a few Mictlans for me.

Seems to be a decent area of attack fireball. I can't test whether dragon master would work on them - dont have the magic POWA...

It probably won't. It doesn't work for other national "dragons" (Shirrushes), or Tarrasques, or Iron Dragons. It's more of a "drake master", actually.

[Executor]

Imprisoned S4 Oracle, Dominion 9
Order 3, Production 3, Growth 3, Cold 3, Luck 3, Magic 3

???????

[OmikronWarrior]

Imprisoned S4 Oracle, Dominion 9
Order 3, Production 3, Growth 3, Cold 3, Luck 3, Magic 3

???????

No early expansion. Bogarus has terrible, terrible troops and really needs an awake SC to make that happen. Though, I suppose Cavalry might be able to get the job done with Production-3. Beyond that, Magic-3 is probably a waste on a nation with Starets. Bogarus is so good at research, it doesn't need any Pretender help in that regard. Finally, I see no reason to buy such a Dominion score on an imprisoned pretender. 7, or 8 at the most, is fine.

[Executor]

From my point of view, they really don't need anything. That's the Hinnom build, well pre-nerf I don't know if it still applies, probably does.

LA has generally sucky high resource demanding troops, but Bogarus seems to have good administration in their forts to cover that.

And it seems with the super awesome badars killer scales they can expand pretty fast, pretty pretty fast, and it's not like they need the paths, or cros paths. Cavalry seems to be able to take provinces with no or minimal loses.
And as for awake SC, do they really? They can jump start research faster than any other nation in the game, and with such great cross paths I doubt they couldn't defend themselves early on.

I sure as heck wouldn't take an awake SC, it feels rather like a waste if you lay out your options. I mean, just keep patrolling the cap for the first dozen turns for a 1000+ gold just from your cap and set up 5 forts by turn 15.

[WraithLord]

I like the sound of your build Executor. Thanks 4 the tip.

[Benly]

Imprisoned S4 Oracle, Dominion 9
Order 3, Production 3, Growth 3, Cold 3, Luck 3, Magic 3

???????


So I haven't played much multiplayer at all and none against skilled competitors, and I'm just theorycrafting here as a result. Since you don't really need the dom 9 awe for an imprisoned immobile, wouldn't it make more sense to go dom 8 and use the points to get S6? It seems like a very minimal cost that gives the Oracle some reasonable late-game uses instead of just "well, got to put something in the pretender position". If nothing else, it can cast Wish without empowerment or artifacts. Of course, I could be mentally overstating the usefulness of that, but I'm not sure there's much usefulness in that 8 -> 9 dom either.

[13lackGu4rd]

being an imprisoned pretender in the blood sacrifice happy late age you need at least dom8, otherwise you run too high a risk to be dominion killed. also, with such good scales you better have the dominion power to push those scales throughout your empire, otherwise they're no good to you at all. I do agree with Dom8 S6 though, cause while Bogarus does have some astral mages, it isn't an astral power with natural S4 mages that can easily cast wish later on with a single empowerment, so having S6 on the Oracle is certainly helpful for that.