EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

EA Agartha is perhaps the worst nation in the EA. They have virtually no units worth buying, really expensive top tier mages, and desperate need for an awake pretender. On top of that, most of their units actually worth using are sacred, and thus could benefit from a bless. Its enough to drive you crazy.

Lets talk about the units worth using first:

Units:
Troglodytes - they're good for indie clearing, and can even have use vs. other players armies. But they're also really expensive, and need to be massed to be effective.

Seal Guard - Ok, i'm not going to claim they're good. But they're durable and blessable. Its something.

Ancient One - worse than the Seal Guard, but easier to mass (ha ha) and you can sub some of these for Seal Guards in a pinch.

Commanders:
Ancient Lord - you'd never waste capitol time building one, but its a great thug chassis, and blessable to boot.

Earth Reader - decent research chassis (for you. You are EA Agartha after all). Also, not capitol only.

Oracles - Sacred, E3-5, at least thug quality. These guys are rather amazing, if you can equip them properly. They have some serious issues. (1) Like all agarthan units, they can't hit the broad side of a barn. (2) No starting equipment except a big club. Seriously? Seriously. (3) Old age. (4) 5 encumbrance base. Yes, with no equipment. Seriously.

So, virtually every above-named unit is sacred, so we need to talk about a bless. That most of our good commanders are sacred mages, and all of our units have encumbrance problems, immediately suggests an Earth bless. And with our abundant access to earth gems and magic, E9 sounds like a really good idea (bracer stacking is a good thing!)

Then we notice that our attack skill sucks. On everyone. So a fire bless is probably in order.

Now, you'll remember I said we need an awake pretender, so E9Fx is probably all she wrote for a bless. We'd love to swing Nature as well, but its really not in the cards.

Pretender:
You may have noticed the total lack of equipment on the Oracles. We're going to get around that by forging like mad in year one. Fortunately, we get 4e/trn from our capitol. More fortunately, the Forge Lord is available, and has E + F natively, which is perfect.

Awake Forge Lord, E9F4

Scales:
Despite the high gold cost of the Oracles, we're going to take crappy scales overall.

Order 3 - we need gold. Actually, we need to mitigate our other scale choices.
Sloth 3 - Troglodytes require 1 resource. Oracles require 1 resource. We're not going to build that many seal guards per turn.
Heat 3 - we're cold-blooded, and want to push away any cold dominion as fast as possible. Also, we need the points.
Death 3 - yeah, we have old mages. Sucks to be them. We need the points, and we don't need to eat.
Luck 3 - We need the windfall income, and we need the gems, and any other events that happen are just gravy. Also, we have *amazing* national heroes, including the multi-hero Great Olm. Luck 3 is not optional - EA Agartha requires it.
Magic 1 - makes the earth readers (slightly) better than pocket calculators.

However much dominion you can afford at this point. Should be +1 to 4.

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Ok, that already looks pretty nasty. What the hell are we going to do with this mess. Well it gets worse.

(1) Hope you start with many adjacent provinces. Less than 4 and you'll probably start thinking about setting AI immediately.
(2) Hope you start with an adjacent high-income province, it'll help.
(3) Hope you start with an adjacent high resource province or two - it'll help.
(4) Hope the indies around you aren't too strong.

EA Agartha has so much against it that a really bad starting situation and the game might as well be over for you.

Turn 1: Set Forge Lord to research, and set research to Construction. Patrol with starting army, and start scouting. Set taxes to 150.

Buy 8 troglodytes. Hit end turn.

(5) Hope your patrollers actually manage to keep unrest at 0. Your patrolling ability is rather variable, and while most of the time you'll do it, sometimes you'll totally fail at patrolling entirely. That's probably a game over, barring some help from Luck to save your bacon. Setting taxes lower won't help - even at 120% your patrollers will fail utterly, and you need that income now.

Turn 2: Set taxes back to normal. Give starting commander the troglodytes. Attack somewhere with all those units, preferably a high income province. However, while this army will utterly destroy some indies, it'll also get totally hosed by others. You're depending on these guys to get ~5 provinces before they bite it, so try to minimize casualties.

Forge Lord keeps researching. Buy an Oracle (death). If you need to, alchemize a fire gem or two into cash. If by some miracle you have extra cash (say a luck event), spring of a Seal Guard if you can.

Turn 3-5: Research to constr 2, keep expanding with army. You want to expand away from your capitol if possible. Buy oracles (water) when able, earth readers when not.

Why water oracles - they have better defense and otherwise at least equal stats to their rivals. We're also looking for E4 and no old age, which may take a few buys. (We'll take Old Age over E3 if necessary for SC roles).

The moment you get Constr 2, switch to conjuration research. Have the Forge Lord make a hammer. This should happen about turn 5.

The turn you make a hammer you also need to make a bracer of protection at full cost. It sucks, but tempo matters. Use the Earth Reader as a forge-monkey.

The following turn you'll pass the new hammer to the forge monkey, and make fire plate with the forge lord and another bracers with the monkey.

Its turn 7 and we're finally ready to party with our SC. Give an E4 non-old Oracle (water) both bracers and the fire plate. The fire plate keeps him from caring about the heat from our dominion, and it plus the bracers will let you count the E9 +4 protection 3x. Checking your army of seal guards, you'll have 4-6 at this point, take 4-5 of them with him. Set the seal guards and the oracle at the back, have the guards hold and attack, and the oracle divine bless (his aim sucks with bless, and the fatigue cost is identical, so...), and Legion of Steel, then hold one turn and attack. They'll take most indies with little problem.

Our trog+starting army has probably near-burned itself out or run out of indies it can handle - that's ok, it did its job.

You're also going to pass your hammer back to the forge lord and make another hammer for 3e. Sweet. Each new hammer should go to someone for forging, and start pumping out bracers and fire plate (after your third hammer).

Once your forge lord makes a 3rd hammer you're going to be putting out gear for an SC every 1-2 turns, assuming you have suitable oracle chasses.

As your death gems permit, use your one death oracle to make fear helms. (And otherwise consider splashing black steel helms onto your oracle SCs, as they have no helmet!) You may have noticed that even with the fire bless your attack skill is not much to speak of - fortunately Star of Heroes is a cheap earth forging that gives +6 to attack rating! We'll take it.

You should also shortly be up to ~3 Seal Guards/turn, so every 2nd turn 5-6 seal guards + oracle should be plausible. If you can't get enough Seal Guards, supplement with Ancient Ones.

Whenever conj 3 finishes, those oracles should go Divine Bless, Summon Earthpower, Legion of Steel - more reinvig and less fatigue from LoSteel will help with staying power and avoiding wounds. Your next research priority is probably Thaum 2.

Put up a 2nd fortress in a forest province towards the end of the year if at all possible. You'll want to get someone there to build a lab/temple to make earth readers.

At some point in year one you'll probably get a hero. Research may be the best use to put him to early, but they may be rather useful SCs or battle-casters later.

Post-Year One:
So year 1 is over and you have an anemic province total of maybe 15 if you're lucky. But you also have a lot of gear, strong SCs, and can likely defend what you have. Every single one of your oracles is also great at manual searching for E and H sites, plus some minor splash site searching. Consider prophetizing an E4 for H4 and manually searching asap.

Research Priorities post-opening:
Conjuration - your national summons range from decent to great - Umbrals are awesome, but far down. Summon Earth Power is castable by virtually every mage you'll ever send into combat, and you need the reinvigoration. You also have enough death to get access to some toys here. Note that Umbrals are moved to Conj 7 in CBM, which is a major nerf here.

Construction - Your commanders win battle by carrying the right equipment.

Enchantment - skelly spam for death oracles, army buffs, and eventually Earth Bloodwell Deep.

Alteration - Quicken Self may warrant a detour, as well as lots of earth buffs.

Thaum - level 2 for remote searching.

You can pass on basically everything else. Evocation especially, because your mages can't hit anything.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

You got some of this right.

Forget trogs, unless you are fighting in cold.
Nature bless however is mandatory.

Forget + luck. The heros aren't that good.

Trogs are 50. A variety of the sacred units are ether 35 or 40.
Plus, being sacred lower maintenance. Sure you won't trample. But you won't attrit yourself to death either.

There are two interesting routes you can go: A fire bless for the +2 to hit. Or a water bless.

So either F4E4N4, or you can take an ulm with W9Nx. Where x can be 4-9.

A E9N9 cyclops is also doable, but not as good as the previous options.

Completely different strategies. If you go water, your blessed sacreds will move around 19.. so you can use them to attack rear, in numbers. Your olm dom summions sacred units.

There's two ways to compensate for no ability to attack: outnumber enemy. Which can either be done via multiple attacks (water bless) or lots o units.

If you go the fire route - mix in 9/4 pale ones. Build Sacred/pale, sacred/pale. That away your pale ones will attrit (by taking 50% of the hits) but prevent attrition of your expensive sacreds.

Now a word about research:

Alteration. Because what can make all of your troops hit the broadside of a barn? EARTH MELD. No resistance, no save - and 1/3 earth readers can cast it.

After that your research priorities are somewhat fluid. I am partial to conj for dark knowledge - but I think your next priority CBM is Construction - for Legion of Steel. And to start thugging out SC's.

Anyway - too lazy to make a guide - but that should start you. Take a look at my balance agartha mod- which boosts Agartha a bit.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

The heroes aren't that good?

First of all, 7+ research i don't have to pay upkeep on is always good in my book.

Second, those Olm heroes you can get repeatedly can have W and/or E up to 5. That's some serious high-path casting power.

Finally, there're gems like the E5F2 Oracle with Reinvigoration 4 already built in. With an E9 bless and summon earth power thats reinvig *12*. And with E5, he'll literally cast all day.

What passes for good heroes if these don't qualify?

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I fail to see the value of a nature bless. Healing 2hp/trn is *not* that exciting, and low regeneration doesn't lead to that much lower of a wound rate. I'd rather have the +4 protection any day, especially since it'll make for some killer SCs. I'm hitting protection 40 at the end of year 1 on my Oracles after two rounds of blessing. Now that's defense.

Similarly, your sacreds that are worth using will accrue fatigue - water bless seems like it exacerbates the problem. You don't hit often, so i can't see you winning combats quickly. Water bless seems to be a non-starter, but i'll try it.

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Starting with Trogs is the best initial expansion army I can find. I haven't really used them otherwise, but out of the box it seems to be your best value for your money turn one and will get your expansion going. And you need them to grab some provinces early to maximize good luck event chances.

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Note on blessing:
You need Oracles or a prophet for divine bless. Your mages (especially earth readers with their low area bless) will miss some of your sacreds even if there's only *5* of them. Even if you repeatedly cast blessing. This leads to dead troops you can't afford. So oracles seem to be your only repeatable and viable bless chassis.

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Earth meld would be great if you could hit anything with it. Precision what - 7? Not interested. Certainly not at the expense of really early Legions of Steel and forged bracers.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Not sure what you mean with that, but I read it as you suggest oracles (and others) can be blessed more than once per battle. That is not true. However, perhaps you mean the ability to cast stone/ironskin first, and *then* cast bless to get the +4 from bless too (so that you could get +7 protection from buff + bless on top of natural protection and armour)?

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Err... yeah

Actually, i've been using Legion of Steel because its along the proposed research path right away, and it benefits my Ancient One/Seal Guard retinue.

But armor + 2x bracers = +12 protection from the blessing, +Legion of Steel in addition to that is 36 protection, 40 with a helm. (I assume displayed protection is averaging over body and head areas somehow?)

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

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The problem isn't the quality of the hero.
Even with a luck +3 its only a 6% chance to get one each turn. Its simply not worth the 120-200 design points. Plus, magic paths duplicate ones you already get.

Luck doesn't scale either. Sure, multiheros you can get forever.
But the other part of luck that you are paying 4 - tops out at 4 events. And there are iirc 2-3 heros.

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Rather like comparing apples and oranges - since you are talking about e9 vs n4. 360 design pts vs 80.

Prot 40 looks awesome. Still loses to a lightning bolt. Or petrify. Numbness. Slime. Curse of stones.
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Vs with my build I am typically building someothing link.. 8 sacred, 5 pales ones and 3 trogs.
Precision/2 -2. If your earth reader is smack dab in the middle of your sacreds he doesn't miss. Set them to bottom right, hold and attack. Set your earth reader to bless, bless, bless, earth grip earth grip. (or fright etc).

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Precision +3/ and Check the AOE:5. Works pretty well.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I'm currently playing EA Agartha in "Legends of Faerun", so don't want to comment too much yet (probably will once the game is over for me. Which may be one week or one year depending on what happens). But a few things to point out.

- The national Heroes are ok, but don't offer enough because they don't give access to non-Agarthan magic paths. High Earth pathed Heroes mean little to Agartha, and high Water paths have limited use in general for any nation. I certainly wouldn't give up a N4/6 bless for it as you have no easy way to get regen on your SC's then (and regen on SC's is mostly always a must)

- While the Fire Plate does negate the encumbrance effects of the severe heat scale, it doesn't help with encumbrance overall as the armour itself has +2 encumbrance (which is what the severe heat gives you). Plus it actually has an overall negative effect on encumbrance as it adds a further +2 to spell casting encumbrance (which the severe heat doesn't do). Although the positive value of putting some armour on a SC is another matter although (I just thought I'd point out it has a negative effect on fatigue).

If you are just after the effects of the E9 Bless and LoS, then equipping just Bracers covers both of these. As the Bracers act as 'armour' for the purpose of these spells, and so allows the protection buffs (Bless, LoS) to take effect.

- You will struggle to survive a proper MP game with a Dominion scale of only 4. Even access to H3 preachers won't stop your life being a misery, and probably very short. You would have to play on a very big map (+25 provs per player) to get away with a Dominion scale of 4.

- Death 3 - Definitely a good idea. I avoided it in "Legends of Faerun" and took Growth 1, as I was concerned of the effects of Death 3 over the course of a game that was likely to last well over 100 turns. (didn't care about my old age mages either. Sucks to be them as you say :)). But I regretted not taking Death 3 before the end of year 1. Taking Growth 1 has certainly turned out to be 160 wasted design points :(

- I have some concerns for your early research. With your Pretender forging each turn (as he should do), and your other mages going out as SC's and/or forging Bracers/Fire Plates/Stars of Heroes, you are really going to fall behind badly in the research game. And new reasearch centres will cost you at least 1700gp (fort+temple+lab).

- You will really struggle for money with your build. The effects of your Order 3 scales will be minimum outside of your capital as your low Dominion will mean it won't spread very far. Unless your H3 SC's stop to preach. And if you run up against some Dom9/10 neighbours, you will be lucky to see your Dominion outside your capital.

Your Luck 3 scale might help with the income, but I have two games on the go right now where I took Luck 3. In one of them I didn't have a single money event inside the first 18 turns, and in the other it was the first 23 turns before a money event occured. So you can't, or more accurately, you shouldn't rely on the Luck scale for money (at least not in my recent experience). Although the Luck scale is far more reliable for money under Turmoil 3 than Order 3. But then obviously you get less money again due to the effects of that scale change.


Edit: One thing I certainly agree with you on though is that Agartha are the worst EA nation. Some claim it to be Atlantis, but Agartha can out crap them any day IMO.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Hey, I'll take 4 good events every turn. Especially since the Order + Luck combination seems to generate large numbers of taxation events, and the Magic + Luck combination favors some of the truly high value cash events.

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Yes, any given tactic has counter tactics. Congratulations. How does nature help with that at all? And there are obvious counters to some of those (like Iron Will for petrify), and no need to counter others (seriously, curse of stones, vs. a mage SC with good MR?). But none of these objections are at all relevant unless a nature bless actually does something to answer those. The obscene protection is still something an earth bless gives that nature doesn't, and nature gives... 5% regen? OH yay. 2hp/trn.

You never answered my question - what does a nature bless give you that you need? How is it relevant? I *tried* it (F4E9N4, slightly worse scales, same army size). It didn't improve the performance of my units that I could notice.

(And E9 is only 292 design pts with the suggested pretender, whereas N4 is 122, so still more points, but you get so much more).

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What are you doing with the sacreds turn 2 - do you prophetize your scout? (Doesn't seem worth it to me when you can have an H4 later). And 3 trogs don't feel very efficient. I'll try it, but i'm not sure why you think that's better than 8 trogs.

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Precision/2 -2. If your earth reader is smack dab in the middle of your sacreds he doesn't miss. Set them to bottom right, hold and attack. Set your earth reader to bless, bless, bless, earth grip earth grip. (or fright etc).[/quote]

Yeah, tried that. Missed the same guy all three times. Repeatedly. Earth Readers are utter fail at anything requiring aim.

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[/quote]
For some reason i thought you were refering to the AoE 1 version which is castable earlier. Precision 10 isn't all that exciting, but with AoE 5 you'll probably hit something.

I think this speaks to a difference in research priorities. Whereas I'm rushing for legions of steel and forging better items, you're running down alteration.

Its hard to comment on how useful this is without knowing something about your pretender build. I don't know how early you have enough research for that to even be meaningful, whereas i'll have Legions of Steel at the start of turn 3.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Would someone please tell me why 2hp/trn regeneration is exciting? I'm really not seeing this.

Also, never turn down free research, especially free researchers you don't have to pay for at all.

And the guy with 4 reinvigoration is just awesome. He defines 'cast all day'.

Here's the thing, E9's +4 protection applies to *every* piece of armor that is worn. And bracers also stack, even when multiples are worn. So adding armor + 2x bracers gives you 3x the E9 protection bonus. Good deal. So bracers are not a replacement for armor. Which is why you were going to put on armor anyway.

I haven't found dominion 4 to be that problematic, but my experience is somewhat limited. However, one of the key points here is you have an awake pretender, which means you'll actually average dominion spread slightly to a Dom 10 sleeping or imprisoned pretender. (1 guaranteed for Dom 10 vs. 3(?) at 40% = 1.2 expected dominion spread events/trn). Later in the game you might have more issues, but the early game shouldn't be a problem unless you're sandwiched in between a bunch of Dom9-10 SCs. (And then you may well have other problems).

So, you do build up a core of researchers even with some forging and some going out to be SCs. And of course any heroes help immensely here. I find myself in the 50RP/trn ballpark at the end of year 1, which is respectable. Also, tend to have Constr2/Conj3/thaum 2 by the end of year 1. I mean, even the forge lord does research until Constr 2 comes online.

Actually, the other scales you have seem to effect the kinds of events you have, so O3 causes your events to favor tax revenue. Which is exactly what you want. I've had good luck with the O3Lk3 combination.

In the plurality of three test games I couldn't afford an oracle 1/11 turns in the first year (the third game i could afford an oracle every turn. That game also saw a fortress get started on turn 8 vs. turn 11-12 for the others).

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Agartha absolutely should NOT need an awake pretender.

You've got blessed giants. An awe/Fear SC rush doesn't look an attractive option for the attacker: it'll be facing giants with good initial morale (12?), blessed +2, you should be fighting in your Dom +1, sermon of courage +2 - 17 morale! These dudes deal 21 per hit (Ancient ones) or 30 (Seal Guard). They should hack a SC into shreds.

If you're rushed by Elephants/Mammoths, use giants or trogs. Sure trample will hurt, but you're size 4 so it won't hurt that much, and with elephants' low Def you can hit them pretty easily for lots of damage. You can also use Oracles - elephants have got low MR, H3 smite will hurt.

If you're rushed by other blessed troops (e.g. Mictlan) especially with high Def, you might struggle more. However, not just your giants but your armoured Pale Ones (12 prot, 16-18?HP) can suck up a ton of punishment: you'll at least hit them a bit before you die, and Agarthans do plenty of damage on a hit. You can trample them with trogs, and employ plenty of magical firepower.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Very nice guide, and I agree with a lot of it. Luck is definitely useful if you can afford it, although I would say moreso for gem events than heroes. Furthermore, make it a priority to search all your provs with an E3D2 Oracle. If you're able to get a small death income, you can power yourself to Const 6 with Skull Mentors and then spam Lightess Lanterns to hit all your research goals pretty quickly. EA Argatha is one of the few nations that can forge both items with ease and also benefits greatly from Const research.

In terms of manual searching, level 2 or 3 is usually sufficient. I typically do my with the aforementioned E3D2H3 oracle, because level 4 earth and holy sites are pretty damn rare.

I do disagree with your choice of the Fire bless over a Nature bless. Firstly, any regen, however small, gives a massive ammount of affliction reduction. It may scale (I'm not so sure it does), but the ammount is huge even with just 5%. Secondly, against EA indeps, you don't actually need to hit them very often. You just need to stand there and let them wail on you and kill a few occasionally. Giant Sacreds vs Indeps, the indep morale will break first. The exceptions are Barbarians and Cavalry, which actually do damage when they hit you. So I don't think a Fire Bless is needed, nor do you need to use Seal Guard over Ancient Ones.

I played a 10-player 15 prov/player multiplayer game with EA Argatha, actually it was the first multiplayer game I won. I took an awake Forge Lord with F2 E9 S2 N6, which I afforded by taking Drain 3 and dom 4. I expanded with teams of 6 to 8 Ancient Ones backed by an Oracle smitespamming, and eventually added 4 to 6 Stone Hurlers. My objective was one expansion team every two turns. I rushed construction to level 4 with the pretender, forged up a ton of Skull Mentors and Lanterns on the way to Const 8 (turn 33), and won the game with hordes of tartarians and many blood stones turn 90.

If you went with an awake Forge Lord, F2 E9 N4, you could probably take Magic 1, and do the same thing.

Conj 3 Alt 4 was my plan if I needed early magic, for Earth Meld and Destruction. I think I picked up Conj 3 and Alt 2 right after I got Const 4, and Alt 4 sometime between Const 6 and 8.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Regeneration means less afflictions for those getting wounded. Also, later on the SC's with high HP pool will love the extra % regen they get from the bless.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Are we playing the same game? Are we reading the same post?

First, I didn't take an awake pretender to thwart rushes - nor did I claim that was his purpose anywhere. He's researching and forging, because EA Agartha has *nothing* going for it besides its mages, and they need spells and items before they're good for anything. You can barely play the game out of the box - that's why you need an awake pretender.

And... 'magical firepower'... lol. When you can't hit the broad side of a barn...

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Which sacred SCs will those be? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Umbrals are undead and therefore don't regenerate.

Also, the reduction in afflictions seems to scale with the %regen. At 5% its so negligible you'd need a large sample size to find a significant difference. I mean, sure, if we were talking N8 or N10 there might be something to that...

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Heroes...

Free researchers are a tiny drop in the research ocean. You'll get them on average about one every 8-9 turns with Luck-3. Instead of taking Luck-3, you'd do better taking Magic-1.

And what are the heroes really giving you? E5 is irrelevant: you'll get E5 oracles anyway, and you've got Earth Boots. You can cast any Earth spell in the game pretty much with national recruits. W5 is more interesting, but you'll pick up W2 easily and W3 if you're lucky on nationals. Add the water boosters you've got W4 at least. However, water arguably is the least of Agartha's 4 national paths: you get more traction out of fire and death (and obviously, earth).

Where Agartha most wants water is if you take a dip in the seas. Agartha is a genuine Amphibious race. If you're near the coasts, you'd be foolish not to grab provinces. You can put PD on them, and build castles, (although you don't get national mages underwater, so you want a build on provinces with indy mages). You're no badly outmatched underwater that an opponent could expect to easily crush you.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

The Shroud is always there, with the Earth buffs available protection will be pretty nice even without "proper" armour.

Unless I am entirely mistaken, *any* regeneration drops the chance to 1/8 to get an affliction; higher regen just generates more HP but does not further improve the affliction resistance.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

So getting the equivalent of a free skull mentor year one is irrelevant? Really? Why do people bother to forge them then... The average research from a hero i've seen is ~9.5. That's probably better than a 10% increase in total research output year one.

Now imagine you see more than one in the first year. (Seen it).

Also, if you actually read the OP you'll note I *also* took Magic 1.

E5 is:
Another caster who can cast Weapons of Sharpness.
Another caster who can spam Earth Attack as needed.
Another caster who can cast Army of Gold/Lead.
etc...

W5 is.. um.. ok, less useful overall. But it gives you a caster who can easily summon Queens of Water (which you may want if playing amphibiously). Or forge robes of the sea if you need early water boosters (because counting on getting W3E3 is pushing it).

Just because its a path you already have doesn't make it worthless.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

The shroud is an astral forging, yes? Seems a strange thing to base spending design points around when you don't have any access to it...

Unless I am entirely mistaken, *any* regeneration drops the chance to 1/8 to get an affliction; higher regen just generates more HP but does not further improve the affliction resistance.[/quote]

I have not noticed that much of a reduction in affliction chances. You'd think that much of a reduction would be immediately apparent. I'm willing to be wrong, but my (admittedly anecdotal) observation leads me to believe the effect is much smaller.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Hhhhhmmmmm your Oracles?!? They get +3 regen with a N4 bless.

Unless there's been a major mechanic change that I don't know about, then the chance to avoid afflictions due to regen is a fixed rate regardless of the percentage rate or value of the regen itself.


Another thing you might not be considering is what is your Forge Lord going to do long term? Sure he can forge Dwarf Hammers all day for 3E, but you can only use so many hammers. You can make some to trade as well, but you can only trade so many hammers. Plus trying to be frugle with every last Earth gem doesn't make too much sense playing a nation with abundent Earth gems. The Forge Lord is a great chassis, but if you limit it's forging options by only taking F/E paths, then you limit it's potential overall. A Nature path, and certainly at least 2 Astral, open up a world of possibilities for it.

One other thing as well, some players consider stacking Bracers for the E9/10 bless to be an exploit (although not me), and it is therefore not always a welcome sight in MP games. I have seen several players complain about it in the past. I don't think it is Working As Designed (at least not according to the last info I read on the subject 8+ months ago), so I think you need to at least make mention of this in your guide.


Edit: Damn crappy typing skills made me get attacked by ninja's

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Have you actually done the testing? In my experience, any regen makes a large difference, although I have heard it does scale (and I have also heard it does not). I noticed a significant difference, for example, in testing Eagle King melee casters with regen and without regen. Perhaps I should test for this specifically.

Also, the Undead tag does not prevent regeneration. Tartarians for example, do regenerate.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Sorry, I missed that you included Magic-1. But nevertheless, if you get 9-10 research heroes on average every 8-9 turns, this will, by turn 30 say, have given you only about 350-400 extra research in total. Depending on various factors, that's about what a single turn's research would be at turn 30, in essence it's put you only about one turn ahead of where you would have been.

I appreciate what you mean about your God forging and researching, and I agree it's a good idea to get Oracles out there as thug/SCs quickly. However, I disagree you need to do it that quickly, because I strongly disagree that Agartha's troops are as weak as you think.

Firstly, your giants are enormously survivable. Yes, 9Att 10Def is weak, but they should gain XP and not die, and will rapidly be about 11Att 12Def, which is perfectly respectable. Plus you are in a prime bless situation: +1/2Att is pretty easy to afford.

Secondly, don't get too hung up on Agartha's terrible Att values. Pale Ones have a ton of HP, which creates a compensation. Think of it as hits inflicted during lifespan. Although Pale Ones might only hit at the rate of about 60-70% of a human, they only need to live 50% longer and in fact they will score, on average, the same number of hits before dying as a human, and they've got the HP to do that.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I think the guide doesn't mention the fact that Agarthans are amphibious. This is one of the only strengths of Agarthan troops, and very much worth mentioning. Of course if you're playing a game with a single big ocean and 3 water nations inside, it won't do you much good, but if there aren't that many or there's a nearby lake, it can help a lot.

Nature bless reduces afflcition by 1/8th, but not afflictions due to age. It usually makes a big difference.

Lambasting Agarthan mags precision is also exaggerated. They can cast destruction + blade wind, and they will kill a lot of people with that. Sure they aren't precise, but the amount of blades you cast makes for the poor precision.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I can testify from "Legends of Faerun" that the precison on those Oracles is certainly worth lambasting as much as possible. I've easily killed more of my own troops with Blade Wind and Magma Eruption etc. than I have of my enemies. The abysmal precision also makes casting buff spells a lottery. As even when I've surrounded my Oracle with those he was meant to buff, he still regularly missed 50%+ of the intended targets, with the rest of the spell covering thin air.

From my experience in that game, as far as the Agarthan mages are concerned, the amount of times you can cast a spell such as Blade Wind does little to make up for the number of times you will miss everything with it at long range, and hit your own troops at short range.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I've had great success with evocations as EA Agartha personally. The only reason why my mages killed my own guys was that f*** regenrating Niefel giant stuck in a whole in the cave who wanted to rout but couldn't, and was surrounded by my soldiers who couldn't reach him to strike him. The bug of people stuck in unreachable parts of the battlefield has been fixed since, fortunately.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Didn't know that it had been fixed. But I did run into that exact bug a few turns ago in the 'Red Ruby' game when I tried storming the LA Agartha capital. So it's not a totally busted bug yet unfortunately :(

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I was pretty sure it had been fixed in one of the patches. I think they had removed cave battle maps with holes.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Yeah, tried that. Missed the same guy all three times. Repeatedly. Earth Readers are utter fail at anything requiring aim.

------------------------
[/quote]
For some reason i thought you were refering to the AoE 1 version which is castable earlier. Precision 10 isn't all that exciting, but with AoE 5 you'll probably hit something.

I think this speaks to a difference in research priorities. Whereas I'm rushing for legions of steel and forging better items, you're running down alteration.

Its hard to comment on how useful this is without knowing something about your pretender build. I don't know how early you have enough research for that to even be meaningful, whereas i'll have Legions of Steel at the start of turn 3.[/quote]


--------------------------------------------------------------
Ok..

Why Alteration before construction - because legions of steel is e3. And at 400 gp a pop, its too expensive to build Divine Oracles early. You need to mass agarthans.

As for pretenders so much depends. Its why I haven't specified *a* build - Because if you are starting (or have a high possibility of starting near water, you absolutely want an olm ESPECIALLY with a nature bless. Since he can site search water for free castles.

As for research.. I don't build Divine Oracles *at all* for most of year one. Sure they are great units - we agree. But for research earth readers are 20rp/gp (or less). And they don't die from your -3 death scale. Divine oracles are more than 40gp/rp. And you simply cant afford them. Now you might build 1, early, just to assure you can cast earth meld.

As for counter tactics - we agree. Everything has countertactics - but you are predicating your entire build on a tactic that has easy counters.

As for a few of your points - your first expansion group requires you to have a means of blessing - so absolutely you either prophetize your commander or your scout. Typically I do the commander.

Make sure to also SoC your trampling group. Make sure that your hit point sponges are 2/3 back, and your tramplers are all the way back corner. You want to string out your opponents.

obviously you look for low #'s to attack... but even better is low numbers where your scouting report tells you there are three kinds of units....archers militia and heavy infantry for example - tells you the militia will move forward - and the archers will damage is tolerable at long range.

As for nature bless gives you: Forging options on the forge lord. Better attrit survivability. Fortress searching for the olm. IF you go e9n10 the berserk + on protection and + on hitting ... Well as I recall with e9N10 LoS you were getting prot 21 from your sacreds...

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

i think the reason everyone wants a N bless is that this guide is all about SC's, and if one of them gets a chest wound, or such, he's retired instantly. if you were focusing on building troops, the F might make more sense, but with SC's, they need to survive, and most afflictions cripple them. if you have 1/8 the afflictions, that's 1/8 the amount of retired SC's

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Really? How did you do that? Normally it's really difficult to get above Prot 32 or so at the highest, because armor Prot and intrinsic Prot don't really stack.

Blessing is Prec 100, so the only reason you ever miss is because of AoE randomness. Sure, use an Oracle if you're blessing 40 troops, but if you've got 5 or 6 sacreds just have them Hold and Attack while the priest does Blessing x4. Everybody will get blessed, including the priest. (May as well do this from the back of the field so you're out of range of archers.)

-Max

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I know Bless claims to be Prec 100, but I've never completely trusted that.
I've definitely had solitary thugs miss trying to bless themselves. (Jotun Jarls, I'm looking at you.)
Does the AoE not always include the actual target square? It's the only way I can match 100 prec with reality.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

As I understand it, that's correct: AoE is not guaranteed to include any particular square, including the target square. This is why you can fail to bless yourself, even though at zero range you're within the "auto-hit" distance for any positive Prec. I suppose you could double-check this by watching a bunch of fights with a Shadow Brand and seeing if the square attacked is always affected by the leeching darkness effect--I've never done so because for me the issue isn't in doubt. But I could be wrong...

-Max

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

The game uses a fixed template for AoE spells.
I don't recall the exact template.. but for example aoe 5
does not do
3
14
25

rather its something like
2x
513
x4

If units fall into those x's - they will be missed. I don't believe it has anything to do with precision - but rather deliberate games in the template.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

It's not fixed, it's randomly generated on each casting. (Or maybe the template is fixed, but the actual effect varies. Is that what you meant?) Watch Strength of Giants for instance--it has a different shape each time you cast it but it's always approximately 5x5.

-Max

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Weapons and spells work very differently in dom3, so I don't see the point in the comparison,.. certainly shadow brand doesn't cast a spell, it just has a secondaryeffectalways which is similar to a spell. Same with false fetters on that morning star.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I didn't know that shadow brand doesn't use the same effect as the spell. In that case you'd have to test it by modding someone to be Prec 100 or so and giving him a single opponent at a time on the smallest battlefield (via Assassination?). If he ever misses it was because of the AoE.

-Max

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Thanks Squirrelloid and Chris! You've inspired me to have another shot at this sad nation. It's probably fitting that their race is doomed, they suck so bad. :)

Anyway, I took a Dom6 W4E6S4N4 awake Ageless Olm. I don't seem to get that many less freespawn Olm Spawn than with higher dominion. S4 is kind of playing with fire, but he's a Golem Summoner, not a fighter. Sloth-3, Heat-3, Death-2, Luck-3, Magic-1, because Death-3 just gave me way too many plagues even with Luck-3. I decided to pretty much stick with the Water Oracle thug plan, but just go with Awe instead of a E9 bless. So, instead of Const-2, I needed Const-4.

I reached Const-4 in late winter year 1, and had a pathetic 9 provinces from my little Trog/indy/OlmSpawn/SealGuard army. That turn I forged frost brand and a gleaming shield, and finished researching to Alt-2. I would have made a girdle too, but that meant I'd miss Alt-2. I started site-searching with my god about halfway through the first year. He'll probably be pretty decent in combat once I get Conj-4 Alt-3, but that's a ways off. And he can eventually GOR Olm Spawn for the low low price of just 15N. It's a free E1H2+?FEDW mage! "Free" in this case means 15N though.

Anyway, my DivineBlessing/Stoneskin/HolyAvenger Brand/Shield thug passed his first test with flying colors, so in mid-spring, I was the proud owner of a whopping 12 territories.

Alt-3 and I can cast Ironskin instead, and with Summon Earthpower and a Girdle, I could probably even cast Quicken Self. Woo hoo!

Edit: Oh jeez! I never noticed before that Seal Guards are map-move 1. That's awful. And so is Ogon! What's up with that? He's not even wearing anything.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Is it CBM vfb?

You can make a pretty respectable thug by vineshield, demon whip, bracer, bracer, earth armor.

All at con-2. With legions of steel, you get your 40 prot. and an aoe weapon. all at a cost of less than 10 gems + hammer.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Provided you're talking about a spell, yeah, that would be a way to show how aoe can miss the target square even at 100 prec. Shadowbrand has nothing to do with it though.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I created a game as Yomi, hired a Dai Oni, scripted (Bless, retreat), entered an indy province. Turned on the grid and watched the animation.

Here's some debug log:

deploy_side 1934 at 6 15 (w60 h30)
...
castspell: cnr142 spl754 (Blessing) vis0 x7 y16 spldmg1
blastsqr: unr1934 x7 y16 aoe1 dmg1 eff10 spc1086373888 as10217 al9
blastsqr: unr1934 x7 y17 aoe1 dmg1 eff10 spc1086373888 as10217 al9
blastsqr: unr1934 x8 y17 aoe1 dmg1 eff10 spc1086373888 as10217 al9
blastsqr: unr1934 x8 y16 aoe1 dmg1 eff10 spc1086373888 as10217 al9
blastsqr: unr1934 x6 y16 aoe1 dmg1 eff10 spc1086373888 as10217 al9

Dai Oni hit his target, but the dummy cast Bless at his non-sacred wolf. The area-5 missed the Dai Oni. Jeez, Dai Oni, get a frikking brain!

I tried it with a H1 Van and when he is solo, he never misses himself:

castspell: cnr140 spl754 (Blessing) vis0 x6 y16 spldmg1
vis 0 xvis 0
blastsqr: unr2051 x6 y16 aoe1 dmg1 eff10 spc1086373888 as10217 al9
...

The first square blasted is always the target, so I think it does not miss. But unless the unit is all alone (including no batsums), you can't guarantee what he's going to target.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I have not had a single Oracle get so much as an affliction, when wielding just a Brand+Gleaming Shield. He can self-buff, or if there are two, one can bless while the other adds in Holy Avenger. They can solo medium-difficulty indies. For tougher indies I like to add a girdle. But that's 2 or 3 items versus 5.

I have 3 hammers going at the end of the first year, and forge (Frost Brand, Gleaming Shield, Girdle) or (Fire Brand, Gleaming Shield, Girdle) almost every month. I don't have the N income to make Vine Shields.

I killed off my Olm foolishly in my first game, so I ran it again and got a bit better results. This time I kitted out the Olm first with (Frost Brand, Gleaming Shield, Girdle), and sent him off to fight/search as my first thug. Even at an item forged a month with the Forge Lord, I like the Olm better because of lower cost, better research, better bless, better site searching, and dom summons. Plus it's thematic. And he can make Golems later.

LoS is fine for casting on a bunch of Seal Guards, and if I accidentally hit a thug I've got in the army I won't be sad about it. But it's too costly in terms of fatigue to self-buff with.

Demon Whips are fine until you run into higher protection indies or Aby or Cavemen or Elephants. Oracles have good strength, so it's nice to let them pound on the enemy. They can actually hit with brands too, even with zero stars and not quickened they have 13 attack with a brand.

Vine Shields are const-4, maybe you are thinking of Eye Shields? How are you going to get that much N by the time you've got const-2 though? And how many turns are you taking to forge?

I also don't like the buff fatigue expense that Earth Armor imposes. E6 plus a girdle already gets me into scary fatigue territory (~33) when I'm doing something like (D.Bless,Summ Earth,Ironskin,Quicken Self), wearing an enc-1 shield.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I've seen Niefel Jarls and Rakshasa Whatevers miss themselves with bless, so its probably not because of free spawn. You were probably lucky (or less unlucky) with self-blessing Vans, but I'm sure they can miss themselves as well.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Was anything else on the field with them, or were they solo? I ran the Van bless 10 times. It didn't miss once, it always targeted the Van's square, and the first blastsqr always hit the targeted square.

I just tried 10 times with a solo Nief Jarl, and it never missed (always targeted the square it was in; 1st blastsqr hit the targetted square).

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I'll try with a Jotun Jarl when I get the chance. I know I've seen them miss themselves.

If the Dai Oni is targeting his wolf, that's a bug in itself.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

It definitely misses sometimes. I believe someone made a self bless spell at H1 in a mod because of exactly this problem.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I've seen Sidhe Lords miss themselves with blessing. They were the only unit on the field. I've also seen Harbingers miss themselves, and Dis, and Yaksha. Again, the only friendly unit on the field. It definitely happens.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Ironically, I believe the "someone" in question was vfb himself, who made it because of Dai Onis.

I know I have seen self-buffers miss, but it's pretty infrequent without other troops on the board, certainly less than 10% of the time and probably closer to 1%, so I'm not surprised it didn't show up in your 10 tests, vfb. Always remember that the easiest way to re-randomize a battle replay to to Shift + 'U' and then instantly Shift + 'K' it again.

-Max

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

Sorry to have contributed to taking this Agartha guide so OT!

If anyone wants to continue talking about 100-precision area-effect spell targeting, please do it here, thanks.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

So, most of a year later, having tried Agartha in some MP games...

(1) Oracles are only good thugs/SCs against indies or the AI.
-subpoint 1: No matter how awesome you make them, they're still cold blooded
-subpoint 2: Wolven Winter only costs 5w
-subpoint 3: 2x Wolven Winter -> dead Oracle, even against PD. There isn't much you can do about this - you simply cannot (reasonably) get enough reinvigoration to stop cold blooded from being the death of you.
(2) You can't really afford the bless anyway. Seriously. You need better scales than a bless allows you.
(3) Once you accept your troops are just expendable chaffe, the fact you'll kill more of them than you're going to hit your own troops with magma eruption should stop disturbing you. So your best use of Oracles is probably heavy evocations.
(4) I can't overstate how bad their basic troops are. They're really bad. Like, lose to deer tribe in an even fight (by *numbers*) bad. Bad attack/defense + bucklers + spears means they can't block arrows, they get hit far more often than they hit (meaning those extra hp don't really help at all), and they do basically no damage when they do hit. There's a reason I was trying to avoid them in the first place.

Now, I've also tried an awake forge lord with F2E4S3D2. It had a better mid game, although the expansion was kind of sad.

I've tried an awake Wyrm with A2, who had great expansion (as you'd expect). I had to do some ridiculous things to have a mid/end game though.

The play strategy that seems to work the best is just to rush conjuration to skull mentors, manual search for death gems while you're doing that, and then rush whatever else you want. I had tarts in the middle of year 3 in one game. Your expansion may be poor, but castle up quickly so you can get more researchers. And if someone kills you early before you can research anything useful, well, at least it was short and not especially painful. You have to cripple yourself far too much to have a defensible early game, so going for a high risk/high reward strategy seems to be the only logical option. Dying early is better than surviving and being totally impotent later. And should you not die early, you'll actually be able to do something.

Edit: Ok, even planning for endgame you'll probably be still mostly impotent. But it'll be better than if you didn't.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

I recently won a large game with EA Argatha, so I thought I would chip in a few more pieces of advice.

- A bless of E9N6 is very solid. You can expand quickly and cheaply against independents, and while you will not ever hit enemy national troops, it will at least take a long, long time for them to kill you. While being defeated slowly usually isn't a winning move, it does open up a lot of possibilities for your mages. For instance, have a few Oracles cast Curse of Stones x 2, while your troops are in the rear and set to hold and attack. Opponents who fail their save will reach 50+ fatigue by the time they hit your lines, and will quickly reach 80-90 fatigue, at which point your troops can actually hit them. This also gives you a good chance to catch exhausted enemy mages at the end of the battle. Or, you can throw in a Grip of Winter, which paradoxically will hurt enemy troops without reinvig far more than it will hurt your troops with re-invig. Darkness is always great, as is earth quake with your regenerating troops. For best results, combine several of the above. I haven't tried it, but Plague should work in the same fashion as Earthquake. Your regenerating troops should be effectively immune to it, and can sit there shrugging off blows and disease while your opponent's army falls to rotted pieces in front of them. This bless will also let you ignore missile fire, which is useful when attacking castles or when taking friendly fire from your own independent archers.

- You are surprisingly strong against the Heims. It takes forever for the Heimish troops to break through a block of Ancients, and while they work you can have independent archers rain fire on them. The boulder throwers are another great option, as they completely ignore glamour, defense, and most armor. 2000 gold worth of glamour-calvary with a heavy bless and 3 stars of experience can be quickly crushed beneath an avalanche of giant boulders.

- If you ever have any chance for air magic, take it. Even Deer Tribe Shamans with a 10% chance for A1 are worth pumping out. If you can trade for boosters, empower, or communion one of your guys to A2, you can get Wind Guide, which will turn your Boulder Throwers into pure murder. Additionally, forged air items can give you some much needed strategic speed, so that you can complement your plodding armies with flying raider-thugs.

- go for a relatively high dominion. Cold scales are the kiss of death for your armies, and there are a lot of nations in EA who take cold scales. You want to at least keep the cold out of your territory so that you are not tempting them.

- you are well situated for a mid-late game attack into the water. You can take your W1 earth readers that you were using for research, give them a cheap water bracelet, and then use water power to boost them to W3. This gives you all the vital UW spells like quickness, Shark Attack, Friendly Currents, etc. You can also use them to do Warriors of Nieflheim + Grip of Winter, which has great synergy with the above strategy of simply exhausting your opponents. Another neat trick is to take your fire elementals underwater with you. A simple Sea Kings Goblet lets you bring a group of 50 underwater, and since their heat effect doesn't work underwater, you can drop mages in the middle of them to cast quickness + Marble Warriors (or Army of Gold/Lead). This invincible, deadly, and untiring group will then proceed to annihilate anything in front of them without fire resistance. This is great for launching a surprise attack, since who expects fire elementals on land to come charging underwater, and who builds UW thugs with fire resistance? Very few people, that is who.

Don't bother making PD or national troops underwater though, they are if possible even worse than your basic land troops. I've seen 25 underwater PD get completely rolled by a small group of independent tritons. They are just absurdly bad.

Re: EA Agartha - the game's red-headed stepchild (CBM)
 

See, I found that I wasn't using national troops after ~year 2. Were your opponents not casting Wolven Winter on you regularly just before an engagement? Its hard to win an endurance war when you're cold-blooded and your opponent has water magic.